By Angela Barbuti

Vinny Guadagnino is living life vicariously through himself. At least that’s what the quote on his Twitter page’s background says. When asked about it, Guadagnino explains that he was only being sarcastic. But it does make a lot of sense that he would be content with his life. At 25, the Jersey Shore veteran was offered a talk show on MTV, where he literally opens the door of his Staten Island home to welcome celebrities for a family-style interview, complete with a home cooked meal by his mother Paola. The Show with Vinny, which airs Thursday nights on MTV, is just the beginning for the Italian-American entertainer. He wants to pursue stand-up comedy, acting, and maybe even get a law degree. But whatever he chooses, he has his family — and now a newfound bunch of celebrity friends — as his biggest fans.

How do you think your Italian heritage plays a role on the show?
We’re not sitting there waving Italian flags around. We like to eat, my mom likes to cook, my uncle likes to drink wine. We like to hang out like a family and keep it real, and I think that’s really what the culture’s all about. And that’s what the show is about too. People are hanging out with an Italian mom — they open up and act very casually.

Your mom is a big part of the show. How is she handling all the fame?
Well she’s been on Jersey Shore, so she’s recognized as Vinny’s mom. I can’t wait till she’s giving autographs — that’s gonna be great. She loves it. My Uncle Nino loves it a little too much — he’s like a fame whore. But my mom, she gets a kick out of it, so I just hope it continues for her.

I think one of the funniest parts of the first episode was when your mom fed Lil Wayne broccoli rabe. What have been your favorite moments on the show this season?
They don’t even know what Italian food is, it’s hilarious. Oh man. Every episode has a funny moment of its own, because you don’t know what each celebrity brings to the table. Little Wayne was awesome and cool; he taught me how to skateboard. With Mindless Behavior, we did a little dance thing. Which each guest, I try to do something funny that they like to do. And I end up failing at it miserably.

How do you prepare for the celebrity interviews?
I do a ton of research. My production company helps me out a lot. But I also go on my own and always try to Google, “things you didn’t know about” the person. Just so when I’m talking to someone, they know that I did my homework and am not just trying to use them for my success. That I’m thoroughly interested in them.

So your guests have no idea what to expect?
No, there’s no pre-interview that says what my questions are going to be. With me, you’re just going to go in there and hangout with a family. It’s all a regular conversation from the top of my head.

Who were you most nervous to interview?
Probably Mark Wahlberg. You know, it’s Mark Wahlberg. He’s a legend and one of my favorite actors. Just to be sitting down with him was an honorary experience for me.

You are very open about dealing with your anxiety and wrote a book about it called Control the Crazy. Does anxiety affect you on this show?
No, it’s actually a perfect cure for my anxiety. When I do a show like Jersey Shore, I don’t have a TV or radio; I can’t read or write. I can’t do anything. I just kind of sit there. But on a show like this, I have to prep, interview. I’m in the zone. I have to be on.

You took the LSAT on the day Jersey Shore premiered. Do you think you’ll ever go to law school?
Umm. I’m trying not to. I like entertaining and being on TV, but I love politics and government. So maybe one day I’ll go back and get the degree just to have it. I like accomplishing things. I liked getting my Bachelor’s degree. That would be another goal to accomplish — a law degree.

You take improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade.
I do that with standup comedy now, trying to mix that world into my career as well. It helps me a lot with being a talk show host and an actor, and everything in life.

I read you want to do more scripted TV.
Yeah I love scripted TV. That’s my dream job — acting on a regular series. But I also want to stay on MTV. I like this job and being part of that family. Also, I give speeches to students talking about my book. I want to keep that self help, motivation aspect a part of my career.

Where do you live on Staten Island? What are your favorite places there?
I’m in the middle of the island. There are some really good restaurants out here. There’s this little bar called Schaffer’s that’s right down the street from my house. You feel like you’re walking into the 1950’s. There’s this place called Royal Crown that has the best Italian subs you’ll ever have in your life.

