The students at the Upper West Side’s Stephen Gaynor School, a special education school on West 89th Street, love animals just like most kids their age. But these kids have put an extraordinary effort into not just learning about but actually helping to save abused and neglected animals.

A few months ago, the school’s behavioral consultant Dr. Kim Spanjol was teaching students about what happens when dogs and cats end up in the city’s Animal Care and Control shelters. The pets, who have often been abandoned and suffer severe neglect or injury, are euthanised if homes or foster arrangements cannot be made. In the most extreme cases of abuse, the animals require hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars of surgery and rehabiliation. One particular dog, a pit bull terrier named Misty, caught the attention of Spanjol and her young students.

“When they saw Misty they really rallied into action and said we had to help her,” Spanjol said of her students. She had showed them Misty’s photo that was featured on an “urgent” list of animals headed for euthanasia if they were not rescued.

A group of about 8 students at the school were part of a club they formed called YAP – Youth Animal Protectors. The kids created the group after Spanjol told them about the practice of clubbing baby seals in Canada for their skin. Upon hearing about Misty, they organized a bake sale and raised money to donate to Second Chance Rescue in Queens, which had taken Misty out of the AC&C system but needed help to fund her medical bills.

“Miss Kim told us about Misty, and we saw how terrible wounds were and we wanted to help out,” said Bea, 11, one of the YAP members. Misty had been used as “bait” for a dog fighting operation before she was rescued, and suffered from serious gashes and infections on her face, neck and body. She was only about 6 to 9 months old when she was dumped on a street corner in Brooklyn, no longer useful in dog fights, and left to die.

The story has a happy ending, at least for Misty. Thanks in part to the funds raised by the Stephen Gaynor students, she was able to recover and is now almost fully healed and living in a foster home. Last week, Misty came to the school to meet the students who had helped save her.

“It was spectacular to see her wounds being closed up, and when we saw her she was really happy and we’re glad that she could continue to have a good life,” said Bea.

Students at the Stephen Gaynor School talk about their project to raise money for Misty.

“It was an amazing transformation. I thought it was great, just being able to see her after being able to donate so much money,” said Ryan, 11, another student in YAP. “There are a lot of dogs that we’re thinking about helping in the Second Chance Rescue program in Queens. They’ve all had a rough time.”

Spanjol said that she was amazed at how passionate her students became and how much they were able to accomplish to help Misty; the students did much of the fundraising on their own initiative, over the weekend.

“They raised almost $900 in two hours,” Spanjol said. “When people tell me that people don’t really care about animal issues, it’s just not true.”

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer also came by to meet Misty and the kids. Spanjol has used Stringer’s report, Led Astray, on the Animal Care & Control system as a way to teach students about the problems that city animals face and how concerned citizens might help them. She said that she’s teaching them about how to recognize and report animal abuse, how spaying and neutering programs help keep down the population of homeless cats and dogs, and how to write letters to elected officials to appeal for animal welfare reform.

Misty, right after she was rescued on the streets.

“They are really so passionate and excited and they get to use all these different kinds of skills,” Spanjol said of the students. They are hoping that their story will inspire other kids to get involved in rescuing animals in their communities too. “We are envisioning millions of YAPs, all around the world.”

Misty is now healthy and waiting to be adopted into a loving home. To find out more about her and other dogs available for adoption, visit Second Chance Rescue’s website: nycsecondchancerescue.org

By Megan Bungeroth & Sophia Rosenbaum

Many local residents and elected officials were blindsided by a recent and quiet announcement from the United State Postal Service (USPS) that it intends to sell the Old Chelsea Post Office, at 217 West 18th Street, and move their operations to a yet-to-be-determined smaller location. While the USPS informed their union last year of the intent to sell off the historic building, elected officials say that the community was not informed until a letter dated January 11, 2013 was posted in the Old Chelsea Station. The letter was addressed to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreations and Historic Preservation, letting the agency know of the building’s impending sale.

