Economist.com Cities Guide: New York Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Ports in a political storm

The political stand-off over the management of American ports finally came to an end on March 9th, when Dubai Ports World (DP World) announced it would transfer its American ports to a “United States entity”. While the details of this transfer remain unclear, the move ends weeks of protests against the takeover by DP World of six American ports through the acquisition of P&O, a British maritime firm. The kerfuffle began on February 13th when DP World, a ports operator owned by the government of Dubai, a member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), paid $6.8 billion for P&O. It then acquired ports in Miami, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, New Jersey and New York.

The takeover of these ports had unleashed a flurry of complaints from American politicians, ostensibly over national security. Two of the September 11th hijackers were from the UAE and the attacks were partly financed by funds that went through Dubai banks. Both of New York's senators had joined the melee: Hillary Clinton planned to introduce legislation to prohibit the sale of port operations to foreign governments; and Chuck Schumer proposed emergency legislation to block the deal. But George Bush has been steadfast in his support of the takeover, arguing that the UAE is an ally. He has promised to veto any bill that blocks or delays the deal. DP World’s announcement seems to have saved Mr Bush from what could have been an embarrassing face-off with Congress.

Body snatchers

The owner of a biomedical tissue supply company has been indicted, along with three other men, on charges of body stealing, fraud, forgery and corruption. At issue is a scheme that allegedly involved carving up more than 1,000 corpses at funeral parlours and selling the parts for profit. Skin was sold for cosmetic surgery and burn victims, bone for orthopaedic uses and dental implants, and cardiac valves for patients with heart problems. Such parts can be processed for profit, unlike lungs, hearts and kidneys, which are handled by non-profit groups.

Michael Mastromarino, owner of the supply company, and Joseph Nicelli, an embalmer and former Brooklyn funeral-parlour owner, allegedly forged death certificates and donor consent forms. In the case of Alistair Cooke, a BBC broadcaster who was 95 years old when he died from cancer in March 2004, fake documents said he died at 85 from a heart attack. Surgical gloves and PVC pipes were stuffed into the corpses to disguise the thefts from unsuspecting families. Charles Hynes, Brooklyn’s District Attorney, revealed that the ring made $4.6m over four years, plundering corpses from more than 30 funeral parlours in New York and nearby states. Funeral-parlour directors were paid $1,000 per corpse by the alleged body-snatchers, and some 12,000 people may have received these parts. On the open market, one body can bring in as much as $250,000 for harvesting and transplant companies, according to Mr Hynes. The Food and Drug Administration now worries that these transplants were not properly screened, and recipients may have been exposed to viruses such as HIV and hepatitis.

Beginning again

Construction of the World Trade Centre Memorial is finally due to begin in March. Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, said the total cost, which would include related projects such as a visitor’s centre, would be $1 billion: double the initial estimate. The memorial is planned to open on September 11th 2009.

Mr Bloomberg and Chuck Schumer, a New York senator, have publicly disputed plans for the site’s future. The mayor recently proposed the area should include more residential space. Mr Schumer, however, says the city should promote commercial building by giving the site’s developer $1.8 billion in Liberty Bonds, a tax-free financing scheme. He also proposed that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should move into the Freedom Tower, the main new skyscraper. The rebuilding is largely controlled by George Pataki, New York's governor, and the Port Authority, which owns the site. Mr Pataki would like work to start on the tower in April 2006.

The perils of percussions

Vado Diomande, a local drum-maker, has been hospitalised with a case of inhaled anthrax. City officials say he may have contracted anthrax from the raw animal hides he imports from the Côte d'Ivoire. Seven other people were given antibiotics as a precautionary measure, but Mr Bloomberg has been quick to reassure New Yorkers that there was no risk of any wider danger and that the infection appeared to be accidental, rather than the result of terrorism. The city health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, has confirmed that this incident involved a naturally occurring anthrax, though he could not verify that untreated hides were the source. Rates for human cases of anthrax-poisoning are high in Africa, according to the World Health Organisation, though some drum-makers are sceptical that untreated hides could carry the disease.

Health investigators have quarantined five buildings in the city. They found low levels of anthrax—which occurs naturally in soil and grazing animals—at the victim’s apartment in the West Village as well as in his workshop in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of DUMBO. Authorities plan to disinfect both buildings and have offered to scour the apartments of Mr Diomande's neighbours as well.