I like the quote on your Twitter page. “I live vicariously through myself.”
Oh yeah. [Laughs] I’m just a smart ass and I hate when you go to people’s pages and they’re like, “I’m this, I’m that.” So I just said, “I live vicariously through myself,” which makes no sense at all.

I thought you meant that since you like your life and have such a cool job, you’re living vicariously through yourself.
You know what, I’m gonna go with that. Thank you. I’m gonna keep that. You made it deep for me.

Watch The Show with Vinny on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. on MTV
Follow Vinny on Twitter: @VINNYGUADAGNINO

By Laura Shanahan

I brake for dogs. When I’m walking down the street and spot a great-looking doggy, I can’t resist giving the pooch a good “skritch” under the chin – the animal (and owner) willing.

The last time I did this, my hand came away sticky-wet and – aghhh – smelling like the Gowanus Canal at low tide. Short of the owner warning me of his pet’s Petri-dish mouth, what I would most have wished for was a bottle of Dog Slobber hand sanitizer – and, yes, Virginia, there is such an item. Didn’t know it existed myself until I just spotted the 2-oz. bottle at E.A.T. Gifts (EG), at 1062 Madison Ave., near 81st Street.

EG, as we’ll shorthand it henceforth, is one of those only-in-New-York places, next door to the famous E.A.T. bakery/food shop/catering biz, the premier effort by the equally famous grocery/eatery entrepreneur Eli Zabar. The shops perfectly complement each other. E.A.T. is filled with sweet and savory comestibles, while EG is filled with lots of food-themed novelties (and much more). In short – here’s a simple example – you can buy a chocolate cupcake at the former shop for $4 or a pretty painted plastic version that tops a child’s adjustable ring at the latter for the same price. The ring, however, will theoretically last forever and has zero calories.

But back to the Dog Slobber, (“for fresh, clean hands after contact with pets!”). It’s really your basic hand sanitizer, amusingly presented by the clever Blue Q company, which also offers OCD hand sanitizer, complete with an illustration of a stern-looking doc (shrink?), and Pee-Pee Poo-Poo sanitizer for children, (and the adults who share their sensibilities). They all contain 62 percent ethyl alcohol; your choice, $8.50.

As we slide into the silly season, you won’t find better ways for you or your kids to celebrate than with some little trifle – or big trifle – from EG. A life-size inflatable giraffe? It’s here. (Well, maybe not quite life-size, advises Sean, the store’s manager, of the $75 item. What do I know from non-domesticated animals? I’m a kid from Brooklyn). If you’re wondering what one does with a ginormous giraffe, Sean says, “I’ve sold so many for kids just to put in their room.” There you go.

Little trifles that are popular include the slogan-buttons, at $1.50 to $2 per, perfect for on-lapel opining, proclaiming and professing. “People take hours going through them,” Sean says. Small wonder, with seemingly endless choices that include “I read banned books,” “Avoiding life – one day at a time” and “Peripheral visionary.” Some just let a picture tell a story – though what a cartoon cat perched in a teacup while wearing a top hat, bowtie and monocle means is clearly open to interpretation and thus conversation, n’est-ce pas?

Salted among the stuffed toys, snow globes, miniature glass animals, and gumballs in such flavors as Popcorn & Cola and “extra briny” Pickle, there are some unassailably practical items. Consider the +2.5 magnification “make-up glasses” with a single lens that flips back and forth, depending on which eye is being made up, (“no more smudges! No more mess!”); $8.

When I visit someone’s home I am drawn inevitably towards their bookshelf. You can always learn something about a person by the books they read. The idea of creating a portrait through books, or to be precise, through the covers of books that someone has read is the central conceit behind the seminal project by R.B. Kitaj entitled, “In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part.” It is a portfolio of 50 screen-prints produced in 1969, 33 of which are currently on display in “R.B. Kitaj: Personal Library”at The Jewish Museum.

Kitaj was an artist full of big ideas. He was an early British pop artist, working at the same time as David Hockney and Richard Hamilton. While Kitaj was primarily a figurative artist this specific project would later be seen as a sort of bridge from the 60’s into the era of 70’s conceptual art. While often sensual and emotional, Kitaj’s work was always overflowing with intellectual questions and riddles. The notion that a person is the sum total of the books they’ve read, the information they’ve taken in, and by extension the choices they’ve made, turns this set of prints into an artistic mystery game.