The concerned group of officials, which includes Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Brad Hoylman, and Assembly Members Richard Gottfried and Deborah Glick, sent a joint letter to Postmaster General Pat Donahue, imploring the USPS to reconsider the sale and find other ways to repurpose the parts of the building that the postal service no longer utilizes, rather than move to a smaller location and potentially leave the immediate Chelsea neighborhood without a post office, with little opportunity for public input on the decision.

“We are extremely concerned by the lack of public outreach and transparency with which the USPS has operated regarding the proposed sale of the facility,” said the officials in a joint statement. “After considerable back-and-forth between elected officials and USPS, and very understandable outrage and confusion among community members, we have successfully obtained an agreement from USPS to hold a public meeting on April 11th.”

The community meeting will be held on Thursday, April 11th at the Fulton Center Auditorium, at 119 9th Avenue. The meeting is being organized by Manhattan Community Board 4, working with USPS, to directly inform Chelsea residents about the proposed plans for the Old Chelsea Post Office. The public comment period, however, only lasts until April 26th, so anyone with an interest in the issue is encouraged to attend the meeting to make sure their voice is heard.

Meanwhile, many Chelsea residents aren’t even aware that their local post office may shutter its doors. We asked several residents heading to the post office last Saturday what they think about the potential closing.

Ivana Rupcic, 33, lives on 7th Avenue; goes to the Post Office about once a week, usually to send packages internationally and get stamps.

“I would feel sad [if this location closed]. This morning, I was just gloating how we have so many mailing options so close to us. It’s on the subway line so it’s easy to pop out and stop in.”

Jeb Bernstein, 50, lives on 23rd Street and 8th Avenue; comes every Saturday and has a P.O. Box.

“It’d be a pain in my ass if they closed this location. Since everyone is doing their business online, there’s not as much use for post officers. I understand why this could be closed.”

Ian McClatchey, 34, has lived on 30th Street for 13 years; comes once a week and also has a P.O. Box.

“There’s a lot of potential, but it’s just so poorly run that it’s kind of a lost cause. They give you the wrong tracking numbers. They lose mail, they don’t deliver mail. They have no interest in helping you. I hope they get a good price for it. It’s a good piece of real estate.”

Missy Adams, lives on 9th Avenue and 20th Street; visits about three times a month.

“I think it’s horrible [to consider closing this location] because the community depends on the post office. It’s a historical post office. They’re selling off everything in this neighborhood. This is an institution in the neighborhood. We’re not here to serve Google.”

Courtesy of DOHMH

The Upper West Side has the highest number of rat complaints in the city.

Every Upper West Side resident has a story about their worst encounter with the furry four-legged beasts that roam the neighborhood. For the lucky ones, it revolves around a brief sighting as one or two rats scurry across the street or race along the subway tracks. For the not-so-lucky, the stories are about home invasions, constant scratching sounds, garbage attacks, litters.

Joseph Bolanos has heard dozens of these stories, and has a few harrowing ones of his own. He’s a building manager on West 76th Street and the president of the West 76th Street Block Association who made headlines last year for putting up “Rat Crossing” signs in his neighborhood as a way to call attention to the major infestation in the Upper West Side.

“Originally we had an infestation on our block due to construction on one particular building, a brownstone over on West 76th Street, and what happened was that a lot of workers were eating outside of the brownstone, they were throwing their garbage in open containers, and it really created a situation that the infestation was so overwhelming that the rats were running across the sidewalk at night without fear of pedestrians,” said Bolanos.

He asked the contractor at the construction site to keep a tight lid on food and trash, a request that was initially ignored.

“I was getting reports at first that people might be getting mugged or assaulted because people were hearing screams in the middle of the night,” said Bolanos. “The screams that were being heard were actually by people who had rats at times running right over their feet.”

Fed up with the city and the building owners not addressing the problem, he posted the little signs, which look like miniature versions of the yellow diamond pedestrian signs with a hulking black rat silhouette in the middle, and the story gained local and even national attention. Bolanos said that the media focus combined with the fact that construction on that site is now nearly completion has abated the rat problem on his block, but the fight is far from over.

The increasing number of rat complaints – according to Gothamist, there were around 1,000 calls to 311 about rats from the Upper West Side between 2010 and 2012 – has made Upper West Side residents particularly jumpy. (See our Op-Ed for one local resident’s take and proposed solutions.)

