George Spitz, Civic Gadfly Who Helped Transform Marathon, Dies at 92

Abstract: George N. Spitz, a relentless gadfly who is credited with recasting the New York City Marathon from a four-lap run around Central Park with 339 finishers to a celebratory five-borough race that has become the largest of its kind in the world, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 92. His death, of pneumonia, was announced by New York Road Runners . “Without George, there’s no way that would have happened in 1976,” said George A. Hirsch, a magazine publisher and a founder of the marathon, referring to the year that the race went citywide. “When he got an idea in his head, he wouldn’t let go of it.” For Mr. Spitz, running was an end and not a means — in every sense of the word. He was a perennial, if not quixotic, candidate for public office. And while he never won any of his campaigns, they gave him a platform from which to promote municipal improvements — including thwarting thieves by instituting the direct deposit of public assistance checks and informing the electorate with voter guides — which he eventually prodded the government to adopt. “I think sometimes we all just got worn out,” Mr. Hirsch said. In her book “ A Race Like No Other ” (2008), Liz Robbins, a reporter for The New York Times, wrote that the five-borough marathon evolved from discussions between Mr. Spitz, a member of the New York Road Runners board, and Ted Corbitt, a former president of the club. “Spitz took Corbitt’s original proposal of an interborough team competition and turned it into a Bicentennial celebration that would close the streets of New York in 1976,” Ms. Robbins wrote. Mr. Spitz broached the idea to Percy E. Sutton, the borough president of Manhattan at the time, who, in turn, took it to Mayor Abraham D. Beame. The mayor was receptive to anything that would lift the city out of the malaise inflicted by the mid-1970s fiscal crisis. The real estate moguls Lewis and Jack Rudin, whose father had been a running enthusiast and had recently died, agreed to sponsor the race. Mr. Spitz’s gaunt appearance belied his boundless energy. In 1974, he jogged around the eight-mile perimeter of a State Assembly district on the East Side to demonstrate his vigor. (He lost the election to a fellow reformer.) By 1980, when he was running for the City Council, he had competed in 27 marathons. When he sought the Democratic mayoral nomination in 2001, Mr. Spitz, then 78, declared unabashedly, “I’m the only vegetarian, only road runner, only veteran of World War II, only senior citizen, only union person, only Orthodox Jew and only high school dropout in the race.” He came closest to winning office in 1968, as the Democratic and Liberal Party nominee for the Assembly in the 66th district, on Manhattan’s East Side. His platform included a vow not to paste posters on lampposts, stuff fliers in mailboxes or overwhelm voters with loudspeakers. He also proposed that his fellow candidates share the cost of printed directories that would inform constituents of their positions. Image George N. Spitz, second row center, in 1978, when he campaigned to represent the East Side of Manhattan in Congress. Credit Neal Boenzi/The New York Times “It may seem far-fetched, and I may sound like a nut,” he explained later, “but something must be done to reduce the cost of a campaign, or else the time will soon come when only a rich man can afford to run for even the lowliest of elective offices.” He was endorsed by The Times’s editorial board that year — “knows finances, is deeply committed to public service,” an editorial said — but lost, 19,844 to 21,064, to Stephen Hansen, the Republican candidate, according to news reports at the time. George Neumann Spitz was born on Nov. 16, 1922, and raised in Manhattan. He served in the Army during World War II and the Korean War. He told friends that after dropping out of high school he earned a high school equivalency diploma. He graduated from Columbia College in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree. No immediate family members survive. He joined the Lexington Democratic Club, a crucible of Manhattan reform politics, a few years after it was started in 1948 and found himself at home at the club, which made intramural wrangling, unguarded billingsgate and bygone grudges de rigueur. A prolific letter writer, impertinent speaker and local newspaper columnist, Mr. Spitz championed independent candidacies. He favored a preferential system of balloting, under which voters ranked their choices, and opposed slates that promoted a list of candidates advanced by party leaders, regulars or reformers. He worked as a researcher for the Legislature and as a state auditor. He was fired after eight days as a Medicaid fraud investigator in 1977 for engaging in political activities, but in 1984 the State Division of Human Rights ordered him rehired with $50,000 in back pay and “a written declaration stating unequivocally that Mr. Spitz is not a security risk by reason of his activities as a political reporter and political activist.” At his death, in a nursing home, where he had lived for several years after fracturing his hips, he was finishing a book about the city’s history. He never stopped advocating. Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, recalled that when she visited him in the hospital recently, he gathered a group of hospital interns and doctors and asked them to detail how much they owed in student debt as he lobbied her for relief. “He was very effective at pushing people who were in a position to get things done,” she said. While he pursued an infinite agenda — abandoning the Second Avenue subway project in favor of building a trolley line was a perpetual theme — he was not without wit. In 1978, at 55, he was the oldest contestant in the annual Empire State Building Run-Up . He explained that he had made it to the top of the skyscraper, moaning and groaning, thanks to the mother of five he was trailing. “She has beautiful legs,” Mr. Spitz said, “so I just followed them up the last 44 flights.”

