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DOWNTOWN
POST NYC 
 
News and Events
in Lower Manhattan
 
 
Volume 2, No. 5  Dec. 29, 2014
IN THIS ISSUE
Quote of the day:
"The community wants to be heard and involved and its programs preserved."
       - Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer in a letter to Battery Park City Authority Chairman Dennis Mehiel.

* Five elected officials ask BPCA Chairman Mehiel to rescind RFP for North Cove Marina
* Historic bell goes on display at South Street Seaport Museum
* 'The Play of Daniel' weaves a spell at Trinity Church
* Bits & Bytes: The route to NYC's top public high schools; PATH trains cutting back
* Downtown Bulletin Board: Westside Commuter Ferry; Stuy High School Community Center
* Community Board 1: Special meeting of Landmarks Committee on Jan. 5, 2015
* Calendar: Week of Dec. 29

For breaking news, go to www.DowntownPostNYC.com.

All ads in Downtown Post NYC have clickable links. Click on an ad for more information.

Musicians from "The Play of Daniel," performing at Trinity Church. Dec. 28, 2014 
(Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer) 


 

FIVE ELECTED OFFICIALS ASK BATTERY PARK CITY AUTHORITY
TO RESCIND CURRENT RFP FOR NORTH COVE MARINA OPERATOR


North Cove Marina. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

With members of the Battery Park City community fighting to keep the Battery Park City Authority from handing over North Cove Marina to an operator who would favor luxury yachts over community-based sailing programs, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer entered the fray. On Dec. 23, she wrote a strongly worded letter to BPCA Chairman Dennis Mehiel urging the Authority to rescind the current RFP for a marina operator. This RFP only gives 15 percent weight to community-based programming.

On Dec. 29, Brewer added her signature to that of other elected officials who also wrote to Mehiel. This letter went out under the signatures of New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, New York State Senator Daniel Squadron, Congressman Jerrold Nadler and City Councilmember Margaret Chin as well as Brewer.

Both letters say that they support the resolution passed by Community Board 1 on Dec. 18, 2014 that urged withdrawing the current North Cove Marina Operator RFP.   

The Dec. 29 letter asks that, "Until such time as a new RFP is released and the final selection is made, CB1 asks that the contract with the current operator be extended."  

Michael Fortenbaugh, a Battery Park City resident, has run the marina for the last 10 years and has developed numerous programs to enable people of all ages to learn to sail. Some of them are supported with scholarship assistance so that income will not be a barrier. Fortenbaugh has also made his boats and facilities available to the community for meetings and community events.

"I join the community in worrying that the current line-up of long-term, successful community sailing programs will experience major difficulties from steep fee hikes to outright access termination if BPCA chooses not to award the contracts to Michael Fortenbaugh, the current concession holder," Brewer wrote in her Dec. 23 letter to Mehiel. "Furthermore, the community is also not pleased that the current RFP process does not include any form of public participation outside the stated BPCA board meetings. There has been no public meeting, no hearing and no public comment period." 

In her letter, Brewer reminded Mehiel that planning for both the Battery Park City ball field and the Battery Park City community center had been done with the assistance of a task force that included members of the community and the Authority, and that the results had been successful. "I urge you to devise an RFP for the Marina that follows the same protocol," she wrote.

Brewer alluded to the rally that took place on Dec. 15 when more than 400 people showed up to express their support for Fortenbaugh and his application to continue as the manager of North Cove Marina.

"
The community wants to be heard and involved and its programs preserved," she said.

In the Dec. 29 letter, the elected officials stated that they supported "a significant role for community boards in general and the Battery Park City community in the governance of BPCA in particular. When a board speaks with a unanimous voice, we believe that its position must be given serious consideration."

Meanwhile, according to Fortenbaugh, over the last few days, he has received "heavy-handed" letters from the Battery Park City Authority telling him to agree to the BPCA's proffered terms allowing him to continue to dock boats in the marina for 60 days with payments due to the Authority or to get all of his property out of the marina by Dec. 31, 2014. Fortenbaugh said that he can neither agree to the terms nor get everything out of the marina in the next couple of days.