John Mainieri, who also belongs to the block association, confirmed Bolanos’ account of the rat proliferation in the neighborhood. He’s lived on the block since 1995, and said that he’s definitely seen the rat problem worsen over the years.

“The big problem is that the Health Department showed up after the rat crossing signs went up and all the media attention,” said Mainieri. “Suddenly the Health Department showed up and threw down a couple of poison pellets. This was last August; they have not been back since last August.”

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is the city agency responsible for keeping all pests, including rats, at bay, but the issue is complicated by the fact that property owners are also responsible for keeping their property clear of rodents. (DOHMH did not answer several requests for comment for this article.) Some critics of the city’s handling of the rat issue have pointed to the lack of inter-agency cooperation as a main culprit. The Department of Sanitation, for instance, is responsible for garbage collection but not for rat abatement, and so calls to have sanitation workers pick up trash on different schedules or to install expensive “rat-proof” trash receptacles have not been addressed.

City Council Member Gale Brewer has tried to address some of her constituents’ complaints by acting as a liaison to city agencies and allocating $50,000 in city funding to install solar-powered trash compactors in Verdi Square, a known rat hang-out. Last fall, Brewer wrote to Doug Blonsky and John Herrold, the president of the Central Park Conservancy and the administrator of Riverside Park, about the increasing number of complaints from alarmed parents who spied rats gallivanting around playgrounds in both parks, including Central Park’s Wild West Playground near West 93rd Street, Safari’s Playground near West 91st Street, Mariner’s Playground near West 85th Street, Diana Ross Playground near West 81st Street and the Hippo Playground near West 91st Street in Riverside Park.

“Playgrounds on the west side of Central Park present the unique challenge of being in close proximity to a subway tunnel, which facilitates rodent mobility and breeding,” said Blonsky and Herrold in the letter. “Accordingly, we have been conducting an aggressive rat control program through the use of multiple manual traps that are set inside tamper-resistant boxes and placed in playgrounds during closed hours.”

Part of the challenge is that traps can’t possibly catch them all, and poison – especially, for instance, near a playground – is dangerous not just to rats but to dogs, cats, all wildlife and small children. Rat experts also will point out that as long as there is tastier, more appealing “human food” – our trash – accessible to rats, they won’t even bother munching on the poison pellets.

Bolanos said that trash is the biggest culprit and presents the best opportunity to make a serious dent in the rat population.

“The city puts out garbage the night before. As long as you have 12 to 13 hours where you’re putting your garbage out in plastic bags, which is nothing for a rat to bite through, you’re going to have a problem,” he said. He also noted that the increase in new high-rise buildings on the Upper West Side is contributing to higher piles of garbage on the streets at night.

“Since Sandy, it’s gotten even worse, because all the rats had to move to higher ground,” said Mainieri. “Now even in the cold weather, when you don’t normally see them, you can see them running back and forth and they’re obviously crawling up into the warm cars.”

Bolanos hopes that the city will step up its efforts, going beyond the education efforts they’ve held in the past year and trying to implement real policy changes that might temper the rat population instead of responding to complaints once a neighborhood is practically overrun.

“The Department of Health has told me, well you know it’s very difficult to get janitor and maintenance people to take the garbage out in the morning versus the night before, and I always say to them, listen, 10 years ago when people said that they were going to ban smoking, which is a vice, in New York City, everybody laughed, and now it’s 90 percent smoke free,” Bolanos said. “If we can curtail a vice, you can definitely curtail the scheduling of garbage disposal.”

But as all New Yorkers know, rats aren’t going to completely disappear any time soon.

“Any rat expert will tell you,” Bolanos said. “Wherever there are human beings, there are rats.”

