Super Bowl Boulevard

"Great White Way" is a nickname for a section of Broadway, specifically the portion that encompasses the Broadway Theater District, between 42nd and 53rd Streets.

 By the 1890s, the portion from 23rd Street to 34th Street was so brightly illuminated by electrical advertising signs, that people began calling it "The Great White Way." When the theater district moved uptown, the name was transferred to the Times Square area.

Now for several days  13 blocks of Broadway between 34th and 47th Streets are named "Super Bowl Boulevard". The visitors  can sled down a 60-foot toboggan run ($5 per ride). Organizers expect more than a million people to visit the boulevard between now and Sunday.
 

Scandalous Armory Show of 1913 - art that shocked America. Part 2.

You can read the beginning of the story here.
69th Regiment Armory

One hundred and one years ago,  New Yorkers reacted with shock and awe to the art show , that bought  avant-garde modernists like Picasso and Duchamp into the forefront of American thinking. New York's 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th streets was home to approximately 1250 paintings, sculptures, and decorative works by over 300 European and American artists.It was the biggest art show New York had ever seen.

Henri Matisse Luxury II
The new art, welcomed by the Armory Show, was considered a negation of the basic values of academic art.  The artistic traditions of several centuries were shaken to the very foundation. For example Matisse was most fiercely attacked for distorting the human form to monstrous proportions. The most memorable response was a public demonstration held by students of the Chicago Art Institute. Henri Matisse was put ‘on trial’, and copies of three Matisse paintings( including  Matisse Luxury II were burned in effigy.

The Armory Show brought the general public into a conversation about art that had previously been confined to elite intellectual circles. Two weeks after the show closed, The Literary Digest published a collection of letters to editors around the country under the title, "The Mob as Art Critic.”


News reports and reviews were filled with accusations of quackery, insanity, immorality, and anarchy. Among the scandalously radical works of art, pride of place goes to Marcel Duchamp's cubist/futurist style Nude Descending a Staircase, painted the year before (now in the Philadelphia Museum of art).The painting was  compared by "The New York Times"  to the fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” by Hans Christian Andersen, with Duchamp apparently trying to convince his audience that there was indeed a picture there when there really was not.
Marcel Duchamp
A naked man going down stairs

The former president Theodore Roosevelt   wrote  a review of the exhibition, published   on March 29, 1913, two weeks after the Armory Show closed on March 15. The review  was   titled “A Layman’s View of an Art Exhibition.”
In his  review  Roosevelt  said:  “Take the picture which for some reason is called “A naked man going down stairs.” There is in my bath-room a really good Navajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory, is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture”.
The purchase of Paul Cézanne's  "View of the Domaine Saint-Joseph"  by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after the Armory show signaled an integration of modernism into the established New York museums. It is the first work of the artist to enter an American museum.

Paul Cézanne View of the Domaine Saint-Joseph
Later more than 250 works of other artists were  purchased  by American museums. 
The original exhibition was an overwhelming success. There have been several exhibitions that were celebrations of its legacy throughout the 20th century. In 1944 the Cincinnati Art Museum mounted a smaller version, in 1958 Amherst College held an exhibition of 62 works, 41 of which were in the original show, and in 1963 the  Arts Institute in Utica, New York organized the "1913 Armory Show 50th Anniversary Exhibition" which included more than 300 works.
Starting with a small exhibition in 1994, by 2001 the "New" New York Armory Show, held in piers on the Hudson River, evolved into a "hugely entertaining" (New York Times) annual contemporary arts festival with a strong commercial bent.
Five exhibitions in 2013 celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Armory Show, as well as a number of publications, virtual exhibitions, and programs.  American filmmaker Michael Maglaras produced a documentary film about the Armory Show entitled, "The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show".
New-York Historical Society

 “The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution” is on show now at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, at 77th Street. It continues through Feb. 23
There are  100 works from the original exhibition and a big, richly illuminating catalog, “The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution” .   If you do not have a chance to visit the exhibition you can buy  the catalog with Amazon.

Scandalous Armory Show of 1913 - art that shocked America. Part 1.

