By Helaina Hovitz 

Nigel Barker received the Point Courage Award. Photo by A.Sussman/Invision

The annual Point Foundation Honors Gala went on as planned at Chelsea Piers last night, with over 450 guests in attendance despite the disturbing news that broke just hours earlier. According to event staff, an NYPD patrol boat carefully cruised alongside the edges of Pier Sixty in the late afternoon shortly before the event started.

Hosted by actor, TV correspondent and chef David Burtka, the event raised over $660,000 for the Point Foundation, a nonprofit that provides financial support and mentorship for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students so that they can attend higher educational institutions nationwide.

Burtka’s fiancée, Neil Patrick Harris, was also in attendance, along with basketball wife Alani (La La) Anthony, actresses Ally Sheedy and Cara Buono, WPIX news anchor Tamsen Fadal, and model Noella Coursaris Musunka. Andy Kelso and Timothy Ware of Broadway’s Kinky Boots performed several musical numbers.

From the stage, Jorge Valencia, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation, acknowledged the concern everyone at the event shared about the people of Boston, noting “how it was good to be together in a room with caring and supportive friends.”

Neil Patrick Harris attended with fiancée David Burtka. Photo by A.Sussman/Invision

The Estée Lauder Companies received the Point Inspiration Award for their work with the organization, which includes providing mentorship to youth within the LGBTQ community and hosting professional development sessions at Point leadership conferences. Tony Award winner Judith Light presented the award to Peter Lichtenthal, President of the company’s Bumble and Bumble and Smashbox brands, who announced upon acceptance that The Estée Lauder Companies would fund a $100,000 Named Point Scholarship.

Political strategist and civil rights activist David Mixner presented photographer Nigel Barker with the Point Courage Award. Barker, who is straight, has been a longtime public supporter of the LGBTQ community, and is currently working on a documentary about the Port-au-Prince slums of Bel-Air in post-earthquake Haiti.

“So many young people around the country are wondering if they can get a higher education degree,” said Valencia. “They are worried about money, but, especially for the LGBTQ young people, it’s also a crisis of confidence.”

Credit Guy Raz

At 34 years of age, Yossi may have a promising career going as a Tel Aviv cardiologist, but when it comes to matters of the heart for himself, the man is in stasis, a lonely heart who can be seen in Eytan Fox’s Yossi downloading porn and even seeking out online encounters (albeit with a significantly younger photo of himself). Yes, Yossi’s heart is still beating, but he doesn’t seem to know exactly what to do about it.

Yossi is the sequel to the 2002 Israeli film Yossi and Jagger, also directed by Fox and both times starring the subtle, sensitive Ohad Knoller. The first film told the bittersweet story of the clandestine relationship between Yossi, an Israeli Defence Force commander, and Lior, his brash seconds-in-command officer. While moving, the first Yossi was a relatively primitive film, narratively straightforward but emotionally compelling. It was, however, a crucial milestone in the portrayal of gay life in the Gaza strip.

A decade later, Yossi is single. He may not be closeted, but his life appears to be hermetically sealed, locked in a kind of self-exile. Yossi doesn’t tell us too much about what has happened in the intervening decade, but the sad-sack look on Yossi’s face and his nebbishy appearance fill in between the lines. The doctor deprives himself of fun, initially refusing a night out with a fellow doctor celebrating his imminent divorce. An encounter with a middle-aged patient also stirs something within the doctor, and provides a nice callback for those who have seen the original (for those who have not, I have been deliberately vague in this review). I do wish that writer Itay Segal had extended this rich portion of the film. While perhaps lacking in originality – it manages to summon emotions from crucial scenes in both Born on the Fourth of July and Brokeback Mountain – it acts as a catalyst, sending Yossi on a literal and metaphorical journey that pushes both borders and boundaries.