What are we to make of the man who has chosen to read both The City of Burbank Annual report for 1968/9 and the collected Articles and Pamphlets of Maxim Gorky, Coming of Age in Samoa and a textbook entitled The Wording of Police Charges? Hints are dropped  by the inclusion of The Jewish  Question and The Tower by W.B. Yeats. As you walk through the show each book adds another set of clues about the nature of the man portrayed. It is a fascinating and totally successful game; except for the fact that the curators have chosen only 33 of the 50 available images. One wonders why and how the choices were made of what to show and what to omit Pieces of the portrait are missing.

The project consists of large screen-prints based on photographically enlarged images of the book covers, bindings and dust jackets. Viewing the worn and torn edges of these mostly pre-World War Two editions, we see the history of Kitaj’s relationship with these books and the beauty that age and handling has added to their already luscious old-world book design. The enlarged discolorations, delicate scuff marks, and deep elegant colors force you to focus on how beautiful books used to be. By enlarging the scale of the book covers Kitaj has re-contextualized them as objects that carry the full weight of their original intent along with the bemused hipster coolness of Pop art. The mundane becomes precious.

The one jarring note to what is a strangely moving and beautiful show is a lackluster installation. The prints are hung on a dingy pale blue wall that feels institutional, making the room seem dull. One thing we know is that the man portrayed by “In Our Time” was anything but dull.

“R.B. Kitaj: Personal Library” runs through August 11 at The Jewish Museum. 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St.

Frances Ha runs a very long 84 minutes. It offers an obnoxiously self-satisfied portrait of a young white New Yorker — played by Greta Gerwig — running out her parent’s stipend, roommating with other New York hipsters, sometimes skipping the pond to Paris, all the time pursuing her goal to be a professional dancer, even though she demonstrates no aptitude for it.

You gotta love her, is writer-director Noah Baumbach’s privileged position. Frances Ha is Baumbach’s love letter to Gerwig, his current paramour, (she was the ingenue in his film Greenberg who replaces Jennifer Jason Leigh in the protagonist’s affections). Yet Baumbach is the one American filmmaker with the least aptitude for showing love on screen after William Friedkin — yet Friedkin has skills in the opposite direction. Once again aping the self-absorption made fashionable, (though never popular), by the Mumblecore indie film movement of young hipsters, Baumbach’s title refers to Andrew Bujalski’s early Mumblecore release Funny Ha Ha. Baumbach uses Gerwig, that movement’s female icon, to express his own confusion of artistic-pursuit with social-climbing — which here comes off as ambivalent misogyny.

Greta Gerwig stars in Frances Ha.

Probably because Baumbach never examines his own hatefulness, he expects others to view it affectionately. The embarrassing spectacle of Frances/Gerwig gracelessly trotting across dance studios, flopping on beds and peeing in the subway, (she’s called “undatable” by a couple of dorks), is only comparable to grotesque females in Baumbach’s previous films. Frances/Gerwig’s “weird man-walk” might be intended to recall Cybill Shepherd’s gauche stomp in Daisy Miller, but Peter Bogdanovich made her sympathetic, (as Whit Stillman miraculously did with Gerwig in Damsels in Distress). Here, Frances/Greta’s lunatic personality crosses the parvenus of Woody Allen’s Manhattan with the Left Bank jeunne filles of the French New Wave.

While Frances Ha looks terrific, (cinematographer Sam Levy imitates the Nouvelle Vague’s sunlit black & white fairly well), its gloss lacks the New Wave sense of discovery. Everything’s so derivative, from using street addresses as chapter titles to lifting Georges Delerue’s King of Hearts score, it merely matches Allen’s unoriginality. Check out Criterion’s new Blu-Ray version of Godard’s Band of Outsiders to see the style of black and white chic that Baumbach simultaneously aspires to and disgraces. Godard made then-wife Anna Karina the disarming center of a still-stylish triangle, (with the irresistible Samy Frey and Claude Brasseur), and subjected them all to absolute moral scrutiny—whether racing through the Louvre, robbing a mansion or improvising an immortal line dance in a bar. But Baumbach only celebrates proud hateful retorts and transparent privilege (Frances/Greta’s Paris trip becomes the same nowhere as Tokyo in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.)