69th Regiment Armory
New York city was bustling 100 ago. On the streets were automobiles, the Woolworth Building had just been completed and electric trains pulled out of Grand Central Station for the first time. 101 years ago "The Armory Art Show" shocked Americans.  
That show introduced American audiences to Cubism and other avant-garde forms of European art. The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913.  
Later the exhibition  went on show at the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston.


In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, artists were trained at art academies. For centuries, the artist’s training had been in the study of the nude figure, in drawing and painting from careful observation of the model, and in the copying of works of the old masters. In America at the turn of the century, academic styles and modes of exhibition were still very strong.

1913 Armory Show ( from Wiki) 
The idea of the Armory Show dates back to 1911 when four young American artists met at the Madison Gallery in Manhattan.  This group later would become the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, who assembled the show from European works gathered abroad and American works curated at home. The space at the  69th Regiment Armory building was rented for a fee of $5,000, plus an additional $500 for additional personnel. The organizers used screens covered in fireproof burlap to divide  the floor into eighteen octagonal rooms and created a  maze inside a huge  hall.


The show opened at the New York City Armory on Feb. 17, 1913. There  were 1,300 works by over 300 artists on show. Impressionist, Fauvist, and Cubist works were represented.  The list of the artists that took place in the 1913 show is incredible: Georges Braque, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Camille Corot, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Francisco Goya ,Paul Gauguin, Childe Hassam, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Fernand Léger, Édouard Manet ,Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Rodin.

Among those artists whose work was seen in the US for the first time were Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.Rich collectors and dealers had seen such art in Europe, but this was the first time the masses got to see — and react to — the new ideas.
The main European movements were covered- Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, and Symbolism.

Four thousand guests visited the rooms on the opening night.
Nearly   90,000  New Yorkers packed into the 69th Regiment Armory to see the future of the art. It was the biggest art show New York had ever seen.

The Cubist room attracted the most visitors and was dubbed the “chamber of horrors,” , according to written accounts of the time.  If you'd like to know  more about the 1913 show or would like to find where you can see the  pictures from the show now- wait for my next post to come


Swan Bay. Kill the plan not swans!

In December 2013  New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) accepted a  management  plan  for mute swans in New York State. The plan calls for the department to kill swans, destroy their nests, coat eggs with oil or pierce them to prevent hatching, and sterilize birds by chemical or surgical means.

The swan is one of the most powerful and ancient totems.  Even the word swan is one of the oldest names in the English language, coming from the Anglo-Saxons. The swan is a symbol of peace and tranquility in literature, music, dance.  For many cultures the white swan is a symbol of light, hope and beauty, like in The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Anderson. Swans are closely associated with many Native American peoples. 
   
It is actually connected to one of the most sacred mysteries of the Lakota/Dakota religion, in which the swan acts as a messenger of faith.  In England, the swan is a symbol of loyalty and strength.  Swan is a royal bird and it is even illegal to kill a swan in the United Kingdom.


There is one secret place on   New  York City, only 10 minutes by foot from the subway ,where you can stroll  the beautiful tree- line  street and  watch swans glide across a rosy sunset. People just like to see that — peace and tranquility.  This place is Shore Boulevard,  just south of Emmons in Brooklyn.   There are more than 50 mute swans on the Sheepshead Bay- believe me, I counted them by my own!
But be aware- the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) proposes to kill or capture all mute swans by 2025!

There are three species of swans in North America. The Trumpeter Swan and Tundra Swan are indigenous. The mute swans were originally brought from Europe for their aesthetic value in the 1800s. In 1910, there were 500 mute swans, now an estimated 2,200 statewide, 1900 on Long Island. 


Initially the plan of 2003 was to reduce the population  to 500 by 2013. According to this plan Trumpeter Swan and Tundra Swan are good and Mute Swan has to be killed!  The DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino  said:   “ They’re an aggressive, invasive species,  To protect our own native species, the plan was necessary.”    .  Here are some quotes from the plan:
“…In the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island, where populations have existed for many years, DEC will remove mute swans whenever opportunities arise, but priority will be given to reducing the number of birds where large numbers congregate and may be impacting coastal fish and wildlife species or habitats… Any mute swans removed will be euthanized or turned over to persons with suitable facilities and licensed to keep the birds in captivity…. Lethal control methods will include shooting of free-ranging swans and live capture and euthanasia in accordance with established guidelines for wildlife. Consideration will be given to donating the meat … to charitable organizations (e.g., food pantries) or scientific, educational or zoological institutions….. Non-lethal population control methods may include nest destruction, treating eggs with corn oil or puncturing to prevent hatching, and surgical or chemical sterilization”.

