Jeanne Straus, President of Straus News, looks over issues of her company’s newly acquired New York City weeklies with William Pecover, Tom Allon and Richard Burns of Manhattan Media. Photo by Aaron Adler.

Straus News, a leading community news publisher and owner of weeklies in the tri-state region, today acquired Manhattan’s premiere weekly newspapers.

The weeklies include one of New York City’s best-known papers, Our Town, along with its sister publications Our Town Downtown, The West Side Spirit, The Chelsea Clinton News and The Westsider, as well as NYPress.com.

These papers reach more than 180,000 unique weekly print and digital readers through free distribution to more than 3,000 upscale Manhattan apartment buildings, news boxes and in-store racks.

NYC roots

The purchase also puts the papers into the hands of a successful publisher owned by a family with longtime roots in New York City.

With the acquisition, the Straus family re-enters the New York City media market. The family made radio history when it owned WMCA Radio, 570 AM. Playing rock n roll in the 1960s, and known to Baby Boomers as the “Home of the Good Guys,” Straus-owned WMCA ranked #1 as the most listened to New York City radio station.

Later, the Straus family transformed WMCA Radio into New York’s premiere talk radio station, with well-known hosts such as Barry Gray, who also wrote regularly for Our Town.

“We’re committed to local news and covering the issues that matter to people’s everyday lives,” said Straus News Publisher Jeanne Straus, who lives in West Side Spirit territory. “We relish the opportunity to take over publishing these terrific papers in the greatest city in the world.”

Tom Allon, the long-time publisher/editor of the Manhattan Newspaper Group, will remain as president and CEO of Manhattan Media.

“I’m very happy that we have found in Straus News a buyer who understands community journalism, the neighborhoods of Manhattan and recognizes the need to keep these five newspapers vibrant parts of our city,” Allon said. “After more than a quarter century of being involved with West Side Spirit and Our Town, I look forward to being a regular reader of these award-winning publications.”

Richard Burns, general partner of Isis and chairman of Manhattan Media, added: “We’ve been pleased and proud owners of the newspapers for more than a decade. They’ve not only played important roles in their communities but have also produced consistent financial returns for us. We know that Straus News has the know-how and commitment to make these papers a continuing vital part of the New York landscape.”

Following today’s sale, Isis continues to own and produce media properties like New York Family, the New York Baby Show, City & State (for professionals in city and state government in New York), as well as AVENUE magazine and Dan’s Papers LLC in the Hamptons.

Isis bought the newspapers it is selling in 2001.

About Straus News

Prior to acquiring these five publications, Straus News has been publishing nine local weekly newspapers and associated Web sites in the New York-New Jersey- Pennsylvania region.

Straus News also publishes Dirt, a magazine covering the local “green scene.”

Owned for decades by the Straus family, the papers focus on neighborhood issues that matter to people’s everyday lives, with a commitment to reporting the tough local stories while highlighting neighborhood successes and achievements.

The newspapers have won numerous awards for news coverage and editorial and advertising excellence, including first place for in-depth reporting for a series about heroin addiction and a prestigious National Education Writers Award.

The newspapers are distributed weekly to more than 80,000 homes.

One particularly striking part of the tape, which the West Side Spirit was kind enough to provide, came when Rangel was asked whether he had actually done anything wrong.

“Oh, hell yes,” Rangel said. “I spit on the sidewalk, and I get busted. You’re damn right I shouldn’t be spitting on the sidewalk. But I didn’t break any laws. I mean, people talk about taxes, and they should, because no one likes anyone to evade taxes.”

Rangel specifically addressed one of the 11 charges that he was convicted of – that he had failed to pay taxes on a Dominican Republic Villa for 17 years.

“But if I was evading taxes, don’t you think I would be indicted! I paid the goddamn taxes on that property. The problem is I paid too goddamn long ago,” Rangel said.

Rangel is facing a fierce five-way Democratic primary in a district made far more heavily Latino in the redistricting process.