Yossi hits the road during the film’s second half, and at a rest stop, he encounters some restless soldiers who’ve just missed the bus back to their hotel. He offers them a ride, and, amid the young men’s dismissal of Yossi’s preferred music, the film – and its protagonist – fixates on one member of the group who demonstrates a familiarity and a respect for Yossi’s taste. He is Tom (Oz Zehavi), whom the other soldiers refer to as “homo,” not as a slur but as a term of endearment. Yossi, on a work-mandated leave, decides to stay at the same Eilat resort.

Here, Segal captures the changing international attitudes regarding sexuality through his two leads. Segal also uses the arts as its own reference tool. Yossi listens Gustav Mahler’s “Adagietto” in the car with the soldiers, and later, poolside, reads Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice(!). Savvy cineastes will pick up on the fact that director Luchino Visconti incorporated “Adagietto” in his film version of Venice. Yossi’s story parallels that of Venice’s own Gustav von Aschenbach, although in this case, it’s Zehavi’s Tom who does the pursuing. Tom is more open and aggressive than Yossi has ever been, and he pursues the schlubby older man both persistently and obviously. There isn’t much conflict here, only Yossi’s internal battle with himself, made apparent both by Fox’s  mise-en-scene  (choosing first to shoot Knoller from above and behind, then later focusing more and more on the man’s face) and Knoller’s own underplaying of Yossi’s painful, yet repressed, yearning to connect. Zehavi, in a gentle performance, is also quite compelling, as are Orly Silbersatz Banai and Shlomo Sadan in supporting roles. (Singers Keren Ann and Devendra Barnhart will also likely draw new fans due to their exposure here.)

The stakes here are both jaw-droppingly low and incredibly crucial. Yossi has little to do other than follow E. M. Forster’s famed edict atop Howards End: “Only connect.” And yet that is a tall order for the naturally inward Yossi. But the film eventually gets so bogged down with Yossi’s own issues that it forgets love and relationships face many other obstacles. It must be said that the movie, rich in so many ways, is nullifyingly simplistic in other ones. Many of the events that befall its protagonist ultimately feel too easy and unearned, and err towards the unconvincing. Yossi may, gratefully, finally choose life. But one still wishes that this sequel had a bit more pulsating within it.

Yossi is playing at the Elinor Bunim Monroe Film Center.

The artistic advance of Eytan Fox’s ‘Yossi’

Oz Zehavi in Yossi.

In the new Yossi, Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox revisits the protagonist from his 2004 military love story Yossi & Jagger. A slight narrative shift shows the former army medic (played by Ohad Knoller) in his mid-30s, now an overweight cardiologist still mourning his lover’s death more than 10 years ago, sinking into loneliness: He’s introduced alseep. Fox’s project is almost a fairytale; a kiss brings Yossi back to life.

Fox’s new story deals realistically with the emotions of Yossi’s second coming out. Desire is submerged in Yossi’s flaccid body and sadness. He limits his own options in two remarkable temptation scenes: a night of bisexual possibility with a beefy partying colleague (Lior Ashkenazi) and a hook-up with a high-living gym rat and dance promoter (Gil Desiano) met on the Internet. These emotional low points are early high points in the film’s casually modern view of the situations—erotic free choice—that are part of the acceptance of gay life. Fox, a humanist romantic who bridged Israeli-Palestinian gay brotherhood in the 2008 The Bubble, understands Yossi’s potential decadence and pulls him out of his tailspin.

After a quietly devastating visit to his lover’s past, Yossi takes off. On the road to Sinai, he meets a group of young Israeli soldiers who draw him back to the camaraderie of military life (rapport memorably expressed by Brando’s lonely officer in Reflections in a Golden Eye in a longingly alliterative mumbling about “men among men”). Fox exults in that rapport. His embrace of Yossi’s humanity conveys a post-Stonewall and post-AIDS artist’s guiltlessness—a quality displayed by few American gay filmmakers. As The Bubble demonstrated, Fox isn’t caught up in issues, statements or grandstanding. (That’s why his overtly political Walk on Water failed.) Yossi’s gentle romanticism disguises the fact that Fox is making a major artistic advance.