- Terese Loeb Kreuzer



 

South Street Seaport Museum
HISTORIC BELL FROM THE LIGHTSHIP, RELIEF, ON DISPLAY IN MUSEUM
 A bell from the 1904 Lightship Relief. The bell is on loan to the South Street Seaport Museum. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

The bell now on display in the 12 Fulton St. lobby of the South Street Seaport Museum is not just any bell. It belonged to the U.S. Coast Guard Lightship Relief, which served for 56 years, from 1904 to 1960, guiding ships through the busy and sometimes treacherous Ambrose Channel in New York Harbor's lower bay.

Before satellites and Global Positioning Systems, the Coast Guard stationed lightships in busy shipping channels and in other dangerous locations where permanent lighthouses were impractical. Lightship crews had to remain at their posts in all weather. A lightship's fog horn, flashing lights and radio beacon helped other ships find their way.

In the early morning of June 24, 1960, the Lightship Relief was stationed in the Ambrose Channel around 20 miles from the southern end of Manhattan and nine miles southeast of Rockaway Point.  Accounts of that day say there was a dense fog.

Sometime between midnight and 4 a.m., the U.S. cargo vessel Green Bay left Port Newark, N.J. bound for Bombay, India.

Bobbie R. Pierce, Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class on the Relief, later told what happened.

0345 ... aboard Relief LV 78/505 ... I, Bobbie R. Pierce, entered the wheelhouse to relieve the mid-watch from Seaman Blaine Kuhn. I discussed the events of the previous watch with Kuhn and reviewed / made log book entries. A dense fog covered the area, there was a light wind, and the sea was calm with a slight swell. Visibility was zero. The fog horn was on; the mast light beacon and radio beacon were all working properly. I then relieved Kuhn and assumed the deck watch.

0400 ... aboard Green Bay... the Green Bay was drifting on a heading of 035� True with engines stopped, when the Pilot Boat Launch pulled alongside. Before the Pilot departed, the Master took a radio direction finder bearing on Ambrose Lightship and a radar bearing was taken by the Pilot. Both bearings were determined to be 070� True. The Pilot estimated that at the time he took the radar bearing the range was 3/4 of a mile. The Master, on the other hand, estimated the lightship to be 1 1/2 miles distant, but this was not verified by any means.

The harbor pilot aboard Green Bay disembarked and Green Bay headed toward the Lightship Relief. It was now around 4:06 a.m.

On the Lightship Relief, Pierce went aft to check on the radio beacons. As he was returning to the wheelhouse, he remembered, "I saw a big black outline with a dim white light heading straight for us on the starboard side. I ran back to the wheelhouse and yelled down the ladder for the duty engineman, Edward J. Rothaug EN3, to come up on deck. At this time, Rothaug was just below the wheelhouse on the Mess (second) deck, had a cup of coffee in his hand, and was on his way up the ladder to the wheelhouse to check on the weather.  Rothaug quickly agreed with me, 'a ship was headed directly at us and we were going to be hit.'"

There were nine crewmen aboard the Relief. Only Pierce and Rothaug were awake. They sounded an alarm. At 4:11 a.m., the collision occurred.
 
"We all braced ourselves, as we watched in horror, the much taller bow of the freighter first strike and 'splinter' the motor life boat, then strike our starboard side, just aft of amidships between the letters 'R' and 'E,'" Pierce recalled. "We were struck on almost a 90� angle and rolled about 15� to port as a result of the impact. Directly afterwards, I did a quick head count of all hands on deck; all were OK, with no injuries. Below, on the second deck starboard passageway: Rothaug was on his way to wake the Chief when the impact occurred. He witnessed the 'bow of the Green Bay penetrate inside the hull of the Relief,' then as the Green Bay backed out, large volumes of water poured in."

Green Bay backed up and disappeared into the fog. The impact on the starboard side of Relief had left a jagged hole more than 12 feet long and more than two feet wide. The engine room was rapidly flooding and the ship was sinking. The generator stopped working. As Pierce recounted, "Almost at once, all the lights went out, the radio died and the ship changed from a live vibrant active ship with the fog horn braying and all the associated normal sounds, to a dark, strange eerie silence. The only sound now was the sea rushing in through the gash in her side."

The order came out, "Abandon ship."

The men lowered themselves into a self-inflating rubber life raft, and using their hands, rowed with all their might away from the Relief, afraid that they would be pulled down with her as she sank.

Around 10 minutes after the collision, the Relief disappeared beneath the waves of the Ambrose Channel.

In their little boat and in shock, the men drifted in the dense fog in one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. They could see nothing and no one could see them. At one point, the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth passed within a few yards of them, but didn't stop. Mercifully, she didn't hit them but she sent up such a strong wake that Pierce said, "I got really scared and life-threatening fear settled in among the crew on the raft."

After a couple of hours adrift, a motor lifeboat from Green Bay found the men and towed them to the freighter.

Within a week, all were back at work on other lightships. Pierce returned to work in the Ambrose Channel. "I had apprehension and mixed feelings about returning to that station," he said, "but stayed on the Relief LV 84/509 until my discharge on 11 August 1961."

The sunken ship is still on the bottom of the Ambrose Channel, covered with marine life. Her bell was salvaged and survives to tell the tale.

- Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Anyone who wants to see an intact lightship of the same vintage as Relief can go down to Pier 16 where the South Street Seaport Museum's Ambrose is berthed. To read the entire story of the Lightship Relief and the collision with Green Bay, click here.

The South Street Seaport Museum's Lightship Ambrose.


Twelfth Night Festival
'THE PLAY OF DANIEL' WEAVES A SPELL AT TRINITY CHURCH
"The Play of Daniel," written in the late 12th century, was performed this past weekend at Trinity Church as part of the Twelfth Night Festival.  (Photos: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Time is likely to be on our minds at this season when one year segues into the next. While the future remains a mystery, the past proves to be a goldmine, plumbed again this year by Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival, which presents music that spans a thousand years from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century.

On Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, the Twelfth Night Festival offered haunting performances at Trinity Church of "The Play of Daniel" - written in the late 12th century and preserved in a 13th-century manuscript from Beauvais. It was sung in Latin and medieval French, accompanied by instruments such as recorders, medieval lutes, a harp, a drum and other percussion, a rebec and a vielle.

"The Play of Daniel" tells the story of the Babylonian king Belshazzar and his nobles, who blasphemously drank from sacred Jewish temple vessels until they were stopped in their tracks by writing that appeared mysteriously on the wall. Unable to read it, the king (at the behest of his mother), summoned Daniel who told him what it meant - that his reign was about end and that he was about to die. As Daniel foretold, the king was killed that night and his kingdom divided between the Medes and the Persians.

In the second part of "The Play of Daniel," King Darius succeeds Belshazzar, and is persuaded by his nobles, envious of Daniel, to pass a decree forbidding prayer to any god but Darius himself. Daniel, of course, disobeys this edict, and Darius has no choice but to throw Daniel into the lion's den. However, an angel saves him, and the lions become as docile as pussy cats.

Eight hundred years ago, when few people could read and write, a play like this would have been a way of transmitting stories, much like the stained glass windows in the cathedrals, which were also a way of teaching stories to the illiterate. As the play unfolded at Trinity Church, it seemed as though the characters had stepped out of those windows and come to life, or perhaps as though they had stepped out of the pages of a particularly beautiful illuminated manuscript.

But they weren't just Biblical figures. After the angel saved Daniel from the lions and the envious people who wished to destroy him had themselves been destroyed, the players knelt in the aisle, singing of their faith in a powerful God who would protect them in life and in death, which is really what the story of Daniel is about. And they no longer seemed like kings and princes and servants and lions and an angel and Daniel, the captive Jew, but like people of the 12th-century singing what to us is ancient music but to them was the familiar liturgical and popular music of their time.