Asked whether President Obama was not backing Rangel this year because he would be a political liability, Rangel transitioned to talking about his 2010 censure — and the problems his political situation had caused his House Democratic colleagues.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Spending Spree
Upon checking her monthly credit card statements, a local woman discovered that someone had made unauthorized charges on her Bloomingdale’s card account, in three separate purchases, to the tune of $3,952.17. The statement didn’t reveal where the charges had been made—it could have been at any Bloomingdale’s location or online—but the woman told police that she has been in possession of her credit card the entire time. She also received a call from the customer service department of electronics store P.C. Richard & Sons informing her that they had cancelled a suspicious transaction that was attempted online, again using her credit card.

Family Squabble Turns Into Police Matter
A woman called the police on her 18-year-old daughter after a family spat turned criminal. The daughter told her mom that she had stolen her wedding ring, telling her that she knew it would hurt her. When the mother, whom police report already had an order of protection against her daughter, checked, her custom-made ring was indeed missing. The daughter said that she had sold the ring, made of yellow metal and white stone and worth $1,150, to a friend, who confirmed the story to police. He also said that the thieving daughter had used the money to fund a trip upstate to purchase cigarettes and alcohol.

Love Steals
After trying and failing to retrieve his stolen property from his vindictive boyfriend, a man resorted to the police last week. He told the cops that he had invited his boyfriend into his home, but that night the perpetrator scooped up his iPhone, a $350 pair of pants and his Chase credit card and left the apartment. He then called his victim, informing him of the thefts, but refused to return the property when given the chance. Police found several calls made to the iPhone before the man could cancel his phone account and credit card.

Sidewalk Knockout
A mom playing with her kids outside her home on Saturday night got a rude awakening that ended in a robbery and assault. A man she knew approached her and the two got into a verbal argument. It turned violent, however, when a second man, a friend of the other, stepped in, swore at the woman and hit her twice in the face, causing severe pain. She took out her phone and said she was calling the police, and the perp grabbed it out of her hands and ran down Amsterdam Avenue. Police conducted a canvass but have not located the man.

West Side public and private schools cope with age-old problem

In the past year, bullying has become not only a pervasive danger for students to dodge in the hallways but a hot topic of debate in the media, among parents and around dinner tables nationwide. Tragic stories of bullied kids committing suicide show up alongside activists’ best efforts to combat the problem, but still it persists.

Lee Hirsh’s documentary Bully, which follows a handful of kids and families from around the country who have dealt with severe bullying, caused a stir before it was even widely released when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) refused to grant it the PG-13 rating that would allow it to be shown in schools. Dozens of news stories and a petition half a million signatures strong later, the MPAA relented and will change the rating.

It’s clear that people care about bullying, but the question is, who can stop it?

One former local student and his attorney are asserting that schools are responsible for preventing their students from being subjected to bullying. Eric Giray, a former student of the prestigious Calhoun School on the Upper West Side, recently filed a lawsuit against his alma mater and his alleged former bully, classmate Daniel Dworakowski, centered on an incident that occurred eight years ago. He’s seeking damages of $1.5 million for what his attorney says was a blatant failure on the part of the school to protect Giray as a student there.

“The school was notified over time, several times, that bullying was taking place,” said Ric Cherwin, Giray’s attorney. “The former principal kept on saying, ‘We’ll take care of it, we’ll handle it, don’t take matters into your own hands.’ But the school, in fact, didn’t really do anything.”

According to Cherwin, what began as students taunting Giray with names like “elephant ears” and calling him “gay” escalated to one harrowing incident on which their case rests.

“My client was dramatically singled out by the defendant, who violently pushed him with malice into the bleachers, and he suffered a serious injury: broken nose, 18 stitches and pretty serious psychological trauma,” Cherwin said.

Dworakowski’s mother told the Daily News that the scuffle was just an accident, which is how the school may have characterized it at the time as well. Calhoun could not elaborate on what policies they have in place to prevent and address bullying, either then or now. Several other private schools also declined to comment on their bullying policies.

“We are not able to comment on the matters under litigation, but Calhoun has clear standards regarding bullying and a long record of being sensitive and responsive to the physical, emotional and psychological needs of all of our students,” wrote Calhoun’s head of school, Steve Nelson, in an email.

