Good morning. It’s Monday. We’ll find out about traffic headaches that the United Nations General Assembly could bring on this week. We’ll also find out how only two people performed a piece originally written for a symphony orchestra.
In July, the United Nations General Assembly approved a declaration on road safety. There was a mention of the need for “traffic calming,” and references to the word “traffic” appeared 20 times. The word “gridlock” did not appear in the text. And there was no mention of traffic at the United Nations itself, something that bedevils New York during the annual session of the General Assembly, which brings heads of state and their motorcades to Midtown Manhattan for a week in September. Don’t look now, but this is that week. It’s a week when traffic jams will prompt rather undiplomatic language amid snarls and street closings that leave you going nowhere. As Mayor Zohran Mamdani put it at a news conference the other day, “I want to thank New Yorkers in advance for their patience.” What to expect? Meandering motorcades, with S.U.V.s working their way between United Nations Headquarters, the delegates’ consulates or missions, their hotels, and the places where invitation-only receptions and dinners are taking place. It’s also Climate Week, which will bring some of the same officials to the Javits Center and Hudson Yards — on the opposite side of Manhattan from U.N. Headquarters — and locations in between. 5 gridlock alert daysThe city’s Department of Transportation has declared every day this week a gridlock alert day. It’s the only full week of gridlock alerts between now and the end of the year. Last year, there was also a week in December with five consecutive gridlock alert days. Not this year. (But two weeks in December will have four designated days.) Mamdani said that there would be “rolling” closures, stopping vehicles and pedestrians around U.N. Headquarters and spreading out as U.N. delegations (and their entourages) crisscross the city. Portions of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive will be closed at times, the mayor said. Here’s more about what to know. Congestion pricing and the General AssemblyThis is the second annual session of the General Assembly since congestion-pricing tolls were introduced. Transportation experts say the $9 tolls for most vehicles reduced traffic in the area south of 60th Street. But Samuel Schwartz, the former New York City traffic commissioner who is credited with coining the term “gridlock,” said he remained “disappointed” that a provision for a 25-percent surcharge on gridlock alert days was dropped. That would have kept more cars off the streets this week, he said. “The value of congestion pricing is we do have fewer vehicles coming in, and especially on the East Side,” he said, “but there is no escaping the gridlock if you venture into that area, and there’s a high-level dignitary or the president is moving about.” President Trump is expected to visit New York and address the General Assembly during the week. Still, Schwartz said, congestion pricing has made a difference. When streets are closed to clear the way for motorcades, “some of the stackup will be less severe.” Stackup? “Instead of being backed up to 23rd Street” on First Avenue south of the U.N., “maybe you’ll only be backed up to 27th or 28th,” he said. But some drivers worry that expanded bicycle lanes will undercut the benefits of reduced traffic. The police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said that there was usually an uptick in protests related to the General Assembly — usually around Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza on East 47th Street. This year, protests are planned throughout the week, including demonstrations at Bryant Park, at Union Square and in Brooklyn. The U.N. meeting in July focused on improving safety and cutting traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50 percent in the next four years. The declaration also called for addressing “the road safety challenges” of vehicles like e-bikes. The declaration was approved by a vote of 162 to 1. Only the United States voted against it. WEATHER Today will be mostly cloudy with a high near 69. Cloudy conditions will continue tonight as temperatures drop near 59. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended today (Yom Kippur). QUOTE OF THE DAY “This summer deserves an Oscar,” said Jeremiah Morse, who lives in Harlem, reflecting on how, in the past few months, New Yorkers have rediscovered a vitality they hadn’t realized was missing. The latest New York news
No orchestra this time
“Lincoln Portrait,” a 15-or-so-minute work by Aaron Copland, turned up on concert programs as the nation celebrated its 250th birthday. Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and former secretary of state, narrated it at Carnegie Hall in June. In July, the same text was read by F. Murray Abraham with the New York Philharmonic, and later by Josh Brolin for the Music Academy of the West and Matthew McConaughey with the Houston Symphony. A performance last week was different. There was no orchestra, only a piano. Copland’s score had been transcribed by Joseph Trefler, who has worked on a number of Broadway musicals. The pianist was Michael Boriskin, the artistic and executive director of Copland House, a nonprofit based in the house in Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., where Copland lived for 30 years until his death in 1990. The occasion was the group’s gala, at the Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center. The narrator was the gala’s honoree, Judith Pisar, a former executive director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and former chairwoman of the American Center in Paris. When Boriskin called her about the gala, “I said, ‘I want to do something,’” she said. “He said, ‘Let’s do the piece.’ Copland means so much to me because I started out in my professional life representing composers.” She ran a lecture bureau that sent contemporary composers to colleges around the country. Copland wasn’t on her roster, but she called him “the godfather of them all.” Boriskin said that he had approached the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, which manages Copland’s estate, about “a more portable version” of “Lincoln Portrait.” The fund commissioned Trefler, he said. Pisar has experience narrating concert works — she narrated Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 (“Kaddish”) at Carnegie Hall last year with her daughter Leah Pisar — and she was introduced at the Copland House event by her son Antony Blinken, the former secretary of state, just as at Carnegie Hall. The narration for “Lincoln Portrait” is considerably shorter than for “Kaddish,” but Boriskin said that he and Pisar still needed some rehearsal time. “The beauty of narrator and piano is, let’s just get together for lunch and have a rehearsal,” Boriskin said. METROPOLITAN DIARY Bird box
Dear Diary: I was walking down Bedford Avenue on a Monday afternoon, hurrying back to my home office in Williamsburg, when I looked down and saw an injured mourning dove on the sidewalk. A woman was sitting beside the dazed bird, shielding it from passers-by while calling 311. I stopped to offer my help, which she welcomed. I told her that the Wild Bird Fund, which I follow on Instagram, had recently posted instructions about what to do if you find an injured bird. We found the emergency bird hotline. In the meantime, we decided the dove might benefit from water and the safety of a shoe box. I rushed to a nearby doughnut place. I explained the situation and asked for water. The young woman behind the counter eagerly offered some in an espresso cup and waved as I hurried out. After placing the cup next to the bird, I darted across the street to a shoe store. I explained the situation again and said a shoe box would be helpful. The shopkeeper happily went to the back to fetch one, as customers inquired about the bird situation. When I returned with the shoe box, the woman was on the phone coordinating the bird’s care. Before leaving, I felt I should introduce myself to this kind stranger and then asked her name in return. “My name is Hope,” she said. — Christina Daigneault Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed |
