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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LIVING. By John F. Bailey.  Part 1 of 2. December 14, 2007:

 

Have you seen the well-to-do

Up and down Renaissance Square

On that soon-to-be-famous thoroughfare

With their bluetooths in their ear?

Why don’t you go where  leaders take the reins

Openin’  the Ritz in White Plains!

 The distinguished members of the press will be getting a first look at  the Ritz-Carlton Westchester Tuesday (at 11 AM, moved up in time)  at a pre-opening party for the entire new staff of the hotel when the throng of 400 or so employees assemble for a group photo. Then they will be piped in to the hotel by the Police Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Corps. In the Grand Ballroom Louis Cappelli the Super Developer will present the key to the hotel to General Manager of the Hotel, Jacqueline Sanders.

The following night, December 19, the R-C will have its official Ribbon Cutting with remarks by Simon Cooper, head of Ritz-Carlton Worldwide, Louis Cappelli, Mayor Joseph Delfino, and others. The employee party is a prelude to the invitation-only reception for 600 guests that will most likely be a demonstration of the hotel’s Grand Ballroom.

WPCNR took a look two weeks ago with Geoffrey Thompson of Thompson & Bender, who took us on a pre-opening tour.

It’s not a hotel. It’s a Ritz.

A Ritz is of another era of service and style done in such a proper way reminiscent of the Waldorf Astoria in New York, the Parker House in Boston and The Palmer House in Chicago.

The Ritz-Carlton Westchester,  based on two pre-opening tours taken by this reporter, is creating a different world in White Plains that touches the clouds and puts you on one for  a night.  It is  an ode to the “feel” of the world of the luxury liners that plied the Atlantic one hundred years ago, but a contemporary touch.

The minute you walk in the place, it’s a venue of distinction!  Doublepane crystal clear glass from floor to ceiling of ever so right blue hue cuddle you,  shroud you from the stress,  squeal, honk  and inconvenience of real White Plains, creating a sensuous quiet similar to the interior of a theater, anticpating a performance.   As a guest the  Ritz performance features you as the star. The cast caters to you.

 The Ritz-Carlton Westchester will be where the globetrotters, the connected and the go to’s  have their nearly every whim and fancy catered to by a staff there to please them. 

In five days, it will welcome the guests who expect the highest standards — where you are never more than five feet away from refreshment, food, pleasure  24/7. The Ritz-Carlton never sleeps in its mission to cater to a guest (never a customer).

 

Teaching The Ritz Way: Jacqueline Sanders, GM of the Hotel

Jacqueline Sanders, General Manager of the Ritz-Carlton Westchester has been supervising the hiring, training and the upgrading of  a regiment of 400 odd valets, masseurs and masseuses, cleaners,  cooks, servers, concierges, spa attendants,  stylists, manicurists, vendors, go-fors  and facilitators of  frills instilling them with The Ritz-Carlton way.  She decided all the hires herself, with aid of a screening service going through all the background checks. Her staff is in place. When we met her she was hiring for BLT Steak, the hotel’s restaurant.

There’s one difference. She has to teach them the Ritz Way.

Ms Sanders managed The Ritz-Carlton on Central Park West before taking the Ritz-Carlton Westchester G.M. position . She told the CitizeNetReporter  the biggest challenge is instilling the dedication to service, gentility, and congeniality of service in their new employees as she and her other managers prepare the staff to receive and serve the demands of the discriminating Ritz-Carlton guest.

Ms. Sanders took this reporter  behind the scenes of the new White Plains Ritz-Carlton Westchester where the hotel is getting ready to receive its first guests.

Just Drop off the Keys and Pick them up on your way out.

 

The Ritz-Carlton Westchester By Night.

The Renaissance Square boulevard created expressly for the Ritz entry is wide and there are three cobble stone lanes for dropping off your Mercedes, limousine, or Corolla for parking. You do not get to park your own car. A valet comes up and takes your key (and they can drive a stick shift).  Persons living in the Ritz condominiums enter the Ritz-Carlton Residences tower to the right of the  hotel entrance into their own chandelier-presided foyer.

