Across Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced it is in the early design stages of a complete overhaul of its famous Fifth Avenue plaza.

One of the main features of the project is the design and installation of all new fountains, replacing the present fountains that have been in place since 1970.

Harold Holzer, senior vice president of external affairs, said another goal of the project is to improve access to the museum’s 81st Street and 83rd Street entrances.

“We have more than 5 million people visit a year and they all walk up the front steps,” Holzer said. “It’s difficult to direct people to 81st Street.”

“This exciting new outdoor environment will provide the perfect complement to the majestic spaces and exceptional collections found within the building,” said Thomas P. Campbell, director of the museum, in a statement.

Central Park will be decked out Victorian-style for its 14th annual holiday lighting event Sunday, Dec. 5. The Charles A. Discovery Center in the park on 110th Street overlooking the Harlem Meer will be lit up.

The free event will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the north visitors’ center.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted Nov. 16 to give West End Avenue historic district a public hearing.

“Calendaring” a landmark proposal, which schedules a public meeting, is a crucial step toward full designation.

In September, the Landmark Preservation Commission released a draft of their plan to protect buildings on West End Avenue between West 70th Street and West 107th Street, from Broadway to Riverside Drive. That plan has been revised and expanded to cover 790 buildings in three existing landmark district extensions.

The district will be extensions of West End-Collegiate District, and Riverside-West End Historic District I and II.

The planned coverage area is much more than Richard Emery, who heads the West End Preservation Society, first anticipated.

“Originally, we were trying to be conservative,” Emery said, proposing to protect apartment buildings on the avenue. But Landmarks Preservation Commission’s plan will cover brownstones and townhouses as well.

“They obviously view the whole district as something necessary to preserve—the feeling of the community and the architecture on the Upper West Side,” Emery said.

Kate Wood, executive director of local preservation group Landmark West, said the new historic district will protect important, architecturally-distinct buildings.

The potentially landmarked buildings include First Baptist Church on West 79th and Broadway, the Broadway Fashion Building on West 84th Street and the Cliff Dwelling on Riverside Drive and West 96th Street.

Wood was pleased that the district will include parts of Broadway and Riverside Drive.

“It really does tell a comprehensive story of the neighborhood,” Wood said.

By Gavin Aronsen

Hunger is on the rise on the Upper West Side.

Volunteers at the West Side Campaign Against Hunger prepared for one of its busiest periods of the year on a recent Tuesday, as they managed their final delivery of food just before Thanksgiving week.

The holidays are one of the busiest times at the West Side Campaign Against Hunger. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

The campaign runs an emergency food-pantry program located at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on West 86th Street. Last month, representatives from the food pantry said that it saw a 31-percent rise in people from the same period a year before to more than 8,200 this year, and this month is expected to be even busier.

Since the recession in 2008 there has been a nearly 50-percent increase in the number of people seeking food at the pantry, according to Doreen Wohl, the program’s executive director.

“People’s need for food is all year round,” Wohl said. “The wider community only wakes up to this at Thanksgiving and at Christmastime.”

Most weeks, the pantry is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Tuesdays reserved for receiving new shipments of food. But next week, it will be open Monday through Wednesday and closed Thanksgiving Day and Friday so volunteers and staff have time to spend with their families.

People in need of assistance come to the pantry once a month, where they are given their choice of healthy foods to last about three days. It is disbursed based on a point system designed to provide a proper balance among the different food groups.

A chef nutritionist, Mark D’Alessandro, runs a 12-week cooking course to teach those interested how to prepare meals, who in turn help others who come to the pantry in need.

Stewart Desmond, the program’s development director, said despite perceptions that the economy has taken a turn for the better, the need for food among low-income people continues to grow, even on the generally well-off Upper West Side.

He predicted that next week would be “overwhelming” but that staff and volunteers would be prepared.

The pantry, one of the city’s largest emergency food programs, relies on city, state and federal funding as well as cash and in-kind donations from community members and religious organizations. Still, Wohl said the demand for food has overwhelmed the program’s budget.

