New York

In New York, Creating a ‘Port of Entry’ for Young French Artists

Published

1 year ago

September 27, 2023

In New York, Creating a ‘Port of Entry’ for Young French Artists

It was a surprising diplomatic event on New York’s Upper East Side — one that started with an auspicious “bonsoir,” and ended with an unexpected “au revoir.”

Gaëtan Bruel, the director of French cultural services in the United States, gathered with dignitaries at Villa Albertine, its headquarters, on Sept. 20, to announce additional initiatives supporting increased French American cultural exchange.

Bruel, with Laurent Bili, the French Ambassador to the United States, and Catherine Colonna, the French foreign minister, offered up a greatly expanded model for artists’ residencies that would let even more French or French-speaking artists, scholars and artisans travel anywhere in the United States — or even, in one case, around the world on a French container ship.

“This France is perhaps less polished, possibly less expected, certainly more diverse, younger, more daring, surprising,” Bruel said. He added, “Why not let the artists choose where they want to go?”

In addition to the residencies, initiatives include a new bronze sculpture of the Little Prince, the boy-hero of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French author and illustrator. It was commissioned for the city sidewalk in front of the Villa Albertine — formerly known as the Payne Whitney mansion — on Fifth Avenue at East 78th Street.

Bruel led visitors inside the 1906 limestone villa to the Atelier on the fifth floor, where another of his initiatives had been achieved: the reimagination of the studio of the mansion’s original chatelaine, Helen Hay Whitney (1875-1944).

The house, which remains one of the most lavish extant examples from New York’s Gilded Age, was a wedding gift to Helen and her husband, William Payne Whitney, from his uncle Oliver Hazard Payne, the treasurer of the Standard Oil Company. The prominent (also notorious) architect Stanford White had designed, built and furnished the villa with no budgetary restraints. White died before the house was finished but not before he went on a global shopping spree to fill it with paintings, antiques, architectural artifacts — including a marble Michelangelo statue of Cupid (it was replaced in 2009 by a plaster copy when the original went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

France bought the building in 1952 and turned Mrs. Whitney’s private studio into staff offices. Four years ago, when Bruel, at age 30, took up his posts in New York — which include being director of Villa Albertine — he decided to bring back Mrs. Whitney’s 700-square-foot salon overlooking Central Park, where she played the piano, wrote children’s books and poetry, and entertained her friends.

“I realized we had a problem,” he said in an interview. “Helen Whitney had disappeared from the story of the building.”

Rather than recreate a period room, he commissioned a tribute to her by a French architect (selected in a competition) and filled the space with contemporary French art and furniture. It will be used for conferences and dinners with artists and writers.

“Gaëtan Bruel had a vision and a program for making the French cultural services into a double-faced mirror of French culture,” said Barry Bergdoll, a professor of art history at Columbia University who was a chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art and has known Bruel for years. Bergdoll called Villa Albertine “a port of entry into the vibrant American scene for young French creatives,” and praised his “visionary experimental view” of the role of cultural attaché.

Bruel, who studied history at the École Normale Supérieure for four years and never earned a degree, nevertheless has forged his own path. He grew up in Montpellier, the son of two teachers who took him out of school at age 15 for a yearlong Grand Tour on their 40-foot sailboat, sailing between Italy and Greece.

“My parents were very liberal; they said let’s offer our children an education in a different way, in an environment of creativity,” he said.

A few years later he decided to write Jean-Yves Le Drian, then France’s minister of defense under President François Hollande, about a job.

“Le Drian was curious enough to see me and hire me,” Bruel said. “I stayed with him for four years, charged with bringing the world of cinema to the world of the intelligence community. I created a cinema department within the French army and realized that we needed art to be integrated into all parts of society.”

He still holds that belief: “In a world of crisis, climate change, A.I. challenges, we need to support artists because artists tell us new ways to confront crisis.”

Bruel subsequently worked for the French government in two other ministries: Culture and Foreign Affairs, initially as a speechwriter. Then he went to the Center for National Monuments as the administrator of the Arc de Triomphe and the Panthéon.