Take the transition to Yossi’s road trip: Dissolving from solitude to the open road, it recalls a Kiarostami image without the aesthetic remoteness. The Middle Eastern landscape suggests new emotional territory. The film’s realistic sensuality (photographed with an optimistic glow by Guy Raz) makes it comparable to Julian Hernandez’s Raging Sun, Raging Sky—a masterpiece still unreleased in this country, shown only at gay film festivals. Like that film, Yossi imagines the natural complexity of gay love. Fox doesn’t go into the abstract ruminations of Hernandez’s magnificent philosophical epic, but his confrontation with the grief process and the depth of yearning is comparably profound.

When Yossi observes the lithe, sun-kissed, hyperactive soldiers on leave—including tall, smooth-faced, bow-lipped Tom (Oz Zehavi) — he’s confronted with the life passing him by and notices the gay liberation they take for granted, the burdened past that’s outside their generation’s awareness. These soldier boys’ joking sexual ease goes beyond homophobia; it’s a bit idealized to include shared enjoyment of thumping dance music which dates Yossi, who listens to Mahler and grips a paperback of Death in Venice while lounging poolside. “You can read at home!” chides the teasingly handsome Nimrod (Meir Golan).

By evoking—and remaking—Death in Venice so gently and humorously, Fox modernizes Thomas Mann’s ruminations on beauty, desire and the divine in human form an essential achievement in gay and human consciousness. Fox connects Yossi’s grieving history and rebirth with gay love’s healthy future—and does it without the sentimental melancholy of the recent British film Weekend. The scene of Yossi letting down his defenses with Tom uncannily recalls the lyric in “Love, Part II” by Bright Light, Bright Light: “Do what you want with me/Let everybody see/I’m in love again.” With such exuberance, Yossi even surpasses gay movies as admirable as Oslo, August 31st and Ira Sachs’ Keep the Lights On.

In fact, this film peaks during a wonderful seductive pantomime where Yossi and Tom go through a light-switch tug-of-war. “I want to see you!” Tom insists. Somewhere Luchino Visconti is smiling.

Follow Armond White on Twitter at 3xchair.

Barbara Warren heads LGBT health division at Beth Israel

Barbara Warren, the director of LGBT health services for Beth Israel, is a humble woman who, according to Vice President for Public Affairs Jim Mandler, “has spent her entire career advocating for individuals in the LGBT community.”

Before arriving at Beth Israel 11 months ago, Warren spent ten years as a policy advocate, doing research and policy work. The position at Beth Israel was “an opportunity to actually implement this work in a real-world setting,” she explained. “That’s what’s gratifying.”

Since joining the hospital, she has overseen training in LGBT cultural competency to over a thousand employees. The hospital will also be piloting data collection for clinical management of gender identity this spring, under Warren’s supervision.

She noted in the past year there has also been increased community wellness programming.
Warren explained that the Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders group (SAGE) opened the first LGBT senior center in the world.

“We got a small grant from a donor to do a wellness series called ‘Ask the Docs’ at the SAGE senior center starting this winter,” Warren said. “We’re doing similar stuff with the LGBT center and Gay Men’s Health Crisis.”

Despite these successes, Warren’s time at Beth Israel has not been without its difficulties.
“It’s a huge challenge to take good intentions and policies and translate them into sustainable practice in an institution where over 8,000 employees across a variety of disciplines have a lot of other things they’re working on,” Warren said.

“There’s a lot of competing demands on time and interest,” she added.

One of the biggest challenges facing Warren is balancing the delicate art of meeting patient needs, while also protecting their safety and confidentiality.

She explained it’s a sensitive process, addressing these many factors. “It’s not just training,” she said. “It’s new systems, outreach in the community, grappling with issues in order to do quality assurance and document both emerging needs and best practices.”