Giray is now in college and his attorney explained that he and his mother didn’t want to file a lawsuit against the school until he was through the college admissions process—the statute of limitations on this type of personal injury does not begin until the victim turns 18. His case has ignited interest in who’s to blame for bullying, even while schools struggle to keep their classrooms safe and civil places.

For public schools, the city’s Department of Education (DOE) enforces a discipline code that prohibits all forms of bullying and has trained some educators in how to teach respectful interaction to their students.

“We launched Respect for All training programs in 2007, and to date, more than 6,000 teachers, counselors, parent coordinators and other staff members have participated in various components of the Respect for All training program,” said DOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg in an email. “Each school has a Respect For All liaison that helps ensure schools comply with the regulation and work with the DOE central staff on programs that embrace differences in others.”

According to the DOE, the number of bullying incidents has remained fairly steady over the past 10 years, but experts say many students won’t always report bullying to authority figures and sometimes teachers don’t know the best ways to handle the problem.

“Teachers and school administrations need to be prepared to notice both the child who bullies and the child who is being bullied,” said Nancy Silberkleit, a former educator who has launched her own anti-bullying campaigns. “I have seen, too many times, teachers pushing children away for ‘tattletelling’ instead of encouraging them to come forward and dealing with their concerns.”

Upper West Side Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell has been working for years to pass legislation that would help teachers become better equipped to handle bullying. Last year, after many years of pushing the bill, the Dignity for All Students Act passed the state Legislature and was signed into law. It will take effect July 1.

“It requires training of professionals; there needs to be somebody onsite who understands that bullying is not just kids being kids,” O’Donnell said. The law also requires localities to report bullying to the state Department of Education so effective strategies can be compared and tracked.

O’Donnell, who said he has faced plenty of bullying himself, finds it especially important to protect kids in an age when bullying is ever-present—kids don’t escape harassment when they leave the school building anymore and can be driven to despair by a particularly pointed Facebook post.

“I think the changes in the culture, the changes in the exposure to information and the ability to immediately communicate without thinking, which is what 13- and 14-year-olds do, creates this explosive environment,” O’Donnell said. Since the Dignity Act passed, he has also authored an amendment that addresses cyberbullying.

He also said that kids are exposed to sex, and are thus defining their own sexual and gender identities, at earlier ages, making young children who identify as gay or somehow different potential targets.

“This was the first time in New York State history that gender identity and expression were written into state laws,” O’Donnell said. “I know all too well that those children who violate gender stereotypes are the first targets.”

While the law will expand the requirements for how teachers and administrators address bullying, some say that it will be difficult to implement if parents and communities don’t also get involved.

“Teachers are overwhelmed with outside requirements to get students through tests and standards,” said Silberkleit. “There is very little time and energy left to deal with the social aspects of the students’ lives. Bullying occurs primarily before and after school.”

Kat Eden, communications director for Education.com, which works on anti-bullying issues, said that according to the results of a nationwide survey they conducted of 1,000 principals, many schools don’t have the resources they’d like to have to combat bullying.

“Principals surveyed reported a lack of resources to prevent and manage bullying—only 38 percent of principals report that they have sufficient resources to effectively implement bullying programs, curriculum and policies in their schools,” Eden said.

O’Donnell acknowledged that that is a particular challenge for many cash-strapped school districts, but insists that changing behavior is mostly a matter of awareness and education for current educators.

“We need to get rid of the idea within school environments that kids will be kids with regard to bullying,” O’Donnell said. “That’s just not OK.”

Chris Bragg.

From City & State Managing Editor Andrew J. Hawkins:

Here at City & State, we don’t normally toot our own horns. But today we’ll make an exception. Two of our reporters, Chris Bragg and Laura Nahmias, were honored with the New York Press Association’s 2011 “Writer of the Year” distinction. Chris took home the top prize, Laura the runner-up, but in our eyes both are equally commendable. On Chris’s award, the NYPA judges wrote: “This is a powerful body of work, consistently characterized by high-profile (meaning high-difficulty) topics, deep and detailed reporting, and sharp writing that keeps the reader engaged.” On Laura’s award, they wrote: “I’m from 3,000 miles away and don’t know New York well, but I was drawn to these stories.” Laura also won second place for best news story, and first place for best news/features series in her division. And there’s more! The paper as a whole took home several additional prizes: third place for coverage of education, third place for in-depth reporting, third place for coverage of local elections and third place for coverage of elections/politics. Our photo editor, Andrew Schwartz, was honored in his category for feature photos. Congratulations to all of them. We couldn’t be more proud.