In 2020, arriving in New York, he secured a $1 million grant from the Florence Gould Foundation for the rehabilitation of Mrs. Whitney’s studio and the creation of its new décor through a design competition.

Bruel ordered the demolition of the false ceiling and staff offices, only to discover the original glazed terra cotta tile floor (by the New York tile manufactury founded by the Spanish architect Rafael Gustavino), and a long barrel-vault ceiling covered with neo-Renaissance motifs. He enlisted the services of a top Louvre conservator, Cinzia Pasquali, to restore the wood ceiling’s colorful painted decorations with masks, putti, musicians and artists — a nod to the original function of the space.

Hugo Toro, 34, a Mexican-French architect based in Paris, who won the competition to design the space, devised a water-themed décor inspired by one of Mrs. Whitney’s poems, and commissioned handblown wavy amber glass chandeliers to float over his interlocking lily pad tables.

Bruel helped Toro arrange loans from Mobilier National, the French agency which stores furniture commissioned by the leaders of France. In this case, they are one of a kind contemporary works, considered to be crown jewels of French design. Now Bruel’s goal is to help the designers of these pieces enter the U.S. market, as he expands the residency program.

Eve George, an experimental French glassmaker, came to New York last year to study glassmaking techniques at Brooklyn Glass and prepare sketches for a set of glass table wares inspired by the waters surrounding Manhattan.

“I thought I would do research and go home,” George said. “Gaëtan made a connection for me with the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York, and I was able to participate in glassblowing sessions there.”

Since then, Galerie Philia, a design gallery in New York, has offered to exhibit George’s new collection of glasswares during Design Week in May. “Everything went from research mode to business mode very quickly,” she said. “The gift was not just a moment in time but the creation of a creative network among all of us. It spreads like a large family.”

Bruel has created programs for museum experts, partnering with Buffy Easton, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership Foundation.

One, the 2023 Museum Series, is bringing 24 museum directors, all women, to Villa Albertine for public dialogues on the future of museums.

Bruel also convinced an anonymous private donor to contribute $600,000 to Museum Next Generation, a program that sends young French and American curators abroad to visit with their peers.

“When Gaëtan first asked to see me, I thought he was making a courtesy call, but he had an entire agenda,” Easton said.

This year, he inaugurated the Albertine Dance Season, a celebration with 75 performances in 15 cities in the United States by 20 international companies and 17 artist residencies for up-and coming choreographers.

“Gaëtan has done more for French culture but also for culture at large by bringing together French and American artists and creators, more than almost anyone I know,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the director of MoMA. “He is a person who knows how to move an idea into reality. The things he imagines actually happen.”

Now Bruel’s story is taking a perhaps not so surprising turn. The cultural adviser used the Wednesday gathering to officially announce his departure for France on Oct. 1, to become deputy chief of staff for France’s education minister, Gabriel Attal, who, like Bruel, is 34.

“My job is to help rethink the place of the arts in French education,” he said. ‘‘The minister’s vision is to make the arts not optional, as they are now.”

Any regrets?

He has one frustration: That France is no longer a focus of intellectual curiosity for Americans. He cites, ‘‘The growing distance between the U.S. and Europe, notably France, on a cultural and intellectual level — and how little we can do about it.”

Between 2000 and 2020, he said, “40 percent of French programs disappeared in American universities, from 500 to 340,” in everything from language to literature. “Americans are looking away from Europe,” he said wistfully, “at a time I believe we need to talk to each other more than ever.”

New York

Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Connecticut

Published

10 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Connecticut

Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times

A minor, 2.3-magnitude earthquake struck in Connecticut on Wednesday, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The temblor happened at 7:33 p.m. Eastern about 1 mile northwest of Moodus, Conn., data from the agency shows.

As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.

Aftershocks in the region

An aftershock is usually a smaller earthquake that follows a larger one in the same general area. Aftershocks are typically minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.

Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles

Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.

Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Eastern. Shake data is as of Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7:41 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 11:34 p.m. Eastern.

New York

Two Affordable Housing Buildings Were Planned. Only One Went Up. What Happened?

Published

2 days ago

November 19, 2024

Press Room

Two Affordable Housing Buildings Were Planned. Only One Went Up. What Happened?

It is an idea that many point to as a solution for New York City’s worst housing shortage in over 50 years: Build more homes.

More people keep deciding they want to live in the city — and the number of new homes hasn’t kept pace. Residents compete over the limited number of apartments, which pushes rents up to stratospheric levels. Many people then choose to leave instead of pay those prices.

So why is it so hard to build more housing?

The answer involves a tangled set of financial challenges and bitter political fights.

We looked at two developments that provided a unique window into the crisis across the city, and the United States, where there aren’t enough homes people can actually afford.

Both developments — 962 Pacific Street in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, and 145 West 108th Street on the Upper West Side in Manhattan — might have appeared similar. Both were more than eight stories, with plans for dozens of units of affordable housing. And each had a viable chance of being built.

But only one was.

Here’s how their fates diverged, from the zoning to the money and the politics.

The Neighborhood

The lack of housing options across the region makes high-demand areas particularly expensive.

Homes are built in Westchester County and the Long Island suburbs, for example, at some of the slowest rates in the country. In New York City, only 1.4 percent of apartments were available to rent in 2023, according to a key city survey.

And median rent in the city has risen significantly over the past few decades.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

That leaves neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Crown Heights sought after by people of all income levels. Both neighborhoods have good access to parks, subways and job centers in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The pressures are immense, even as each neighborhood has added some new housing to try to match the demand, though at different rates.

Crown Heights has become one of the most striking emblems of gentrification in the city, with new residents, who tend to be white and wealthy, pushing out people who can no longer afford to live there. Low-rise rowhouses line many streets, just blocks from Prospect Park. But there are also shiny new high-rises.

There were more than 50,000 housing units in the Crown Heights area, according to a 2022 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, a roughly 13 percent jump over the past decade.

The Upper West Side has long been one of the city’s more exclusive enclaves with many brownstone homes. Next to Central Park and Riverside Park, with easy access to downtown, the neighborhood is home to many of the city’s affluent residents.

There were 129,000 housing units on the Upper West Side according to the 2022 Census Bureau data, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the same time period.

The Lot

There isn’t as much empty land left in New York City compared with places like Phoenix or Atlanta, which can expand outward. City developers have to look hard to find properties with potential, and then they have to acquire the money to buy them.

The empty lot in May 2021.

Google Street View

Between the two proposals, the Crown Heights site seemed to be more promising at first glance. Until 2018, it was just vacant land that local businesses sometimes used as a parking lot. The developer, Nadine Oelsner, already owned it, removing a potential roadblock that can often tie up projects or make them financially unworkable.

One of three aging parking garages in September 2015.

Google Street View

On the Upper West Side, though, the site was already occupied by three aging parking garages with a shelter and a playground in between. The garages would need to be demolished if the developer, a nonprofit known as the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing that operated the shelter, succeeded in its plan to build apartments on either side of the playground.

The new development, which was floated to the community in 2015, would also include a renovated and expanded shelter. And the nonprofit did not own the garages or the land — the city did.

One thing working in the group’s favor, though, was that the city had wanted to build housing on the site since at least the mid-2000s, according to planning documents.

Source: West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing

The Zoning

But something invisible can matter more than a plot’s physical characteristics: zoning.

That governs how every piece of land in New York City can be used. Zoning determines, for example, whether homes or warehouses are allowed in a particular area, how much parking is needed and how tall a building can be.

It also aims to prevent growth in haphazard ways, with schools next to factories next to office buildings.

The city’s modern zoning code does not leave much room for growth, which means that a bigger building often requires a zoning change. One 2020 study by the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission found that only about one residentially zoned plot in five would allow for that kind of additional housing. A zoning change triggers a lengthy, unpredictable bureaucratic process.