NYC Marathon
Obituary
Running
New York Road Runners Club
George Spitz


Events in Connecticut for March 15-21, 2015

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational events in Connecticut. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to ctcal@nytimes.com. Comedy COLLINSVILLE Bridge Street Live Mike McDonald. March 21 at 8 p.m. $15 and $25. Bridge Street Live, 41 Bridge Street. 860-693-9762; 41bridgestreet.com. MANCHESTER The Hartford Funny Bone Guy Torry. Through March 15. $15 and $17. Ryan Hamilton. March 19 through 22. $15 and $17. The Hartford Funny Bone, 194 Buckland Hills Drive. 860-432-8600; hartfordfunnybone.com. MASHANTUCKET Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino Sinbad. March 20 at 9 p.m. $30 to $60. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. MASHANTUCKET Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino Cheech and Chong, with the band War. March 21 at 8 p.m. $35 and $55. Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. STAMFORD The Palace Theater Matt Bergman, Steve Burr, Tony Deyo, Tim Krompier and Liz Miele. March 21 at 8 p.m. $10 to $20. The Palace Theater, 61 Atlantic Street. palacestamford.org; 203-325-4466. STORRS Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts The Popovich Comedy Pet Theater. March 22 at 2 p.m. $10 to $16. Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, 2132 Hillside Road. 860-486-4226; jorgensen.uconn.edu. UNCASVILLE Mohegan Sun Bob Nelson and Corey Alexander. March 21 at 9 p.m. $25. Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. 888-226-7711; mohegansun.com. Film HARTFORD Cinestudio “National Theater Live: ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers,’ ” screening of the David Hare play. March 15 at 1 p.m. $12 and $20. “Two Days, One Night,” directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. March 15, 16 and 17. $7 and $9. “The Theory of Everything,” directed by James Marsh. March 18 through 21. $7 and $9. “Inherent Vice,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. March 22 through March 24. $7 and $9. Cinestudio, 300 Summit Street. cinestudio.org; 860-297-2463. HARTFORD Jewish Film Festival, at various locations The 19th Mandell J.C.C. Harford Jewish Film Festival, screenings, discussions and more. Through March 22. Most events, $12 and $15; closing night, at Beth El Temple in West Hartford, $25. Jewish Film Festival, at various locations, 860-231-6316; hjff.org. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine,” directed by Michele Josue. “Queen and Country,” directed by John Boorman. “Girlhood,” directed by Céline Sciamma. Through March 19. “Boy Meets Girl,” directed by Eric Schaeffer. March 20 through 26. $4.50 to $11. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. realartways.org; 860-232-1006. NEW LONDON Garde Arts Center “Garde Cinema Winter Series: The Real Movie Palace Experience.” Through March 26. $9. Garde Arts Center, 325 State Street. 860-444-7373; gardearts.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse “The Met in High Definition: ‘La Donna del Lago,’ ” screening of the Rossini opera. March 15 at noon. $15 to $25. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. 203-438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. For Children BRIDGEPORT Downtown Cabaret Theater “Rapunzel,” musical. Through March 29. $19 and $23. “Lord of the Flies,” stage adaptation of the novel by William Golding, with alternating male and female casts. March 19 through 29. $18 and $23. Downtown Cabaret Theater, 263 Golden Hill Street. 203-576-1636; dtcab.com. BRIDGEPORT The Bijou Theater “Ballerina Princess Party,” New England Ballet Company. March 15 at 3 p.m. $15. The Bijou Theater, 275 Fairfield Avenue. 203-332-3228; thebijoutheatre.com. HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts “Dog Loves Books,” musical. March 17 at 10 a.m. and noon. $10. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. 860-987-5900; bushnell.org. HARTFORD Infinity Hall Hartford Imagination Movers, rock. March 22 at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. $25. Infinity Hall Hartford, 32 Front Street. infinityhall.com; 860-560-7757. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center “Fly Guy and Other Stories,” musical theater. March 15 at 1 p.m. $10 and $16. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. thekate.org; 877-503-1286. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “Third Saturdays: Family Art,” storytelling and crafts. March 21. Ages 2 to 5, from 10 a.m. to noon. Ages 6 to 10, from 1 to 3 p.m. $5 and $10. Members and children under 18, free. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. 203-438-4519; aldrichart.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse “The Jungle Book,” musical. March 21 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. $15. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. ridgefieldplayhouse.org; 203-438-5795. STAMFORD The Palace Theater The Bari Koral Family Rock Band. March 22 at 3 p.m. $10 and $15. The Palace Theater, 61 Atlantic Street. palacestamford.org; 203-325-4466. Music and Dance ANSONIA Ansonia Nature Center Spring Equinox Drumming, Che Cartafalsa. March 21 at 2 p.m. Free. Ansonia Nature Center, 10 Deerfield Road. 203-736-1053; ansonianaturecenter.org. BETHEL Pizzeria Lauretano Jeff Feldstein Quartet, jazz. March 15 at 6 p.m. $12. The Dave Scott Quartet, jazz. March 22 at 6 p.m. $12. Pizzeria Lauretano, 291 Greenwood Avenue. 203-792-1500; pizzerialauretano.com. BRIDGEPORT The Bijou Theater Snooty Garland’s Springtime Opus, jazz. March 21 at 8 p.m. $20 and $25. The Bijou Theater, 275 Fairfield Avenue. 203-332-3228; thebijoutheatre.com. BRIDGEPORT Webster Bank Arena Aretha Franklin, R&B. March 20 at 8 p.m. $59 to $159. Webster Bank Arena, 600 Main Street. websterbankarena.com; 203-345-2400. COLLINSVILLE Bridge Street Live The Danielle Nicole Band, blues. March 15 at 7 p.m. $20 and $29. Carte Blanche, jazz. March 19 at 8 p.m. $20 and $27. Jimmie Vaughan and the Tilt-a-Whirl Band with Lou Ann Barton, roots and blues. March 20 at 8 p.m. $55 and $75. Liz Longley, folk. March 22 at 7 p.m. $22 and $32. Bridge Street Live, 41 Bridge Street. 860-693-9762; 41bridgestreet.com. COLLINSVILLE Collinsville Congregational Church Juan Carlos Fernandez-Nieto, piano. March 22 at 4 p.m. Free. Collinsville Congregational Church, 7 South Street. 860-693-2762. FAIRFIELD Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University Shana Tucker, cello. March 27 at 7 and 9 p.m. $30; Fairfield University students, $5. Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road. 203-254-4010; fairfield.edu/arts. FAIRFIELD StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company The Royal Southern Brotherhood, rock. March 15 at 7:45 p.m. $38. Roomful of Blues, R&B. March 20 at 7:45 p.m. $42. Pat McGee Band, rock. March 21 at 7:45 p.m. $28. StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company, 70 Sanford Street. 203-259-1036; fairfieldtheatre.org. GREENWICH Greenwich High School The Greenwich Symphony Orchestra, with Brian Lewis, violin. March 15 at 4 p.m. $10 and $30. Greenwich High School, 10 Hillside Road. greenwichsymphony.org; 203-869-2664. HAMDEN The Outer Space Stacy Phillips and His Bluegrass Characters, bluegrass. March 25 at 7:30 p.m. Donations accepted. The Outer Space, 295 Treadwell Street. theouterspace.net; 203-288-6400. HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts “Saint-Saëns and Brahms,” the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Through March 15. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. “Playing With Food 3,” Hartford Symphony Orchestra. March 21 at 7:30 p.m. $10 to $67.50. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. 860-987-5900; hartfordsymphony.org. HARTFORD Immanuel Congregational Church “Great Music of France,” Hartford Chorale. March 21 at 4 p.m. $15 to $30. Immanuel Congregational Church, 10 Woodland Street. 860-547-1982; hartfordchorale.org. HARTFORD Infinity Hall Hartford Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, swing. March 15 at 7:30 p.m. $45 to $65. Damn the Torpedoes, Tom Petty tribute band. March 19 at 8 p.m. $24 to $34. The Southern Comfort Band, rock and country. March 20 at 8 p.m. $15 to $25. Masters of the Telecaster: G. E. Smith, Danny Kortchmar and Jim Weider, rock. March 21 at 8 p.m. $34 to $49. Todd Snider, folk. March 22 at 7:30 p.m. $29 and $39. Infinity Hall Hartford, 32 Front Street. 860-560-7757; infinityhall.com. MASHANTUCKET Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino Marie Osmond, pop. March 18 at 7 p.m. $55 to $105. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. MASHANTUCKET Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino Fifth Harmony, pop. March 22 at 6 p.m. $39.50. Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. 800-200-2882; foxwoods.com. NEW HAVEN Shubert Theater “I Could Have Danced All Night,” Betty Buckley, Barbara Cook and Rex Smith, show tunes. March 21 at 6:30 p.m. $300 to $1,000. Shubert Theater, 247 College Street. shubert.com; 203-562-5666. NEW HAVEN Woolsey Hall, Yale University Patrick Kreeger, organ. March 22 at 5 p.m. Free. Woolsey Hall, Yale University, 500 College Street. 203-432-4158; music.yale.edu. NEW LONDON Garde Arts Center “Equinox,” Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra. March 21 at 8 p.m. Garde Arts Center, 325 State Street. gardearts.org; 860-444-7373. NORFOLK Infinity Hall Southern New England High School Jazz Festival. March 15 at 1, 4 and 7 p.m. $10 to $20. Eight to the Bar, boogie woogie. March 20 at 8 p.m. $25 to $35. The Adam Ezra Group, rock. March 21 at 8 p.m. $29 to $39. Buffalo Stack, rock. March 22 at 7:30 p.m. $20 to $30. Infinity Hall, 20 Greenwoods Road. infinityhall.com; 866-666-6306. OLD LYME First Congregational Church of Old Lyme Musical Masterworks chamber music series. March 15 at 3 p.m. $35; students, $5. First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, 2 Ferry Road. musicalmasterworks.org; 860-434-2252. OLD LYME The Side Door Thana Alexa Quintet, jazz. March 20 at 7:30 p.m. $28.50. Dezron Douglas Black Lion Quartet, jazz. March 21 at 7:30 p.m. $35. The Side Door, 85 Lyme Street. 860-434-0886; thesidedoorjazz.com. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center The Henry Girls, Celtic. March 17 at 7:30 p.m. $20. Richie Furay, singer/songwriter. March 20 at 8 p.m. $62 and $65. Frank Vignola, Vinny Raniolo and Bucky Pizzarelli, jazz guitar. March 21 at 8 p.m. $35 and $38. The Pine Hill Project: Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky, folk. March 22 at 7 p.m. $38 and $40. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. 877-503-1286; thekate.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse Don Felder, rock. March 18 at 8 p.m. $80. Andy Grammer, pop. March 22 at 7:30 p.m. $40. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. 203-438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. STAFFORD SPRINGS The Stafford Palace Theater Riders on the Storm, rock. March 21 at 9 p.m. $18 to $22. The Stafford Palace Theater, 75 Main Street. 860-851-9780; thestaffordpalacetheater.com. STAMFORD The Palace Theater “Mozart Requiem and Glass,” Stamford Symphony. March 15 at 3 p.m. $22 to $73. The Palace Theater, 61 Atlantic Street. 203-325-4466; palacestamford.org. WALLINGFORD Oakdale Theater Celtic Woman, Irish. March 21 at 7:30 p.m. $60 to $130. The Moody Blues, rock. March 22 at 7 p.m. $40 to $245. Oakdale Theater, 95 South Turnpike Road. 203-265-1501; oakdale.com. WESTPORT Westport Country Playhouse Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, contemporary. March 15 at 7 p.m. $75 to $225. Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court. westportplayhouse.org; 203-227-4177. WILTON Wilton Presbyterian Church “Luck o’ the Irish,” Music on the Hill Festival Chorus with Jubilate Ringers. March 15 at 3 p.m. $20 and $25. Wilton Presbyterian Church, 48 New Canaan Road. 203-536-2601; musiconthehillct.org. WOODBRIDGE J.C.C. of Greater New Haven Blue Plate Radio, jazz. March 18, 5 to 7 p.m. Free. J.C.C. of Greater New Haven, 360 Amity Road. 203-387-2522; jccnh.org. Spoken Word BRIDGEPORT The Barnum Museum “Pets in America: A Surprising History,” lecture. March 22 at 2 p.m. $5 suggested donation. The Barnum Museum, 820 Main Street. barnum-museum.org; 203-331-1104. GREENWICH Bruce Museum “From This Earth: Pueblo Pottery of the Southwest,” lecture. March 15 at 2 p.m. Free with museum admission. $6 and $7; members and children under 5, free. “Theater and Theatricality in 17th Century Dutch Art,” lecture. March 16 at 10 a.m. $7; members, free. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. 203-869-0376; brucemuseum.org. NEW BRITAIN New Britain Museum of American Art “ ‘What a Hit!’ Otis Kaye and the American Trompe l’Oeil Tradition,” lecture. March 22 at 2 p.m. Free with museum admission. $8 to $12; members and children under 12, free. New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. 860-229-0257; nbmaa.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse James Van Praagh, spiritual medium. March 20 at 7:30 p.m. $75 and $90. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. 203-438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. STAMFORD Ferguson Library “The Future of U.S.-Cuba Economic Relations,” lecture. March 18 at 5:45 p.m. $20; members, faculty and students, free. Ferguson Library, 96 Broad Street. 203-356-0340; worldaffairsforum.org. Image NEW HAVEN “Abstract: Portrait Head, Poet, Queens Village” (2014), oil on canvas, is on view in “Surfer’s Delight,” an exhibition of works by Enrico Riley, March 21 through April 25 at the Giampietro Gallery, 1064 Chapel Street. For further information: 203-777-7760 or giampietrogallery.com . Credit Enrico Riley Theater HARTFORD Hartford Stage “Reverberation,” drama by Matthew Lopez. Through March 15. $25 to $85. Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street. hartfordstage.org; 860-527-5151. HARTFORD TheaterWorks “Playing the Assassin,” drama by David Robson. March 21 through April 26. $15 to $65. TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl Street. 860-527-7838; theaterworkshartford.org. IVORYTON Ivoryton Playhouse “Stand by Your Man,” musical comedy by Mark St. Germain. March 18 through April 5. $15 to $42. Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street. 