By Penny Gray

Back in the mid-1990s, when Dr. Tony Urbina was completing his residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, he witnessed a major turning point in HIV/AIDS care. At the time, medication cocktails were just being introduced to the infected. “There were patients who looked like walking corpses; with [medication], in a matter of weeks, they would miraculously come back from the [brink of] death,” Urbina recalled in an interview.

Over 10 years later, HIV/AIDS no longer is seen as a death sentence but a chronic condition that can be treated with proper medical care. Once again, however, Urbina finds himself at a precipice in the story of HIV/AIDS. Instead of diagnosing middle-aged and older gay males, Urbina’s newly diagnosed patients are frequently minority men, some of whom are as young as 16, who have sex with other men.

What HIV/AIDS Looks Like in the 21st Century

At subway stations throughout New York City, HIV prevention posters are pasted on the wall with the message “Get Tested,” often featuring serious-looking minority men. Are they really the faces of HIV today? And if so, are posters like these promoting prevention and testing or are they alienating the at-risk community?

Data from the New York City Department of Health (DOH) suggests that the faces of the HIV prevention campaign are indeed representative of New York City’s highest HIV risk group in the city: minority men who have sex with men.
According to the DOH, in 2009, gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 43 percent of the newly diagnosed HIV infections in New York City—more than any other group—and they experienced more than half of new diagnoses (57 percent) among men. Forty-eight percent of all new infections were reported from the African-American community, 32 percent from the Hispanic community and 3 percent from the Asian/Pacific Islander community.

Perhaps even more disconcertingly, a recent study of MSM in New York City showed that 53 percent of those who are HIV- infected were not aware of their status, suggesting that messages of prevention and testing are not being communicated adequately to high-risk groups.

Dr. Donna Mildvan, chief of infectious diseases at Beth Israel Medical Center at 16th Street, has been around the block with HIV/AIDS, having been one of the first doctors in the city to recognize the symptoms in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (“A point,” she said, “we don’t need to dwell on. We just have the long-range view here at Beth Israel, that’s all.”) As she sees it, the minority MSM acquisition of HIV is a recent and troubling phenomenon. For his part, Urbina said he first noticed it roughly five years ago.

“What we’re looking at is a population of young people who don’t see this as a threat,” Mildvan said. “These statistics reflect the fact of a cavalier attitude among young people.”

Indeed, for a generation most familiar with Magic Johnson’s 1991 diagnosis and successful antiretroviral treatment, HIV no longer holds the threat of AIDS and imminent death that it did 30 years ago.

“Now, we can treat patients with one pill a day and we have options about what that one pill will be. It looks easy—looks like it’s not the disease Larry Kramer wrote about in The Normal Heart. But it’s a lot worse and a lot more complicated than other degenerative diseases,” Mildvan was quick to point out.

Dr. Victoria Sharp, director of Saint Luke’s-Roosevelt’s Center for Comprehensive Care on 17th Street, has recognized similar trends in public attitudes. “This disease was once the disease of white gay men. There’s not manifestations as there was 15 years ago, when it was a lot easier to see the physical signs of the disease. These were the walking dead. Now, the younger generation senses that it’s not a problem.”

Sharp is quick to link social stigma to the heightened HIV infection rates among minority gay males. “For many of these at-risk communities, there’s stigma attached to sexual intercourse with other men. So these are MSMs, but they don’t publicly identify as such. They are on the down-low,” Sharp said.

Originally an African-American slang term, the phrase “on the down-low” has been adopted by the HIV medical community to describe men who have sex with men but for social or personal reasons choose not to socially or publicly identify themselves as homosexual.

“Having unprotected sex on the down-low affects infection rates in multiple ways. Young MSMs are infected, but women are infected through men who are on the down-low as well. After all, African-American women are the other group with rising infection rates,” Sharp reported.

Ding Pajaron, director of development at the Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA) and Daniel Goldman, development specialist at APICHA, confirmed the prevalence of social stigma in minority communities that makes prevention and care very difficult. Indeed, the Asian community has the highest rate of concurrent diagnosis of both HIV and AIDS, which is a signal of late testing.

“In minority communities, there is stigma associated with homosexuality that makes it difficult for people to access services,” Pajaron said. “It can be really brutal. One of our clients came out to his family; when he did, his parents brought him to the cemetery and said, ‘We consider you dead.’ As you can imagine, this sort of attitude makes it seem dangerous to access services.”

Goldman concurred. “The fact of the matter is that people at risk for this disease are disenfranchised in the city. HIV is affecting the African American population, the Latino population and the Asian/Pacific Islander population, so there is very good reason for resources to go into these communities. Our aim and mission is to provide general primary care to those who are at high risk for HIV. As we speak, we are expanding our services to more at-risk communities,” he said.

