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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS VARIETY. By John F. Bailey. In Rehearsal at “The Roch”. Rochambeau School. January 21, 2003: The Fort Hill Players will be trying out a January show for the first time this week, premiering another of their “original musicals,” More Than Music with airtime at 8 PM on Friday and Saturday nights, January 24 and 25 at “The Rock,” Rochambeau School, 21 Fischer Avenue White Plains. The original book, is basically a radio show you watch, reminiscent of the old time live radio broadcasts by Bing Crosby and Jack Benny, with a not of nostalgia for the old time radio shows.

“ON THE AIR:” Mark Snyder, the White Plains Pianoman, The classic brunette Patti Rome, and Incendiary Blonde, Linda Hendrick with the dulcet tones of Jim Brownold create old time radio. Here they create “The Adventures of Madame X”. Show Premiers Friday at 8 at Rochambeau School White Plains. Tickets are $14, $12 for Seniors, $6 for children. Call 421-0008, or go to www.forthillplayers.com to purchase tickets.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment

It was conceived as a nightclub act by the Fort Hill Players’ ageless piano man, Mark Snyder, and written by talented professional announcer, Jim Braunold with Snyder beginning last August.

The gimmick of More Than Music is original radio shows, dreamed up by Mr. Brownold and Mr. Snyder, interspersed with songs of the middle three decades of the Twentieth Century .

“SINCERELY,” You’ll believe The McGuire Sisters have come back when stylish songtresses Patti Rome and Linda Hendrick team with Jim Brownold.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment

You’ll go back to a time when radio was king of the airwaves, hear songs performed by those classy songbirds, the original brunette, Patti Rome and the new incendiary blonde, Linda Hendrick. Youngsters and oldsters alike will get to see how “oldtime radio” was created live on stage, without the aid of tape, just the way it was when singers and actors had one take to reach America coast-to-coast.

The Serials. The Music. The Commercials

Braunhold , working with Snyder, and the ladies has created wonderful, reverent serials with scripts that recall the great radio adventures of the past.

You will thrill to The Adventures of Madame X featuring the exploits of All-American Lieutenant Terry Goodwill of the U.S. Air Force, and the renowned psychic Ophelia Paine. You will be on the case with that hardboiled private eye, Dick Shorts and Wanda Mellons, and the tear-jerker soap opera, The Lying Lips of Laura Languine.

In between, serving as segues will be wonderful commercials and jingles, delivered with the dulcet tones of Jim Brownold who actually does voiceovers in his day job. Jingles such as “Rheingold, the Extra Dry Beer,” when song by the versatile distaff duo of Rome and Hendrick.

“STANDING ON THE CORNER,” Jim Brownold, accompanied by Mark Snyder recreates the classic 50s leading man/crooner style on Standing on the Corner Watching All the Girls Go By.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment

WPCNR caught the live rehearsal past week, and WPCNR’s “Off-Off-Off-Off Broadway Scribe, Walter Windshield” was wowed by the concept. The audience of More Than Music is treated to a radio program in progress, performed before you, the studio audience.

You watch the scripts read, the shows within a show staged, the clever serials and programs delivered with the actors and actors behind music stands in an old time radio studio.

Sound effects are executed live to create the “theatre of the air.” The programs are linked with station breaks, and the quartet’s recreation of original and created radio commercials of the 40s, 50s and 60s, are a fascinating history of advertising. (That sold products, I might add.)

Shows Within a Show, and All That Music

One of the double pleasures of MTM is you get to watch and hear the two versatile actresses turned songbirds, Patti Rome and Linda Hendrick , helped out by the debonair baritone, Mr. Brownold in intriguing original arrangements of great songs from Big Band to the Big Beat. More Than Music does a devasting parody of American Bandstand, featuring Dina Giordano and the City Center Dancers, and Dick Clark’s old great bit, The Record Review Board. It will give todays’ teens a glimpse of their parents’ childhood.

In previews, your “Off-Off-Off-Off Broadway Insider” heard the trio doing, Standing on the Corner and on Radio WVOX Saturday morning, they did Sincerely catching all the nuances of the styles of those songs just right. Their version of Sincerely, with some original doo-wopping by Mr. Brownold on the radio Saturday morning was simply great.

Charischak: January tryout.

This is the third “original musical with songs you know” that White Plains’ own Fort Hill Players has produced. They did Musical Memories two years ago, and Harmony on the Sea last season. The beauty of these shows is they present a retrospective of musical eras and great songs for those who not only wish to remember them, but also exposing to the great music of America to the young of today. And we’re talking 40 and 30-somethings who have never heard the songs of Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, Lieber & Stroller, Jimmy Van Heusen, Rodgers and Hammerstein, big bands, ballads, the original music of America.

This is the first time in three years that Fort Hill Players has scheduled a January show, according to Joan Charischak, and when the quartet pushed for the open January slot, she decided to try them out to see if a January show could once again be successful.