860-767-7318; ivorytonplayhouse.org. NEW HAVEN Long Wharf Theater Stage II “Bad Jews,” comedy by Joshua Harmon. Through March 29. $40 to $70. Long Wharf Theater Stage II, 222 Sargent Drive. longwharf.org; 203-787-4282. NEW HAVEN Yale Repertory Theater “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” drama by Bertolt Brecht. March 20 through April 11. $20 to $99. Yale Repertory Theater, 1120 Chapel Street. 203-432-1234; yalerep.org. OLD GREENWICH First Congregational Church of Old Greenwich “Moonlight and Magnolias,” comedy by Ron Hutchinson. March 20 through 28. $25. First Congregational Church of Old Greenwich, 108 Sound Beach Avenue. 203-249-5419; ctplaymakers.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Theater Barn “Oblivion,” drama by Carly Mensch. Through April 11. $20 and $24. Ridgefield Theater Barn, 37 Halpin Lane. 203-431-9850; ridgefieldtheaterbarn.org. STRATFORD Square One Theater “Good People,” drama by David Lindsay-Abaire. Through March 21. $20. Square One Theater, 2422 Main Street. 203-375-8778; squareonetheatre.com. WEST HARTFORD Playhouse on Park “Digits Dig It,” stop/time dance theater . March 18 through 29. $25 to $35. Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road. 860-523-5900; playhouseonpark.org. Museums and Galleries BRIDGEPORT City Lights Gallery “Black & White,” group show. Through March 19. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. City Lights Gallery, 37 Markle Court. 203-334-7748; citylightsgallery.org. BRIDGEPORT Housatonic Museum of Art “Rick Shaefer: Drawing the Line.” Through March 27. Weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursdays to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Housatonic Museum of Art, 900 Lafayette Boulevard. 203-332-5052; housatonicmuseum.org. CHESTER Maple and Main Gallery Winter Exhibition, group show. Through March 22. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maple and Main Gallery, 1 Maple Street. mapleandmaingallery.com; 860-526-6065. COS COB Greenwich Historical Society “Greenwich Faces the Great War,” multimedia. Through March 22. $8 and $10; members and children under 6, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Greenwich Historical Society, 39 Strickland Road. 203-869-6899; greenwichhistory.org. DANBURY @287 “Variations,” Robert L. Ferrucci and Anthony Masina. Through April 10. Weekdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment. @287, 287 Main Street. artswesternct.org; 203-798-0760. DANBURY The Gallery at Still River Editions “Dreamless, Unalive, Perfect,” photographs by William Frucht. Through March 27. Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gallery at Still River Editions, 128 East Liberty Street. 203-791-1474; stillrivereditions.com. DARIEN Geary Gallery “Timeless,” paintings by Ray Ellis. Through March 31. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Geary Gallery, 576 Boston Post Road. gearygallery.com; 203-655-6633. FAIRFIELD Bellarmine Museum of Art, Fairfield University “Gari Melchers: An American Impressionist at Home and Abroad.” Through May 22. Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; and select Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Bellarmine Museum of Art, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road. 203-254-4046; fairfield.edu/museum. FAIRFIELD Fairfield University Bookstore “Tribal Eritrea,” photographs by Barbara Paul. Through March 31. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road. 203-255-7756; fairfield.edu/bookstore. GREENWICH Bruce Museum “Native American Pottery From the Bruce Museum Collection.” Through March 29. “Northern Baroque Splendor: The Hohenbuchau Collection From: Liechtenstein. The Princely Collections, Vienna.” Through April 12. “(Re)Discovering the ‘New World’: Maps and Sea Charts From the Age of Exploration.” Through May 31. $6 and $7; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. 203-869-0376; brucemuseum.org. GREENWICH Flinn Gallery “Ka-Pow: When Comics Imperiled America,” group show. March 19 through April 29. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, to 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Flinn Gallery, 101 West Putnam Avenue. flinngallery.com; 203-622-7947. GREENWICH Round Hill Community Church “Icons of the Civil Rights Movement,” Pamela Chatterton-Purdy. Through March 31. Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; weekends, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Round Hill Community Church, 395 Round Hill Road. roundhillcommunitychurch.org; 203-869-1091. GROTON Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut “Premiere 2015 Exhibition,” group show. Through April 11. $3 suggested donation. Members and students, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut, 1084 Shennecossett Road. averypointarts.uconn.edu; 860-405-9052. HAMDEN Arnold Bernhard Library “The Lady Sligo Letters: Westport House and Ireland’s Great Hunger.” Through April 30. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Arnold Bernhard Library, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue. 203-582-8633; quinnipiac.edu. HARTFORD Hartford Public Library “Bound to Maintain Them: Prisoners of War and Humane Captivity in the German Empire, 1916-1917,” Richard Welling. Through March 31. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street. 860-695-6352; hplct.org. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “Plan of the City,” animated collage by Joshua Frankel. Through March 29. “The Talking Cure,” sculptures by Melissa Stern. Through May 25. “Skeeball,” works by Don Joint and Donna Dennis. Through May 31. $3 suggested donation; members and cinema patrons, free. Daily, 2 to 9 p.m., and by appointment. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. realartways.org; 860-232-1006. HARTFORD Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art “Michael C. McMillen/MATRIX 171: Sideshow.” Through May 3. “Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008.” Through May 31. $5 to $10; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; first Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street. 860-278-2670; thewadsworth.org. LAKEVILLE The White Gallery “Winter Warmer,” group show. Through March 15. Fridays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment. The White Gallery, 344 Main Street. 860-435-1029; thewhitegalleryart.com. MADISON Mercy Center “Time Reconsidered,” photographic triptychs by Roy Money. Through March 26. Daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mercy Center, 167 Neck Road. mercybythesea.org; 203-245-0401. MYSTIC Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport “Marine Artists in Winter,” group show. Through April 19. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport, 47 Greenmanville Avenue. 860-572-5388. mysticseaport.org/gallery. MYSTIC Mystic Arts Center “Young at Art,” work from hundreds of regional students ages 18 and younger. Through April 11. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mystic Arts Center, 9 Water Street. mysticarts.org; 860-536-7601. NEW BRITAIN New Britain Museum of American Art “Over Life’s Waters: The Coastal Collection of Charles and Irene Hamm.” Through April 12. “Davis Publication Covers.” Through April 26. “Otis Kaye: Money, Mystery and Mastery.” Through May 10. “NEW/NOW: Karl Lund: Angry Robots Liquefied My Brain.” Through May 31. $8 to $12; members and children under 12, free. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. 860-229-0257; nbmaa.org. NEW CANAAN Carriage Barn Arts Center “Elemental Energies,” group show. Through March 29. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Carriage Barn Arts Center, 681 South Avenue. carriagebarn.org; 203-972-1895. NEW CANAAN New Canaan Historical Society “In Our Own Backyard: Augustus Smith and Richard Daggy.” Through May 2. $5. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. New Canaan Historical Society, 13 Oenoke Ridge. nchistory.org; 203-966-1776. NEW CANAAN Sorelle Gallery Fine Art “A Moment in Time,” Julia Contacessi and Carol Young. Through April 14. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Sorelle Gallery Fine Art, 84 Main Street. 203-920-1900; sorellegallery.com. NEW HAVEN Azoth Gallery, at the New Haven Public Library “Not Belonging to the Place You Have Arrived At,” paintings by Cecilia Whittaker-Doe. Through March 31. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Azoth Gallery, at the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm Street. 203-387-4933; azothgallery.com. NEW HAVEN City Gallery “Neighborhood Walks,” photographs by Tom Peterson. Through March 31. Thursdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. City Gallery, 994 State Street. 203-782-2489; city-gallery.org. NEW HAVEN Giampietro Gallery “Surfer’s Delight,” Enrico Riley. “I Say,” Bill Traylor. Works by Christopher Mir. March 21 through April 25. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and by appointment. Giampietro Gallery, 1064 Chapel Street. 203-777-7760; giampietrogallery.com. NEW HAVEN Kehler Liddell Gallery “Appearances and Apparitions,” photographs by Mark St. Mary and Alan Shulik. Through March 22. Thursdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment. Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Avenue. 203-389-9555; kehlerliddell.com. NEW HAVEN New Haven Museum “An Artist at War: Deane Keller, New Haven’s Monuments Man.” Through May 9. “From Clocks to Lollipops: Made in New Haven.” Through May 30. $2 to $4; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; first Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Avenue. 203-562-4183; newhavenmuseum.org. NEW HAVEN The John Slade Ely House The 114th annual Juried Art Exhibition of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club. March 22 through April 12. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m. The John Slade Ely House, 51 Trumbull Street. elyhouse.org; 203-624-8055. NEW HAVEN Yale University Art Gallery “Whistler in Paris, London and Venice.” Through July 19. “The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art, 1760-1860.” Through July 26. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street. 203-432-0600; artgallery.yale.edu. NEW LONDON Lyman Allyn Art Museum “Celebrating Lyme’s Beauty,” group show. Through March 22. “Transmissions: Teaching and Learning in the Studio,” the Connecticut College Art Department faculty. Through June 7. “Lost Gardens of New England,” traveling exhibition on loan from Historic New England. Through July 31. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street. 860-443-2545; lymanallyn.org. NEW PRESTON The Loft Gallery, at the Smithy “Fresh Season of Light,” photographs by Judith Secco and paintings by Ariane Luckey. Through March 22. Wednesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Loft Gallery, at the Smithy, 10 Main Street. thesmithystore.com; 860-868-9003. OLD LYME Florence Griswold Museum “Peter Halley: Big Paintings.” Through May 31. $8 to $10; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme Street. 860-434-5542; flogris.org. OLD LYME Lyme Art Association Gallery “A Contemporary Look,” “Pulled and Pressed,” “Industrious America” and “Holding Still,” handmade prints. Through April 17. Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lyme Art Association Gallery, 90 Lyme Street. 860-434-7802; lymeartassociation.org. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964-1974, Part II,” Richard Artschwager, Eva Hesse, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin and Richard Serra. “Mary Beth Edelson: Six Story Gathering Boxes (1972-2014).” “Kate Gilmore: A Roll in the Way.” “Ernesto Neto: The Body That Gravitates on Me.” “David Scanavino: Imperial Texture.” “Cary Smith: Your Eyes They Turn Me.” “Jackie Winsor: With and Within.” “Circumstance,” group show. Through April 5. $5 and $10; Tuesdays, free; members, K-12 teachers, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. 203-438-4519; aldrichart.org. RIDGEFIELD Watershed Gallery “Father & Son: The Work of David & Max Dunlop.” Through April 19. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Watershed Gallery, 23 Governor Street. watershedgallery.com; 203-438-4387. ROXBURY Minor Memorial Library “Reformations,” assemblages, collages and sculptures by Erin Walrath. Through April 11. Mondays, noon to 7 p.m.; Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street. 860-350-2181; minormemoriallibrary.org. STAMFORD Loft Artists Association “Andy Warhol Lives Again,” group show. Through March 22. Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. Loft Artists Association, 575 Pacific Street. loftartists.com; 203-247-2027. STAMFORD Stamford Art Association The 42nd annual Student Art Show. Through March 19. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 3 p.m. Stamford Art Association, 39 Franklin Street. 203-325-1139; stamfordartassociation.org. STAMFORD Stamford Museum & Nature Center “Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney.” Through May 25. $5 to $10; members and children under 3, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stamford Museum & Nature Center, 39 Scofieldtown Road. 203-322-1646; stamfordmuseum.org. STAMFORD University of Connecticut Stamford Art Gallery “Invisible Perspective,” Vincent Filardi. Through March 12. Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. University of Connecticut Stamford Art Gallery, 1 University Place. 203-251-8450; artgallery.stamford.uconn.edu. STORRS William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut “In the Paint: Basketball in Contemporary Art.” “Sweet Sensation: UConn Reads: The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Through March 29. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 245 Glenbrook Road. 860-486-4520; benton.uconn.edu. WASHINGTON The Institute for American Indian Studies “The Sisters Series,” Jeanne Rorex Bridges. Through March 31. The Institute for American Indian Studies, 38 Curtis Road. 860-868-0518; iaismuseum.org. WASHINGTON DEPOT Washington Art Association Landscapes by Tom Reilly, Isabelle Day and Robert Jessel. Through April 4. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Washington Art Association, 4 Bryan Memorial Plaza. 860-868-2878; washingtonartassociation.org. WESTPORT Westport Historical Society “Saugatuck @ Work — Haven of Community, Commerce and Innovation,” mural, photographs and more. Through June 14. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m. Westport Historical Society, 25 Avery Place. 203-222-1424; westporthistory.org.