In both the public and private sectors, many HIV care facilities are moving to an all-in-one care model in an effort to combat HIV infection trends. One such facility is the Center for Comprehensive Care (CCC), the largest HIV/AIDS treatment center in New York State, which currently serves 5,000 patients in the city.

Sharp, director of the CCC, reasoned, “How can we thin this trend? Well, everybody gets HIV from someone, right? So treatment is tantamount to prevention. If we can put an HIV-infected person on medication, we can prevent them from passing the infection along. As the Center for Disease Control recommends, first get tested and then immediately get linked into care so you can’t pass it along.”

In 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine published results suggesting “a 96 percent reduction in HIV transmission risk to an HIV-negative partner…[is] definitive proof of the concept that antiretroviral therapy lowers the risk of HIV transmission.”

This promising data has solidified the DOH’s own focus on HIV testing as a means of prevention. According to its press office: “The Health Department collaborates with community partners on various initiatives that focus on areas of high HIV prevalence and work with vulnerable populations. Two such initiatives are The Bronx Knows (which just ended in June of last year after a very successful three-year run) and Brooklyn Knows, currently in its second of four years. Both are initiatives designed to routinize HIV testing in clinical settings, facilitate testing for every person who is unaware of their status (i.e. anyone who has never taken an HIV test) by providing free test kits to those who are uninsured, collaborate with non-clinical testing sites and link those who test positive to quality care and services.”

Confronting HIV/AIDS

Authorities seem to agree that HIV testing ultimately leads to both care of the HIV-infected person and prevention of the spread of the disease. But everybody seems to have a different idea about how to arrive at widespread HIV testing. Robert Shiau, AIDS administrator at the AIDS Center of Beth Israel Medical Center, pointed out, “There’s a lot of education out there, but we need to increase access to education on safer sex, condoms and clean needles.”

Mildvan went even further in her convictions about outreach and prevention, saying, “We need to get very, very creative at this point and start making full use of social media. We need novel ways of reaching a populate at huge risk.”

Mildvan pointed to HIV BIG DEAL, a social media campaign run by Public Health Solutions, as a prime example of successful social media. The brainchild of Dr. Mary Ann Chiasson, vice president of research and evaluation at Public Health Solution, HIV BIG DEAL uses 10-minute video dramas to realistically address the social and health-related
dilemmas MSMs face.

But Urbina, the associate director of CCC, suggested the young minority MSM population can’t be pinned down to prevention strategies so easily.

“If the prevention message doesn’t resonate, it isn’t going to be effective, “ Urbina said. “There’s actually data to show that young MSMs have higher rates of condom use than their heterosexual counterparts. And young African-American men have fewer sexual partners than their white and/or heterosexual counterparts. Hence the paradox of higher rates of infection.”

“What’s actually playing out here is that for a young MSM, that one chance encounter is much more likely to lead to an infection. It doesn’t mean they’re having any more chance encounters than a young heterosexual male. It’s difficult because young men are exploring and just awakening to their sexual identities, and hyper vigilance is not a normal response for young people. Sex is a biological urge in all of us, and it’s difficult for youth to accept and internalize the need for condom use,” Urbina lamented.

“There are engaged, talented young men becoming infected because of one chance encounter. We see track stars, we see straight-A students coming in, infected with HIV by the time they get to high school. We’re all struggling with this.
“All efforts at prevention are well- intentioned, but we need to go back to the basics and realize that a community approach is the solution. The sooner we normalize our approach so that it’s about health, spanning across all cultural, ethnic, economic and sexual orientations, the sooner we’ll put an end to HIV.”

By Penny Gray

Michael Dorf, creator and owner of City Winery, at 155 Varick St. in Soho’s Hudson Square, talks about life as an entrepreneur—and it is so darn satisfying Downtown when you run a winery/restaurant/music venue.
How did City Winery come about?
Well, it was born out of a desire to pursue my passions, really. I figured out a hospitality model around some of the things I love most: wine, music and food. It was almost a hedonistic enterprise made for me and by me in the hopes that what appealed to me would appeal to others. Luckily for me, it did.

So you’re a real entrepreneur, then?
Yeah, you’ve got to figure out how to make money doing what you love to do in the world. The real sign of that is when it’s hard to tell what is effort and what is enjoyment. I just had to find a culture and environment that needed a business like the sort of business that would make me happy.

Was City Winery your first endeavor?
There’s a history of entrepreneurship in the family. My grandfather had a food distribution business that my father also ran. I was next in line for it, but in college I realized I was more interested in selling the arts, figuring out what that was and where that was possible.

So when I was 23, I came to the city. I was managing a rock band at the time and tried to start up my own recording business. That failed, and a year later I turned that space into a live venue, The Knitting Factory, which opened in 1987 on Houston Street and later moved to Leonard Street. I left there in 2003 but have been in the music and promoting world for 25 years now.

Both the Knitting Factory and City Winery have been Downtown venues. Why is that?
For me, I never considered uptown. I’ve always had my businesses Downtown. If the choice is up or down, I’m a Downtown guy. Since this is for me, ultimately I want it to be a place that my friends and I want to go. And we want to hang out Downtown.

Has your Downtown location served you well?
It’s definitely hitting the mark. We had lofty expectations that it would do well, and sure enough, it’s doing very, very well.

What’s the most surprising element of success at City Winery?
I knew tickets could be sold to shows. I knew how to sell alcohol at shows. I knew how to add food and atmosphere for patrons to make those experiences of live shows and the alcohol at live shows worthwhile. The one thing I wasn’t 100 percent sure of was whether or not I could make good wine. I hired a great winemaker and bought great equipment, but I wasn’t certain we’d know until…well, until we either had very good or very bad wine. So it’s not a surprise but more of a relief that our wine is phenomenal. We keep selling out, we can never keep enough supply. And I’m feeling blessed that bringing grapes from around the country—and turning those grapes into world-class wine—has been such a success.

What can we look forward to at City Winery?
We’re expanding fairly quickly and building in Chicago. We’ll be opening in June there. We also have wine on tap in our New York location; this is wine without sulfites so it’s very, very fresh. It’s a pretty unique way to consume wine, as there are no preservatives in it for the sake of the wine to travel.

Our shows at City Winery continue to stay happy; we have more and more artists who want to perform here so you can always look out for new music. In short, there’s always something to look forward to here. There’s always something new.

For more information and upcoming shows, visit www.citywinery.com.

The owners of Walker’s, Tribeca’s favorite neighborhood eatery at the corner of North Moore and Varick streets, are rolling out an Italian alternative to their American fare next door at the new pizzeria Girello (“Walker” in Italian, posing a potential confusion for the multilingual).“This is a real departure for us,” said Gerard Walker, co-owner of the eponymous restaurant. “We’ve been the neighborhood regular for the last 30 years, so we decided it was time to become the neighborhood Neapolitan thin-crust pizza joint as well. We love the idea of evoking the same warmth with varying cuisines—that’s why we created Girello.”

Whereas Walker’s has all of the ambiance of a nostalgic American saloon, Girello has been decorated with a decidedly European feel—it looks like a simple, clean trattoria in a fading southern Italian town. “We had the option of expanding Walker’s into the space,” co-owner Scott Perez said, “but we thought it’d be fun to create the same sort of friendly environment using superior products, just different flavors.”

Walker and his partners, Perez and Martin Sheridan, first opened Walker’s three decades ago and have enjoyed steady, prosperous business there ever since. The secret to their success? “Err on the side of the customer,” Walker confided. “New York restaurant customers are the best in the world. If you treat them well and serve them quality food, they’ll return. Never, ever take them for granted.”

Walker says it’s the customers who keep him in the business. “I have the opportunity every single day to make somebody’s night special. A customer I haven’t seen in a while will come in, and I’ll say, ‘Where ya been?’ And he’ll look at me like he can’t believe anybody would remember him. You make someone’s day like that. How many people get to show up to work and do that?”

Perez is quick to add that it’s not just the customers that keep Walker’s (and now Girello) in business, it’s also the staff. “There’s such a joy and an instant gratification in working with people who understand how to treat customers well,” he said.  When the restaurant was the only spot in the neighborhood that remained open during Hurricane Irene, both men agreed it was the combined goodwill of the staff and customers that made the experience such an enriching one.
Girello may have missed the hurricane, but the new restaurant has not been without its own complications. The toughest aspect of opening the new joint? “Perfecting the dough,” Walker said. “For water, yeast and flour, there’s a lot that can go wrong before you get it right. We actually had emails from chefs all over the city writing in about ‘dough behaviors.’ Luckily, we mastered it. We mastered the dough.”

And dough there is in abundance. With nearly 30 toppings to choose from and the choice of either a margherita or white base, Girello is the controlling pizza-topper’s dream. When pressed for a favorite combination of flavors, both Perez and Walker are without answers. “Nah,” Perez said. “It’s all good. It all comes from the same dough, right?”
Also on offer are a handful of Italian and Italian-American sandwiches (including the New Orleans-style muffuletta), salads and appetizers; look out especially for the pancetta wrapped shrimp and the oven-roasted P.E.I. mussels. And in true Walker’s style, Girello offers plenty of alcohol to wash down a meal—a selection of Italian wines and a more international choice of beer, including Peroni and Heineken, along with specialty brews like Victory Hop Devil IPA and Ommegang Witte.