Baumbach can hardly get a fair review in this town where his personal spider-web network of family/media connections guarantees indulgent endorsements; so his deficient poison pen letter gets praised as a cinematic valentine by confreres who share his warped values — the private life exploitation and payback of New York’s Manhattan-Brooklyn boho/bourgeoisie, (same as with his detestable The Squid and the Whale). Private code is what Frances/Greta pines for when she describes a “secret world [shared with her best friend played by Mickey Sumner], that’s what I want in life.” Maybe you have to be a Mumblehattan elite to love this kind of self-love.

Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair

By Ben Kessler

Justin Timberlake’s enduring commercial, critical, and street-level success can perhaps best be explained with an insight from Sigmund Freud: There is no “negative” in the unconscious.

Ironically, though, in our messed-up culture JT’s shameless lack of negativity must be defined negatively. In other words, JT demands to be known by what he blessedly is NOT.

Ever since his emergence as a solo artist with Justified (2002), JT’s charisma has made for great showbiz by dramatizing the impact of black pop culture on the mainstream. At the beginning of his solo career, he certainly benefited from opposition to Eminem’s purely negative co-optation of hiphop.

Justin Timberlake

Take Taylor Swift’s recent hit “I Knew You Were Trouble.” Swift’s succession of singles supposedly inspired by high-profile breakups follows the JT template that won him success with the kiss-off tracks “Cry Me a River” (2002) and “What Goes Around…Comes Around” (2007).

But Swift’s song’s breakup is both romantic and musical: She parts ways with the country-western milieu “Trouble” was clearly meant for and inspired by. Choosing impersonal Top 40 production over the rootsy instrumentation that might have made her sentiments relatable (if nowhere near as original as JT’s producer Timbaland’s ever-effervescent grooves), Swift ensures her hit is a zeitgeist affair, saturated in the ego-stroking love of disappointment that characterizes dominant youth culture.

Now consider JT’s epic love song “Mirrors.” Unlike other 20/20 tracks that pay explicit homage to black pop icons (Al Green on “That Girl,” Curtis Mayfield on “Pusher Love Girl”), “Mirrors” is, for most of its 8:06 running time, sonically untethered: a mix of beatboxing, handclaps, synths, strings, and guitars that shouldn’t create a pleasing sound but does. When JT sings, “It’s like you’re my mirror/My mirror staring back at me,” it doesn’t reflect narcissism but an awesome and awed faith in the mystery of human connection. And especially when JT sings the chorus with only handclaps and a swirling guitar riff behind him (a moment made for stadium gigs), “Mirrors” turns that faith into a participatory event.

The song’s coda achieves true genius as its melody — at the unlikeliest of times, five and a half minutes in!! — resolves into an r&b ballad. “Say goodbye to the old me, he’s already gone,” sings the multitracked JT over a chant that loops like a bassline: “You are, you are the love of my life.” No top-tier popstar has dared such a sweetly revealing moment in recent memory. Bad movies and boy bands aside, here JT lays bare the core of his true artistic calling. He earns full forgiveness for his participation in The Social Network. (Elsewhere on the album, “Tunnel Vision,” which describes how love and desire purify perception, could be JT’s calling-out of myopic Hollywood.)

JT brings pop artistry back by reminding us that the primary mission of a pop musician is to make us feel and dance. That’s both the power and subject of “Don’t Hold the Wall,” which contains what is possibly the album’s key lyric, addressed to a coy dancing partner: “You’re so far out/I had to come get you.” Against expectation, the song is not a banger, but insinuates with an exotic (bhangra-inspired), erotic aural rhetoric. No matter how far out the culture gets, JT and Timbaland will come get us.