The grand entrance of The Hotel is under the silver marquee. Ritz-Carltons do not have lobbies.  The entry of the hotel  and corridors will have no signage, and consist of a formal broad hall furnished in warm chocolatey Anegre paneling, a medium brown wood that has a muted tiger-stripe encases the grand stairway and ballroom corridors. The inviting paneling  flanks an unpretentious main desk with two shaded lamps. No scripted Ritz logos, no sign of high-tech computers.

 You will know you are in the Ritz-Carlton Westchester because it does not feel like a business, nothing so crass as the click, click and whir of a computer to disturb. I did not hear the phones ring.  The wide foyer when I was there two weeks ago was  occupied with over 50 applicants for positions at BLT Steak, the house restaurant which will furnish all food and drink to the hotel, as well as serving the public, I would imagine some other furnishings will be in the entrance opening night.

 

A floating elliptical ceiling runs the entire lobby of the hotel in genuine burnished-on silver leaf. Mirrored below is a floor pattern made of nattages limestone from France accented with three varieties of granites: black, blue pearl, and translucent grey French Savoy – the better to click stiletto heels upon.

A Notch Tastefully  Below Over-the-top

Everything you see takes a discreet step back from the razor edge of glitzy taste, choosing understated artful elegance over Vegas over-the-top rococo, from the posh public spaces to intimate room settings. The Ritz-Carlton Westchester has been custom designed by the small, highly specialized interior design firm, Frank Nicholson Incorporated of Concord, MA, which focuses exclusively on luxury hotel development. Now – there’s a niche!

Departing the registration desk, your bags  will be in the hands of a valet, (you do not have to touch a bag once you enter the R-C I presume), you may be distracted on  your right to the sunken lounge with the waist-high black marble-trimmed fireplace in its center. The “conversation squares” of settees and easy chairs, perhaps to wait for a client or colleagues.  You’ll walk on thick wool carpets custom-designed by the Nicholson firm – exclusive to The Ritz-Carlton, Westchester – all 100% wool carpeting, hand-woven in the Far East from 20 to 30 specially dyed-to-order colors – the Ritz hue as it were.

A Throw back Made New.

In the days of old, relaxation in hotel lounges was a feature of the old time elegant dowager hotels of yesteryear. The Ritz brings this back.

 Guests can order refreshments from the lounge area and conduct conversations with a view of the arrivals pulling up front. Since the sweep of the hotel entrance faces the West, guests may watch the sunset during cocktail hour – and every hour is cocktail hour at the Ritz. After all if you have just flown in from Istanbul it is cocktail hour at 10 AM.

The Ritz lounge is spacious with comfortable couches and low settees,  “hand-drawn art, designed then fashioned by hand using exception veneers including maccassar ebony (a black-brown wood with a tiger-striped effect) and sappelli – a blond wood.” When I toured the Ritz backstage (before opening) the lounge was chock-a-block with furniture, boxes, and workers (all dressed quite neatly), but it still radiated warmth, comfort and forcefulness of purpose that would meet a captain or diva of industry’s standards as fitting for them to relax in – a neutral venue for common ground.

Special Events

Ms. Sanders said the Ritz would be holding social events in the lobby such as Sushi nights on Thursdays, wine tastings, perhaps and that she planned other engaging events to weave the Ritz into the social fabric of White Plains society.

My guide “Mr. Buzz,” Geoffrey “Think-of-everything-leave-no-angle-behind” Thompson of the crack Thompson & Bender agency,  and I ascended the circular “signature staircase” reminiscent of  the grand staircases of the luxury liners of the past that whisks you to the second deck of the Ritz. You do not even feel like you’re walking.

The Grand Staircase — another signature feature of Ritz’s the world over —  is paneled in the signature dark chocolate wood with marbled circular walls leading up to the understated elegant “meet, mingle and greet” area for the  Ritz-Carlton ballroom. Partiers, event-planners and corporate entertainers will find this a splendid venue for staging as it overlooks an above-the street view of the White Plains horizon to the west.

