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Thinking about NYC-area ballet community


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I didn't quite know where to fit this topic. Just wanted to express my sincere good wishes to ALL members of the BalletAlert! Family who live in zones most affected by Hurricane Sandy. I've been contacting my best friends individually but wanted to wish all members of the BA/ballet Family well. I know that New York/New Jersey/Connecticut residents comprise a big percentage of the BA Family. My thoughts are with you for healing, repairing, and a return to 'normalcy' soon.

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I share your concerns, especially for our extended group, but, knowing that media tend to emphasize the worst - that used to be called "paper peddling" when media were newspapers - I can offer some consoling perspective: Having heard from a New York friend, a prominent member of this board, who lives - now, this Chicagoan is not a native master of NYC neighborhood names, but I think it's called west Midtown, or maybe it's Chelsea - and evidently his large building has independent power when they need it, and having seen this coming and having stocked up a little, they seems to be quite thriving. Still, there are people dead or suffering, no question, and my heart goes out to them and theirs. But our little band may have largely escaped. So I hope and wish.

Edited to include the important fact that my friend is a major contributor to our community:

Edited by Jack Reed
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Thanks all for your good wishes. I transplanted myself from NY to DC for college and never went back. My father is on Long Island has been without power since Monday. There is one town between his community and the beach. Many of the cars in his condo complex, including his, were flooded and ruined. The winds brought salt water from the ocean along with the rain. When some people tried to start their cars, the cars started to smoke. Anyway, dad is sheltering with my brother who lives further inland and was not affected by anything. I was supposed to go home this weekend for an engagement party at the bride's parent's home on the north shore of Long Island, but the party had to be postponed due to damage to the property. The New Jersey relatives are not close to the shoreline and there have been no bad reports from that sector.

I was told to stay away until thing straighten themselves out a little.

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Thanks all for your good wishes. I transplanted myself from NY to DC for college and never went back. My father is on Long Island has been without power since Monday. There is one town between his community and the beach. Many of the cars in his condo complex, including his, were flooded and ruined. The winds brought salt water from the ocean along with the rain. When some people tried to start their cars, the cars started to smoke. Anyway, dad is sheltering with my brother who lives further inland and was not affected by anything. I was supposed to go home this weekend for an engagement party at the bride's parent's home on the north shore of Long Island, but the party had to be postponed due to damage to the property. The New Jersey relatives are not close to the shoreline and there have been no bad reports from that sector.

I was told to stay away until thing straighten themselves out a little.

Glad your dad had somewhere safe to go! Something like 90% of LI was (is?) without power. LIPA is not known for its quick restoration of electric and obviously the magnitude of this was off the scale.

Much of NJ, even off the coast, was also without power although that is slowly being restored. The NJTransit rail line is completely dead at the moment.

Most of lower Manhattan is still without power and without phones as well. I can't reach my family anymore. Their landline has gone out as well (it was functioning earlier as it doesn't require electricity).

Transportation is creaking to life, but it is still incredibly difficult to get anywhere if you are in Brooklyn unless you walk into the city. The lines for the buses that are meant to replace the subways were beyond belief.

Thanks for the concern everyone!

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Let me join abatt, Imspear, and Aurora in thanking everyone for their concern and good wishes. I just want to add a note for those of you who live outside of the NY Metro area: reports of the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy aren't media hype. There are parts of the city where it looks and feels like absolutely nothing has happened. But for many who live in downtown Manhattan, in Brooklyn, in Queens, in New Jersey (including our next door neighbors across the Hudson), or on Long Island, this storm has been and will continue to be a world of trouble.

I'm lucky -- although my husband and I live in the downtown black-out zone, we were able to score a room in a mid-town hotel on Wednesday. I think I'm experiencing a form of survivor's guilt: here I am lolling about in the luxury of lights, heat, hot showers, flushable toilets, charged gadgets, and an internet connection while my neighbors -- some elderly, some with children -- are trapped many stories up a pitch-black stairwell with dwindling supplies of food, water, candles, batteries, and medication. And -- elderly folks excepted -- they're doing relatively OK. They can at least trudge down umpteen flights of stairs, make their way uptown somehow to a grocery or pharmacy, re-provision, and schlep it back up all those stairs. And their power will be back on by the weekend. For many others -- including those in the Manhattan flood zones -- it's much worse.