The ad campaign for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is pretty snazzy, the movie itself not so much. The poster’s anachronistic Art Deco silver letters on a black grid evoke the chrome of shiny old Dusenberg’s plus the velvet casing of jewelry boxes. It’s about luxury and that’s what the media response, (foregrounding Luhrmann’s $125 million budget and hyping Jay-Z’s irritating hip-hop music score), respects above movie content.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby in director Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

When we talk about this Great Gatsby, the event and advertising hype are more meaningful than the film. It signifies a transfer in cinema’s cultural impact from narrative enjoyment to the artificial processes of commercialism. Interest in this film derives from political and cultural forces exemplified by advertising, not F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel which romanticized working class 1920s bootlegger Jay Gatsby, (played by an aged, agitated Leonardo DiCaprio), whose social-climbing obsession centers on Daisy (Carey Mulligan), the flame of his youth now married to rich, bigoted lout Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton, wasted).

Fitzgerald’s tale here loses its trenchant all-American subject. Luhrmann trades the story of Gatsby’s personal striving for another pointless exercise in excessive computer-generated gimmickry and pop-culture hodge-podge. Shill journalists, ignorant of film style, submit to this visual torture as if it were original or effective. Luhrmann’s signature camera move changes the zoom into a whoosh—a simulated evocation of cinema’s most glorious kinetic gesture. What an Italian film critic once described as “the bliss of camera movement” becomes a shrill, over-amped, unnatural sensation.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan star in The Great Gatsby.

Scale and spatial logic disappear, so does any emotional dimension. Luhrmann bloats Fitzgerald’s slim, breezily-worded tale to a draggy, repetitious and pretentious epic. Ideas about class, (hidden points about ethnicity), details about desire, frustrated idealism and American history get both dragged-out and run-over. Luhrmann’s screen images whiz around Long Island and Manhattan just as they did Paris in his 2002 Moulin Rouge, destroying any realistic sense of place or experience. Luhrmann’s visual exaggeration is like is Gatsby’s corrupt aspirations: he asks “You think it’s too much?” after sending a roomful of flowers to Daisy yet doesn’t heed when told “I think its what you want.”

Instead of representing an authentic modern vision of class, Luhrmann’s lack of narrative skill destroys comprehension so completely that he inadvertently exposes the novel’s flaws. Luhrmann’s own opportunism reveals Fitzgerald’s. The important subtext of Gatsby’s (ne Jay Gatz) attempts at Wasp integration is lost. His mentor Meyer Wolfsheim in becomes an Indian Bollywood figure; Daisy and Tom’s friend Jordan Baker’s haunting line “We’re all white here” is omitted; and narrator Nick Carraway is turned into a sycophantic dolt, (miscast Tobey Maguire’s googly-eyed performance is one of the worst in recent screen history).

Carraway’s voice-over narration sounds like he just learned to read which may be the key to Luhrmann’s Attention Deficit Disorder directorial style; it replaces visual significance and precision. Making a Great Gatsby that looks like both a comic book movie and Peter Jackson’s King Kong reduces our culture to little more than a TV commercial marketing Hollywood product.

This Gatsby is only about the profit-making potential of what movie exhibitors used to call “film exploitation” and it confirms our news media’s surrender to that goal.

Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair

By Helaina Hovitz

Two of the Upper East Side’s most prominent chefs also happen to be among the most world renowned, and they were the MVPs the Goals for Life Gala, which took place on Wednesday, May 8th. Along with four other chefs, they took to the kitchen (and stage) at Gotham Hall (1356 Broadway and 36th Street) for an upscale fundraiser benefitting the Pelé Little Prince Research Institute in Brazil.
The Institute is backed by Brazil’s famed “King of Soccer,” Pelé himself, who devoted his life to philanthropy since retiring from the sport.

“Being a nonprofit in Brazil isn’t very common, and we were [initially] afraid because we didn’t have the resources to fund it,” said Jose Alvaro Carneiro C.E.O. of the children’s hospital. “Then Pelé approached us, and now we believe in the long run we will fundraise enough to pay the bills.”