Jim Clack, 58, Steelers and Giants Lineman, Dies

Abstract: Jim Clack, an offensive lineman who played 11 seasons in the National Football League and won two Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Friday in Greensboro, N.C. He was 58 and lived in Greensboro. His wife, Susan, said the cause of death was atrial fibrillation. She said he had fought neck and throat cancer for four years. Clack played guard and center for the Steelers for seven seasons (1971-77) and was part of their 1975 and 1976 championship teams. He was traded to the Giants before the 1978 season and played with them from 1978-1981, becoming their offensive captain. He retired the day the Giants' training camp opened in 1981 and, the next day, underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees. But when his replacement, Ernie Hughes, tore a knee ligament at midseason, Ray Perkins, the Giants' coach, called Clack out of retirement. He went on to help them make the playoffs. James Thomas Clack was born Oct. 26, 1947, in Rocky Mount, N.C., and lettered in football, basketball and track at Wake Forest University. In recent years, he developed commercial and residential real estate and owned a restaurant. He was also a retailer and a motivational speaker. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two stepchildren, Joseph and Lindsay Curtis of Wilmington, N.C.; and two sisters, Linda Brown of Sanford, N.C., and Pat Harper of Kerr Lake, N.C.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
CLACK JIM
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
SUPER BOWL
FOOTBALL
DEATHS (OBITUARIES)


Ross Takes Super G

Abstract: Laurenne Ross won the super G in the United States Alpine championships in Squaw Valley, Calif., by 0.01 of a second over Stacey Cook, for her first national title. The defending champion Julia Mancuso was third, 0.08 behind Ross. Travis Ganong won the men’s race by 0.20 of a second on his home course. ¶ In an event held in Sierra Nevada, Spain, Hannah Kearney won her fourth World Cup moguls title.

World Cup Skiing
Laurenne Ross
Stacey Cook
Julia Mancuso
Skiing


Following the Hudson River School Art Trails in 3 States

Abstract: THE landscape painters of America’s first homegrown art movement, the Hudson River School, hauled easels, sketchbooks and pigment-filled pig bladders as they picked their way along cliffs vulnerable to avalanches and across mucky shores. Alas, I cannot paint; my only art skill is sketching our cats on letters to our daughter at summer camp. But I don’t mind navigating dirt roads, getting scratched and muddy and sometimes hitchhiking in pursuit of gob-smacking scenery. And whether or not the romantic aesthetic of the Hudson River School is to your taste, the magnificent views — many still much as they were in the mid-1800s — are worth any number of treks. Certainly that was part of the thinking of the creators of the Hudson River School Art Trail, the brainchild of museums including the homes of Frederic Edwin Church and Thomas Cole, nonprofit environmental and heritage advocacy groups and government agencies. It is less a single trail than almost two dozen, spread across four states, each leading to a spot painted by one of the movement’s artists. The trail project, introduced in 2005 as a Web site with maps, directions and information about the associated artists and paintings, has nearly tripled the number of its sites this year, expanding on those in the Hudson River Valley of New York to include the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The first site listed on the trail is the home and studio of Thomas Cole, the Englishman credited with founding the Hudson River School. Falling in love with the Catskills in the 1820s, Cole settled there on land overlooking the valley gouges that his friend and fellow artist Frederic Edwin Church called “the center of the world.” Cole’s house, Cedar Grove, in Catskill, is now a museum furnished with his painting tools and artworks. Church’s nearby home, Olana, is also among the first sites on the trail, as is a view favored by several of the artists and long beloved by tourists: the stunning Kaaterskill Falls. Through Friday the Cedar Grove staff is soliciting new paintings executed at trail sites for an exhibition that opens Sept. 23. (On Sept. 21 a major show, “Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School,” opens at the New-York Historical Society after a national tour.) Not willing to wait for the fall foliage, when the views are bound to be at their most spectacular, I set off with my patient husband in a rental car on two recent weekends, bypassing the earlier sites to follow the new trail extensions. (There’s also an imminent extension to geysers and springs in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and maybe I’ll try out that trip suggestion on my husband next year.) The Web site’s directions are sometimes flawed (and the New England parts were still in beta form when we traveled, to be final by Friday), but driving in giant loops along the Hudson and deep into New England, we were able to grasp something of what the artists and their audiences believed and felt: the presence of the divine in nature. We were prepared for the first disappointment on our route. Jasper Cropsey, a Staten Island native and devoted Cole follower, lived and worked in a Gothic Revival cottage in Hastings-on-Hudson that he called Ever Rest. It is now part of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation museum, and we knew it was not open on weekends. So where Cropsey saw unkempt groves and choppy currents buffeting sailboats from a window there, we consoled ourselves with views of not much more than a fenced-off duck pond in the shadow of a street overpass. The trail view, seen in a painting that hangs beside the window, would have to wait for another day. We had better luck following in the footsteps of Cropsey’s colleague Sanford Robinson Gifford, who trolled the whole of the Hudson banks, depicting in his paintings the soft turns in the river that James Fenimore Cooper had likened to “a curled shaving” when seen from on high. Gifford pretended not to notice industrial plants and quarries on the hills, although his own painting career depended on financing from the waterfront iron works in Hudson, N.Y., belonging to his father, Elihu and built on rocks at the foot of Mount Merino. “Gifford may well have foreseen the changes his father helped to effect and sought to preserve pictorially the pastoral charm of the location he knew as a boy,” the art trail Web site notes. Gifford was not alone. Mills, factories, foundries and tanneries were already encroaching on a number of the views when the Hudson River School painters traipsed the Catskills and beyond, but the artists tended to crop out the unsightly parts, paying homage to primeval nature in the early environmentalist vein of romantic writers like Cooper and Washington Irving. Storm clouds and diagonal sunbeams add drama to the compositions, yet the artists did not always see such convenient artful lines when they stood outdoors sketching. “You often see them taking liberties,” the art historian said Kevin J. Avery, part of a scholarly team that has spent years researching and developing this tourist trail, in a recent phone interview. At Gifford’s haunts in Croton Point Park we never did find the Web site’s suggested trailhead marked with a “No Swimming Area” sign. It would have led us effortlessly to the sandy coves that inspired Gifford’s “elegant, tapering view of Hook Mountain and the distant Palisades.” (The 1866 painting, “Hook Mountain, Near Nyack,” now belongs to the Yale University Art Gallery .) Instead we drove past RV’s and then hiked among early-19th-century yew trees; a sign explained that they had originally been shipped upriver from a nursery in Queens. To reach the water I stumbled alone down root-pocked trails lined with poison ivy. (My husband didn’t have the right shoes.) At one serene cove a slashed tire in the sand spoiled the mood for me. But at a rocky spit I caught my breath at a panorama of hills, misty bridges and steeples. People fishing there were staring at the water and their rods. I blurted out, “I wish I had a paintbrush.” One amused fisherwoman looked back over her shoulder and asked, “Do you paint?” I lied, “I do O.K.,” and mimed dabbing a brush at an easel. Rain was threatening by the time I scrambled back up to the main trail, so we flagged down a passing flatbed truck for a ride to our car. As we lurched down a gravel road through marshland, I was laughing so hard over being a middle-aged arts writer hitchhiking al fresco that I almost didn’t notice when Gifford’s “elegant, tapering view” — the one I had just seen from a different angle — rose up at the horizon. In Hudson, Gifford had frequented Parade Hill at the end of Warren Street, not far from the family ironworks. A rusted silo looms over a parking lot where he had seen dirt roads and marshland. But forests have reclaimed some of the bald farmland that he had painted as pale stripes on the hills. The art trail also honors some rather obscure artists among Cole’s dozens of followers. From the grounds of what is now the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park the Hamburg-born painter Johann Hermann Carmiencke captured river islands and overlapping slopes on an 1859 canvas , “Landscape, Hyde Park, New York,” now at the Brooklyn Museum. He dotted them with cows and peasants that must have reminded him of his homeland’s Rhine banks. Across the river in Kingston the Web site’s recommended “short trail that leads through the woods to the top of a bluff” in Hasbrouck Park was elusive. The English painter Joseph Tubby came upon vistas of pastures and sailboats there. We took a wrong turn to a waterfront pavilion, where a new bride was hugging guests at her reception, and kids wriggled and danced in spite of their dress-up clothes. “Why isn’t somebody out here painting that?” I found myself thinking. It was one of countless scenes along our hurried, winding drive that I thought would make a good subject for someone with talent: why not the mournful gray humps of the Indian Point nuclear plant, a weedy drive-in showing the Batman movie, a church thrift store called That Nothing Be Lost? We had a few more navigational mishaps on the New England portion of our trip, based on Web site directions still in trial form. Trails to an overlook called Artists Bluff, near Echo Lake in Franconia, N.H., eluded us, so we headed right to the lake, which looked docile when we got to the beach, packed with swimmers and picnickers. Albert Bierstadt had portrayed it as a hollow between jagged hills and cascading rocks in his 1861 landscape , now at Smith College. Ski trails gash the nearby woods, and the sun sparks on chrome from passing cars. A highway curve has also neatened the rim of Saco Lake near the New Hampshire hamlet of Hart’s Location (best known for opening its polls just after dawn during presidential elections). In 1839 Cole showed a horseback rider dwarfed by boulders and dead trees in the wilderness spot; settlers there had been killed in avalanches. Cole had hiked up arduously with an artist friend, the Web site reports, “soon after the Saco River had flooded and washed away some of the bridges they might have used.” The lake we saw was just glassy, mirroring the shore’s composition of silvery rock slabs and reddening dead pines. The National Gallery owns the Cole painting , “A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch),” and a copy hangs in the gift shop at a train depot by the lake. I asked the shop clerk, “Do people still paint here?” He nodded, but then angled his head toward the Cole. “Nothing comes out as beautiful as that,” he said. At the top of Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts, Cole had painted himself at work overlooking a hairpin turn in the Connecticut River. (That artwork , known as “The Oxbow,” is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) Based on my misleading map printout from the Web site, we first ended up at a poison ivy bed by the waterfront and then realized that we needed to snake up the mountain road through J. A. Skinner State Park in Hadley, Mass. An eroded path at the top leads to a boxy 1850s hotel now being restored. (The road is sometimes closed for construction, so call the park for updates before heading out.) I held up my printout of Cole’s scene, comparing the lost and surviving past to the evolving present. Trees have fuzzed over farmland rectangles that Cole saw. Powerboats were causing gorgeous white streaks on the river. A student was crouched over a book alongside the trail. I was hoping he would be sketching, but instead there were mathematical formulas across the pages. I excitedly showed him my page, explaining that our valley view at that moment was like a smudged thumbprint of the Cole masterpiece. “Thanks for listening,” I said, when I ran out of material. “Thanks for sharing,” he said, without detectable irony. Then I scurried back downhill to the rental car that had to be returned by nightfall.