In the perfectly appropriate setting of Trinity Church, they filed out, singing - up one aisle and down another, and then out of sight so only their voices could be heard from a great distance. After they left, the audience sat for several moments in silence, not to break the spell.

"The Play of Daniel" was produced by The Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS), which is collaborating with Trinity Wall Street on the Twelfth Night Festival. The handsome program, enhanced with scholarly articles and artwork, is worth reading attentively and keeping.

Many of the performances in the festival have been recorded and posted on Trinity Wall Street's website. To see and hear "The Play of Daniel," click here.

- Terese Loeb Kreuzer 

Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival of early music at St. Paul's Chapel, 209 Broadway, and at Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street, continues through Jan. 6, 2015, with a variety of programs, some of them, free and others requiring tickets.  For more information, click here.


Bits & Bytes
THE ROUTE TO NYC'S TOP PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS; TRINITY WALL ST. FILES DEMOLITION PLANS FOR TOWER; PATH TRAIN CUTTING BACK

Blue Planet Grill at 120 Greenwich St. is closing on Jan. 4, 2015.
(Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)























"A Python Can Change Its Spots," New York Times, 12/24/14. "When a reporter dressed in a black shearling coat and a Tibetan hat edged in fox walked into Libra Leather's pop-up store in TriBeCa, Mitch Alfus, the owner, said, 'You fit right in,'" according to The New York Times. "Mr. Alfus, 62, has been a tanner since he was 27. He opened the temporary shop last month to sell rugs, furniture, apparel and sporting equipment made with hides." For the complete article, click here.

"Well-Worn Path From Top Middle Schools to Coveted High Schools," Wall Street Journal, 12/28/14. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Students hoping to get into some of New York City's most coveted public high schools have a much better shot coming from a handful of top middle schools, data show. At eight high schools that depend on a tough exam for entry, more than a quarter of the ninth-grade seats this fall were offered to applicants from just 10 high-achieving public middle schools. The numbers highlight just how hard it can be for anxious parents trying to help their children get into what they see as the best high schools, and help explain the difficulty of diversifying so-called specialized high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School. All 10 of these feeder middle schools screen children for ability, either for entrance or their popular gifted programs, and most have small fractions of black and Hispanic students." For the complete article, click here.

"Trinity Church files demolition plans for FiDi tower project," The Real Deal, 12/26/14. "Despite criticism from Community Board 1, plans for a 46-story, mixed-use Financial District tower in October, Trinity Real Estate is moving ahead with the project," The Real Deal says. "The Jason Pizer-led real estate arm of the Episcopal Trinity Church filed a demolition permit application to raze two properties on the site. A six-story building at 68 Trinity Place and a 25-story building at 74 Trinity Place would be demolished to make way for the new residential and office tower spanning roughly 300,000 square feet. Trinity tapped architecture firm Pelli Clarke Pelli to design the tower last year, as previously reported. A developer has not yet been selected." For the complete article, click here.

"City Planning looks to lease 120k sf at 120 Broadway," The Real Deal, 12/26/14. "The Department of City Planning is eyeing a 120,000-square-foot lease in the building largely credited for the creation of the modern-day zoning laws administered by - yep - the Department of City Planning," The Real Deal says. "The city is looking to consolidate offices at two separate Lower Manhattan buildings into 120,000 square feet at Silverstein Properties's120 Broadway, according to an application filed by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services on behalf of City Planning." For the complete article, click here.

Blue Planet Grill closing on Jan. 4: Blue Planet Grill at 120 Greenwich St. will be closing at the end of business on Sunday, Jan. 4 because the building has been sold. In the meantime, Blue Planet Grill will be open daily (until 10 p.m. on weekdays and until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays). Blue Planet Grill specializes in pizzas baked in a brick oven, but other food is also good and reasonably priced. During the holidays, for instance, a "special" consisting of a Caesar salad, and either braised short ribs or Chilean sea bass plus a glass of wine or beer costs $25. For more information, click here.