“It’s all just been a lot of fun,” Walker said with a glow. “Opening Girello now has reminded me of what it felt like to open Walker’s all those years ago—makes me feel like a young man again. Maybe that’s what we mean when we say Walker’s is the sort of place that makes the old feel young and the young feel like they’ve been there forever. Judging by the way I feel, Girello is following that tradition.”

Girello, 16 N. Moore St. (betw. N. Moore & Varick Sts.), 212-941-0109; 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

The owners of Walker’s, Tribeca’s favorite neighborhood eatery at the corner of North Moore and Varick streets, are rolling out an Italian alternative to their American fare next door at the new pizzeria Girello (“Walker” in Italian, posing a potential confusion for the multilingual).“This is a real departure for us,” said Gerard Walker, co-owner of the eponymous restaurant. “We’ve been the neighborhood regular for the last 30 years, so we decided it was time to become the neighborhood Neapolitan thin-crust pizza joint as well. We love the idea of evoking the same warmth with varying cuisines—that’s why we created Girello.”

Whereas Walker’s has all of the ambiance of a nostalgic American saloon, Girello has been decorated with a decidedly European feel—it looks like a simple, clean trattoria in a fading southern Italian town. “We had the option of expanding Walker’s into the space,” co-owner Scott Perez said, “but we thought it’d be fun to create the same sort of friendly environment using superior products, just different flavors.”

Walker and his partners, Perez and Martin Sheridan, first opened Walker’s three decades ago and have enjoyed steady, prosperous business there ever since. The secret to their success? “Err on the side of the customer,” Walker confided. “New York restaurant customers are the best in the world. If you treat them well and serve them quality food, they’ll return. Never, ever take them for granted.”

Walker says it’s the customers who keep him in the business. “I have the opportunity every single day to make somebody’s night special. A customer I haven’t seen in a while will come in, and I’ll say, ‘Where ya been?’ And he’ll look at me like he can’t believe anybody would remember him. You make someone’s day like that. How many people get to show up to work and do that?”

Perez is quick to add that it’s not just the customers that keep Walker’s (and now Girello) in business, it’s also the staff. “There’s such a joy and an instant gratification in working with people who understand how to treat customers well,” he said.  When the restaurant was the only spot in the neighborhood that remained open during Hurricane Irene, both men agreed it was the combined goodwill of the staff and customers that made the experience such an enriching one.
Girello may have missed the hurricane, but the new restaurant has not been without its own complications. The toughest aspect of opening the new joint? “Perfecting the dough,” Walker said. “For water, yeast and flour, there’s a lot that can go wrong before you get it right. We actually had emails from chefs all over the city writing in about ‘dough behaviors.’ Luckily, we mastered it. We mastered the dough.”

And dough there is in abundance. With nearly 30 toppings to choose from and the choice of either a margherita or white base, Girello is the controlling pizza-topper’s dream. When pressed for a favorite combination of flavors, both Perez and Walker are without answers. “Nah,” Perez said. “It’s all good. It all comes from the same dough, right?”
Also on offer are a handful of Italian and Italian-American sandwiches (including the New Orleans-style muffuletta), salads and appetizers; look out especially for the pancetta wrapped shrimp and the oven-roasted P.E.I. mussels. And in true Walker’s style, Girello offers plenty of alcohol to wash down a meal—a selection of Italian wines and a more international choice of beer, including Peroni and Heineken, along with specialty brews like Victory Hop Devil IPA and Ommegang Witte.

“It’s all just been a lot of fun,” Walker said with a glow. “Opening Girello now has reminded me of what it felt like to open Walker’s all those years ago—makes me feel like a young man again. Maybe that’s what we mean when we say Walker’s is the sort of place that makes the old feel young and the young feel like they’ve been there forever. Judging by the way I feel, Girello is following that tradition.”

Girello, 16 N. Moore St. (betw. N. Moore & Varick Sts.), 212-941-0109; 11 a.m.–11 p.m.

By Penny Gray

Joe Little, public relations manager for the New York City Rescue Mission (NYCRM) on Lafayette Street, talks about the homeless and working poor in Lower Manhattan…and a different sort of experience of the holiday season.

What is the New York City Rescue Mission?
We exist to feed the poor, to give rest to the weary and give courage to the hopeless. We’ve been around since 1872.

1872? That’s a long time ago.
Yup. We were founded in 1872 by Jerry McAuley. He was a real knucklehead from Lower Manhattan and a river thief, who committed all sorts of crimes. While serving time in Sing Sing Prison, he had a conversion, his heart was softened and he decided that when he got out of prison he wanted to do something to help men in his sort of situation, the ones who weren’t going to jump through the hoop. And that’s how the Rescue Mission came into being.