The site Ms. Oelsner owned was zoned for industrial, not residential use, a throwback to a time when that part of Brooklyn was dominated by businesses supported by the nearby railroad line.

Community leaders were frustrated by one-off changes to individual lots — there had been at least five zoning changes within a two-block radius of Ms. Oelsner’s site in recent years. To counter the trend, the community decided to come up with a bigger rezoning plan for the area. Ms. Oelsner saw an opportunity for her lot in that idea.

But she would need a zoning change, too.

Sources: OpenStreetMap, New York City Department of City Planning

The site on the Upper West Side had a slight edge: It was zoned for residential use.

As the project began to move forward, the city also sought a slight zoning change to allow for a bigger structure with more homes.

Sources: OpenStreetMap, New York City Department of City Planning

The Proposal

U.S. housing is mostly built and run by the private sector. If developers and owners can’t cover their costs with income from rents and sales — and make a profit — they most likely won’t build.

This can make it hard to keep rents affordable to potential tenants without big subsidies from the government, such as money a developer receives directly or tax breaks in exchange for making some units affordable for people at specified income levels.

Here are more details of what the two developers planned.

The proposal for the Crown Heights lot was by Ms. Oelsner and her company, HSN Realty, who were private developers working without city support.

Ms. Oelsner also made the case that her family had been part of the community for years, operating a Pontiac dealership.

Most of the apartments she proposed would rent at market rates, meaning the rents could be set as high as the landlord thought tenants could pay. This was similar to other new buildings in the area.

In Ms. Oelsner’s case, a government subsidy would likely come in the form of a decades-long property tax exemption.

In exchange, several apartments would be made “affordable” — in this case, rents would be capped at a certain percentage of gross household income for particular groups.

Under one plan, for example, 38 units would be restricted in this way. Of those, 15 might rent for around $1,165 for a one-bedroom apartment, or $1,398 for a two-bedroom.

Source: West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing

The proposal from the West Side Federation had a much stronger case because of the city’s support. The group wanted to construct a building where all the apartments would rent below market rates and be targeted to some of the city’s poorest residents.

Most units would rent to people who were formerly homeless, often referred from shelters and typically relying on government-funded voucher programs to pay almost all of their rent. The remaining apartments would rent for between $865 and $1,321.

The West Side Federation said it had slowly built trust in the community over decades, in part because of the shelter it already operated on the street and was now expanding, as well as two dozen other area buildings it ran.

Because of that track record, and the need for affordable housing, the city decided to do several things. It essentially gave the developer the land — appraised at about $55 million — for free, a typical government practice in such a scenario.

It also chipped in $9 million to help pay for construction and another $33 million through a federal tax credit program. The West Side Federation would not have to pay property taxes on the development.

The Politics

Both projects met immediate opposition as they began to wade through a bureaucratic city process in which housing proposals often run into challenges from community members and politicians. It’s not unusual for this process to be costly and time-consuming, often taking more than two years.

In fact, this is where Ms. Oelsner’s project in Crown Heights met its end.

In Crown Heights, neighbors wanted more apartments to be available at lower rents and were concerned about parking. Ms. Oelsner worried the bigger rezoning plan of the area would take too long and, if she waited, would run up the costs of her project, which she said she had designed to be consistent with the broader efforts.

In the end, Crystal Hudson, who held the power to approve or reject the development as the local council member, voted against Ms. Oelsner’s proposal last year, effectively killing the project. Ms. Hudson said she would not back individual developments until the bigger neighborhood rezoning was finished.

On the Upper West Side, a vocal resident group had several complaints: that the loss of the parking garages could lead to an uptick in traffic, greenhouse gas emissions and accidents; that the development could disturb students at a nearby middle school; and that it could reduce the amount of sunlight in nearby parks.

The councilman who represented the neighborhood at the time, Mark Levine, initially said he would hold off on supporting the plan until he better understood the effects of more cars on the street.