"Report from governors recommends changes to PATH," Crain's New York Business, 12/29/14. "A report is calling for privatizing the operations of PATH trains between New Jersey and New York City and scaling back the transit system's hours," says Crain's New York Business.
"The report was put out over the weekend by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his New York counterpart, Andrew Cuomo. The governors offered the recommendations as they both vetoed an overhaul of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the train line, bridges and tunnels and New York-area airports. Lawmakers from both states unanimously supported measures including requiring an annual independent audit of the agency, creating an inspector general's office and creating whistleblower protection." Crain's says that the PATH trains "run from Newark to New York and carry 73 million riders annually," but that "ridership is declining and revenue is low compared with other train lines." For the complete article, click here.

"The 10 Best New Restaurants of 2014," New York Times, 12/26/14. When The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells compiled his list of the 10 best restaurants of 2014, B�tard at 239 West Broadway in Tribeca made his list. "For New Yorkers who've been eating and drinking at this address since the Montrachet era, B�tard reads like a new chapter in downtown dining," he said. "It makes a clean break with the style of the last restaurant in this space, Corton, which demanded that you submit to the will of the chef as Paul Liebrandt's tasting menu went through its stunning gyrations. That had its rewards, but a high-spirited dining room was not one of them. B�tard brings back the fun." For the complete article, click here.


Downtown bulletin board
STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL COMMUNITY CENTER HOLIDAY HOURS; WESTSIDE COMMUTER FERRY;  KERRI PEDERSEN FUNDRAISER
Playing badminton at the Stuyvesant High School Community Center. It will be closed on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day but is open with extended hours during the remainder of the winter recess period. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
Community Center at Stuyvesant High School holiday hours: The Community Center at Stuyvesant High School, 345 Chambers St., is offering extended winter recess hours through Jan. 4, 2015. The Community Center will be open weekdays: 4 p.m.-10 p.m.; weekends, 1 p.m.-9 p.m. Closed,  Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. For more information about the community center and its programming, click here.
 
Westside Commuter Ferry:
New York Water Taxi's Westside Commuter Ferry, which has been running between Pier 84 at West 44th Street and the World Financial Center ferry terminal, will cease service for the season on Wednesday, Dec. 30. It will be back again in the spring. The rush-hour commuter service started in May 2014 with three round trips each way, morning and evening. The ride takes 15 minutes and costs $4.50 for a single ticket, with weekly and monthly passes available. For more information, click here.

Fundraiser for Kerri Pedersen's children
: For more than two decades, Kerri Pedersen worked as a nurse practitioner at Tribeca Pediatrics. Eleven years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but continued living as normally as possible - working and and taking care of her two children. She passed away on Dec. 16 at the age of 44. "Kerri touched thousands of local parents and their babies and children with her gentle knowledge and her loving and inviting smile," said Manon Chevallerau, one of her many admirers. "Every one who knew her, loved her and is heartbroken with the news." Pedersen was a single mother. Her older child, Conrad, now 27, has become the legal guardian for her younger child, Gage, 11. Pedersen's many friends have established a fundraiser to help her boys. To learn more about this effort, or to contribute, click here.


 
COMMUNITY BOARD 1: SPECIAL MEETING OF LANDMARKS COMMITTEE

A slide from a presentation to Community Board 1 by SHoP Architects on Oct. 4, 2012. It showed a renovated Link Building on Pier 17, housing a food market. Now, The Howard Hughes Corporation is proposing to tear down the Link Building.

Jan. 5, 2015: There will be a special meeting of Community Board 1's Landmarks Committee to discuss The Howard Hughes Corporation's proposals for South Street Seaport development and to vote on a resolution that will be presented to the City's Landmarks Preservation Commission. The meeting will be held at the National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, in the Diker Pavilion, starting at 6 p.m. The public may attend but will not be allowed to participate in the discussion.