Laura Nahmias.

Andrew Schwartz.

Three other Manhattan Media community newspapers were also honored with awards from NYPA this year. See a full list below with shots of the winning photos and links to the winning articles:

Our Town Downtown

Coverage of the Arts, Second Place

Best Special Section Cover, First Place, ““Dynamic and eye-catching.  Great balance of color.  Has fun with a recognizable NYC aerial image. Relays the section’s focus well, and in a unique way.”

The Special Sections Cover first place winner.

Sports Feature, Second Place,  “The Extraordinary Sports—and Sportspeople—of Downtown Manhattan”

Best Use of Color, Third Place

Our Town

Best Column, Third Place

Best Feature Photo, First Place

First Place Feature Photo winner for Our Town. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

West Side Spirit

Best Graphic Illustration, Third Place

Best Special Section Cover, Third Place

Third Place Special Section Cover for the West Side Spirit. Cover by Ed Johnson.

Best Feature Photo, Second Place

Second Place Feature Photo winner for the West Side Spirit. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

Born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in 1927, Cyrus A. Adler, or Cy as he likes to be known, is the walking guru of Manhattan and an icon along the park trails of the Upper West Side.

His exploits have led to him publish books about two trails that he, with the help of his non-for-profit organization The Shorewalkers, created: The Great Saunter and the Battery to Bear Mountain.

His activism helped create Hudson River Park, which then fostered the growth of The Great Saunter, a 32-mile hike that circumnavigates Manhattan. While Adler may have a yen for solid ground, he originally studied the seas.

After working as an oceanographer, he turned to education, teaching oceanography, math and physics at City College of New York, LIU and other schools. It was around this time that Adler began to view walking as more than just a means to get around.

“I was married and I was teaching, so I decided to lead some hikes for a group called the Appalachian Mountain Club [AMC],” said Adler. “All the walks I would lead were along the water.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Adler began to push for the conservation of Manhattan’s coastline, focusing on the West Side.

A boom in the shipping industry had left a plethora of shipping containers stacked like unused Legos along the Hudson River. This is what pushed him to hold the first Great Saunter and was the foundation for The Shorewalkers.

“After hiking with AMC for a while, I decided that it would be easier to do it on my own,” said Adler.

The first unofficial Great Saunter was held in 1982. Adler put an advertisement in the Village Voice for people to join him on a stroll along the area. This walk helped to sow the seeds for Hudson River Park, one of the many routes of The Great Saunter.

The next Saunter will take place May 5, as The Shorewalkers celebrates the 27th year of the event and its 30th anniversary promoting walking and shoreline conservation.

“For the first Saunter, we headed east and we held it on the longest day of the year,” said Adler with a shudder. “This was a mistake. We had the sun in our faces walking up the East Side and it scorched us as we walked down the West Side.”

The years and years of walking the rim of Manhattan led Adler to write the book Walking Manhattan’s Rim: The Great Saunter, which covers his history on the streets and shores of Manhattan. He details the trail and each park, neighborhood and culture that he found along the way.

The Saunter leads wayfarers through over 20 different parks and promenades and a dozen historic communities and gives view to the many cultures of New York City. Those who finish are honored at the Heartland Brewery on Fulton Street about 12 hours later.

One of his favorite places on The Great Saunter is the Cherry Path just off West 100th Street. It delivers an iconic view of the George Washington Bridge along the Hudson River, but the pavement has been deteriorating in recent years.

“This area was a ‘desire path’ made by walkers and joggers and it has a crack in it. It’s been cracked for two years,” Adler said.

He tried to reach out to the Parks Department and Community Board 7 to repave the walk so walkers can focus on avoiding “freewheeling bikers” instead of watching out for large ruts in the path.