Comments on the draft mute swan plan may be submitted in writing through February 21, 2014 to: NYSDEC Bureau of Wildlife, Swan Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754 or by e-mail to fwwildlf@gw.dec.state.ny.us (please type "Swan Plan" in the subject line)
DEC Mute Swan Plan can be found here

 
The Petition  “Stop New York State's Swan Killing Plan” named  the plan “pathetic attempt at simplifying or reducing management to utter elimination of what's to be managed is a dereliction of duty and a crime against nature and public trust and a very grave cause for concern.”


Petition  “Stop New York State's Swan Killing Plan” can be signed here.
 
 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ,the  author of ”The Little Prince said: “ You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed”.   Kill the plan, not  swans! 

Read more:
Sheepshead Bay bites:  And Now They Want To Murder Sheepshead Bay’s Swans…

Newsday: State eyes killing or capturing all mute swans
Mute Swan in WIKI
Watch the movie that I made today, January 24 2014 on the beautiful bay!
 
 




Citigroup Center, Part 2. The disaster that almost happened.


Citigroup Center (601 Lexington Avenue) was built in 1977. The building site is located on the east side of Lexington Avenue between Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth Streets shared the block with St. Peter's Lutheran Church. On its completion the Citicorp building was the seventh-tallest building in the world. You can read the beginning of the story in my old post.

To reduce the building costs original design's welded joints were changed to bolted joints during construction. As designed, the building could sustain a direct, straight-on hit from hurricane-level winds. But if hurricane-speed winds hit two of the four outer walls simultaneously at a 45-degree angle there was the potential for failure due to the bolts shearing. Unfortunately, the construction company never tested it. If the building's tuned mass damper went offline, the necessary wind speeds were predicted to occur every 16 years.

The problem was found in June 1977 at the beginning of hurricane season. The building was in critical danger. The problem had to be corrected quickly. Having 59-story building in the middle of Manhattan which was at risk of such damage was a very big problem. The structural engineer LeMessurier did not publicly report the problem – he reported the problem directly to Citicorp. 
The engineer and Citicorp agreed to do the repairs after-hours, and not tell anyone. It took three months for the secret workmen to weld metal steel plates over the bolted-on brackets. Two-thousand Red Cross workers were also brought in to assist with the evacuation plan if needed.


"Ella" path
Two months after the secret job had been started  the strongest hurricane on record “Ella” was formed in Canadian waters. By September 1, Ella reached winds of 125 mph and reached Category 4 status. 

The hurricane became stationary for about 24 hours, and later fortunately turned to the northeast away from the coast. The press was on strike at that time, so news of the repairs did not broadcast to the public. The reinforcements were completed in September of 1978, the  entire structure was re-evaluated for safety and building was found to be one of the most sturdy skyscrapers in the world.


The crisis was kept hidden from the public for almost 20 years. It was publicized in a lengthy article in "The New Yorker" in 1995. 


The article entitled "The Fifty-Nine Story Crisis" focuses on the ethical and moral obligations of individuals and companies involved in the construction of a skyscraper.

In 2002, one of the columns was reinforced with blast resistant shields of steel and copper as well as steel bracing to protect the building due to the possibility of a terrorist attack.
In 2009 after 30 years of being known simply as the "Citigroup Center,"  the building was renamed : "601 Lexington Ave." The bank with the headquarters at 399 Park Avenue, occupies just three floors in the 59-story building, the same building where I work now.



Citigroup Center, Part 1. Theater beneath the church and 7- story Atrium.


601 Lexington Avenue (Citigroup Center) is the 4th tallest in the city and 3rd tallest in Midtown. The building has a unique slopped roof and is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers on the New York City skyline. 


At the base of the building there is a large sunken plaza and the 7- story Atrium with several restaurants, Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles  bookstore and 24/7 Fitness. There are tables in the center of the atrium where you can just take a sit, relax and listen to the music - there is live pianist noon to 2 pm weekdays.