These new systems include the implementation of electronic health records.

Warren explained that for health reasons it can be important to identify people who are lesbian, gay and transgender in these records, but there are confidentiality concerns, as it’s not simply “the same as saying your age or ethnicity.”

“We still don’t live in a world where people feel totally safe about being out and having their sexual orientation in an electronic health record,” Warren explained. “Even in a city like New York, where there’s equal protection under law.”

“I hear people say: ‘I don’t mind telling my provider, but if it’s on my electronic health record, what if I’m in the emergency room, unconscious, in Oklahoma, and it’s on my record that I’m a lesbian,’” Warren said. “That’s a challenge.”

Warren plans to continue addressing these issues as aggressively as possible, saying the challenges will not stop her or her colleagues.

“We’ll never have to worry again with this [electronic database] system about people being treated inappropriately in any setting … but there are related issues, particularly when you’re talking about sexual orientation.”

She continued: “There isn’t equal protection all the way across the board. Experience says it’s better to be out, [but] it’s still anxiety-provoking.”

“We’re still at the cutting edge in the real-world setting,” she added.

Nonetheless, Warren believes there’s broad support across the institution for improving services to LGBT patients.

“This institution is 100 percent behind working through the problems,” Warren said. “It’s really motivated by doing the right thing. A lot of people are motivated by getting patients, but [Beth Israel and its partners] are motivated by quality of care.”

While grappling with these tough issues on a regular basis, Warren even devotes some of her free time to providing medical care to others, including taking care of her elderly mother.

The Village Halloween Parade, a 39-year tradition, is just another check on the list of Hurricane Sandy’s victims, which includes the destruction of much of Atlantic City, Long Island, Downtown Manhattan and the New York City mass transit system.

“For the first time in our 39 year history, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and the NYPD have CANCELLED the Parade,” read the official website of the Village Halloween Parade, which was scheduled for Halloween night.

Serra Hirsch started piecing together her costume Sunday evening, moving the tree and the bear around to see where she wanted them. Photo by Sophia Rosenbaum

Instead of intricate costumes and mobs of people taking over 6th Avenue in the Village, clean-up crews will be working to remove fallen trees and bring power back to the millions in the dark since Monday’s super storm.

Destruction around the metropolitan area evoked images of doomsday. A spooky coincidence, perhaps, but this year’s Halloween parade featured an end-of-the-world theme: “Tick! Tock!,” a poke at the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the end of the world in 2012.

Jeanne Fleming, the producing director of the parade, sent an email Tuesday evening to participants and media alerting them to the cancelation of the parade after Mayor Michael Bloomberg made it official on Tuesday afternoon.

Fleming is working diligently to reschedule the parade, but said it is only possible if the organization’s small budget allows for it.

“It seems at the moment as if we cannot afford to do it a week later,” she said.

Meanwhile, Serra Hirsch, a puppeteer who has been active in the parade since 1994, remained hopeful Tuesday evening that the parade will be rescheduled sometime next week.

Hirsch said the cancellation was a “huge bummer” for her, but said mass transit is crucial to the return of pre-Hurricane Sandy New York City.

“We can’t return to normal until the subway returns,” she said. “The city is crippled with no subway, and the police, sanitation, and other services aren’t really available to make the parade run smoothly and safely.”

Hirsch said she understands the decision to cancel the parade, as safety is an issue to begin with because people’s costumes cause obstructed views, and drunk audience members sometimes become aggressive.

“I don’t think they had a choice,” she said. “The light’s are out still throughout the parade route. It’s just not safe.”

Jennifer Weidenbaum, 34, has gone to the parade with Hirsch for five years and started working on her ski-costume in August. She attempted to get into the city Tuesday from her home in Jersey City, but said too many roads were closed. On her drive home, she was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

“I was actually happy when I was listening to the radio in the car when they said the parade was cancelled,” Weidenbaum said. “I don’t want any of the city’s resources to be directed towards a parade when there’s so many other important things going on.”