Michael Troisgros, Daniel Humm, Pele, Alex Atala, Roberta Sudbrack, Daniel Boulud, Claude Troisgros. Photo by Karissa Van Tassel

The clear culinary star of the evening was Chef Daniel Boloud, who owns Upper East Side restaurants Daniel (60 East 65th Street) and Café Boloud (20 East 76th Street).

A course each was also prepared by Brazilian chef Alex Atala, Roberta Sudbrack, the first woman to be selected as head chef for a Brazilian President, and French Brazilian chefs and event founders Claude Troisgros and his son Thomas.

Before the meal was served, the chefs did a quick on-stage demonstration to show how the dish was made.

Dessert, made by Daniel Humm, owner of Eleven Park Madison (11 Madison Avenue), was based on a “New York pretzel” and featured peanut butter shortbread, peanut brittle, malted milk sorbet, malt sponge candy, malt yogurt, pretzel crisps, and peanut butter salted caramel.

“I think chefs in general are giving people,” he said. “We try to support a lot of different charities like Share Our Strength [a group that fights child hunger]. We also did work to raise money for upkeep of Madison Square Park,” he said.

At Eleven Park Madison, the menu changes every day, which is “hard to keep up with, but fun, too,” but there is one permanent staple on the three-time Michelin Star winning menu: the whole roasted duck.

Humm, who originally hales from Switzerland, won the 2013 James Beard Foundation’s “Outstanding Chef” award, and has also been awarded several other honorable titles.

At the gala, everyone seemed perfectly content to wait until the first dish came out at 8:45 p.m. (the dinner started a 7:30), Flowers Ceviche with Orange Blossom Vinaigrette smothered in pepper, but I didn’t have the time — or stomach — enough to wait for the other four courses to make their way around the room. Nearly passing out from hunger, I left the glamorous world of a ballroom decorated in purple orchids and black linens to grab a chicken cutlet sandwich.

At $2,500 a seat, the event raised $700,000 for the Pelé Institute, which is currently the largest center for complex pediatric illnesses in Brazil.

Local libraries supportive of midtown renovations, speak out against budget cuts

The New York Public Library system is facing major changes and not everyone is happy about it.

The Committee to Save the New York Public Library (NYPL) has been rallying to stop the Central Library Plan, a plan to consolidate the Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business Library into one building. The consolidating, they say would not only cost exorbitant taxpayer money, but would “threaten the 42nd Street Library’s status as one of the world’s great research libraries” and “endanger the architectural integrity of the landmarked building.”

“You don’t update a masterpiece,” wrote Ada Louise Huxtable of the proposed renovations in the Wall Street Journal this past winter.

Angela Montefinise, an NYPL spokesperson, disagrees. Montefinise says, among other pluses, renovations would be a boon to public library branches on the Upper West and Upper East Sides, some of which would greatly benefit from circulating funds.

“One of the benefits of the renovation of 42nd Street is that it would generate $15 million a year annually which can be put right back in the system, including the UWS and UES branches,” explains Montefinise.

Montefinise concedes many of the branches throughout the City are old and in need of repairs, which would be made possible through the plan as well as approximately $260 million of capital work going on around the system.

“While the renovations themselves are happening in midtown, they will benefit the whole system,” she says.

“I think there’s a perception that [the plan] is being done at the expense of other work – that’s incorrect. The funding for that plan is generated from the plan itself — such as real estate sales — and earmarked city money specifically for this project.”

Still, uptown, the consolidation plan is far from many’s minds as they consider more pressing concerns.

Sumie Ota, the network manager in charge of uptown libraries, says while the campaign to oppose major budget cuts is a main issue among library branches, local concerns have more to do with the day-to-day issues of keeping patrons happy.

“As far as allocating funds, the more money the better,” says Ota, “but our biggest concern is keeping the branches open and making our services available. The Central Library Plan is not on our minds.”

“Everyday I see people waiting for us to open our doors or waiting in line for computers,” she adds. “That’s what’s on our minds.”