4 Talents Come Together

Linda Hendrick and Mark Snyder had worked together in Musical Memories, the first Fort Hill original musical revue, and Patti Rome and Jim Brownold had worked together in Harmony on the Sea last year. Last Spring, Mark, a former resident of White Plains and actor for many years with the Fort Hill Players in the 1960s, thought the two ladies, with he, as accompaniest, and Jim Brownold’s versatile voice could come together for a great act.

THE PRODUCERS: Jim Brownold created the mock radio shows and the book. Mark Snyder arranged and plays the songs. The Dina Giordano City Center Dancers cavort to The Twist on stage.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment

Last August, he and Jim started brainstorming an act, thinking of songs that would suit the ladies’ talents, and this Friday that act hits the footlights.

Brownold and Snyder report the writing of the bits, entirely credited to Mr. Brownold’s pen, the arrangements created by Snyder and the concept, took untold hours reworking and rewriting.

THE LADIES OF MORE THAN MUSIC: Patti Rome, left, and Linda Hendrick harmonize on My Beer is Rheingold one of the many old radio commericals they reprise.

Photo by WPCNR Entertainment

Then came the rehearsing with the ladies mostly at Patti Rome’s home in West Harrison, who we are told makes great cakes. She sings real nice, too, her vibrant and steady contralto harmonizing and supporting Ms. Hendrick’s perky soprano.

The two ladies have a talent for superb mimicry with respect of different vocal groups’ styles of the 40s and 50s. You will hear Patti and Linda bring the styles of the McGuire Sisters live again on Sincerely,. They have The Chordette’s contrapuntal style just right on Mr. Sandman. Mr. Brownhold joins them with some very hip doo-woop harmonies, while holding his own on such baritone standbys of the 50s, as Standing on the Corner The arrangements for just piano and the three voices are truly flights of fantasy created by Mr. Snyder, the “Hoagy Carmichael of White Plains.”

On her day job, Ms. Rome is President of Empire Avionics at Westchester County Airport. Ms. Henrick is an ordained minister and a Reiki Master and massage therapist. Mr. Brownold does commercials for a living. Mr. Snyder is a music teacher and tennis instructor.

More Than Music WPCNR understands is more than the name of a show, it is the name of this new group’s act, that adds original skits and comedy to oldies repertoire, taking you giant steps beyond another group of the past, Manhattan Transfer, whom some of you may remember.

Friday and Saturday nights promise original entertainment, a little bit of history, a lot of nostalgia, combining a little bit of old Bob and Ray, two beautiful women with a lot of versatility.

Children of all ages will gain an appreciation of culture of those years and the music of the last century in the bargain. The debuting quartet hopes More Than Music is the start of something big.

Tickets may be purchased by calling 914-421-0008, or going to the Players’ website at www.forthillplayers.com.

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WPCNR ADAM IN ALBANY. Weekly report by Assemblyperson Adam Bradley of the 89th. January 17, 2003: Assemblyman Adam Bradley (D-White Plains) today slammed the governor controlled State University of New York’s Board of Trustees’ proposal to increase tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities by 41 percent – and pledged to fight the increase in the Assembly.

This gigantic tuition hike is even worse than we expected,” Bradley said. “The governor’s appointees on the Board of Trustees are attempting to balance the state’s fiscal troubles on the backs of students and Westchester families.”

Trustees stunned many on Friday when they announced a plan to hike tuition costs by 41 percent, or $1,400 a year for New York undergraduate students. The proposed increase would take effect this fall.

The total college cost for a full-time residential SUNY Purchase student – including tuition, room and board, and mandatory fees – is already $11,203. The Trustees have also recently approved increasing tuition at most of the state’s community colleges.

“If we want to prepare our kids for the future and strengthen New York’s weakened economy, we must make higher education affordable and accessible for all students,” Bradley said. “We are depriving a higher education to those who need and deserve it the most. This is essentially a tax on those who can least afford it. That’s why I will continue to fight this ill-conceived increase.”

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WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. By John F. Bailey. January 16, 2003: The urbane, upbeat President and COO of White Plains newest bigtime player, Urstadt Biddle Properties, told the Westchester County Board of Realtors Commercial & Investment Division, his aggressive, profit-oriented organization liked the retail mix of the Westchester Pavilion, and was planning to add a second floor above Office Max and Borders and is looking for tenants before executing the expansion. The garage will be turned into paid parking.

NEW MAN IN THE DOWNTOWN:Willing Biddle, making his media debut in White Plains, said his company is bullish on Westchester County, looking to acquire more properties and did not rule out White Plains properties along Mamaroneck Avenue, if ample parking was developed.
PHOTO BY WPCNR BUSINESS

The confident, easygoing retail leader, provided evidence that the White Plains building boom is already having its effect Thursday morning at the first breakfast meeting of the WCBR Commercial & Investment Division.

Biddle said , when asked if the City Center project had played a role in attracting Urstadt Biddle to purchase the Westchester Pavilion in December, Biddle said : “Yes, very much so. Retail wants to be where other retailers are at. We were attracted by the new Fortunoff (across from the Westchester Pavilion property), The Westchester, and we like the idea of all the new residential downtown.”

The Little Guys Considered.