So NYCRM is a Christian organization?
It is; Christianity is part of the DNA of this programming, but it’s entirely ecumenical and we have volunteers from all faith traditions. We know that we’re not all that and that God loves us. We’re no better than anybody else on this planet. We’re just interested in how we can live out the teachings of Christ.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” We’re here to serve the down and out, the marginalized, the outcast. Many are homeless, but not all of them. The working poor come to us as well, as do the folks visiting the family court. If you’re visiting the family court, you’re having a tough day.

The outreach isn’t purely a homeless shelter?
We do have 99 beds for homeless men, and we serve dinner for them every night and breakfast for them every morning. But we also serve a free lunch to anybody on the streets who wants it, and we particularly try to reach out to the folks at the family courts because it’s such a difficult experience. In addition, we have a food pantry from which families can come and get bags of groceries once a week. We’ve seen a 20 percent increase in use of the food pantry in the last year of the economic crisis.

We also have a Residency Recovery Program in which men can commit to staying with us full-time and learning about themselves and how to change before entering back into the world. Right now, we have 20-something men in our Residency Recovery Program. They’re here to smooth off the rough edges, soften their hearts and strengthen their minds. Some of these guys have been on the streets all of their adult lives, so it’s a big change.

What’s the success rate of the Residential Recovery Program?
What’s success? What’s progress? What’s change? It’s hard to quantify the success of this mission. Is success to hold down a job for a week? A month? A year? Is it to stay off drugs for a week? A month? A year? I don’t really know. How do we measure interior change? But I guess you could say we have a 100 percent success rate, if you measure by the fact that everybody who needs a bite gets a bite.

Does being Downtown shape the NYCRM?
You bet it does. We’re definitely a Lower Manhattan thing. To some extent, Downtown is the locus of homelessness in Manhattan. It’s really where the homeless live. And we have organic relationships with Lower Manhattan that have been built up over the last 140 years.

Downtown is also the location of a lot of wealth, and the two are inextricably intertwined. 9/11 witnessed a real reversal of all of that and really captured the spirit of the NYCRM. Many prospering people came to us that day—they came to eat, to pray, to take a shower. And in that momentary reversal of fortune, the homeless and the broken were given a chance to serve and to help those who were well- to-do. Sometimes everybody needs to be rescued.

What’s happening at NYCRM for the holiday season?
As early as Thanksgiving, all of the colorful decorations and the bells came out. Our volunteers from Lower Manhattan really come out for the holiday season to help, realizing that blessing others is the same thing as being blessed. So that really raises the spirit to see so many folks participating. There’s a real joyfulness and excitement.

Photo courtesy of NYC Rescue Mission

By Penny Gray

The Howard Greenberg Gallery has just opened an exhibition of the photographic works of Vivian Maier (1926–2009) from the Maloof Collection. If the name doesn"t ring a bell, it"s because Maier"s work is a recent discovery.

Vivian Maier, “Untitled, Self-portrait, n.d. © Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC

A career nanny, Maier lived a life of anonymity, caring for children and traveling with wealthy families around the world's all the while, it seems, taking pictures. While working on a definitive history of the Portage Park neighborhood in Chicago, John Maloof discovered her work at a local auction house in 2007, and so began his collection.

In her lifetime, Maier generated more than 2,000 rolls of film, 3,000 prints and more than 100,000 negatives of her work with the help of a trusty Rolleiflex she carried at all times. She shared the images with no one. The photos range in subject from candid images of women and children to snapshots of insurrection capturing the unseen lives of the downtrodden and destitute.

Of Maier and her work, Howard Greenberg reflected, “It is such an unusual story with no resolution. At first, her images are extremely well-seen, quality photographs of life on the street, in New York City and Chicago. But as one looks at the body of her work, she reveals deeper interests. Then one tries to imagine who she was, what motivated her, her personality.

The exhibition represents the wide scope of Maier"s body of work but fails to delve into a consolidation of her essential output. Mediocre and amateurish prints of city architecture are displayed alongside well-composed and affecting images of homely humanity existing in geometric space. In one print, a newspaper vendor sleeps standing up in the midst of rows and rows of magazines, perfectly boxed in by his occupation. Maier had an astounding ability to frame displacement, and this gift has been underexplored in the Greenberg exhibition.

Indeed, the most successful of her images are the most personal. Maier"s series of self-portraits visually manifest Emily Dickinson"s meditation on invisibility: “I"m Nobody! Who are you? In each image, Maier cleverly employs an inanimate object to diffuse her identity: a reflective window returns Maier"s distorted and ghostly image to herself, a mirror in an antique shop reveals her miniature reflection, the head of a sprinkler bounces back a minuscule version of herself next to her looming, faceless shadow. Not unlike Dickinson, Maier plays a game in her self-portraits, enjoying the intellectual conceit of un-becoming.