Sunday afternoon, Hirsch was busy at work on her elaborate campfire costume scene of two girl scouts at a campfire roasting marshmallows with a bear lurking behind them. Hirsch’s plan was to act as the head of one of the girls and said she planned on pretending she had no idea there was a bear behind her.

While Hirsch is working on her costume at a much more relaxed pace now, she is still set to appear on Kelly and Michael’s live Halloween show, which was moved to November 5 due to the storm. If she wins the costume contest, she could win a $10,000 gift card to Home Goods.

Weidenbaum is still planning on celebrating Halloween this evening in her Jersey City neighborhood. Her costume of an Olympic skier racing down a mountain to the finish line is almost complete, and she plans to use it for next year’s Halloweenparade in the West Village.

“I’ll have a leg up next year,” she said. “I’ll put it in storage.”

“Homeless LGBT youth, most of whom have been cast out of their homes, have faced the worst kind of cruelty and rejection,” said Ali Forney’s Executive Director Carl Siciliano in a statement. “I am overwhelmed with gratitude that they are now being shown kindness by this community and its leaders.

Located at 222 East 13th Street, the building was a notorious crack house in the 1980′s known for its weekly stabbings, burglaries and fires. According to an article in City Journal,  odors from trash and human waste were so bad at the time that it would take months for the landlord of the next door apartment building to fill vacancies.

The city took control of the troubled building in 1991 as part of its 7A Anti-Abandonment program, and evicted tenants and padlocked the building’s doors the following year. Some of the ex-tenants entered a legal battle with the city over their eviction, but the building has remained boarded up.

Now, the city will pass ownership to the Cooper Square Committee and the Ali Forney Center for the renovation project. The building, which will house up to 18 disowned youths, will be named the Bea Arthur Residence in honor of the late actress, who was an outspoken supporter of the ALC and left $300,000 to the organization in her will.

“We’re thankful to the elected officials for funding our capital request, and we look forward to making this project a reality,” said Steve Herrick, the Cooper Square Committee’s Executive Director.

–Paul Bisceglio

Photo by James Kelleher.

NY Press recently reported Developer Stephan Boivin filed for demolition permits for the home at 186 Spring Street, which formerly belonged to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) has been fighting to have the property preserved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

The LPC recently declared the site not an individual landmark, the Village Voice reports. The property does not retain enough of its original material to be considered. According to the LPC’s statement, the general area is still under review, but not an immediate priority.

GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman told the Press this is not a vote, so the decision could change “at any time.” Berman said his group has sent the LPC further important information, hoping to influence their decision about the property.

This information includes a letter in which Berman and various advocates cite the area’s “powerful and unique connection to the early gay rights movement and New York’s earliest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) communities and their struggle.”

Declaring the area in which the house stands a landmark zone would still preserve the property, even if it’s not independently a landmark.

—Alissa Fleck

Sen. Tom Duane

Senator Tom Duane, a longtime outspoken gay-rights activist, is leaving the State Senate on January 1st after a prolific 14-year career representing Manhattan communities from East Midtown, Downtown and the Upper West Side. Duane says he’s ready to move on with his life, though he plans to remain active in pursuing the agenda items most important to him in whatever way he can. We spoke to the Senator about his reasons for retiring and his plans for the future.

What made you decide not to seek reelection?

I’ve been here for seven terms, I wanted to do something else and realized it’s time to start the next chapter.

How have you seen state politics evolve in the course of your career?

I’ve seen much of the legislation I pushed for have a direct impact on people’s lives. I’ve seen these things spread to other cities and states as well. It’s been important to me to work hard to pass legislation that serves as a model for other cities.

What were the defining moments of your career as a member of the Senate?