The topics to be considered in the resolution include:
1. Tin Building: relocation and one-story addition
2. Pier 17 western edge/removal of headhouse
3. Pier 17 canopy and mechanical screen
4. Pedestrian canopy
5. Demolition of the Link Building
6. Construction of pavilions and lighting under FDR Drive
7. East River Esplanade
8. New building on Pier 16
9. Schermerhorn Row and new building on John Street
10. Wayfinding dynamic signs

Community Board meetings for January 2015:

Jan. 1: Office closed - New Year's Day
Jan. 5: Special Landmarks Committee meeting, as described above
Jan. 6: Battery Park City Committee
Jan. 7: Financial District Committee
Jan. 8: Landmarks Committee
Jan. 12: Planning Committee
Jan. 13: Youth & Education Committee
Jan. 14: Tribeca Committee
Jan. 15: Quality of Life
Jan. 19: Office closed - Martin Luther King's birthday
Jan. 20: Seaport/Civic Center Committee
Jan. 26: Monthly full board meeting (to be held at PS 89, 201 Warren St., 2nd floor auditorium)



CALENDAR: Week of Dec. 29
A cuff bracelet created by Navajo jeweler Raymond Yazzie is part of an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, called "Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family." (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)
Dec. 30: The Skyscraper Museum is offering extended hours with a chance to see its current exhibit, "Times Square: 1984." Regular opening times are Wed.-Sun., noon to 6 p.m. Closed Jan. 1 (New Year's Day). Place: 39 Battery Place. Open: Noon to 6 p.m. Tickets: $5; $2.50 (students and seniors). For more information, click here.

Dec. 30: As part of Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival, Grand Harmonie plays period arrangements of operatic and orchestral favorites for wind band by Mozart, Rossini and Haydn. Place: St. Paul's Chapel (Broadway at Fulton Street). Time: 1 p.m. Free.

Dec. 30: A concert, "Il Grosso Pastorale," played by New York Baroque Incorporated on period instruments, juxtaposes the pastoral music of Georg Philipp Telemann, Giuseppe Torelli, Antonio Vivaldi, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Arcangelo Corelli. In the 17th and 18th centuries, wealthy  households displayed large Nativity scenes, often set in the peaceful countryside of Bethlehem, leading many composers to incorporate forms of the Pastorale into their compositions specifically to be played at Christmastime. Place: St. Paul's Chapel (Broadway at Fulton Street). Time: 6 p.m. Tickets: $25. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.
 
Ongoing: The Jewish Art Salon presents "Lashon Hara: On the Consequences of Hate Speech." This exhibit examines the power of words, both within hate speech and as "a catalyst for salvation" The exhibit features several mixed media textile works by Robin Atlas. Place: The Anne Frank Center USA (44 Park Place). Time: Tuesdays through Saturdays (except holidays), 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets: $8 (adults); $5 (students and seniors 65 and over); Free for children ages 8 and under.

Through Feb. 27, 2015. For more information, click here.  

 

Ongoing: An exhibit at Poets House called "Winter Wedding: Holiday Cards by Poets" is a compendium of imaginative and sometimes touching holiday greetings. The exhibit has been drawn from the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University and was curated by Kevin Young and Lisa Chinn. See "Happy Holidays" greetings from Langston Hughes, "Seasons Greetings" from Seamus and Marie Heaney and handmade valentines exchanged by Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan. This exhibition explores the vibrant, often funny, and always fascinating portraits of time, affection and ties of love and friendship. The exhibition is on view during library hours through March 21, 2015. Place: 10 River Terrace. Free. For more information, click here.

Through Dec. 31: After the success of artist Anne Militello's 2013 installation "Light Cycles" in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, Arts Brookfield commissioned a new design called "Metamorphosis" featuring a unique palette of colors and light patterns to honor the holiday season. Each night, the installation illuminates the plaza through a harmonious interplay of colors, starting with a gentle flicker of candlelight and transforming into a brighter, more colorful display throughout December. Place: 220 Vesey St. on the facade of the Winter Garden facing North Cove Marina. Time: 7 p.m. to midnight.