With additional reporting by Joanna Fantozzi & Vanesa Vennard

David Cross is a comedian known just as much for his off-color stand-up humor as he is for giving life to a television character who can never ever be nude and wears cut-off jean shorts under his clothes at all times. This May, the world will finally get to see more of Tobias Fünke, Cross’s character in Arrested Development, as the series’ long-awaited Season 4 will premiere on Netflix. The show originally aired on Fox and was cancelled in its third season in 2006, but sky-high DVD sales and a huge fan base prompted the show’s creators to bring it back for a brand-new season with all of the original cast members, a phenomenon previously unheard of for long-dead TV shows. On Wednesday, March 20, Cross will be reunited with Arrested Development cast mate Michael Cera at the 92 Y on the Upper East Side (92Y.org for tickets) as Cera moderates a conversation with Cross on his work and career. Cross, who lives with his wife, actress Amber Tamblyn, in Brooklyn, spoke to us about his comedy career and what it was like to get back into those cut-offs after a six-year hiatus.

You started out doing standup. How do you think the comedy scene has changed since you started?

If you’re talking specifically standup, the biggest difference is that you used to really only be able to do sets at comedy clubs, which there weren’t that many of, and I cut my teeth during the 80s comedy boom. I happened to be in Boston, which was great for a person like me, who wasn’t particularly audience-friendly, because they just had to fill slots. There were so many: every country western bar and college and coffee house and Laundromat. There were standup gigs everywhere. Chinese restaurants, oddly enough, a lot of the time. But now, with the internet and the ability to get your shit shown potentially by a million people in a week, is the biggest difference. That certainly wasn’t the case when I was coming up.

When Arrested Development ended in 2006, did you or anyone working on it ever think you’d have the chance to revisit it?

No. Absolutely not. For us it was very unceremonious dropping. It was a relief, in a sense, because we lived week to week, day to day really, not knowing if it was going to be our last week. It’s a shitty way to do a show and a shitty way to do any job. The idea of grassroots saving the show was fairly new.

It was almost like you guys were making a show for rewatchability, before people were rewatching stuff in general.

I don’t know how much of an edict that was, but that was certainly something Mitch [Hurwitz, the show’s creator], and James Vallely [one of the head writers] thought about, and took pride in that there were all of these extra jokes in there that paid off on that second or third watching. But you certainly can’t pitch a show that way. “People won’t like it the first time, but by the second or third time they’re really gonna like it!”

So you come back to this character you essentially thought you were done with. Was it difficult to get back into playing Tobias?

No, no. All I did to prepare really – I needed to refresh my memory on certain little nuances and ticks that the character had. But I just watched like three episodes. I hadn’t seen any of them since we did the commentary for them. So it was kind of fun to watch, and I had never seen any of them with my wife. There were a couple of times on set [filming season four] where they would show you something – not that you weren’t matching it, but it was to show you “This thing happened. This scene is taking place 12 hours after this episode of the third season. So take a look at this.” But outside of that, it was a pretty easy character to slip into. The key to Tobias is not saying contractions, saying the whole word. Like instead of “can’t” saying, “cannot.” That’s pretty much it.

Did you have to get ready to wear those jean shorts again?

Well, I certainly gained a little weight since we stopped shooting in 2006 – that became apparent. You know, I look six years older.

That much time has passed for the characters, right?

Yes and no. There are flashbacks, flash-forwards. There are a couple of scenes that take place shortly after the last episode. But we travel quite a bit, through them.

The fact that you were shooting for Netflix – did that affect anything? For example, did you have to bleep curse words?

Oh no. Not at all. In fact, I think there was one joke for Tobias where I said one curse word – I think there’s two or three times I say it, which is kind of surprising. Yeah, you can say whatever you want.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, a show that you co-wrote and starred in, also has a very well-planned narrative arc. Do you find yourself drawn to projects like that?

I’m definitely drawn towards storytelling. It’s harder work, but it’s more satisfying. It’s more of a challenge, but if you can make something funny within it, and make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, and if some of its parts are entertaining – I’m much more interested in that. It’s just where I am as a human and consumer of entertainment. I prefer the kind of story that has a beginning, middle, and an end, that’s not open-ended to something that’s just gags.

What was it like to work with Will Arnett on that show in this different character dynamic?

It was fine. Shaun Pye, the British co-writer of Todd Margaret, and I wrote with Will in mind. It was never going to be anyone else but Will. I love the British model. You do six [episodes] and that’s it. We got to write every episode before we shot anything and then shoot everything before we went into the edit so you really have more control. I think it’s a better way to work.