I think I set a good example in that every piece of legislation I pushed for, whether in the minority or majority, [and] had support from both sides of the aisle. I also made a direct impact on people’s lives passing legislation on hate crimes, health care, marriage equality, gender identity expression and sex trafficking. I supported the Midwifery Modernization act to allow nurse midwives to practice in New York State. I’ve supported routine HIV testing and helped lessen the stigma, particularly within correctional facilities. I also supported the prohibition of insurance companies to create tier four drugs with incredibly expensive co-payments.

What are your plans now that you have made the decision to retire from the Senate?

I would say “retire” is not a completely accurate term, I’m just not ready for reelection. I plan to continue working in my own small way to make the world a better place, I’m just not sure of the form of that yet. I plan to indulge in the luxury of thinking about what that may be. I hope to continue working for those who have not had a voice in government. I will still focus on working incredibly hard until the end of my term on January 1st.

What will you miss the most?

I’ll miss the challenges of garnering the widest possible support for issues I believe in, especially from people who have not shared my points of view. I’ll miss finding that common ground, and working with people in a collegial manner to pass bills that help people in a way they should be helped. Now I’ll be doing that in a different way than in elected office.

—Alissa Fleck

Nancy Ploeger, a St. Louis native, has headed the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

By Dan Rosenblum

Nancy Ploeger is working on one of her biggest challenges yet. Over the past few years, the building of the Second Avenue Subway, one of the largest construction projects in the country, has put retail businesses behind barricades and meant ever-changing work along the corridor.
As the director of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Ploeger is helping those 400 affected businesses build a community and find a voice.
“It’s very hard for an individual business to do their marketing and media,” she said.
For Ploeger, 62, helping businesses stick out began early in her teens. She dropped ping-pong balls out of a helicopter and handed out cherry pies dressed at Martha Washington to help her father, who worked for Sears.
As an Upper East Sider, Ploeger walks through the construction every day and sees the walkways that obscure stores and make it hard for elderly people or stroller-wielding parents to navigate. Besides its social media efforts, the Chamber has organized a restaurant week, art projects and other ways for affected stores and restaurants to attract shoppers and diners.
Dealing with the subway is only part of the Chamber’s work. In fact, in the country’s largest business center, the Chamber is one of only a few helping small businesses grow and working with governmental and international partners. At the Chamber, Ploeger also reaches out to other women, the LGBT community and young entrepreneurs.
“We run around trying to keep the plate spinning with all of these initiatives,” she said.
The Chamber also sponsors a community benefit fund that raises money for organizations on the Upper East Side.
Ploeger came to New York after graduating from Monmouth University without a clear-cut plan. She worked at Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s) and for more than a decade at TSI, which owns New York Sports Clubs. In 1994, she became executive director of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, growing its membership from 250 to more than 2,000.
That St. Louis upbringing helped her understand the faces behind small businesses. Ploeger said her favorite part of the job is getting emails from local business owners thanking her for the chance to network or for business discounts.
“I’m from St. Louis,” she said. “We’re all about people.”
For someone so connected to the growth of the nation’s largest business center, Ploeger said she finds joy in going upstate on weekends to feed deer, walk in the woods and ride horses.
“I really am a country girl,” she said.
A fan of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts at economic development, she doesn’t know what to expect from a new mayor in 2014.
“I just hope that our economy is on the roll again,” she said.
Ploeger said the High Line, Hudson Yards and the East River Ferry Service are only a few of the exciting projects in which the Chamber is trying to help local small business owners. “Every day is exciting, different and new,” she said. n