These are meditations on the disappearing act of existence, and they come closest to the essential spirit of Maier"s work. As she herself said, “We have to make room for other people. It"s a wheel's you get on, you go to the end and someone else has the same opportunity to go to the end, and so on, and somebody else takes their place. There"s nothing new under the sun.

One has the sense that the world has just made a place for Maier and her work in a day-late-dollar-short sort of way. It"s a bittersweet recognition. And while Maier is correct that there"s nothing new under the sun's and there"s certainly nothing new about a female artist"s anonymity due to a lack of confidence's there is something wistful and true in Maier"s work. It"s worth a visit.

Vivian Maier: Photographs from the Maloof Collection

Through Jan. 28, 2012, Howard Greenberg Gallery, 41 E. 57th St., Ste. 1406, 212-334-0010, www.howardgreenberg.com.

By Penny Gray

Avice president at nonprofit Housing Works, Susie Lupert talks to us about the Housing Works Bookstore Café at 126 Crosby St., as well as the other business ventures that Housing Works has going in its fight to end homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, lifesaving services and entrepreneurial businesses.

How did you land at Housing Works?
I have a background in not-for-profits and a master’s in not-for-profit policy, so I’ve been dedicated to the field for a long time. I’ve been here for eight years now, so it’s been the crux of my career.

How would you describe Housing Works?
Housing Works is a grassroots organization dedicated to helping homeless people who are HIV-positive. We’re a unique nonprofit because we believe that profitability isn’t bad. An efficiently run company isn’t bad. I can’t imagine another nonprofit like us. We’re running businesses to raise money to help people.

You’re a vice president—what does that mean in terms of day-to-day practice?
A lot! My job is to generate long-term visionary ideas about our businesses. I run several of the small businesses for Housing Works, and we’re always thinking about how to be profitable while remaining true to our core values. It’s a unique balance of brainstorming about revenue generation while also developing a board of directors, all the while leaving enough space to think about new ways to raise money for the HIV-positive homeless of New York, which is our ultimate purpose and mission. The Bookstore and Café are only two of the businesses I’m responsible for running.

How does the Housing Works Bookstore Café on Crosby Street relate to Housing Works’ wider mission?
We’ve been at 126 Crosby St. since 1996, so it’s been quite a while—long enough that we’re a Downtown institution. We’re really one of the last community spaces left in Soho, and we pride ourselves on being part of the Downtown community. We’ve got many supporters who are die-hard Downtown artists, and we hope that people see us as part of the Downtown infrastructure.

What’s it like being Downtown at the moment?
It’s tough because the rent is high and we have a large staff to support. We’ve started doing private events to subsidize the cost of staying open. People just don’t buy as many books as they used to. It’s a real sacrifice to us to close early to fund the location, but the space just can’t be a used bookstore anymore because we don’t sell enough books. One interesting fact that most folks don’t know is that we actually run another business underneath the Bookstore Café in the basement. It’s our online bookshop, and it generates about $1 million in revenue every year, equal to the bookstore’s revenue. We provide skills and full-time jobs to those who have come through our job-training program—it’s an amazing incubator to make money and provide jobs. It’s also a great form of outreach to let people know about Housing Works all around the world. We put a bookmark in every book we ship out, and we hear from folks all the time who are so excited to learn about us and visit us when they come to New York City.

Do you think the Housing Works Bookstore Café could exist elsewhere in the city?
Sure; it’s replicable, but it wouldn’t be the same. It would probably be purely an events space. People aren’t buying books anymore, which may be sad, but it’s the way things are. The private events keep us open and part of the community, which is what we want to be and do. We couldn’t replace the Downtown community somewhere else in the city, that’s for sure!

What upcoming events is Housing Works Bookstore Café hosting?
Every Friday night we have a happy hour with cheap drink specials and board games. We really want to create a community space for people—what better way to do that than to provide a space where people can economically have a glass of wine before dinner and get to know other? Or, even better, just read and drink. We also host two Moth Story Slams every month. [The Moth is a nonprofit dedicated to telling stories about true life.] We’ve enjoyed that collaboration very much. Dec. 18 is a special day for us as we’ll be hosting “What the Dickens?” a Christmas Carol marathon in which authors and celebrities come and read throughout the day, starting at 1 p.m. That’s not to be missed, and it’s an excellent way to celebrate the holiday season.

What do you love most about your job?
My job is totally unique. I love it because not another one exists like it in the world. Every year I’m taking on projects and job elements I haven’t done the year before. It’s a position that is constantly in flux. And that’s a lot of fun.