A makeshift fence has been put up so far, but the holes have not been filled.

The Cherry Path is also part of the 56-mile “Batt 2 Bear” trail, the focus of Adler’s newest book: Walking the Hudson: From The Battery to Bear Mountain.

As the name suggests, the trail begins in Battery Park, takes walkers over the George Washington Bridge and leads them along the coast of the Hudson River to the foot of Bear Mountain. The book discusses the trail into 11 chapters and catalogues each of the sights, stops and histories to be found along the way.

The last hike Adler led was on this same trail about a month ago. He and the group passed over the George Washington Bridge onto the Palisades and down 400 steps to the shore of the Hudson River. They walked along the edge and went back afterward.

“No New Yorker should die without walking over the George Washington Bridge,” said Adler.

Upper West Side parents are usually clamoring for more public school space, and now the conversation has turned toward the impending demand for middle school seats. At a joint Community Education Council (CEC) and President’s Council meeting last week for District 3, concerned parents and board members hashed out the issues facing the district’s number of middle school seats; some insisting that there is an imminent shortage approaching, while others viewed the prediction with skepticism.

Even those who agree that the district should ask for more seats were divided over how the request to the Department of Education (DOE) should be worded  and where a new school would be located.

“No one can argue that we need more middle school seats,” said Community Board 7 chair Mark Diller, confirming that the board is supportive of the push. “The very next issue is, of course, where?” Diller emphasized the need for the CEC to use data to back up their requests.

Stefan Koster, parent of a middle-school-aged daughter who recently went through the process of finding a school, presented data to the board showing what he and a group of other parent volunteers had determined regarding future middle school space in the district. They insist that the DOE is not taking into account an upcoming influx of middle-school-aged students and that there will be a severe shortage of seats by 2013.

“More and more young families like mine have decided it’s kind of cool to raise a child in the city,” as opposed to moving out to the suburbs, said Koster after the meeting. “If the DOE does not hear the community scream out in its need for more school seats, I fear that we’re going to reverse that whole aspect of people coming into and staying in the city to raise kids. How long can the Upper West Side stay a cool place if nothing happens?”

Analyzing data from the DOE, Koster’s group concluded that an increasing number of students are remaining in District 3 for middle school based on the fact that in 2011 there were 765 “first choice” applicants for 480 middle school seats in the district, which they say points to a demand that will only continue to grow.

While many agreed with their premise, the question of how to successfully convince the DOE that the seats are eminently needed was still unanswered. Some advocated just requesting any available district space for middle school seats before deciding specifics about a new school.

“If we don’t take the space, Eva’s going to get it,” said Stefanie Goldblatt, the treasurer of the President’s Council, referring to the CEO of the Success Academy Network charter schools, Eva Moskowitz. “Let’s just grab space and figure out what goes there later.”

Goldblatt touched on a nerve that reverberated throughout the meeting: the fear that if the CEC doesn’t determine what they need quickly enough, that the DOE will allocate more public space to charter schools.

Others raised the issue of ensuring an equitable location that would serve the entire district, including the neighborhoods in the northern section that are composed largely of minority communities.

“The northern part gets charter schools; the southern part gets new schools,” said Camille Goodridge, a CEC member and co-chair of the middle school committee. “We need just as many quality schools as everybody else. Minority students need the same as everybody else.”

Some members were cautious about jumping to conclusions and asking the DOE for a new school without further consideration of the data and the potential possibilities.

“I don’t question whether or not we need middle school seats,” said council member Noah Gotbaum in an interview later. “But I want to make sure as a CEC member that it’s done by consensus, that it’s very much representative of the entire district.”

As the CEC continues to determine the best course of action, parents are rallying behind Koster and his group’s petition, hosted at MiddleSchoolBabyBoom.com, a name that speaks for itself. So far, 644 parents have signed on in support of explicitly asking the DOE to create a brand-new, separate middle school.

But some think that there are still more factors to explore before that should happen.

“We could potentially take high school seats and use them for middle school seats,” Gotbaum said. “We have to have everyone in the conversation. We can’t allow the DOE to set us against each other. There’s no planning going on at the top. That’s part of what we have to watch out for.”