38 New Yorkers have died so far and many have seen their homes destroyed. Many will be without power for at least another week. If you're not familiar with NYC geography, it may surprise you to learn that parts of the city are quite isolated: the people who live there can't easily get out and the city is only just now getting food and drinking water to them. Many local merchants have lost much of their inventory, not to mention the days of sales they need to just to pay the bills. (The uncle of two men on my building's staff owns a small deli down the block. Every time the power goes out he has to toss thousands and thousands of dollars of perishable food. Multiply him by 10,000.) And it pains me to say this, but there has been some ugly looting in the Rockaways. There's no gas to be had anywhere. For folks in the outer boroughs, in NJ, or on Long Island who must drive or need the gas for their generators, this is a real issue. The folks who keep the city running, many of whom can ill afford to lose a day's work, commute for hours over a jury-rigged transit system to get to their jobs, and return to homes without power, heat, or water. Some now have no jobs to go to. If you're a first responder, a healthcare worker, or a Con-Ed or MTA employee, you are probably running on fumes at this point. And, as is the case with every disaster, the people with the fewest resources have been hit the hardest.

It's not Katrina-scale devastation, but it's bad all the same.

Edited to add: I don't want to sound entirely gloomy. Many New Yorkers are making the most of the opportunity that Sandy has given them to socialize with their neighbors, marvel at the strange night-time darkness of downtown Manhattan, bond over shared power strips, and lend a hand to somebody else.

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I'm wondering how our friends in the Russian/Ukrainian/ex-USSR community of Brighton Beach "Little Odessa" are faring? CNN Int'l (which I get on cable in Peru) hasn't shown that area of Long Island in its reports. It's a community packed with ballet fans who patronize so many dance events in Manhattan.

Edited to add: I managed to find this article on Brighton Beach post-Sandy:

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20121031/brighton-beach/after-sandy-its-back-business-brighton-beach/slideshow/299130

It looks like they got away with 'just' flooding to basements and power outages, i.e., the buildings, roads and boardwalk still stand. Other places had entire buildings washed away.

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Things have been bad in Brighton Beach. There has been loss of power and destruction of property from the storm. In addition to the natural disaster, there are now reports of looting by criminals who are taking advantage fo the chaos. The last news report I saw indicated that additional police forces have been dispatched to prevent further looting.

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I have been pretty fortunate recently---although I live in Battery Park I have been away in Pennysylvania visiting family. My good fortune has known no end----I almost bought a waterfront condo on Staten Island that had considerable damage. Someone up there is watching over me---I am sure it is my beloved husband of 61 years who passed away 6 months ago. I hope I can get home in time to vote.....

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Things have been bad in Brighton Beach. There has been loss of power and destruction of property from the storm. In addition to the natural disaster, there are now reports of looting by criminals who are taking advantage fo the chaos. The last news report I saw indicated that additional police forces have been dispatched to prevent further looting.

Very sad. Thanks for the info, abatt.

atm711, you are indeed lucky. Wow.

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I am still waiting to speak with my 87 year old mother on LI. She has been without power and telephone since Monday. At least she has hot water and gas, but with no heat the coming weekend rainstorm, winds and subsequent drop in temperature has me worried even more for her comfort. My brother's basement on LI was flooded with one and a half feet of water. His family is also without power, I have cousins in New Jersey and Staten Island in affected areas and have no idea how they have fared. I know my mom and brother's family are safe - we got a call from my sister-in-law's mother who has power on LI - but my stomach will continue to be in knots until I speak with my mother personally.

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My prayers to everyone in the destruction zone.

My cousin, his wife and toddler were evacuated from Brick, NJ via military vehicle during the height of the storm. In advance of the storm, they were advised to stock up on batteries, but not advised to evacuate. (Still wouldn't have been my choice to stay, but....) They are among the lucky as well. Four feet of water in their house and two lost vehicles, but three homes on their block burned to the ground because the fire department couldn't reach them. There were fatalities in their neighborhood as well. They are happy to be replacing things like carpet and sheetrock, at this point.

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I am still waiting to speak with my 87 year old mother on LI. She has been without power and telephone since Monday. At least she has hot water and gas, but with no heat the coming weekend rainstorm, winds and subsequent drop in temperature has me worried even more for her comfort. My brother's basement on LI was flooded with one and a half feet of water. His family is also without power, I have cousins in New Jersey and Staten Island in affected areas and have no idea how they have fared. I know my mom and brother's family are safe - we got a call from my sister-in-law's mother who has power on LI - but my stomach will continue to be in knots until I speak with my mother personally.

I hope you get to soon! They are getting power up on LI (no sure thing with LIPA). My sister in law got hers back this afternoon. Best of luck!!

I'm waiting to hear if my mom got power back today. I think she missed the zone by a block :( She has no heat...

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I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but there's word now that most of the Martha Graham sets and costumes were flooded in 6 feet of water in a basement in the West Village:

http://artsbeat.blog...dy/#more-292711

The Wall St. Journal reported that the New York City Opera has lost a lot of materials, such as its musical library and its archives. The materials were stored on Broad Street in lower Manhattan.