In summer there is music every Thursday in the sunken plaza. This atrium is among the best privately owned public spaces in the city to spend several hours when it is too cold or rainy outside.  If you are a member of the gym you can easily spend a whole day without going outside. 24/7 Fitness works 24 hours a day and has a pool, sauna and a steam room. The women’s restroom is located underneath the East 54th Street through block arcade entry; the men’s under the East 53rd Street entry.


 There is even a small gallery owned by POP International Galleries.


Old Church Building
The northwest corner (one third of a city block ) of the lot was occupied by St. Peter's Lutheran Church. The Gothic-style old church building was built on the corner at 54th and Lexington Avenue in 1903. In the 1960s the church faced financial problems and wanted to sell its property.

In 1970, the First National City Bank (later known as Citibank), located just across the street, purchased the property for $9 million. The church agreed to sell the property only if the new St. Peter's church, to be built by Citigroup, had to be a distinctive building, not incorporated in the office tower. The columns were placed at the tower's base center of each side rather than at the corners. This design opened enough space and allowed the northwest corner of the building to cantilever 72 feet (22 m) over the new church.

  
St. Peter's supports an extensive music program: an excellent choir, a Bach festival, a series of weekly jazz and classical music concerts, and a Jazz ministry. The main sanctuary of the church and offices are situated below street level with an off-Broadway theater seating 178 lying underneath that. 

This winter the theater lovers have a chance (January 31  and    February 1  only)  to  see the show “Dragons” based on  Yevgeny Schwartz’s play, The Dragon.   The   Classical Concert Series on Tuesday’s  night at 8 PM are free and open to the public.  The church in partnership with the Midtown Arts Common, hosts   jazz concerts on  Wednesday’s at 1:00 P.M.

After the purchase of the property of the St. Peter's church, five more years were needed for Citibank to buy the rest of the block.

Construction on the building began in 1974 and completed in 1977 at the total cost of just under $200 million. On its completion the Citicorp building was the seventh-tallest building in the world.


The roof of Citigroup Center slopes at a 45-degree angle because it was originally intended to contain solar panels to provide energy. However, this idea was dropped because the solar panels would not face the sun directly. 

The building has a double-deck elevators  - a  lift   with two cars attached together, one on top of the other.
TMD ( from Wiki)
To help stabilize the building and reduce the amplitude of mechanical vibrations, a computer driven harmonic absorber (tuned mass damper- TMD) with weigh of 400 tons was placed in the mechanical space at its top. The Citigroup was the second skyscraper in US that used TMD. The first one was John Hancock Tower in Boston.

Less than one year later  fatal flaw of the Citicorp building was discovered by the structural engineer himself, William J. LeMessurier. You will read about the ’59 story crisis’ (a title of the article from  ‘The New Yorker ’ ) in my next post.

Miguel Cervantes: Statues in New York and Madrid


The  statue of Miguel Cervantes, the famous Spanish writer and painter, stands at the end of a long, narrow courtyard on the campus of New York University, Greenwich village,  in the charming “Willy’s Garden” near the Graduate School of Arts and Science. 

Miguel de Cervantes   (1547 -1616)  was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His novel Don Quixote is  considered to be the first modern European novel  and is regarded among the best works of fiction ever written.


New York’s small Spanish colony first proposed to raise money to donate to the city a statue of Miguel de Cervantes at the end of nineteenth century, at the time of the  Spanish–American War.

The New York Spaniards hoped that the monument would be placed in Central Park,  and  would help improve Spain’s image in the city. But  the monument was never built.
 In 1986, Enrique Tierno Galván, Mayor of Madrid, the capital of Spain,  ordered three replicas to be made of the 1835 sculpture of Cervantes created by Antonio Solá,  the director of the Spanish Academy at Rome, often considered to be Spain’s last great neoclassical sculptor.  The original statue is of Cervantes  located now at the Palacio de las Cortes  in Madrid. 