Art
Cole Thomas
Hudson River
Hudson River Valley (NY)


Bowe Bergdahl Had ‘Severe Mental Disease or Defect,’ Lawyer Says

Abstract: SAN ANTONIO — Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who faces a possible life sentence for endangering the soldiers who searched for him after he left his Afghanistan base in 2009, had a “severe mental disease or defect” at the time, one of his lawyers said Thursday. The diagnosis was made later by an independent Army psychiatry board, said the defense lawyer, Lt. Col. Franklin D. Rosenblatt of the Army. Because of his psychological problems, Sergeant Bergdahl washed out of Coast Guard basic training three years earlier, Colonel Rosenblatt said, and had to obtain a waiver to join the Army. The revelations came during the first day of a hearing in which Army prosecutors hope to persuade a hearing officer to recommend that Sergeant Bergdahl, 29, be court-martialed on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Prosecutors say his decision to walk off his base prompted a seven-week manhunt involving thousands of troops who braved heat, improvised bombs, fatigue and filth as they conducted raids and other dangerous missions in a fruitless effort to find him. Colonel Rosenblatt’s statements — during questioning of Sergeant Bergdahl’s former platoon leader, Capt. John P. Billings — appeared to foreshadow a crucial element of the defense team’s strategy: to argue that the military indirectly shares blame for Sergeant Bergdahl’s decision to leave his remote outpost in the middle of the night because officials should have known that he was mentally unfit for combat. Colonel Rosenblatt also questioned a former company commander, Maj. Silvino Silvino, about whether he knew that some of Sergeant Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers had warned a senior sergeant that they “were concerned about his mental health.” Major Silvino testified that he had never been told that. Sergeant Bergdahl disappeared in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and was held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years, until President Obama agreed to exchange him for five Taliban detainees in a deal that spurred criticism from Republicans. Image Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Credit US Army, via Associated Press Prosecutors hope to convince the hearing officer, Lt. Col. Mark Visger, an Army lawyer, that Sergeant Bergdahl, then a private first class, acted with what they termed “deliberate disregard” for the consequences of his actions when he left the base to seek out a senior commander. A prosecutor, Maj. Margaret Kurz, sought to portray Sergeant Bergdahl as vain and selfish, arguing in her opening statement that he had walked off his base “to bring attention to himself so he could have a private audience with the general.” “For 45 days, thousands of soldiers toiled in the heat” with little rest during the search, Major Kurz said, adding that the operation to find the missing soldier meant the military had to neglect its most significant tasks, partnering with and supporting Afghan security forces and ingratiating itself with Afghan civilians. Defense lawyers have previously said that Sergeant Bergdahl left so he could hike to another base and report undisclosed “disturbing circumstances” at his unit to a high-ranking officer. Captain Billings testified that he had been shocked and devastated when he realized that Sergeant Bergdahl was missing. He said that he had been unaware of any problems with Sergeant Bergdahl, describing him as “a great soldier, by all accounts,” who “always did everything he was asked to do.” But the captain awoke that morning to find that Sergeant Bergdahl had left his weapon and his night-vision goggles on his cot, with no sign of foul play or physical scuffle. (Major Kurz said Sergeant Bergdahl had taken a knife, a compass, snacks and local currency.) Captain Billings said he had hoped his troops were just playing a trick on him when they said they could not find Sergeant Bergdahl, as he prepared to send a message telling his company commander what had happened. Then, he said, his heart sank when his platoon sergeant told him, “You should have sent that 10 minutes ago.” Image Military police officers outside the area of Thursday's hearing for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Credit Erich Schlegel/Getty Images He described a feeling of “internal franticness” and “absolute, utter disbelief.” Soon, though, those emotions gave way to a desperate search. He led a nine-member patrol looking for Sergeant Bergdahl, as company, battalion and division forces came to the tiny outpost to help. His platoon searched nonstop for 20 days, all of it off-base and “outside the wire,” Captain Billings testified. His men were weary, frustrated and mentally exhausted. “One day bled into the next,” Captain Billings testified. “At some point, the guys just looked at themselves and said, ‘When is this going to end?’” Col. Clinton Baker, who was Sergeant Bergdahl’s battalion commander, said the conditions endured during the search were “much tougher” than even Ranger School, the Army’s grueling leadership course — partly because the soldiers had to dodge many enemy attacks, including ones using improvised bombs. “There was no battle rhythm” during the search, Colonel Baker testified. “It was just ‘go’ all the time.” The hearing continues Friday, when the defense is expected to call three witnesses, including Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, who conducted the Army’s investigation into the disappearance. Sergeant Bergdahl’s lead lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, made a one-sentence opening statement during Thursday’s session that seemed to reveal frustration that the Army continued to block the release of the unclassified transcript of the interview his client gave General Dahl. “The government should make Sergeant Bergdahl’s statement available to the public, not just to you,” Mr. Fidell told the hearing officer.

Bowe Bergdahl
Desertion
Afghanistan War
US Military
Afghanistan
San Antonio


Vin Scully’s Last Time on the Air for the Dodgers Is Another Solo Flight

Abstract: Vin Scully’s final game on Sunday was something close to a miracle in sportscasting — an 88-year-old man performing a solo act, conversing with us for more than three hours, keeping track of the game while telling stories, invoking memories and reminding us that he did this single job for 67 consecutive seasons. How many men or women his age have ever performed so ably, so publicly, with no safety net? Think of two announcers often thought of as baseball’s greatest before Vincent Edward Scully succeeded them. Red Barber, Scully’s mentor, was 58 when he was fired by the Yankees. Mel Allen was 51 when the Yankees broke his heart by dismissing him. Imagine if they had worked for 30 more years — would they have maintained their abilities as Scully has? Would they have been as fortunate as Ernie Harwell, who retired at 84 but would have been able to work as long as Scully has? Scully’s working alone was a gift to all of us. He could carry games by himself, as he proved every day. Anyone else competing for air space would have interrupted his flow. (He even shooed his large family out of the booth in the fifth inning on Sunday: “It’s time to go back to work. I love you. See you later!”) And oh, that voice, so melodic and with a pace ideally suited for baseball. Others have had a vocal gift, some of them quite wonderful. But until Scully signed off after the Giants’ 7-1 win over the visiting Dodgers, his was the peerless voice, the one that we pulled up a chair to listen to. “His voice hits the ear in just the right spot,” the announcer Joe Buck said during Fox’s pregame show on Saturday. After last weekend’s tributes at Dodger Stadium, there was lovely serendipity in Scully’s finale taking place at AT&T Park. He had allegiances to both sides of the long Dodgers-Giants rivalry, like a player traded from one franchise to the other. He became a Giants fan in 1936 at 8 years old. He sat in outfield seats at the Polo Grounds close enough to shout into the Giants’ clubhouse. But he was hired by Barber to call Dodgers games in 1950, when the franchise was still in Brooklyn. He went west with the team just as the Giants headed to San Francisco after the 1957 season. The greatest player Scully ever saw was the Giants’ Willie Mays, who is 85. Before the fourth inning, Scully and Mays stood together for the unveiling of a plaque for Scully in the Giants’ press box. The moment had some magic — two symbols of New York and California baseball, two extraordinary performers who, as octogenarians, can still generate a tingle down older fans’ spines. The ceremony delayed Scully’s return to his seat in the visitors’ TV booth, but when he got there and put on his headset, he said, “I think there’s a game going on out there.” The Dodgers’ Justin Turner was at bat, but Scully’s mind quickly turned to the Giants. To “Melvin Thomas Ott from Gretna, Louisiana,” as Scully called him, whose right-leg kick Scully imitated to much less success. To the years when the colors of the Giants cap were blue and white. To Russ Hodges’s repeated shout of “The Giants win the pennant!” when Bobby Thomson hit a home run in the 1951 playoff game that sent the Dodgers home for the winter. And to doing what Scully could not do as an announcer who had been instructed by Barber to be a reporter, not a fan. “I can root for them,” he said, referring to the Giants, “when they go to New York and play the Mets” in the wild-card game on Wednesday. Scully leavened the valedictory aspect of the broadcast with humility. He was, to an extent, embarrassed at the attention surrounding his season-long farewell. He appreciated it all, though he toyed with his self-consciousness by sweetly excusing himself for jabbering away with personal reflections. But this was a local game on SportsNet LA, not a national broadcast. The more Scully, the better for fans throughout Southern California and those watching it on the Major League Baseball streaming service or the Extra Innings service. After an inning of his call was simulcast on the Giants’ radio station, Scully fantasized what two San Francisco fans were saying. “Did you hear Scully?” one says. “Yeah, big deal,” says the other. “But it’s a big deal to me,” Scully told his audience. I wish it had been a bigger deal to MLB Network, which could have carried a simulcast to the country but instead cut back and forth to games with playoff implications. The network showed some of the Scully finale because the Giants needed to win the game to clinch the second National League wild-card slot. The network should have used the Scully finale as its anchor and cut now and then to other games. It was a lost opportunity to give a historic game a wider audience. And now, the Dodgers and baseball move on. Joe Davis, not yet 30, joined the Dodgers’ booth this season to call road games. He does not succeed Scully. He is the next man in, as Scully was when he replaced Harwell with the Dodgers. Davis deserves time to grow into the best broadcaster he can be, but he will do it under a far brighter spotlight than Scully did in the early 1950s. Let’s check in on Davis in, say, 2082.