Photo courtesy of housing works

Upper East Side poet Anna Rabinowitz has much to smile about these days. Most poets are grateful to have a collection of poetry published; few can boast that their words have been set in an opera, and even fewer can say that the opera has been successful enough to warrant a CD release. But Rabinowitz can.

From a book-length poem to a multimedia experimental opera featuring the music of composer Stefan Weisman to its current incarnation as an audio recording, Darkling is a haunting portrayal of the emotions, terrors and incalculable losses incurred by Eastern European Jewish people during the period from between the two world wars to the Holocaust.

Rabinowitz’s journey to becoming a poet was a somewhat circuitous one. She had a full life as a wife, mother and interior designer before deciding to pursue life as a poet, something she had dreamed about as a child. “I just decided that I didn’t want to wake up one day and realize I hadn’t done what I wanted to do, so I found my way back to poetry,” she said.

Anna Rabinowitz.

She started taking classes at The New School, where she was singled out by teachers and encouraged to take her new vocation seriously. She enrolled in the Columbia MFA program as a mature student. “It was the best thing I ever did,” she said.

Since then, Rabinowitz has gone on to an illustrious career as a poet. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow, she has published four volumes of poetry, including Darkling.

Darkling started as a shoebox full of photographs and letters in her parents’ closet. When Rabinowitz’s parents died, she was left with a collection of memory fragments she didn’t know or understand. “It was terrible to grow up in this world alone, marginalized and without family, having parents who must have felt terrible that they were the only ones to survive,” she recalled. “And all the while I felt angry with them because they wouldn’t talk about these things.”

Rabinowitz sent the fragments off to be translated from Yiddish into English. When they returned, the real work of Darkling began. “This project was a way of honoring the lives of friends and relatives, not forgetting them, letting them have their moment. I guess it’s a way of being a sort of missionary and relieving myself of guilt at the same time.”

For Rabinowitz, the process was both haunting and frustrating. “I didn’t want to invent anything. I knew I was distant from the events of the Holocaust. I find it problematic when people write about this period. It’s like they’re writing a consolation, which trivializes it.”

The book of poetry was released by Tupelo Press in 2001 and caught the attention of American Opera Projects, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and generating new American operas while expanding the form. Post-classical composer Stefan Weisman created a score that is rich in minimalist riffs, recalling Schoenberg, Bartok and Shostakovich and hinting at Jewish folk idioms.

The operatic incarnation of Darkling opened at Classic Stage Company in 2006 to such success that it returned to New York the following year as part of New York City Opera’s VOX. Since then, the opera has toured widely in Europe and the United States.

Now, Darkling is available in a realm beyond the written page and live performance. The new recording, released by Albany Records and produced by Judith Sherman, brings Darkling full circle for Rabinowitz. “Time inevitably imposes a distance on all events of history. How do we keep memories alive? Should we keep memories alive?” she said. “But in this case, it’s important that we keep navigating the distance. Darkling has a life of its own and needs to continue.”

Darkling is available at www.amazon.com.

Upper East Side poet Anna Rabinowitz has much to smile about these days. Most poets are grateful to have a collection of poetry published; few can boast that their words have been set in an opera, and even fewer can say that the opera has been successful enough to warrant a CD release. But Rabinowitz can.

From a book-length poem to a multimedia experimental opera featuring the music of composer Stefan Weisman to its current incarnation as an audio recording, Darkling is a haunting portrayal of the emotions, terrors and incalculable losses incurred by Eastern European Jewish people during the period from between the two world wars to the Holocaust.

Anna Rabinowitz.

Rabinowitz"s journey to becoming a poet was a somewhat circuitous one. She had a full life as a wife, mother and interior designer before deciding to pursue life as a poet, something she had dreamed about as a child. “I just decided that I didn"t want to wake up one day and realize I hadn"t done what I wanted to do, so I found my way back to poetry, she said.

She started taking classes at The New School, where she was singled out by teachers and encouraged to take her new vocation seriously. She enrolled in the Columbia MFA program as a mature student. “It was the best thing I ever did, she said.

Since then, Rabinowitz has gone on to an illustrious career as a poet. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow, she has published four volumes of poetry, including Darkling.

Darkling started as a shoebox full of photographs and letters in her parents" closet. When Rabinowitz"s parents died, she was left with a collection of memory fragments she didn"t know or understand. “It was terrible to grow up in this world alone, marginalized and without family, having parents who must have felt terrible that they were the only ones to survive, she recalled. “And all the while I felt angry with them because they wouldn"t talk about these things.

Rabinowitz sent the fragments off to be translated from Yiddish into English. When they returned, the real work of Darkling began. “This project was a way of honoring the lives of friends and relatives, not forgetting them, letting them have their moment. I guess it"s a way of being a sort of missionary and relieving myself of guilt at the same time.