Cervantes in Madrid

Tierno Galván  in 1978 was chosen to write the preamble to the Spanish Constitution.  He founded the Popular Socialist Party n 1968 and was its President until 1978. He was elected Mayor of Madrid in 1979, reelected in 1983, and remained    in office until his death in 1986.
Tierno Galván   presented the three replica statues as gifts to the cities of La Paz, Bolivia, Beijing, China, and New York.
A gift from the city of Madrid was originally installed in Bryant Park until 1989, when the park underwent a massive restoration project. The statue was then supposed to be relocated to the middle of Washington Square Park,  but The New York University decided to place the statue in the “Willy’s Garden” .

Cervantes Statue in China
Cervantes Statue in Bolivia

Russians on Park Avenue: Vyshinskiy and Khruschev.

Pyne-Davison Row, located on Park Avenue between East 68th and East 69th Streets is the name for four Georgian mansions built between the years 1909 and 1926.
One of them, 680 Park Avenue, which was the first house on the block, was completed in 1909.  It was  built  for Percy Rivington Pyne, a wealthy banker from an old New York family.
The building was designed by the same company  that built Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn and New York Public Library. 
Percy Pyne died in 1929 and   the house was sold in 1947 to the Chinese Delegation to the United Nations and   immediately resold   to the Soviet Mission to the United States, that occupied the building from 1948 to 1963.

The famous state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow trials Vyshinskiy,  who was the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953,  died on November 22, 1954  during breakfast in this building.  Official version was 'heart attack'  but historical believe that Visinskiy was poisoned  by the member of a secret mission arrived  a week before his death - he knows too many secrets. Policemen were not allowed to enter the building   and  on the very next day the body was  delivered by special flight to Moscow.

Another famous person who lived in 680 Park Ave is Russian  Premier Nikita Khrushchev. In 1960 he was  with a 25 day visit to US.  The day after arrival over the breakfast he asked what time it could be at Moscow. It was 7 AM in New York and 3PM  in Moscow. Mr. Khrushchev commented: "Mother Nature itself put Russia ahead America in time and we will get ahead America in all other respects as well".

Fidel Castro, who was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008, met with Mr. Khrushchev at this building  in September 1960.  Castro led a delegation to New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly. He  stayed  at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem.  On September 26, Castro delivered a blistering attack on what he termed American "aggression" and "imperialism." His visit and lengthy public denunciation marked the final breaking point in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. In January 1961, the Eisenhower administration severed all diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The central doorway  had a porch with a wrought iron balcony, which provided a platform for a press conference with Nikita Khrushchev when he stayed there to visit the United Nations in 1960.

Turning the balcony into what The New York Times called “an impromptu Soviet forum,” the Premier hurled insults, sang a portion of the “Internationale”,  and tackled issues from China to the arms race.
The shoe that the world thinks Khrushchev banged at the United Nations  Oct. 13, 1960.  is one of history's most iconic symbols.
The Soviet Mission moved out in May of 1964 to larger headquarters on 136 East 67Th Street.  Khrushchev remained in power until 1964.

Six months later apartment house builders made plans to demolish 680 and 684 on Park Avenue.
The second house to be razed, 684 Park Avenue, was formerly occupied by the Institute of Public Administration.

In January of 1965, after the interior demolition of 680 and 684 Park Avenue had already begun, Marquesa de Cuevas (Margaret Strong de Larrain )the   granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller, purchased the mansions, along with an adjacent house located at 49 East 68th Street. The purchase freed the houses from the hands of real estate developer  for a price of 2 million dollars.

Marquesa later donated mansion at 680 Park Avenue to the Center for Inter-American Relations, a private organization for fostering cultural and trade relations between the United States and Latin America. She donated the second building, a mansion at 684 Park Avenue, to the Spanish Institute, a nonprofit cultural organization for furthering friendship between the United States and Spain.


In 1966 the architectural firm of Walker O. Cain & Associates directed restoration of the interior in the style of the original building. The ripped-out plank floors and exquisite marble mantles were traced down, reinstalled and the restoration was complete.

When the house was dedicated in 1967, among the 500 guests was Mrs. C. Suydam Cutting, who fifty years earlier had walked down the grand staircase for the last time as Mary Pyne, the wife of  Percy Pyne.  Mrs. C. Suydam Cutting died in died in 1983.