Eventually, though, the project gave the community enough of what it wanted, the group behind the project said, and government officials came around. The project was split into two phases, keeping one garage running for a few years after the first two were demolished.

The Results

One key to successful development is buy-in from the government and local politicians. The Upper West Side plan had that, despite the opposition it faced, while the Crown Heights project did not.

That’s in part because the Upper West Side lots were owned by the city, which was ready and willing to chip in lots of money to create a deeply needed housing project in the area that would most likely not have been built otherwise. The Crown Heights lot, on the other hand, is privately owned and mostly out of the city’s control — which made the project potentially very lucrative for the owners, even if it added some benefit to the community.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The dirt lot in Crown Heights remains a dirt lot. The broader plan Ms. Hudson pushed is underway, set to be completed next year.

Ms. Oelsner, however, has said that she’s not sure whether it still makes financial sense to build her project, so its fate remains uncertain.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The Upper West Side building has been open for about two years. It is full and has a long waiting list.

And the amount tenants pay in rent remains low. That’s because the government sends the West Side Federation about $1 million annually to help cover the rent.

New York

Read the Trump Assassination Plot Criminal Complaint

Published

2 weeks ago

November 9, 2024

Press Room

Read the Trump Assassination Plot Criminal Complaint

and committed out of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district of the United States,
FARHAD SHAKERI, CARLISLE RIVERA, a/k/a “Pop,” and JONATHAN LOADHOLT, the
defendants, and others known and unknown, at least one of whom is expected to be first brought
to and arrested in the Southern District of New York, knowingly and willfully did combine,
conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to commit murder-for-hire, in
violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1958.
6. It was a part and an object of the conspiracy that FARHAD SHAKERI,
CARLISLE RIVERA, a/k/a “Pop,” and JONATHAN LOADHOLT, and others known and
unknown, would and did knowingly travel in and cause others to travel in interstate and foreign
commerce, and would and did use and cause another to use a facility of interstate and foreign
commerce, with intent that a murder be committed in violation of the laws of the State of New
York or the United States as consideration for the receipt of and as consideration for a promise or
agreement to pay anything of pecuniary value, to wit, SHAKERI, RIVERA, and LOADHOLT
participated in an agreement whereby RIVERA and LOADHOLT would kill Victim-1 in exchange
for payment, and used cellphones and electronic messaging applications to communicate in
furtherance of the scheme.
(Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1958 and 3238.)
COUNT FIVE
(MONEY LAUNDERING CONSPIRACY)
7. From at least in or about December 2023, up to and including the date of
this Complaint, in Iran, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, and in an offense begun
and committed out of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district of the United States,
FARHAD SHAKERI, CARLISLE RIVERA, a/k/a “Pop,” and JONATHAN LOADHOLT, the
defendants, and others known and unknown, at least one of whom is expected to be first brought
to and arrested in the Southern District of New York, knowingly and willfully did combine,
conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other to commit money laundering, in
violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956.
8. It was further a part and an object of the conspiracy that FARHAD
SHAKERI, CARLISLE RIVERA, a/k/a “Pop,” and JONATHAN LOADHOLT, the defendants,
and others known and unknown, in an offense involving and affecting interstate and foreign
commerce, knowing that the property involved in certain financial transactions represented the
proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, would and did conduct and attempt to conduct such
financial transactions which in fact involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity, to wit,
the proceeds of the murder-for-hire offenses charged in Counts Three and Four of this Complaint,
knowing that the transactions were designed in whole and in part to conceal and disguise the
nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the proceeds of said specified unlawful activity,
in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(B)(i).
9. It was further a part and an object of the conspiracy that FARHAD
SHAKERI, CARLISLE RIVERA, a/k/a “Pop,” and JONATHAN LOADHOLT, the defendants,
and others known and unknown, would and did transport, transmit, and transfer, and attempt to
transport, transmit, and transfer, monetary instruments and funds to a place in the United States
3