Asked by WPCNR, if his company would consider acquiring other properties in White Plains, Biddle said he was looking for properties the company could acquire for $5MM and up, which was the minimum required, he felt “to make it a good investment for us.” Considering that the company paid $39.9 Million for the Westchester Pavilion, this would indicate that Urstadt Biddle would not rule out putting together a parcel of different properties. Asked if they might consider this, Mr. Biddle said they usually do not consider “street retail,” and that a lot depended on the parking available in the White Plains downtown for such a strategy to be considered.

HAVE VISION. WILL MAKEOVER: Biddle was bullish on White Plains, saying that he was aware rents had gone up considerably on properties lining the Mamaroneck Avenue corridor in the White Plains downtown, due to the building boom, sparked by the Cappeli City Center, the South Tower of which is shown at twilight Thursday night in the center of this picture. Biddle said the ‘boom” made downtown properties worth considering.
Photo by WPCNR Business

He was noncommittal on the specific attractiveness of the Mamaroneck Avenue strip from Main to Martine. Again, saying his company usually purchased existing shopping centers, not “street retail.”

All Good Things Considered.

Significantly, earlier in his slide-enhanced, informal and chock-full-of-message talk, he did not rule out that his eye could be caught by a certain kind of “street property.”

“MAKEOVER ARTIST:” Willing Biddle noted that his company had purchased a street block in the center of downtown Ridgefield, Connecticut from an individual that had vacancies similar to some properties in White Plains. He said Urstadt Biddle acquired the block, redesigned it, signed tenants and made over the block very successfully.
Photo by WPCNR BUSINESS

Westchester Pavilion to Expand. Paid Parking Coming.

Biddle, queried on the company’s plans for their newly acquired Westchester Pavilion, said their immediate plans were to refurbish the Pavilion parking garage to make it more attractive. He said the company would install paid parking to discourage freeloaders using the Pavilion garage to park for The Westchester, office buildings and other destinations in the area.

He said this would take the form of a parking validation system by retailers, with the first 30 minutes possibly free. He also said they would lightly refurbish the paneling on the garage facing the new Fortunoff side of the garage. “The garage is tired. It needs refurbishing, sprucing up,” Biddle remarked, saying the company hoped to expand the garage perhaps in the back of Outback Steakhouse.

THE WHITE PLAINS PAVILION ON SOUTH BROADWAY: Willing Biddle is looking at Another Floor over Office Max, Borders.
Photo by WPCNR Business

Biddle said the company is shopping for tenants who would occupy, and as of yet, mythical second floor of the Pavilion, to be built over the Office Max-Borders floor. He said at this point, they were looking at adding another discount retailer to fit the “basic needs” retail that currently exists at the Pavilion: McDonald’s, Office Max, Toys R Us, The Sports Authority, and Borders.

Biddle told WPCNR they would only come to the city when they had a tenant for the proposed second floor, and he judged that it would take 4 to 5 months before he would have a plan for the city to review. He said additional parking could be added to the existing deck in back of Office Max, and the roof of the newly proposed floor.

BRING US YOUR PROFITABLE AND TIRED PROPERTIES: Mr. Biddle began his talk to the realtors theming it as explaining how “we can make money together.” He said he invited them to acquaint him with properties throughout Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and The Bronx that the company might acquire.
Photo by WPCNR BUSINESS

The personable Mr. Biddle said his company uses an instrument he calls a down REIT that makes selling to Urstadt Biddle Properties, more tax-attractive to owners than paying outright cash by protecting them from the capital gains tax.

He said his acquisition of Arcadia Shopping Center in Ossining, was executed in this manner, resulting in excellent asset protection for the owner. The instrument, he said is explained in more detail on the company’s website, www.ubproperties.com.

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WPCNR County Clarion-Ledger. January 16, 2003:,/i>: The Westchester County Department of Public Safety has been reaccredited by the New York State Law Enforcement Accreditation Council, County Executive Andy Spano announced Wednesday.

“Reaccreditation is not automatic,” said Spano. “This reaccreditation means that our police department has met the highest standards in training, specialized services, and in its patrol and investigative duties.”

Commissioner Louis S. D’Aliso said, “I am very proud of the work that has been done by the members of the Department of Public Safety in maintaining their commitment to these standards, and their achievements in asserting themselves as amongst the finest in this profession.”

The Department of Public Safety was first accredited in 1992 and reaccredited in 1997. The distinction is valid for a period of five years, after which the department must apply for reaccreditation.

Accreditation is a voluntary program; compliance with the standards demonstrates that the agency is operating within the scope of recommended guidelines for all aspects of its operations.
The Accreditation Council based its decision to reaccredit the department on a three-day site visit at County Police Headquarters in November. The council examined written documents, conducted interviews and toured the facility to observe all facets of the department.

Preparation for the site visit began a year ago when D’Aliso ordered all department Operating Procedures and General Orders reviewed and brought up to date to meet the criteria of the accreditation standards.

“This is a labor-intensive task that requires the participation and cooperation of all department members,” Spano said, “But the time and effort involved means we have a streamlined and efficient operation of the department as a whole.”