The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1970 and is listed in the National Register of Historical Places.

If you like you can have you wedding or any private event in the same hall where  Nikita Khrushchev hold parties.

New York events in January-February 2014: Guitar ,Wine, Beer and Antiques...


New York Guitar Festival  January 10th – January 30th
The festival will open with an all-Bach recital by Pepe Romero at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden  (220 Vesey Street  in Downtown) on Jan. 10, at 8 PM. 
The Winter Garden is a spectacular 3-story barrel-vaulted glass atrium, offering panoramic views of the Hudson River and the future site of the World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan. This concert is FREE. Touring the world in celebration of his 70th year, Romero will give his only New York concert this season at the New York Guitar Festival. Romero encompasses some 60 albums.

 “Silent Films/Live Guitars,” at Merkin Concert Hall, presents new live music for eight films from the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Merkin Concert Hall is located at 129 W. 67th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Price: $25

Jan. 21,Tuesday, 7:30PM: Josef von Sternberg’s “Docks of New York” , Fatty Arbuckle film “Coney Island”
Jan. 23,Thursday 7:30PM “The Goddess,” by Wu Yonggang , Arbuckle’s “Garage”
Jan 28, Tuesday 7:30PM Walter Ruttman’s “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” and Arbuckle’s “Out West” 

The guitar marathon, on Jan. 20 at Merkin Concert Hall will be in two parts, with a dinner break.  The afternoon session, from 2 to 5 p.m., will be devoted to North American music and the evening session  will focus on Latin American music.

Groundhog Day in Staten Island Zoo Saturday, February 02
Presenting  Staten Island’s Spring Prognosticator: Charles G. Hogg with a Spring Prediction success rate of 80%  -tops among Groundhogs.The Zoo’s gates will open at 6:30 am and Chuck will do his thing at 7 am. Admission to the ceremony is free.
Afterwards, have breakfast with Chuck: $10 for adults; $5 children under 5. The Patrick Raftery Band will entertain during both the ceremony and breakfast.


The 5th Annual NYC Winter Wine Festival  Saturday, February 8, 2014

Best Buy Theater (1515 Broadway at W. 44th St.) in Times Square.
You must be 21 or older to attend this event.
There will be two  sessions: 3-6 pm  or 8-11 pm. Price $79 ( admission) or $104( Admission + vine class)
 The theater is converted into gargantuan vineyard. 200+ Wines For Tasting! Special live jazz performance on stage!
ADMISSION INCLUDES:
Wine:  3 hours of tasting over 200 wines at our sampling tables
Food:  selection of hors d’oeuvres, antipasto, pasta, cheese, and breads.
Live Music:  live contemporary jazz performance by a national act on stage.
Program Guide:  Comprehensive reference booklet with all wines listed and tasting notes on each.
Wine Glass: Sip from a lovely wine glass, designed to enhance your tasting experience — yours to keep and take home after the event!

60th annual Winter Antiques Show  January 24 - February 2, 2014
Daily 12:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Sundays & Thursday 12:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Park Avenue Armory 67th St. & Park Ave. New York City
 Daily Admission: $25 (includes catalog)
One-third of the 73 Show's exhibitors are specialists in Americana, with the rest featuring English, European, and Asian fine and decorative arts.  From ancient Roman glass through mid-century Modern, every object exhibited at the Winter Antiques Show is vetted for authenticity, date, and condition by a committee of 160 experts from the United States and Europe. The strict vetting regulations and the vettors' expertise ensure that buyers can purchase with confidence.
There is a café on the Show Floor that is catered by Canard.


NYC Craft Beer Festival  Feb. 28th -March 1, 2014
Lexington Armory,68 Lexington Ave, New York between  25th and 26th Streets

In the tradition of the Grand Tasting, each attendee will be given a tasting glass and have the opportunity to try unlimited 2 oz tastings of approximately 150 craft beers from all over the country.  Food will be available for purchase for all attendees and there will be a selection of retail vendors on-site.
VIP and Connoisseur attendees will have the first hour to themselves to sample these great brews and Connoisseurs will have a private lounge with rare selections and passed hors d'oeuvres throughout the session.  We will also be offering expert seminars for all attendees (first-come first-served) that highlight key aspects of the craft beer industry including pairings, business, and more!
Friday, Feb. 28th 
Gen. Admission 8:00 PM - 10:30 PM / VIP & Connoisseur 7:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Saturday, March. 1st 
VIP & Connoisseur 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM / General Admission 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
VIP & Connoisseur 6:00 PM - 9:30 PM / General  Admission 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM




Wallenberg -the hero of the Holocaust, who save tens of thousands of Jews.