Trade and Jobs Key to Victory for Bernie Sanders

Abstract: No Democratic presidential candidate had campaigned in Traverse City, Mich., in decades until Senator Bernie Sanders pulled up to the concert hall near the Sears store on Friday. Some 2,000 people mobbed him when he arrived, roaring in approval as he called the country’s trade policies, and Hillary Clinton’s support for them, “disastrous.” “If the people of Michigan want to make a decision about which candidate stood with workers against corporate America and against these disastrous trade agreements, that candidate is Bernie Sanders,” Mr. Sanders said in Traverse City, about 250 miles north of Detroit. Mr. Sanders pulled off a startling upset in Michigan on Tuesday by traveling to communities far from Detroit and by hammering Mrs. Clinton on an issue that resonated in this still-struggling state: her past support for trade deals that workers here believe robbed them of manufacturing jobs. Almost three-fifths of voters said that trade with other countries was more likely to take away jobs, according to exit polls by Edison Research, and those voters favored Mr. Sanders by a margin of more than 10 points. For Mrs. Clinton, it was a stinging defeat in a state that she had made a symbol of her campaign, pledging to help the citizens of Flint overcome its contaminated water crisis in a rare display of passion and outrage from a candidate who is often reserved. The results were also a reminder of her weakness among two key voting blocs: working-class white men and independent voters. The setback will almost certainly lead her to sharpen or even rethink her economic message, which does not seem to be reaching voters who feel betrayed by the Democratic Party’s embrace of free trade and left behind by the forces of globalization and deregulation. The first big test will come Wednesday night, when the two candidates debate in Miami, and then in the major industrial states that vote on March 15, including Ohio and Illinois. Despite the loss, Mrs. Clinton still has a large lead among delegates and was likely to pick up more than Mr. Sanders on Tuesday night because of her lopsided win in Mississippi. Video Hillary Clinton was projected to win the state’s primary by a significant margin but found herself in a close race with Senator Bernie Sanders in Michigan. Credit Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times But Michigan was a big prize for Mr. Sanders, who had poured money and time into the state, and he is certain to capitalize on the attention it will bring. He began advertising heavily about a month ago, spending nearly $2 million, while Mrs. Clinton was more focused on the Super Tuesday contests held last week. One ad, according to advisers to Mr. Sanders, was especially effective: It portrayed Mr. Sanders as the only candidate who had consistently opposed the free trade agreements many Michigan voters blame for job losses. Mr. Sanders also seized on trade in a Democratic debate on Sunday, a face-off that many analysts felt Mrs. Clinton had won, but that his advisers believed had conveyed his intensity and sincerity on economic fairness. Despite Mrs. Clinton’s advantages, including the support of much of the state’s Democratic establishment, the Sanders campaign showed deft organization and strategy: Mr. Sanders crisscrossed the state, speaking to more than 41,000 people, and his campaign opened 13 offices and hired 44 staffers to carry his message. He also visited places that were largely overlooked by the Clinton campaign, including Traverse City and Kalamazoo. Beverly Christensen, a retired pilot, said she had waited in line for a couple of hours to see Mr. Sanders at his rally in Traverse City. She called it “huge” for Mr. Sanders to come to the area, saying she could not recall another presidential contender visiting since the home-state favorite Gerald Ford stopped by. “To have him show up here — it was like he was a superstar just coming to our small town,” Ms. Christensen, 68, said in a telephone interview. “We felt like we were being heard and being listened to, and that was really important.” “Northern Michigan Democrats feel the ‘Bern,’” read the headline in the local paper , The Traverse City Record-Eagle. In Grand Traverse County, the home of Traverse City, Mr. Sanders won with about 64 percent of the vote. He also performed especially well in counties that are home to major campuses like the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. As results flooded in Tuesday night, Mr. Sanders said he had felt the race shifting in his favor in recent days as he talked with auto workers, union leaders and college students, who all seemed eager for a more assertive progressive agenda. “If you understand that two weeks ago, we were 30 points behind, it is very clear, as I felt, that we have a lot of momentum with us,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “Many of the vibes we were getting were very, very positive. I knew, I knew that these polls that had us 20 or 30 points behind were wrong.” But even Mr. Sanders seemed surprised by the outcome: He had no victory speech prepared, instead holding a seven-minute news conference from Miami as the votes were being counted. While Michigan’s economy has recovered substantially since the economic crisis, its unemployment level has continued to hover above national averages. More problematic, some analysts fear that many have simply stopped looking for work as the state’s labor force has shrunk. Although the auto industry, which fuels the regional economy, has rebounded significantly from the lows of 2008, Detroit only recently emerged from bankruptcy. “He was strong and forceful on trade, and persuasive with a lot of Michigan Democrats who have seen what’s happened to their economy over the past 20 years,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign. When Mrs. Clinton accused Mr. Sanders at the debate of opposing the 2009 federal bailout of the auto industry, and then began broadcasting a radio ad about the issue on Monday morning, Sanders advisers scrambled to come up with an ad of their own, explaining that Mr. Sanders had supported the bailout but opposed earlier aid for Wall Street that included some money for car companies. How Trump Could Be Blocked at a Contested Republican Convention A coalition of Republicans is banking on a scenario in which Donald J. Trump fails to reach the 1,237 delegates required to secure the party’s nomination before its July convention, creating a potential opening for another nominee as the delegates vote on the convention floor. While the Clinton ad was unmatched on the air for several hours, Sanders advisers said, their ad was up on Monday night and covered by the Michigan news media — enough to halt the effectiveness of the Clinton spot, they argued. Mr. Sanders’s Michigan operation ultimately drew on hundreds of volunteers to make phone calls and help transport voters to the polls on Tuesday, while other aides used a string of short advertisements — some lasting five seconds or less — to spread the message about Mr. Sanders on Facebook and Twitter. Mr. Sanders performed particularly well among white voters — especially white men, but also white women — and he won independents strongly. He lost to Mrs. Clinton among Democrats and minority voters. Mrs. Clinton’s advisers had been fearing a loss, and the team sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to campaign around the state. Her campaign’s leaders are worried that Mr. Sanders could upend her recent momentum if he parlays his narrow victory in Michigan into wins next Tuesday in Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, where he is focusing his resources. Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign, and other advisers pointed to Mrs. Clinton’s significant lead in delegates and said the team would like to “wrap up” the primary campaign “as soon as possible.” “We feel confident she is going to be the nominee, but the race will continue to be competitive through next week,” Ms. Palmieri said. Mrs. Clinton is competing hard in Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, as well as in Florida and North Carolina, which also vote Tuesday. Her aides are confident that even if she loses the three Midwestern states to Mr. Sanders, she could still come away with more delegates that night, because her victories in Florida and North Carolina would most likely be bigger than his in the other states.

2016 Presidential Election
Michigan
Hillary Clinton
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
International trade
Jobs
Democrats
Primaries


The Pulse: An All-Chicago Cast Starts Work on a Film

Abstract: Drivers passing by Uncle Mike’s Place on Grand Avenue in West Town last week may have spotted the actor and former Chicago police officer Dennis Farina. He is in town to join an all-Chicago cast in “The Last Rites of Joe May,” a Steppenwolf Films movie about a small-time hustler who decides to protect a mother and her daughter from an abusive boyfriend. Mr. Farina plays Joe May, who at one point needs to find some money to repay his patron, Lenny, the kind of guy who could wear six watches, all of them for sale. Some of the tough-guy dialogue could have been written by the late Chicago novelist Nelson Algren: “Ya got my money?” Joe Maggio, the director, said he chose Chicago as the film’s setting because of relatively low crew costs, a large reservoir of talent and neighborhoods like West Town, with its gritty streets that recall Chicago in the 1970s. “You couldn’t film this in New York,” Mr. Maggio said. Tim Evans, the executive producer, hopes to sell the film at festivals early next year and have it on movie screens soon thereafter. Another local actor, Gary Cole, plays Lenny, whose business Mr. Cole describes as “mostly legal, although he’s probably got a few phone numbers the F.B.I. would want.”


Nigeria: Suicide Bombing Kills 32

Abstract: A suicide bomber killed at least 32 people on Monday near a religious procession by Shiite Muslims in northeast Nigeria, a hospital official and witness said. The official said that 119 people were wounded in the attack in Potiskum, the capital of Yobe State. In a separate attack, a group of armed men using explosives freed 145 inmates from a prison in the state of Kogi, in central Nigeria, a prison official said. One inmate died in Sunday night’s attack, and 12 escapees had been recaptured by late Monday.