What are the things you love most about living in New York?

The tangible, moment-to-moment things I miss [when I’m away] more than anything, it’s walking. When I go to LA, my wife has an apartment on the West Side in Venice, and I stay there. You can walk for a while, but aesthetically, it’s not as pretty. Where I would walk a 3-mile circle in Los Angeles, you kind of see the same old shit. Jamba Juice and CVS, and some sushi place and one of those haircut barbershop things, and a tattoo parlor. In New York, when you walk three miles, you travel through all different kinds of neighborhoods. You see people, there’s everything happening on the street. There’s just an energy – the visuals are beautiful.

Is there any small tidbit you could share about the upcoming Arrested Development season?

I’m so sworn to secrecy on all of it.

All of the episodes are going to come out at once. Do you recommend people watch them in order, or out of order, or all in one day, or space them out?

The way it’s designed is, there’s a story being told. So if you watch it sequentially you’ll get that story – but you don’t have to. It is not paramount to your viewing experience. If you do watch it out of order, it’ll be interesting because there’s nothing detracting about that. But your experience will be different. You can’t make a mistake. The only thing you can do that’s dumb – some characters have two parts – is watch the second part first. Outside of that, you can watch George Sr.’s episodes, then you can click over and watch Lindsay. Everybody at some point interacts with the other people. It’s like a large venn diagram.

What are some other projects you’ve got coming up?

I did two indie movies. One is out now on video-on-demand and iTunes, and it comes out in theatres April 12th. It’s called It’s a Disaster. It’s really good. I saw a screening with a real, actual audience at the LA film festival. And there’s another movie called Kill Your Darlings that I have not seen, – but I assume it’s good. It has a pretty killer cast, and just got picked up at Sundance.  I start work tomorrow on The Heart, She Holler, the PFFR [mini-series] production for Adult Swim.

Is there anything else you want our readers to know?

You know, just get checked for Hep C.

Ponturo’s subsequent divorce from her Broadway producer husband Tony Ponturo became the fodder for a brand-new cabaret show, Divorce–the Musical: Better Mad Than Sad, which premiered at the Upper West Side’s Triad Theater last week.

“I’ve always had a very positive outlook on life, and that’s not going to change because of him,” Ponturo said.

Ponturo, who lives on the Upper East Side, said she was completely blindsided by her husband’s announcement that he wanted a divorce—although in hindsight she can see there were some warning signs.

“We had had a long and very happy marriage and had a lot of fun, and I thought we would be married forever,” she said. “My parents had been married for almost 61 years; I just assumed I would be too.”

But she didn’t let the shock hold back her creative side. One day in the shower, she started singing snippets of lyrics and realized she should write them down. When she started to form full songs, she brought the idea of writing a musical to her piano teacher, John Thomas Fischer, and he agreed to be the composer for what would become the divorce-themed musical review.

“It’s been a very therapeutic experience,” Ponturo said. She was writing the songs in the midst of the drawn-out divorce process, channeling her frustration and observations into her lyrics. At first, they toyed with a title for the show around the word “revenge,” but Ponturo said that the show evolved very quickly away from being an act of vengeance.
“It’s not a show about revenge; it’s a show about how a person can take a bad situation. First you get mad and then you are fine because you get over it,” Ponturo said. “The first song is called ‘Better Mad Than Sad,’ and the last song is ‘Better Glad Than Mad.’ ”

Ponturo said that she received instant support and encouragement from her friends and family when she set out to create the show. To raise the money for the production costs, she sold off much of the jewelry her husband had given her over the years, including her wedding ring, and brought in almost $30,000. She also called in professionals she knew well from her years as a choreographer, teacher and actress.

The costume designer, Paloma Young, just won a Tony Award for her work on Peter and the Starcatcher. Ponturo said she was thrilled that Young wanted to work on her small project and even more thrilled with her idea to cut up her old wedding dress to use for part of a costume.

The songs range from country-Western to doo-wop to big Broadway show-stopper numbers. In subject matter, they cover the diverse range of emotions that she experienced during her divorce.