Pedal power

In a long-running battle between the city and a group of committed cyclists, Michael Stallman, a state supreme court judge, ruled in favour of the latter. Critical Mass, a protest collective, gathers on the last Friday of every month to cycle in Manhattan in support of cyclists’ rights, among other political issues. During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, police arrested over 260 participants in a Critical Mass gathering for parading without a permit and “disorderly conduct”. Traffic officials argue that the cyclists have little respect for traffic laws and road safety, and have regularly arrested participants. But Judge Stallman rejected the city's lawsuit to halt the gatherings, ruling that the group did not meet the city's definition of “a parade or procession” and so they do not need a permit. He argued that criminalising the ride could flood the courts with petulant cyclists, and urged the two sides to reconcile. The city plans to appeal the decision.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Mark Morris Dance Group

Until March 25th 2006

In 1984 the New Yorker ran a picture of a young choreographer with disarming eyes and a mop of brown ringlets. “Mark Morris Comes to Town”, the magazine declared, anointing the new darling of New York’s dance scene. Now 49 years old, Mr Morris is celebrating his company’s 25th anniversary, with more than 125 dances under his expanding belt. This month the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) hosts a slew of events to honour the choreographer, including three programmes from his repertoire.

Mr Morris’s work runs the gamut of style and mood, but musicality is at its core. He insists that his dances be performed to live music; his stint at BAM this month even includes his conducting debut. Don't miss “Dido and Aeneas” (Programme B), which is Mr Morris at his best. Set to Henry Purcell’s baroque opera, the dramatic score seems to course through the dancers’ veins. Mr Morris’s musical ingenuity is a pleasure to watch: at one point two wicked characters mirror the singers’ coloratura by shimmying; at another the dancers pound the stage with their feet, the low rumble evoking impending doom. Amber Darragh is a regal Dido, imbuing each movement with both poise and vulnerability. Her final dance is heartbreaking.

For all his triumphs, Mr Morris’s love affair with music can at times be crippling. In “Four Saints in Three Acts”, set to the opera by Virgil Thomson and an irritating libretto by Gertrude Stein, dancers respond to every orchestral twinge in a way that seems slavish, and even boring. Thankfully this is an anomaly in an otherwise glittering body of work.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, Howard Gilman Opera House. 30 Lafayette Ave (between Ashland Place and St Felix St), Brooklyn. Tel: +1 (718) 636–4100. See BAM’s website for more information.

“Hedda Gabler”

Until March 26th 2006

One cannot pass a newsstand here without seeing a picture of Cate Blanchett splashed across a local glossy. New Yorkers are thrilled that the Australian actress has descended on the city—on Brooklyn, no less—in this gripping adaptation of Ibsen's classic. She will not disappoint the lucky few who have secured tickets; the month-long run is already sold out, but cancelled tickets are available for resale at the Harvey Theatre box office before each performance.

As Hedda, the most memorable desperate housewife of the stage, Ms Blanchett is a kinetic presence, with the elongated dimensions of a flame. The claustrophobia of her life in her new marriage to the tedious Jorgen Tesman (Anthony Weigh) has her seething through her days. “There is nowhere more isolating than the middle of someone else's life,” she complains, as she flirts, teases and manipulates her way to the play's tragic end. Andrew Upton, a playwright and Ms Blanchett's husband, has tinkered with the script slightly for the Sydney Theatre Company, and Robyn Nevin directs. Hugo Weaving is electrifying as Judge Brack, and Mr Weigh is convincingly irritating. Aden Young, as the dashing, young Ejlert Lovborg, could use just a touch more mojo to go with all that hair.

Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton St, Fort Greene. Tel: +1 (718) 636-4100. For more information, visit BAM's website.

On Site: New Architecture in Spain

Until May 1st 2006

Spain has become a hotbed of architectural excellence. Innovative structures are rising across the country, from the suburbs of Madrid to medieval Basque squares, the arid countryside and the centre of Barcelona. With photographs and scale models, this exhibit transports visitors across the Atlantic to 35 sites that are in design or under construction, and 18 recently completed projects.

Many of the buildings here have an enchanting, otherworldly effect. Enric Ruiz-Geli’s Hotel Habitat in Barcelona features a structure that seems to float in a sparkling net of 5,000 photovoltaic cells; the cells provide shade by day and light at night, changing colour depending on how much sunlight was absorbed. Other buildings are less dramatic, but hardly quotidian. The Edificio Mirador outside of Madrid, with a five-storey cube cut out of the centre, proves that even public housing can be playful. Many designs take their cues from nature: in Sevilla, Juergen Mayer’s mushroom-shaped canopies rise 90 feet above Roman ruins; and at the Barajas Airport in Madrid, Richard Rogers’s steel “trees” support an undulating bamboo roof. For all their forward-thinking, many architects seem to be looking back to the organic forms of that most famous Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi.

The exhibit's curators have selected projects that are impressively diverse, which makes for a somewhat disorganised exhibit. Still, visitors catch a glimpse of architects at their most inventive. And MoMA, a temple of architectural minimalism after a recent renovation, is a fitting spot for this impressive show.