For Rabinowitz, the process was both haunting and frustrating. “I didn"t want to invent anything. I knew I was distant from the events of the Holocaust. I find it problematic when people write about this period. It"s like they"re writing a consolation, which trivializes it.

The book of poetry was released by Tupelo Press in 2001 and caught the attention of American Opera Projects, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and generating new American operas while expanding the form. Post-classical composer Stefan Weisman created a score that is rich in minimalist riffs, recalling Schoenberg, Bartok and Shostakovich and hinting at Jewish folk idioms.

The operatic incarnation of Darkling opened at Classic Stage Company in 2006 to such success that it returned to New York the following year as part of New York City Opera"s VOX. Since then, the opera has toured widely in Europe and the United States.

Now, Darkling is available in a realm beyond the written page and live performance. The new recording, released by Albany Records and produced by Judith Sherman, brings Darkling full circle for Rabinowitz. “Time inevitably imposes a distance on all events of history. How do we keep memories alive? Should we keep memories alive? she said. “But in this case, it"s important that we keep navigating the distance. Darkling has a life of its own and needs to continue.

Darkling is available at www.amazon.com.

The New York Times has called HERE (formerly HERE Arts Center) “one of the most unusual arts spaces in New York and possibly the model for the cutting-edge arts spaces of tomorrow.” Kristin Marting, artistic director of HERE, speaks about the shifting cultural scene Downtown and HERE’s place in the middle of it all.

How long have you been with HERE?

I’ve been with HERE since its inception in 1993. I was one of the founders. There were two theater companies that had recently been kicked out of their spaces—The Tiny Mythic Theater and The Home for Contemporary Theatre & Arts. We found each other and discovered that we could do more by combining our efforts.

And what was the combined result?

The result is HERE! We created a multidisciplinary space that could support artists from a variety of disciplines in the hopes that they would start bouncing ideas off of each other. Our aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative and the experimental, and in 17 years, we’ve supported over 12,000 artists and attracted more than 950,000 arts patrons. The core of what we do is develop and support resident artists. Over the course of three years, they develop a project. We show it here, and then hopefully we can launch them on tour.

In your nearly 20 years leading HERE, what changes have you witnessed in the Downtown arts scene?

There are really significant changes in terms of the quality of the work. Among the various artistic disciplines, there is less segregation and more integration. There’s also been a real increase in the range of people participating in arts events Downtown, and an increasing openness to the sort of work that is made down here. Having said that, there’s also been a real shift of available spaces. There has been an addition of spaces but a loss of spaces as well.

Before HERE moved in, very few people went west of Sixth Avenue, but a lot of people come to HERE and I think we’ve really helped open up the neighborhood. We have a young demographic, with most of our patrons in their twenties and thirties, and most of them don’t live Downtown because it’s become so expensive. Downtown really is a state of mind.

What do you love most about your job?

I love the opportunity to work with artists to help them realize what they’re thinking. Every artist thinks in a completely different way, and every end result reflects that. It’s like, every time you create a new product, each new product is a new thing, entirely unrelated to the product before. So the fun and the challenge is in being fresh and open with each project.

What do you like least about your job?

I hate spending so much time raising money. It’s always a challenging task. We’ve got great support on so many levels—a broad range of support—but it’s awfully time-consuming. It’s also a continual struggle to compensate artists for their work. If you averaged out the hours artists work on their products, they’re working for less than minimum wage. It’s frustrating to spend so much time raising money and still not be able to resolve that income gap.

What can we look forward to coming up at HERE?

In December, we have a wonderful show called Stick Up! (Braquage) coming into the space. It’s a French piece of puppet object theater and it’s an absolute delight. The show involves cat burglars, bombs, car chases… it’s very physical. It’s a great piece for the family, lots of fun and quite spectacular.

We’ll also continue with our Puppet Parlors, which Basil Twist curates. Puppeteers of New York pool their resources and present little pieces in a wonderful mélange.

In January, we’ll have more shows from our resident artists. Miranda, by creator, composer, librettist and producer Kamala Sankaram, is a steampunk murder-mystery chamber opera in which the musicians do all of the acting and singing as well. And Chimera, by Deborah Stein and Suli Holum, is an arresting new play inspired by a real-life horror story, which explores what happens when technology shatters our ideas of who we think we are.

How has your Downtown location affected what you do and make at HERE?

We have no pressure to create commercially, so we can support the uniqueness and vision of the artists we work with on their own terms. We have a real freedom to select artists. We don’t have to edit our choices, and the artists don’t have to edit their choices either. The art has integrity and professional quality, but it can be whatever it wants to be.

Photo by Carl Skutsch