The budget cuts Ota refers to amount to $47 million, or the largest proposed cut in the library’s history, according to Montefinise.

Montefinise says, in addition to an advocacy campaign to fight the budget cut, there will need to be increased strategic thinking — such as the Central Library Plan itself — as funds are slashed.

Currently, branches across the City are focusing on this effort to reach out to elected officials including sending letters to City Council members to fight the budget cut. The 67th Street library on the Upper East Side, for instance, has already sent over 400 letters to oppose the budget cuts.

The group Citizens Defending Libraries agrees the proposed budget cuts are a major issue currently facing the City’s public library branches.

“Mayor Bloomberg is defunding New York libraries at a time of increasing public use, population growth and increased city wealth, shrinking our library system to create real estate deals for wealthy real estate developers at a time of cutbacks in education and escalating disparities in opportunity,” notes the group.

Ota says there are major projects underway in her network including renovations and restorations, particularly to the Washington Heights and 96th Street branches.

Branch libraries, notes Ota, are also increasing their e-book presence in addition to circulating physical materials, while research libraries are increasingly digitizing their collections.

As far as the future of the consolidation plan, Montefinise maintains it’s never going to be of concern to libraries uptown.

“There is a lot of misinformation out there, and that’s a shame. I think internally employees certainly understand the benefits, and generally support initiatives that generate resources to help them serve the public.”

Photographs of horses.

Pamphlets full of geese.

At the New Yorkers for Clean, Liveable and Safe Streets Mayoral Forum on Animal Rights, the fate of New York’s non-human residents was brought into sharp focus as five candidates for mayor hashed out their light-on-policy thoughts about the place of other species in our society.

The show – which took place at the Union Theological Seminary on Broadway and West 121st – was colorful, and prior to the start of the debate lead organizer Allie Feldman set the tone by putting the office number for Speaker Christine Quinn (absent) on a large screen and instructed those present to call and say “hey, I’m a voter, and I’d like you to pass 86A to stop carriage abuse.”

That message preceded a debate that turned flimsy and pandering, with candidates frequently turning to anecdotes about the places of pets in their lives, rather than giving thoughtful answers to complex questions that all circled, ultimately, around the idea of animal personhood.

The horseless carriage prototype promoted by NYCLASS.

At the surface level, the candidates, (Democrats Bill de Blasio, Bill Thompson, John Liu, Sal Albanese and lone Republican John Catismatidis), were warm; being “pro-animal” is an easy position to claim, and each scrambled for the mantle. Bill de Blasio was the clear favorite of the crowd, and as the sole supporter of the above-mentioned legislation seems likely to receive the group’s endorsement. He whipped up the crowd with the most ardent line of the forum, which he gave in response to a question about the proposal.
“This is inhumane,” said the public advocate, of carriage horses. “It’s in front of our very eyes. We don’t say, ‘look at that, it’s inhumane, but it’s so quaint and historic.’ It doesn’t make any sense.”

Comptroller John Liu meanwhile tacked to his left and was the only candidate who supported legislation to stop “puppy mills” from supplying animals to pet stores. Currently 25 cities in America, (including Los Angeles), have passed laws that mandate pet stores only sell rescue and shelter dogs, in response to high rates of euthanasia and the overpopulation of their animal shelter systems. De Blasio, Albanese, and Thompson hemmed and hawed on whether they’d enact such a measure.

Republican John Catsimatidis, (aka “the Cat-man”, according to his opening statement), struck a more pragmatist, market-driven tone in answer the question, in keeping with his record as the entrepreneur of the race (CEO: Red Apple Group, Gristedes). Arguing that a rescue-dog only policy in city pet stores would drive consumers to nearby counties on Long Island, Cat-man counter-proposed tax-incentives for stores that sell rescue dogs, and free pet-food for the consumers who buy them.