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 St, between Fifth and Sixth Aves. Tel: +1 (212) 708-9400. Open: Weds-Mon, 10.30am-5.30pm (Fridays until 8pm). For more information, visit the museum’s website.

“The Pajama Game”

Until June 11th 2006

For pure, light-hearted entertainment, you could hardly find something more satisfying than “The Pajama Game” on Broadway. This is a fun revival, filled with infectious energy, classic music and real sexual chemistry between the leads. The story takes place in a pajama factory in the 1950s, where a love affair crosses labour lines. Against a back-drop of union meetings, salary complaints and a looming strike, a lusty love blooms between Babe Williams (Kelli O'Hara), the dishy head of the workers' grievance committee, and Sid Sorokin (Harry Connick Jr), the swoon-worthy new superintendent.

Mr Connick, a composer and singer, shines in his Broadway debut. He brings a jazzy, virile cool to the role of Sid, crooning such classics as “Hey There” and spicing up “There Once Was a Man”. Watching him jump and jive, with dimples like craters, it is hard to know why he waited so long to grace the stage. As for Ms O'Hara, who is blessed with a gorgeous voice and a pin-up's figure, she adds a bit of guts and grit to her angelic soprano. It is still a stretch to dress this classy dame in a blue collar, but she is wonderful to watch.

American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd St (Between Seventh & Eighth Aves). Tel: +1 (212) 719-1300. For more information, see the theatre's website.

Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul

February 19th-May 8th 2006

Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Norway's most celebrated artist, is perhaps best known for “The Scream”, a chilling portrayal of human anguish. This retrospective—the first to be held in an American museum in almost three decades—includes a couple of lithographs of the iconic work. But it also sheds a more personal light on the painter, who ended his days in seclusion.

A survey of Munch's work is far from light. Quite a few dark and morbid themes run throughout the 87 paintings and 50 works on paper here, such as his preoccupation with illness and death (his mother and sister both died from tuberculosis), and his screwed up relationships with women. And he always viewed himself as an outsider, often on the cusp of madness. This exhibition traces his development from a fragile, young art student into a tortured symbolist.

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St (between 5th & 6th Aves). Tel: +1 (212) 708-9400. For more information, see the museum's website.

The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984

Until April 1st 2006

These days downtown Manhattan can seem like a vast concrete playground, with swish boutiques and restaurants peppering a colony of young professionals in SoHo and the East Village. The area is so tourist-friendly that it is easy to forget it was ever different. But in the 1970s New York was bankrupt and gritty; when a blackout fell in 1977, latent unrest erupted in mass riots and pillaging. In this fiery time downtown Manhattan was a hive of creativity. Artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers eagerly addressed the questions of the day, exploring the middle ground between pop culture and high art. New York University pays homage to this thriving scene with an exhibit of works created from 1974-84, as the city fell apart and slowly sewed itself back up.

“The Downtown Show” is loosely organised according to theme, but the exhibit is nothing if not a hotch-potch. Painting, sculpture and photography mingle with video, journals and ephemera. Highlights include the first issue of Raw, a magazine that expanded the range of comic-book art, and Peter Hujar’s “Candy Darling on her deathbed”, a haunting photograph of a Warhol-factory drag queen channelling Greta Garbo as she lay dying of leukaemia. Some works, such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s erotic photographs and Keith Haring’s cartoon figures, have been absorbed into the artistic canon. Others are less familiar, and for good reason. But the collective mishmash evokes the raw vibrancy of a downtown that has all but disappeared.

Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 100 Washington Square East. Tel: + 1 (212) 998-6780. Open: Tues, Thurs-Fri, 11am-6pm; Wed, 11am-8pm; Sat, 11am-5pm. For more information visit the gallery's website.

“Rabbit Hole”

Until April 9th 2006

This new play by David Lindsay-Abaire is so realistic and so organic, that it has the effect of making viewers feel like voyeurs. At its centre is a young couple in a plush suburban home, as they grieve over the accidental death of their four-year-old son. The play begins eight months in, as Becca (Cynthia Nixon) and Howie (John Slattery) begin to pick up the pieces of their life and marriage.

What saves this play from the tear-jerking of a television drama is Mr Linsday-Abaire's honest and often comic dialogue, delivered with reserve from a remarkable cast. Ms Nixon, perhaps best known for her stint on “Sex and the City”, is wonderful to watch here. The ease with which she inhabits Becca, a strong and intelligent woman, lets her character's quirks fall believably into place. “Rabbit Hole” may not raise any big questions, but it does capture the mysterious power of family—those we adore but can't choose. Ultimately, it is a rare kind of love story, one that captures not its first blossom, but how people sustain the bloom in harsh weather.