HOSPITAL APPOINTS LGBT HEALTH LEADER
Beth Israel Medical Center announced this week the appointment of nationally recognized LGBT health expert Barbara E.Warren, PsyD, as director of its newly established LGBT Health Services program.
Warren will work to develop partnerships between the hospital and local LGBT organizations and continue to advance Beth Israel’s nationally recognized efforts to meet the health care needs of New York’s LGBT community in a respectful and compassionate environment.
“Beth Israel Medical Center has embraced a unique opportunity to lead the way in establishing and sustaining LGBT affirmative hospital-based and outpatient care,” Warren said in a statement.
Warren served most recently for two years as director of the Center for LGBT Social Services and Public Policy at Hunter College. Prior to that she served for almost 20 years in progressively responsible positions at the LGBT Community Center in the West Village, the last seven as director of government relations, planning and research. She also consults on a number of federal, state and citywide initiatives to eliminate LGBT health disparities and to establish health equity throughout the health care system.
One of Warren’s principal assignments in her new position at Beth Israel will be to develop and implement ongoing, in-house educational programs to ensure that the hospital staff is attuned to the particular health care needs of the LGBT community.

UES RAPIST SENTENCED TO 22 YEARS IN PRISON
Kentrel Whitaker, 33, was sentenced this week for the assault and attempted rape of a 73-year-old woman on the Upper East Side. Whitaker attacked the victim last summer as she was walking on the East River promenade near East 111th Street at 6:40 a.m. He approached her from behind, threw her to the ground and hit her repeatedly before attempting to rape her. A passerby helped tear Whitaker away from his victim, but police were still able to collect DNA evidence they used to achieve a conviction. Whitaker was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by 15 years of post-release supervision.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY AT CARNEGIE HALL
This Saturday, March 17, Carnegie Hall will host a St. Patrick’s Day concert featuring Irish band The Chieftains with Paddy Moloney accompanied by folk-rock band The Low Anthem. The six-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble will be performing as part of their Voices of the Ages 50th anniversary tour. As Ireland’s musical ambassadors, The Chieftans are credited with bringing traditional Irish music to the world’s attention. The event will take place in the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at 8 p.m. Tickets are from $29 to $88, and are available by calling 212-247-7800 or visiting carnegiehall.org or the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 W. 57th St.

SENIOR ROUNDTABLE ON CARETAKING
The next session of State Sen. Liz Krueger’s senior roundtable discussions will be held Thursday, March 22 from 8-10 a.m. at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. The topic, “Beginning the Conversation: Redefining Aging and How We Care for our Elders,” will cover how seniors can begin asking questions about their future care and planning who might be able to help care for them if the time arises when they need assistance.

Ahigial Lee Zhou plays chess at the P.S. 6 Chess Tournament 2012 on March 11.

Alice Fisher, Krueger’s community outreach director, and Frederic Riccardi, director of programs and outreach at the Medicare Rights Center, will be on hand to lead the discussion and answer questions. A light breakfast will be served. 331 E. 70th St. RSVP required at 212-490-9535 or by emailing doremann@gmail.com.

GROCERY STORE AIDS TORNADO VICTIMS
All Fairway locations are continuing a donation and matching drive through this Sunday, March 18 to aid those affected by recent violent storms in the Midwest. At any Fairway in the city (the Upper East Side store is at 240 E. 86th St.), customers can make cash donations of $1, $3 or $5 or purchase a case of water to aid families devastated by the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri. Fairway will match all money donated up to $25,000 and coordinate shipping truckloads of water, canned goods and other nonperishable items to distribution centers in the affected states.

CATHEDRAL HIGH STUDENT VIES FOR POETRY PRIZE
Cathedral High School student Dionne Muyalde is among the top 10 finalists in the Poetry for Peace contest, a competition that has used the power of social media to gauge the power of student poetry. The contest asked students to respond to the stories of atomic bomb survivors from Japan, known as hibakusha, by writing verse poems. In the monthlong competition, 741 poems were submitted and people voted for their favorites on social media sites.
Muyalde’s poem, entitled “Hiroshima Hibakusha,” was selected as a finalist based on criteria, including the poem’s connection to a hibakusha testimony, its relaying a message of peace, the structure of the verse, the overall impact of the poem and the number of “likes” the poem received.