Shirley Brevard, a 15-year volunteer with the program, said she expects to see lines stretching a block away to Broadway next week as eager families hope to receive Thanksgiving turkeys.

“You’re going to hear them asking tomorrow,” said Carrie Fair, who has volunteered at the pantry for the past 12 years.

Although Wohl said the resources do not exist to provide everyone a turkey, she said staff and volunteers are working to ensure that healthy meals will be available next week for those in need.

Said Brevard, who is used to seeing wall-to-wall lines even on typical days, “We don’t really disappoint them.”

“Next week is going to be crazy, but we love it,” she said.

Wohl said the pantry is typically busier around Thanksgiving than Christmas because more places tend to provide food assistance for the latter holiday.

For more information, visit www.wscah.org.

By Dan Rivoli and Allen Houston

While Republicans made a political comeback around the country, New York State Democrats fared relatively well. Andrew Cuomo is now Governor-elect, Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand trounced their GOP opponents and Tom DiNapoli held on to the State Comptroller seat.

Future New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo had a meeting Nov. 13, where they discussed all of the things that were taking place in the AG’s office right now. Photo by Daniel S. Burnstein

And with Eric Schneiderman soon to be sworn in as the next attorney general, Upper West Siders were able to elect one of their own to statewide office.

Schneiderman held his first press conference with Cuomo Nov. 13 to discuss how the pair would work together going forward.

“We had our first conversation today and I’m looking forward to many more,” Schneiderman told Cuomo, during a gathering after their meeting. “And as someone who is going to be representing you for a long time, I’m very pleased to see how circumspect you are.”

Schneiderman said that the two talked about all of the things that are currently taking place in the attorney general’s office, as well as the historic role that the office has played throughout New York’s history.

“I intend to work with the governor and to build on his great work,” he said. “Obviously we face significant challenges in this state right now.”

The governor-elect danced around whether he would give Schneiderman any special “executive order powers” to help him battle public corruption and clean up Wall Street.

“That’s something we will talk about going forward,” he said.

Cuomo said that a comprehensive reform package passed by state lawmakers would be a much better tool for taking on Albany, rather than any obscure provisos that he could give to the attorney general.

“The best way to do this is not by a bunch of hodge-podge efforts but by a piece of legislation, passed by the state legislature,” he said. “Everyone who ran said that they were running to clean up Albany, and now they have to do it.”

The governor-elect and the future attorney general agreed that Khalid-Sheik Mohammed, alleged 9/11 mastermind, shouldn’t be tried in New York, though they offered no ideas on another venue.

“I’m against it. Period,” Cuomo said. “Not in New York. Not in New York.”

Added Schneiderman: “I’ve previously said that it shouldn’t happen in New York City.”

He added that the trial shouldn’t take place elsewhere in the state, either.

While they have that in common, the two campaigned under completely separate styles. Cuomo portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative and Schneiderman campaigned as progressive, said Mark Landis, a local Democratic district leader and lawyer.

“He put out a progressive campaign message throughout the primary,” Landis said. “But it was also a pragmatic progressive message… realizing an attorney general is not a chief prosecutor but a chief lawyer for a variety of interests for the people of this state.”

One of his early campaign messages highlighted his work as counsel to the nonprofit West Side Crime Prevention Program. The ad delighted Marjorie Cohen, the nonprofit’s director.

“I’m very proud of the connection to the beginning of his community activism,” Cohen said.

Joan Paylo, a district leader for Schneiderman’s home club Community Free Democrats, said that Schneiderman would have to be front and center when attorneys general from other states tackle national issues.

“Our hometown guy can put that on his shoulders,” Paylo said, “and run with it.”

A 36-year-old woman from Kentucky staying at an Upper West Side apartment reported her wallet was stolen at a Loew’s cinema on 1998 Broadway and West 68th Street Nov. 11. She told police she was watching a movie and put her purse and jacket in the empty seat next to her. During the movie, a man sat in a vacant seat next to her items and left before the end. She realized her wallet was gone at 6:45 p.m. when she noticed her bag felt light. The movie burglar got $40 in cash and credit cards that were not used before they were canceled.