Biltmore Theatre, 261 West 47th St (between Broadway & 8th Ave). Tel: +1 (212) 239-6200. For more information, see the show's website. Buy tickets through Telecharge's website.

“Bridge & Tunnel”

Until July 9th 2006

In 1909 Israel Zangwill, a playwright, coined the term “melting pot” to describe the jumbled community of immigrants who come to New York in search of opportunity. The many exotic ingredients of such a stew can be appraised in “Bridge & Tunnel”. Sarah Jones's critically acclaimed one-woman show, in which she inhabits countless characters from all over the city, has come to Broadway for a limited run.

The conceit of the play is a multi-cultural poetry reading hosted by Mohammed Ali, a Pakistani-American poet and accountant. The many guests he calls up include an elderly eastern-European Jewish woman; a strident young Vietnamese-American man; an insouciant African-American rapper; and a middle-aged Chinese-American woman grappling with her daughter's lesbianism. Ms Jones, a poet and playwright, has astounding range: with minimal props and a simple stage, she morphs from one character to the next, traversing boundaries of age, sex and nationality with jaw-dropping precision and grace. But the show is more than just a spotlight on Ms Jones's acting skills; it is a moving tribute to the challenges of crossing borders in order to move forward.

Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th St (between Broadway & 8th Ave). Tel: +1 (212) 239-6200. Buy tickets through Telecharge's website. See Sarah Jones's official website.

Robert Rauschenberg: Combines

Until April 2nd 2006

Paint-splattered comic strips, postcards, athletic socks, newspaper headlines and taxidermised animals are all the stuff of great art. Or so argues Robert Rauschenberg, who blurred the line between high art and everyday detritus in his “combines”, the term he used to describe his collages. This winter, Pop Art's founding father is the subject of an extensive tribute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit’s grand galleries house 67 dynamic combines, with never before seen works among more famous ones, such as “Monogram” and “Canyon”.

Created between 1954 and 1964, these combines show Mr Rauschenberg at his most inventive. Defying the postwar tenet that an artist should strive toward visual purity, they are a delirious mess of painting and sculpture, jutting playfully beyond rectangular frames and into the space of the viewer. Each combine challenges the viewer to string an interpretation from one visual reference to the next; no two people will read a combine in the same way. For all his innovation, Mr Rauschenberg, now 80 years old, also tipped his hat to the grand masters. “Collection”, made in 1954, includes a postcard of the 18th-century masterpiece “Las Meninas”, in which Velasquez painted a mirror to comment on the role of viewer. Indeed, this collage features a mirror, to remind the viewer of his active task in interpreting the combine and elevating it to a work of art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave (at 82nd St). Tel: +1 (212) 535-7710. Open: Sun, Tues-Thurs, 9.30am-5.30pm; Fri-Sat, 9.30am-9pm. Visit the museum’s website for further information.

“Abigail's Party”

Until April 8th 2006

An intoxicating mixture of darkness and light, Mike Leigh's “Abigail's Party” gets fine treatment in this production at the Acorn Theatre. Jennifer Jason Leigh is wonderfully acidic as Beverly, the hostess of a small party in her 1977 suburban London home. She twitches and sways around her groovy pad, drinking, smoking and tossing off barbs that can feel both dimly oblivious and cunningly searing.

The evening is a slow descent into something grim, which pulls down her hen-pecked husband and a few invited neighbours—a naive young couple and an older, more-sombre woman. But even the messiest moments of this gathering offer quite a bit to twitter about. Mr Leigh has a fine ear for the banalities of cocktail chatter, but this play is spared from complete misanthropy by a fine cast. The nugget of pathos in each character is tracked down with the help of smart direction from Scott Elliott. This is the first time this play is being produced in New York.

Acorn Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St. Tel: +1 (212) 279-4200. For more information, see the theatre's website.

“Darwin” at the American Museum of Natural History

Until August 20th 2006

Charles Darwin expected scepticism for his theory of evolution. But one can assume, nearly 150 years on, that he would have been surprised to discover how controversial his theory still is (at least in America). This well-timed show is the most comprehensive ever mounted on the man and his theory. Covering over 6,000 sq ft, with plenty of manuscripts, letters, artefacts, specimens and a few live animals (such as Galapagos tortoises and an iguana), it traces the logic of Darwin's understanding of the origin of life. This is a very impressive exhibit, well organised and with plenty to read. It makes for a good excuse to visit this remarkable museum. The only caveat is the show's galling price-tag: $21 for adults. Alas, “Darwin”—a $3m show, three years in the making—failed to find a corporate sponsor, owing to the continuing row over the teaching of evolution in schools.

American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West (at 79th St). Tel: +1 (212) 769-5100. Open: daily, 10am—5.45pm. Visit the museum’s website.