Trainers Look at Bigger Picture, but No Belmont Showdown

Abstract: BALTIMORE The best horse won the 135th running of the Preakness Stakes , and that is good enough for Bob Baffert. Baffert, the Hall of Fame trainer, put Lookin at Lucky on a plane back to California on Sunday, then caught one home himself. His colt is skipping the Belmont Stakes . “I like the Belmont — it’s a tough, long race,” said Baffert, who won it in 2001 with Point Given but saw his horses Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet (1998) and War Emblem (2002) lose the race and their bids at a Triple Crown . “When I ran my other horses for the Triple Crown, I had to give them a break afterwards. It’s tough on them. I want to keep this horse around.” The Kentucky Derby winner, Super Saver, is also skipping the Belmont. While Lookin at Lucky might have had enough in the tank to come to New York, Super Saver showed at the Preakness that he desperately needed time off. He was spinning his wheels around the final turn and staggered home in eighth place. His trainer, Todd Pletcher, said he refused to lose sleep over the loss. After all, Super Saver did bring him his first Derby victory after a decade-long 0-for-24 drought in which he won every major race in America except the one that he wanted most. “There’s nothing more that I would have loved to have done than to come back to Belmont with a chance at the Triple Crown,” he said. “But we are so happy about the way he ran in the Derby and so thankful about that, that it would be hard to be disappointed about anything he ever does from this point on. I think it softens the blow a bit. You can always look back and know you won the Derby, and that’s paramount.” One of the many pleasures of covering this sport is that rarely do you come across a sore loser. Horsemen and horsewomen are typically gracious in defeat because they have a lot practice at it. Baffert, for example, has lost 75 percent of the time he has sent a horse to the track this year, and Pletcher is at 73 percent, according to trainer statistics. Horse racing is a tough game, and those in it know that no matter how fast and talented a horse is, luck is more often than not going to determine who gets to the winners’ circle. From 1997 to 2002, Baffert won eight Triple Crown races. He did not win another until Saturday. Lookin at Lucky was as snakebitten as they come. Last year, he won five of six races and was named the 2-year-old champion. This year, Lookin at Lucky and his regular rider, Garrett Gomez, endured three brutal trips, including a bumper-car mash-up on the rail of the Derby to lose all chance at victory in the opening eighth of a mile. Baffert decided to give the Preakness mount to the hot jockey Martin Garcia to “change his luck,” and the 25-year-old Garcia gave the colt a perfect ride. Voilà, the tandem crossed the wire first. Those in the sport may not start to adopt the attitude that the result of a race is out of their control, but you can tell by listening to Nick Zito that they try to master their emotions. Zito is a Hall of Fame trainer who has won the Derby and the Belmont twice and the Preakness once. Still, at least 10 times a week, he mutters: “This is a game that humbles kings.” In the Derby, Zito watched his colt Ice Box stop three times in traffic but still manage to rocket past a herd of horses in the stretch to nearly catch Super Saver. In the Preakness, another of his colts, Jackson Bend, was bottled up in the stretch before escaping to finish less than a length behind Lookin at Lucky and a head behind the second-place finisher, First Dude. In the course of a mini-monologue, Zito can sound like a railbird who was one unlucky break from cashing a big ticket. “I hate making excuses,” he said. “But a little break here and there, it might have been a little closer or a lot closer. We could have won the thing.” He can also sound like a philosopher and poet. “You try to put everything in a proper perspective, but it’s so hard, because you want to have peace, you want a little peace,” Zito said. “You get it if you win those races, because that’s what we do it for. On the other hand, you’ve got to be thankful and grateful for how good they run and how good they come back.” Ultimately, Zito prefers to avoid such conversations, and he knows there is only one way to do that. “The good thing, unfortunately,” he said, “is that victory needs no explanation.”

Lookin at Lucky
Triple Crown (Horse Racing)
Horse Racing
Belmont Stakes
Super Saver (Horse)


South Korean Intelligence Officers Are Accused of Political Meddling

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — At least two agents from the South Korean National Intelligence Service illegally posted comments online criticizing the political opposition ahead of the December presidential election, the police said on Thursday in an interim report on an investigation into accusations of political meddling. The police said it remained unclear whether the two agents were part of an operation to influence the Dec. 19 election, as the opposition Democratic United Party claimed. But the findings were a blow to President Park Geun-hye, who had vehemently accused her opposition rival, Moon Jae-in, of a political offensive when his party first made accusations of illegal campaign activities by intelligence agents. Ms. Park, the governing party candidate, won the election by a margin of one million votes. The case revived long-held suspicions among South Koreans over the role of the National Intelligence Service. The country’s former military dictators — including Ms. Park’s father, the late President Park Chung-hee — had used the agency, once known by its infamous acronym, K.C.I.A., to torture and silence dissidents and influence domestic politics. After the country democratized in the early 1990s, the agency, which has changed its name a few times, repeatedly vowed not to intervene in politics. On Thursday, Lee Kwang-seok, chief of the Suseo Police Station in Seoul, admitted difficulties investigating the secretive agency. The supervisor of the two agents, who are from the intelligence service’s psychological intelligence bureau, refused to be questioned, Mr. Lee said. The police asked prosecutors to formally indict the two agents, whose names were not released, on charges of violating a law that requires intelligence officers to maintain political neutrality. A third person, not affiliated with the agency, faces a criminal charge of helping the agents in their online operation. The police, citing a lack of evidence, stopped short of accusing the agents of a more politically volatile crime of violating the country’s election law, a decision the opposition party called a whitewash. Political parties had earlier agreed to conduct a separate parliamentary inquiry. Prosecutors have also barred the former intelligence service director, Won Sei-hoon, a close ally of former President Lee Myung-bak, from leaving the country. There was no immediate reaction from Ms. Park’s office or the intelligence service. The agency had earlier denied interfering in the election. It said its officers’ online activities had been part of its normal psychological operations aimed at North Korea. Park Yong-jin, spokesman for the Democratic United Party, said Thursday that the case showed that the agency was “'a chambermaid of political power,” and compared the campaign activities of which it is accused to a “coup d'état.” Mr. Park also accused the national police of dragging their feet in investigating the case, out of fear of offending President Park. The police said the investigation was continuing. The case began when police officers and officials from the National Election Commission knocked on the door of a room in an office and residential complex in southern Seoul on Dec. 11, just over a week before the election. They were responding to a tip from the opposition party that a 29-year-old agent was running an illegal online election campaign operation from there. But they could not even enter the room, as the agent had locked herself in. A political standoff erupted. The opposition accused the intelligence service of blocking an investigation. Ms. Park and her party accused the opposition of harassing the woman. The police took two days to obtain two computers from the woman and another two days before questioning her for the first time. Three days before the election, the police said they had found no evidence of illegal online activities. After the election, however, the police said further investigations revealed that the woman used 16 Internet user IDs to upload numerous comments often criticizing opposition candidates on politically sensitive issues. Still later, they questioned a second agent and a person who was said to have been hired by the agents to assist them in their work.

National Intelligence Service South Korea


Strivers, Still

Abstract: It was a wondrous moment: The first day of high school. I gazed in awe at the worn stone staircase that wound up to the second floor of the Beaux-Arts building, feeling almost compelled to tiptoe, as if entering a cathedral. I had no idea what to expect — certainly not the prepubescent bookie who sidled up, whispering in his Brooklyn accent a tantalizing offer to sell me a pool pass for the bargain price of a dollar. There was no pool. That was 26 years ago. Stuyvesant High is still the crown jewel of the city’s educational system, a public school that admits only about the top 3 percent of the roughly 26,000 students who take the entrance exam each fall. But now Stuyvesant has a 75-foot-long pool, a bank of escalators, more than 450 computers and a dining hall — not merely a cafeteria — that commands panoramic views of the Hudson River. I, too, have changed since that September morning in 1981 when I entered Stuyvesant as a wide-eyed freshman. My dark peach fuzz has been replaced by speckles of gray. No longer a coltish aspiring writer seeking the ballast of experience, I am now a grizzled journalist yearning for the levity of youth. The city, once a messy cauldron of muggers and madams, is now practically corporate. And the school is gone — at least the building I came to love and loathe. The building still squats there, a hulking monstrosity on East 15th Street near First Avenue, putting forth the musty stench of expired Bunsen burners, the residue of a century of chemistry experiments gone awry. But 15 years and $150 million ago, Stuyvesant moved across town into a modern, tan brick, 10-story citadel at the southwestern tip of TriBeCa. Searching for signs of Stuyvesant of yore, I come up only with sepia-toned memories. Frank McCourt — merely Mr. McCourt back then, my high school English teacher, before he became a literary darling — isn’t there anymore. I remember him fondly because, once, he read aloud one of my short stories to his other classes. I heard about it from fellow students, not from Mr. McCourt, which made the compliment all the more worthy. The title of my story: “Real Women Don’t Eat Three Eggs.” Ron Cancemi, a guidance counselor and gentle father figure, isn’t there either. Students used to line up outside his door, angst-ridden, waiting their turn to talk to him and hear just the assurance they needed: that it would be O.K., whatever it was. Me, too. Ron — and we all called him Ron — wasn’t just a counselor. He believed in me when I didn’t. Once, after I graduated, we met for lunch, but the conversation felt forced. We talked about an unusual investment that he had made in fur coats. Maybe I had just gotten older. Ron died about five years later. I don’t know all the circumstances; I don’t want to. He wasn’t much older than I am now. But near the end of the second-floor hallway at the new Stuyvesant, a brass plaque quoting Shakespeare is dedicated to his memory. One day last year, I wandered into that office, which was just beyond the plaque. Students were hanging out with a school counselor, just the way they used to do when Ron was around. I asked if anyone had heard of him. Not one of them had. That’s the nature of high school: It possesses a short, merciless memory. Long gone also is the day when only three of us put out the school newspaper, The Spectator, which was barely more than eight pages and appeared just a tad more regularly than Halley’s Comet. Using only our bare hands, we used to cut and paste and lay out stories. Now, with a staff of about 200 and a managing board, the newspaper is a computer-generated work of usually more than 20 pages that publishes about once every two weeks, in print and online. Stuyvesant’s enrollment has remained constant, with about 3,000 students, but it has become less diverse. When I attended, about 13 percent of the students were black. Now only about 2 percent are black, while white enrollment has held steady at about 40 percent and the number of Asians has grown to about 55 percent. The number of Hispanics has been dropping, too, from 4.3 percent in 1995 to 3 percent today. Some things don’t change. Ms. Lorenzo, a French teacher known affectionately as Legs Lorenzo decades ago, is stooped and bespectacled, but still imploring her students to be quiet, as she did decades ago. Mr. Teitel is still a reed-thin physics teacher even though he has since picked up a second job, as Stuyvesant’s principal. Soft-spoken Mr. Scandura still teaches history, but now he does so in a replica of an old classroom filled with wooden desks designed with inkwell slots. His classroom, 229, is also called the Museum Room. THE students haven’t changed, either. They are still a driven lot, whose numbers include Milo, a prodigy who last year, at age 10, was already mastering pre-calculus, and Mariya, a Ukrainian immigrant who strives to attain her — and her mother’s — American Dream of academic excellence, one in which a grade-point average of 94.86 simply isn’t good enough. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have been good enough for the Stuyvesant of today. High school is tougher and more complex; I don’t know if I would have passed Stuyvesant’s entrance exam this time around, or if I could have survived today’s long assembly line of standardized tests. But I’m certain of one thing about Stuyvesant: It’s not the pool that matters.