On a separate note, since the Koch has no tenant presently, wouldn't it be great if the dance companies that are based in NYC (NYCB, ABT, Ailey, Paul Taylor, so on) could get together a benefit performance with all proceeds going to the Hurricane Relief effort?

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On a separate note, since the Koch has no tenant presently, wouldn't it be great if the dance companies that are based in NYC (NYCB, ABT, Ailey, Paul Taylor, so on) could get together a benefit performance with all proceeds going to the Hurricane Relief effort?

Your lips to the gods' ears.

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Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and good wishes.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in Astoria, Queens and never lost power, heat or hot water. No flooding by me either.

At least half of my co-workers weren't so lucky and are still without power and heat and overnight temperatures are now close to freezing. Several had to leave their homes due to damage from flooding. One co-worker who lives in Long Island City won't have power for at least another week. She and her husband stayed with me for 2 days before going to their in-laws in PA for some semblance of normalcy.

This is one time at least when I didn't think the media was exaggerating, but the attention hasn't been equally distributed; not even close. Many parts of Long Island have been ignored as has Westchester. Staten Island, Red Hood and the Rockaways haven't received enough coverage either and are still lacking basic necessities. Folks in these areas have lost everything.

I definitely have survivor's guilt. It's heartbreaking to see what my fellow NY'ers are dealing with.

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I am also experiencing a guilt complex. I live in the Forest Hills area of Queens and there was no damage and no power outage at any time. A few trees came down, but that's about it. I've been watching a lot of news coverage, and I thought the media coverage of the various local news channels was extensive regarding Long Island, Staten Island, Breezy Point, the Rockaways as well as New Jersey. I would agree that areas like Westchester, Red Hook and Sheepshead Bay were not covered as much. However, those areas were not completely destroyed the way the other locales were. Big difference between loss of power and some flooding versus houses torn off their foundations and blown to bits- having a lifetime of hard work and memories destroyed in a few hours. Of course, I feel sorry for everyone that suffered losses.

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On a separate note, since the Koch has no tenant presently, wouldn't it be great if the dance companies that are based in NYC (NYCB, ABT, Ailey, Paul Taylor, so on) could get together a benefit performance with all proceeds going to the Hurricane Relief effort?
Your lips to the gods' ears.

It may take more than the gods' hearing the suggestion. Anyone want to start making phone calls, sending e-mails? If we can get a little committee going here, we may be able to make it happen.

BTW, I'm one of those NYC residents who was effectively untouched by the storm, beyond being shaken by the devastation others have endured. I grew up on the Jersey shore and have been inundated (bad word?) by images of familiar landscapes ruined beyond recognition. My elderly parents who live maybe 10 miles inland now lost electricity and removed to a hotel where my dad slipped in the shower, breaking three ribs. Painful, but no damage beyond the ribs, and he is innately cheerful. His ribs will heal before most of the damage to the community is repaired.

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So sorry to hear about your dad, carbro! What irony! My mother just got her power back on LI two hours ago. I am so relieved! She's a gutsy 87 year old under her mild-mannered demeanor and elected to stay home alone. I wasn't to-o-o worried about her. Still, finally getting a telephone connection an hour and a half ago, just 20 minutes after her power was restored, was a burden lifted. We spoke for almost an hour as she told me about her week in the dark and cold!

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So glad to hear your mother's got power now, Marga -- andthat you're back in touch with her. it must be awful for those who hve no heat.

Carley, I'm glad to hear your father's prognosis is good -- SO much better to break a few ribs than to break a hip!

My heart goes out to you all. I feel very involved. Partly because I grew up in what USED to be hurricane country -- oh my Lord. My mother drove through hurricane Camille the year her father was dying, trying to get to her family in New Orleans, her car hydroplaned off a big pool of water on the highway, she was rescued from somebody's pasture unharmed, she made it. Wouldn't wish that on anybody, but since it's what you live with it shapes your character in unusual ways -- i feel like I've got a little more in common now with New Yorkers, Jersey-ites -- New Jersey REALLY took the damage, sewage water backed up in the streets in Hoboken, now THAT's the kind of nastiness katrina brought about, and the water pouring through the house front to back and lifting it off the foundations, that happened to My grandmother's house on Canal Boulevard. It's terrible -- but hte neighbors do help, and we're all feeling for you and hoping the gasoline deliveries get in soon so those generators can get to work. Love to all the BA crowd.

BTW, I have to say, Bloomberg looks very good -- and I have to say, Christie looks like a very recognizable human being. He was right from the start, and the way he cussed at the mayor of Atlantic City made me want to make him an honorary Southerner.

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