 
On a small triangle   on First  Avenue  across the street from   the United Nations Building in Manhattan, there is a memorial to Swedish Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved the lives of  thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. 

The memorial was created by Swedish artist Gustav Kraitz who named it "Hope". It was dedicated on November 9, 1998. Kraitz’s piece, is comprised of a replica of Wallenberg’s briefcase, a sphere, five pillars of hewn black granite, and stones which once paved the streets of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest. The stones were a gift from the city of Budapest.


Raoul Gustav Wallenberg  was born in 1912  in one of Sweden’s wealthiest and most prominent families. He was fluent in English, French, German, and Russian.  Wallenberg's paternal grandfather sent him to study in Paris. He spent one year there, and then, in 1931, he studied at the University of Michigan in the United States.  He graduated from university in 1935 and , after 6 months   in South Africa  and 6 months  in   Haifa returned to Sweden  to help his  uncle   Jacob Wallenberg at the export-import company owns by a Hungarian Jew Kálmán Lauer.  


In June 1944, the War Refugee Board ,   established  by United States, appointed Raoul Wallenberg first secretary at the Swedish legation in Budapest.

At the beginning of 1944, there were   700,000 Jews in Hungary.  By the time of Wallenberg's arrival there were only 230,000 Jews remaining in Hungary.  Together with fellow Swedish diplomat Per Anger he made fake  "protective passports" which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation and thus prevented their deportation. These documents looked official and were generally accepted by German.

Protective passport

With the money raised by the board, Wallenberg rented 32 buildings in Budapest and declared them to be extraterritorial, protected by diplomatic immunity. He put up signs such as "The Swedish Library" and "The Swedish Research Institute" on their doors and hung oversize Swedish flags on the front of the buildings to bolster the deception. The buildings eventually housed almost 10,000 people. Wallenberg started sleeping in a different house each night, to guard against being captured or killed by Nazi. 
On October 29, 1944   the 2nd Ukrainian Front under Marshal Rodion Malinovsky launched an offensive In   late December 1944  the city had been successfully encircled  by the 2nd Ukrainian Front under Marshal Rodion Malinovsky.  On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was called to General Malinovsky's headquarters in Debrecen to answer allegations that he was engaged in espionage. 
Lubianka prison, Moscow

Wallenberg was transported by train through Romania, to Moscow,  transferred to Lubyanka prison and held in cell 123 with fellow prisoner Gustav Richter.
On March 8, 1945, Soviet-controlled Hungarian radio announced that Wallenberg and his driver had been murdered on their way to Debrecen.
On February 6, 1957, the Soviet government released a document dated July 17, 1947, which stated   that “… the prisoner Wallenberg   died suddenly in his cell this night, probably as a result of a heart attack or heart failure”.

 In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov was charged by the Russian government to investigate Wallenberg's fate. He concluded that Wallenberg died in 1947, executed while a prisoner in Lubyanka.  
In 2000, Russian prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov signed a verdict posthumously rehabilitating Wallenberg  as " a victim of political repression".
Jewish Museum in Moscow
Monument in Budapest
 A number of files pertinent to Wallenberg were turned over to the chief rabbi of Russia by the Russian government in September 2007 . The items were slated to be housed at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow  which opened in 2012.

Monument in London
The US Congress made Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1981, the second person to be so honored, after Winston Churchill. Wallenberg was made the first Honorary Citizen of Canada in 1985 and in 2013  in Australia.
There are many   memorials in honor of Wallenberg in different cities all over the world: in London and  Buenos Aires( the copy of London memorial), Stockholm and Budapest. Wallenberg was named. Five streets in Israel are  named after him. There is a School in Brooklyn , P.S 194 named after Wallenberg. 

School in Brooklyn, NY