Writing and Writers
Klein Alec
Education and Schools


Facebook Opens Messenger for App Developers

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook changed how 1.4 billion people share their baby photos, major life events and goofy cat videos with friends. Now it wants to change their one-on-one conversations, too. Just as Facebook turned its social network into a bigger platform for games and group conversations, the company wants to make its instant-messaging service, now 600 million users strong, into a similar system for communications of all kinds. On Wednesday, Facebook told app makers at its annual developer conference that it was opening up access to its Messenger app, allowing developers to piggyback their own apps on top of Facebook chats. The company showed off nearly 50 apps for Messenger that were created under the program, including one that turns text messages into songs and another that allows a user to search for and send an animated GIF to express a mood. “Until now, we have focused on improving Messenger by building all of these features ourselves,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, told developers. By opening the platform, he said, Facebook wants to tap the creativity of other app makers. “We’re really excited about what you all are able to do with these fast and simple tools we are rolling out,” he said. But Facebook’s ambitions for messaging don’t stop there. Last week, the company added a payment button to Messenger that allows users to send money instantly to their friends, and most analysts expect the company to eventually expand it to purchases from businesses. At the developer conference, Facebook said it would soon begin testing a system to allow businesses to use Messenger to offer personalized service to customers after a purchase is made. For example, a person might be able to use Messenger to change the color of a shirt in an order or see where a package is in the UPS delivery system. Facebook’s initial partners are the clothing retailers Zulily and Everlane, but the company also hopes to lure other types of businesses, such as airlines and cable companies, that frequently face customer service issues. “We all have to agree that it’s pretty painful to interact with businesses right now,” David Marcus, head of messaging products at Facebook, said in an interview. “We’re bringing back the conversational nature of commerce.” In many respects, Facebook’s moves bring it closer to WeChat and Line. The two wildly popular Asia-based messaging platforms offer a range of other services, from virtual stickers for expressing moods to the ability to call a taxi or order takeout food. “So much of their revenue is coming from other services they provide,” said Cathy Boyle, the senior analyst for mobile at eMarketer, a research firm. Image Screen shot showing the new Messenger platform from Facebook, which allows apps to integrate with Facebook Messenger so people can express themselves with GIFs, photos, videos, and audio clips. That contrasts with the big American players in messaging, which besides Facebook include Apple with its iMessage, Google with Hangouts and Microsoft with Skype, which have done little to move beyond video conversations. “All of these things are essentially free, and there’s no business model around them today,” said Jan Dawson, head of Jackdaw Research. Mr. Dawson said that Messenger had the potential to evolve into a useful tool for businesses. “What Facebook Messenger could be is a platform that would allow you to start with chat and escalate to audio or video conversations. Someone already has their identity set up,” he said. To do that, Facebook wants to entice developers to integrate their apps with the service. Matt Serletic, chief executive of Zya, which rushed to finish its music app Ditty for a debut on stage as part of Wednesday’s announcements, said that Facebook made it easier for a small start-up like Zya to get an app off the ground. His team could focus on building its technology for converting text messages into songs, and simply plug in to Messenger’s technology for people to share the tunes. “As a start-up developer, there is a lot of risk in whatever you do,” he said in an interview. “This shortens the time to actually get to scale and engage a large user base.” After years of often testy relationships with developers and other corporate partners, Facebook has been trying to position itself as a more reliable friend of business. At last year’s developer conference, it announced tools that enabled app makers to include Facebook ads to make money and to incorporate Facebook’s login system and other shortcuts to simplify their apps. The company claims that the ad product has grown rapidly, but it has declined to provide any revenue data, making it impossible to evaluate its success. At this year’s conference, Facebook unveiled an upgrade of its LiveRail advertising platform that turns it into a full-fledged suite that can serve video, native or other mobile ads from Facebook or other ad networks directly into mobile apps. The company will also tap its deep knowledge of its users’ activities to give app developers detailed information about which demographic groups are engaging with the ads. That competes with similar mobile ad offerings from Google, Yahoo and Twitter’s MoPub unit, all of which are trying to persuade developers to use their company’s advertising tools. Like its competitors, Facebook is also trying to win over developers by offering them deeper analytical tools to understand who is using their products and where people get stuck. A shoe retailer, for example, wants to know where in the shopping flow people decide not to buy and leave the app. “We’re building a way for accessing that data throughout the flow,” said Eddie O’Neil, platform product manager at Facebook. Ultimately, winning over developers means more usage and more revenue for Facebook, although it could take years before the money coming in is meaningful. “This is the first inning of a very long journey,” Mr. Marcus said.


In the Bleachers, Few Starry-Eyed Views

Abstract: Out beyond the right-field wall in Section 203, the Bleacher Creatures at Yankee Stadium believe they know the difference between a proper title contender and a mere placeholder. They have seen the real thing. This home team was more of an expensive knockoff. While the Yankees were losing a sloppy 5-3 game to the Houston Astros on opening day, one fan wondered: Where are the stars, the heartthrobs? “I don’t have a favorite Yankee for the first time in my life,” said Tina Lewis, the designated queen of the bleachers. “That says it all.” The days when the Yankees built champions around their famous outfield (Mantle-Maris-Berra, in 1961) or their infield (Teixeira-Cano-Jeter-Rodriguez, in 2009) have been replaced by a less shimmering era when the team’s greatest strength is its bullpen. Go write romantic poetry about middle relievers, particularly after Dellin Betances throws away the baseball and the game. A liberal sampling of opinions on Tuesday found the bleacher fans more or less in agreement: The Yankees will win 85 to 88 games this season (they won 87 in 2015), which may or may not keep them close in an American League East race with flawed Toronto and Boston. “The Yanks are a little better than last year, but then again last year they overachieved,” said Marc Chalpin, who led the first-inning roll-call chant from the bleachers in place of an absent and disheartened die-hard, Bald Vinny Milano. “So they’re likely to do about the same,” Chalpin said. “Will they fill the stadium? The answer is no.” The stadium was half-empty on Tuesday, even though it was sold out. The Monday rainout and the unforgiving weather had much to do with that. Steve Tipa, also known as Statman, said he would wait to fill out his precious, detailed scorecard until he got home, because his fingers were too numb to write. The Yankees have made it a bit harder for these fans to resell their tickets, banning the use of PDF home printouts from StubHub. That may in turn lead to even more seats being unfilled this year. The Yankees’ own Ticket Exchange is arguably just as functional in the secondary market, but fewer would-be buyers have learned to look to that site for a deal. Milano skipped the opener, announcing his retirement from fandom for about the eighth time. His sidewalk T-shirt shop out on River Avenue has been harassed by the players’ union over licensing rights for the last time, he swears. He’s done. He will soon close his business, and the Yankees aren’t giving him many reasons to return. “You cheer for the team, for the laundry on the field, because you’re desperate for something good,” Milano said by telephone. “But it’s been lackluster.” The scenes were varied in the Bronx, the crowd quieter than usual. Behind home plate, two fans dressed in Ninja Turtle costumes stuck out the whole, long defeat. They were part of a John Oliver-inspired promotion, to democratize the expensive Legends seats. There was reluctant acknowledgment everywhere that the Mets might be the hotter franchise at the moment. Still, if you listened to the Yankees’ manager, then this first, frigid game was the start of something special. “There’s excitement because there’s hope,” Joe Girardi declared before the first pitch. Then, later: “Tomorrow is another day.” The Yankees added two significant upgrades in trades during the off-season — second baseman Starlin Castro from the Chicago Cubs and the suspended closer Aroldis Chapman from the Cincinnati reds. At the same time, fragile, aging players like Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, C. C. Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez are a year older and frailer. Generally, the fans appeared resigned or content enough with the club’s status as second-tier contenders, 25-to-1 longshots according to some oddsmakers. Nobody in right field was giving up his bargain $20 bleacher seat. At the end of the 2018 baseball season, an unusually rich crop of free agents will become available. By then, the current deadwood will have dropped off the Yankees’ $216 million payroll. Chalpin envisioned Bryce Harper roaming the outfield, Manny Machado at third base and Dallas Keuchel pitching in the Bronx again — in a different uniform. Then there is Domingo Acevedo, the pitching prospect who has thrown 103 miles per hour. All in the future. Meanwhile, there was at least one small victory Tuesday for the true believers. A two-run double down the line in the second inning from the newest Yankee, Castro, earned a hearty cheer. Before the game, in the clubhouse, Castro still found himself halfway between Chicago and New York. He watched replays of the Cubs’ 9-0 victory from Monday on a television screen and revealed he had chosen his jersey number, 14, to honor the late, great Ernie Banks. “He was such a good person, always trying to teach me,” said Castro, who often played Banks’s old shortstop position in Chicago. Castro declared he was now very much a Yankee. “Chicago? It’s gone,” he said. “Coming to New York was a really good surprise.” If he hangs around until 2019, the Bleacher Creatures believe, he might win something important.