Through Jan. 6, 2015: Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival of early music at St. Paul's Chapel, 209 Broadway, and at Trinity Church, Broadway at Wall Street, continues through Jan. 6, 2015, with a variety of programs, some of them, free and others requiring tickets.  For more information, click here.

Ongoing
: "Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family" opened on Nov. 14 and continues through Jan. 10, 2016. The exhibit includes more than 300 examples of beautifully crafted jewelery, most of it made by the Yazzie family, with some from the National Museum of the American Indian's collection. Through a video, photographs and a handsome catalog, the exhibit shows how the jewelry expresses Navajo cultural values and way of life inspired by a majestic landscape of buttes, mesas and desert. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and on Thursdays until 8 p.m.; closed December 25. Admission is free. 

  

Ongoing: The Skyscraper Museum presents "Times Square, 1984: The Postmodern Movement," on view through Jan. 18, 2015. Times Square today is bright and crowded - a tourist mecca, entertainment district, retail powerhouse and pedestrianized precinct that matches in vitality, both economic and populist, any decade of its storied past. But 30 years ago, the future of Times Square was in limbo - caught between a series of false starts at clean-slate urban renewal by New York City and New York State and an emerging philosophy of urbanism that favored history, preservationist values, electric signs and semiotics, and delirious diversity. Place: 39 Battery Place. Open, Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Admission: $5; $2.50 (students and seniors). For more information, click here.  
  
Ongoing: "A Town Known as Auschwitz" is an exhibit of photographs at the Museum of Jewish Heritage tracing the history of a town called "Oswiecim" in what is now Poland, where Jews and non-Jews lived side by side for centuries. When German forces occupied the town in September 1939, they renamed it "Auschwitz" and established a concentration and death camp there. More than 1 million people died at Auschwitz, including 90 percent of the town's Jews. The museum is at 36 Battery Place. For information the exhibit, click here. For information on the museum's hours and admission fees, click here.
 
Ongoing: The South Street Seaport Museum's lightship Ambrose and its barque Peking welcome visitors Wednesdays to Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Pier 16 (on the East River at Fulton Street). The Ambrose, launched in 1908,  once guided large ships through the Ambrose Channel into New York harbor. Peking was launched in Hamburg, Germany in 1911, one of the last commercial sailing ships ever built. She was used to carry goods from Europe to South America and to return to Europe with nitrate. The museum's Visitors Services associates explain all of the fascinating details of the ships and their relevance to the history of New York as a port city. Cost: $12 (adults); $8 (students, 12-24 and seniors); $5 (children 2-11); under 2, free. To buy tickets, click here.

Ongoing: "Defining Lines: Maps from the 1700s and early 1800s" at the Fraunces Tavern
Museum. Twenty-seven maps provide a perspective on the evolving nation's place in history. A map from 1804, never before exhibited, shows the U.S. postal routes. Place: 54 Pearl St. Time: Noon to 5 p.m., daily. Admission fees: $7; $4 (seniors, students with ID, children, 6 to 8 years old. Children, 5 and under, free. Active military with ID, free. For more information, click here.
  
Ongoing: The National Museum of the American Indian is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission. It offers free films, docent-led tours of its exhibitions and tours of its premises, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, designed by Cass Gilbert. The building, which was completed in 1907, is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. One Bowling Green. Phone: (212) 514-3700. For the museum's calendar, click here.

Ongoing: "Give Me Liberty," a solo exhibition of new works by Brooklyn-based artist Sylvanus Shaw, is at the Fraunces Tavern Museum. In this site-specific exhibition, Shaw utilizes images from the Museum's permanent collection, invoking imagery of early American statehood in media ranging from oil on panel to collaged holograms, security envelopes, and other mediums.
Through March 16, 2015. Place: Fraunces Tavern Museum, 54 Pearl St. Museum hours: Mon.-Sat., noon to 5 p.m. Admission: $7; $4 (seniors, students, children 6-8); free (children under 5 and active duty military). For more information, click here.  

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Editor: Terese Loeb Kreuzer

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