NEW YORK BRIEFING

News this month

Green and orange

Reactions to Christo and Jean-Claude's installation in Central Park, titled “The Gates”, were mixed. They ran from those who found it “inspiring”, to one Manhattanite who called the billowing orange scrims “Home Depot shelving”. Whatever feelings the grand-scale piece evoked, it was clearly a fiscal boon. It drew plenty of tourists during a slow travel month, generating three times the spending that City Hall expected: some $254m.

Quite a sum, especially for February. “The Gates” attracted over 4m visitors to Central Park during the two weeks it was up, a tremendous gain over the 750,000 people who usually visit in that period. Hotel occupancy rates were near 90%, compared with 70% at the same time last year. Elsewhere, international tourists increased 74%, spiking attendance in local restaurants and museums. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a roof garden overlooking Central Park, had a 90% jump in visitors.) Even Broadway felt the impact: ticket sales increased 17% during the first week of “The Gates”. Carriage drivers usually stable their horses in winter, but this February they were hardly ever without passengers. And “The Gates” didn't cost the city anything to create, as Christo and Jeanne-Claude funded the $21m project themselves. Some 1,100 workers were paid to install, maintain, secure and remove the piece, with everything dissembled by March 15th.

Protecting the trains

El Mundo, a Spanish newspaper, broke the story that the train bombers who killed 191 people in Madrid last March also wanted to attack New York's Grand Central Station, one of the country's biggest ground-transit hubs. Their plans included hand-made drawings found on a computer disk at a bombing suspect's home. Spanish investigators shared the data with the New York Police Department's counterterrorism division and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) city transit officials last year, though the news was only made public in early March.

A drawing of another building in New York (which has not been identified) was also found in the suspect’s apartment. Ray Kelly, New York's police commissioner, sent police to Madrid within hours of last March's attack, to see what security lessons could be learned. Soon afterwards, the NYPD changed its patrol of transit hubs and stations. Mr Kelly said the “amateur” sketch was not cause for alarm since it had too little detail to be an attack plan.

Stopping point

After almost three-and-a-half years of painstaking forensics, the New York City Medical Examiner's Office has ended efforts to identify remains of victims from the September 11th attacks. The examiner was able to identify 1,588 people—accounting for over half of the 20,000 human fragments found—but has exhausted current identification technology.

Progress has slowed since the first year of work. Since September 2004, only eight DNA matches with bone and tissue remains were found. The unidentified body parts will be stored in vacuum-sealed packages and eventually moved to the September 11th memorial at the World Trade Centre once it is built. They will also be accessible in future, when more advanced technology is available.

Fare hike

Fares for New York City's public transport system rose on February 27th for the second time in two years. Although a single ride on a subway or bus still costs $2 (after a 50 cent raise in 2003), weekly MetroCards rose from $21 to $24, monthly passes went from $70 to $76, and the express-bus fare jumped from $4 to $5. Commuter-train fares and bridge-and-tunnel tolls rose soon after, with fares on the Long Island Rail Road up between 5% and 7% and tolls up 50 cents.
The increases are meant to help mend a $607m deficit the Metropolitan Transit Authority will face next year. But local news was mostly unsympathetic, featuring commuters grousing about poor service. Despite the fare increases, subway riding is at a high not seen since 1953—New Yorkers rode the subway 1.4 billion times in 2004. Transit experts attribute this to free subway-to-bus transfers and lower crime levels.

Not just yet

Wal-Mart seems to be everywhere, except New York City. Along with Vornado, a real-estate developer, the superstore recently dropped plans to build the city's first Wal-Mart, in Queens. Local labour unions, neighbouring small businesses and politicians fiercely battled the plan, citing the firm's relatively low wages and its ban on unions. Critics also complained that a new Wal-Mart superstore would increase traffic and cause local shops to close. Proponents meanwhile applauded the firm's low prices and convenience (rarities in New York). Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, avoided the debate, though he has supported “big-box” stores in the past, for the taxes they bring.

But other chain retailers have done well here, despite initial complaints from natives: visitors to the new branches of Target in Brooklyn, and K-mart and Home Depot in Manhattan are greeted by swarming crowds. Wal-Mart, which recently opened its first store in Chicago, is still shopping for a location in New York City; Staten Island is rumoured to be an attractive site.

Catch if you can

March 2005

The Paul Taylor Dance Company

Until March 20th 2005

This March, the Paul Taylor Dance Company celebrates its 50th anniversary with “Season of Solid Gold” at the City Centre theatre. Since 1954, when Mr Taylor and five dancers performed his first work, he has become one of America’s most admired modern choreographers. To the delight of his fans, he continues to be prolific—he now has well over 100 dances in his repertoire.
“Season of Solid Gold” includes classics such as the exuberant “Esplanade”, as well as two New York premieres: “Klezmerbluegrass” and “Dante Variations”. Mr Taylor’s choreography swings through a broad emotional range, and the current crop of dancers combine virtuoso technical skill with lyricism. In “Musical Variations”, dancers struggle against confinement, portrayed in stilted, blocky movements. In “Piazzola Caldera”, Mr Taylor reinvents the tango, with one female dancer remaining aloof as a ferocious mating ritual whirls around her. Mr Taylor is known for taking on highbrow and lowbrow with equal aplomb, and in “Funny Papers” you get a bit of campy fluff, with two women prancing to “Itsy-bitsy Teenie-weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini”. The act evokes the choppy motions of old-time cartoons.

City Centre, 130 West 56th St (between 5th and 6th Ave). Tel: +1 (212) 581-1212. For more information, see City Centre’s website.

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