It was a brazenly unsentimental but logical policy idea in a debate full of softball answers, and he was able to sell it well enough to avoid heckles, no small feat for an animal-rights crowd. Unfortunately for Catsimatidis, he brought the boo birds out when discussing the Central Park carriage rides.
“I was raised in New York, and my kids were raised in Central Park. I believe the horses provide a kind of ambiance…you know how much I love animals; I believe they should be safe. I think they should be limited to Central Park. The city should provide barn space, keep all the horses together, make sure they’re safe, make sure they get proper care, and make sure they’re not too old to work. And when those horses are ready to retire, you know what I’d like to do? I’d like to build a small stable and have them as part of the zoo.”

After the boos subsided, the debate moved on. None of the candidates seemed to provide much substance or policy to show true commitment to animal rights, no bold policies were discussed, and the philosophy behind animal advocacy was never really tackled. The group’s champion, Bill de Blasio, went so far as to try to win points for the vegetarianism of his children. By the time they reached closing statements, every candidate had pre-maturely exited the stage except for Comptroller John Liu and darkhorse candidate Sal Albanese.

The Horseless Carriage and the Future of Coachmen
At the NYCLASS forum, moderator Tom Allon repeatedly brought up City Countil Intro 86A, a piece of legislation sponsored by Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito that would phase out horse-drawn carriages in Central Park and replace them with eco-friendly vintage-replica cars. The horse ban legislation has raised some concern amongst councilmembers regarding economic viability. Some in the council have wondered if tourists would be as enamored by the cars as they are by the mares, and – if the tours drop down – there is concern that the jobs of coachmen would be largely cut from the equine-free park.

In response to those concerns, NYCLASS has used private donation money to sponsor a prototype mode, for use in a proposed pilot program. Costing $450,000, they’ve outsourced the construction of the all-electric replica (a done-up 1909 Pierce Arrow) to the Creative Workshop, a small, custom car building franchise based out of Florida. The pilot vehicle will seat eight plus a driver, and has a speaker system built in, so as to allow the driver to safely narrate the park to passengers without taking his eyes from the road.

According to the group’s lead organizer Allie Feldman, 32 councilmembers have signed a letter endorsing the pilot program, including all the councilmembers in the Bronx and Manhattan, save for Speaker Christine Quinn. The pilot program would need the council’s (and Speaker Quinn’s) support for legislation that would allow their prototype vehicle onto the park’s roads, which the horse carriages currently have exclusive domain over.
Speaker Quinn did not return calls for comment.

This past week, despite concerns from the community, Community Board 8 voted in favor of approving the zoning amendment sought by Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) and the City University of New York (CUNY) needed to build a new cancer and educational center on East 73rd Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive. The local community has been fiercely debating many aspects of the nascent project, and at the committee level, the board had previously voted against approving the zoning change request, citing concerns over traffic, decreased open space, pollution and noise that some say the massive building would bring to the Upper East Side.

At the public hearing last week during the land use committee meeting, cancer survivors and patients testified, urging the community to support the cancer center. In the previous vote, the MSK-CUNY task force committee, led by chair Nick Viest, had turned down the zoning text amendment, but this vote means full approval from the board. Now the project’s Uniform Land Use Review Process application moves ahead for consideration by the Borough President’s office.

The first resolution approved the sale of the site and the zoning map change which would allow the hospital and school to build the new complex in the middle of a previously-industrial zoned area. The board also approved the special permit needed for an accessory parking garage and allowance of sign modifications. The parking garage, according to Sloan Kettering, would create less traffic on the streets as patients and visitors looked for parking spots. In a close vote, 24 board members voted yes, and 17 voted no.
In the second resolution, the community board came up with an alternative text to the zoning text amendment.

The substitute motion, which passed with a slim margin of 23 yes to 20 no, specified the improvement of the Andrew Haswell Green park near the 59th Street Bridge along the FDR Drive. The community board also approved the bulk modifications of the building, which would allow the MSK building to tower 23 stories, and the Hunter building to rise 16 stories tall, under the stipulation that Andrew Haswell Green Park will be the recipient of the proposed improvements. This is an especially important issue for Upper East Siders, who recently learned that their community has some of the least open space citywide.

The recent approval also means that the project’s Uniform Land Use Review Process application moves ahead for consideration by the Borough President’s office.