“There’s the ‘Divorce Dirge,’ about the really obnoxious procedure of getting a divorce, the paperwork and the accountants, dividing up the property,” Ponturo said. “There’s a song about the other woman which, of course, is a tango; there’s the ballad about how you remember how it used to be.”

There’s also a song about denial, one about Viagra, and one written from the perspective of Ponturo’s three cats, who are shocked that their “daddy” would up and leave them.
As for the subject of the musical, Ponturo said that her ex is aware she’s producing it and wanted to sit down to discuss it with her—a request she gleefully denied.

“The old Tony would have enjoyed it,” she said. “My husband back in the day would have been proud of me, but that’s over.”

Ponturo and her team hope to bring the show on tour after the run at the Triad. She said that she’s already heard from women at workshops and readings who can relate to all the feelings she dramatizes in the show, and that it would be the perfect “gals’ night out” show to take around the country.

“I think it’s funny no matter who you are—unless you’re my husband,” Ponturo said with a laugh.

Divorce–the Musical plays at the Triad Theater, 158 W. 72nd St., Oct. 6, 11, 12 and 13. Visit brownpapertickets.com for tickets.

The structure of these meetings is new for the MTA. Small groups meet with MTA project representatives and facilitators to have detailed discussions about what’s happening at each of the future subway stops—East 63rd, 72nd, 86th and 96th streets—in the first phase of construction. Residents asked detailed, technical questions, about blasting techniques, environmental concerns and logistics of the future stations, as well as broader questions about how the contractors combat excessive dust at the sites.

“We know you’re here because we’re making too much noise,” said Sam Schwartz, a traffic engineer with his own firm and the director of community outreach for the Second Avenue subway project. “We need you as the eyes and ears of this project.”

Participants listened intently to the representatives describing each segment of the project and dove right in with their own questions and suggestions. Some people looked longingly at the renderings of what their streets will look like by 2016, when the project is finished. Paul and Kathy Trupio pointed to a rendering that shows their building on East 69th Street, hopeful that the giant structures currently parked outside would eventually give way to the clean, bright subway entrance they saw pictured.

Claudia Wilson, an MTA community liaison, chatted with the couple about their experience and sympathized with their construction woes.

“I know it’s disconcerting; I know it’s upsetting to everybody, but when it’s done, you’re not only going to have a new subway,” Wilson said. “You’ll have new sidewalks, new trees, new streetlights. It’s going to be beautiful.”

The Trupios said that while learning more about the project doesn’t make the problems go away, it does comfort them to a certain extent.

“It’s an understanding of why the equipment is there, why so many people are there, what they’re doing that they need it all,” Kathy said. “Aesthetically, it’s still ugly. The air quality is still terrible. But it’s good to understand what they’re doing.”

Paul said that he thinks Second Avenue is in better shape than he expected it to be during the construction, and that he’s content to wait out the worst of times in order to enjoy the revitalized neighborhood when the new subway is running. The couple bought their apartment in 2003 and expect that it will see a big bump in value once the subway entrance is open right below them.

“With the aging baby boomer population, there’s a premium on convenience,” he said. All of the new entrances will be accessible to the disabled.

Michael Horodniceanu, the president of MTA Capital Construction, was on hand to deliver opening remarks and stayed to mingle with residents and answer their questions. One woman stopped him to ask if she would be able to hear the subway from her apartment once it was completed and operational, and he launched into a technical explanation for her.

Horodniceanu said that people often come to him with very detailed questions, and that he feels that these workshops are helping put people at ease and understand the project at a granular level.

“It’s very helpful, because it’s a forum for people to actually not only describe what they would like to see and what their questions are, but also to potentially suggest solutions,” he said.

At the end of the evening, each group’s top concerns were announced, and they ran the gamut from truck noise to parking restrictions to the acrid smell lingering in the air after controlled blasts. Horodniceanu said they would look at each one and open the next meeting in three months, at the suggestion of one participant, by listing progress made on each of the concerns raised in this session.

“The construction managers—the guys that were here today—will summarize all the issues, then we’ll see what we can actually address, and that will be addressed,” he said.