The view  out the panorama windows does not compare in contrast to the views on the top floors of the 11-story hotel and the 42-story tower residences above but is still impressive. The reception area adjacent the ballroom is a wide open space and not in the least claustrophobic. It sprawls languidly out to the edge of the hotel’s glass panorama mezzanine  above Renaissance Square, putting guests on a plain above. It is where entertainment should be conducted.

Dance Card Filling Up 

The 500-person capacity ballroom can be divided by soundproof visually compatible walls – shielding your corporate or social gathering off from simultaneous events.

The ballroom pommele wood paneling is a dark mahogany color.  A cross pattern carpet of mocha and cream wafts you as you walk upon it. Adjacent and across a wide carpeted hall to the center ball room are six individual specious meeting rooms fully technology equipped with state of the art communications for corporate or community use.

The ballroom ceiling is high and does not press you in. There is no view of the outside from the ballroom. But you are able to enjoy views of White Plains about 100 feet off street level from the airy reception area previously described.

Ms. Sanders said there would be specialty shops adjacent to the spa on the tenth floor, and that the ballroom had a private room for brides and members of the wedding party to freshen up before receptions. There is also a beauty salon adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton Westchester Spa which will be under the supervision of the Stylist of the Stars, Sierra Shore who is depended upon for creating the coiffly-correct  looks of Westchester celebrities.

Word of the versatility of the Ballroom has already resulted in The Ritz-Carlton ballroom having over a third of its ballroom events already booked for 2008. Ms. Sanders is currently booking 2009-2010. Sanders is pleased at the respons. The Westchester Arts Council will be holding their annual gala at the Ritz-Carlton Westchester.

BLT 24-7

As we slipped behind the scenes of the Ritz, my guide lead me to the spacious kitchen of BLT Steak – gleaming with stainless steel – abustle with cooks being apprenticed in the BLT way that morning. They were cooking sample dishes under the supervision of a BLT quality control chef. BLT Steak  and technological nerve centers of the Ritz – which though bustling with noise – you did not hear the noise in the public areas of the hotel.

BLT Steak is located in many Ritz-Carltons and, in White Plains will serve as the 24 hour a day food and beverage purveyor to the Ritz guests as well as the residents of the Ritz towers.

(The 42 Restaurant located spectacularly off Spire One of the Ritz Carlton Westchester, will be open to the public and will be operated separately from the Ritz.  More on “42” tomorrow).

According to the Ritz-Carlton website, http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/Westchester , “Laurent Tourondel’s acclaimed BLT Steak is a reinvention of the classic American steakhouse, specializing in aged, perfectly prepared meats; fresh seafood such as broiled Maine lobster, delicate Dover sole and spiced swordfish; and a mouthwatering assortment signature side dishes, from delicate potato gratin to earthy sautéed hen of the woods mushrooms. BLT Steak’s famed “blackboard specials” highlight seasonal flavors and ingredients.”

Chef Laurent Tourondel. Courtesy, Thompson & Bender

BLT, which stands for “Bistro Laurent Tourondel,” has redefined steakhouse dining with its modern décor and infusion of classic French techniques. The restaurant integrates traditional elements of a cozy French Bistro with those of a stylish, urbane boite. A palette of chocolate browns and golden ambient lighting suggests comfort and luxury. The eye-catching bar at the front of the restaurant features toffee-colored bar stools, while the relaxed dining room combines Macassar ebony tables, deep caramel-colored banquettes and walnut floors to create warmth amid modernity.

BLT Steak a street level eating emporium on Main Street, (you cannot call it simply a restaurant). The rich darkfloored  interior is an alive place – even now. It has a long dark-hued bar that will obviously become a discreet hip meeting place. Its floor which blends with your Bostonians, gleams in a rich brown finish but with a distinctly urban veneer. Oblong chicly sleek lights – reed thin like Versace models —  suspend from the lofty ceiling on cords unobstrusively “just right” over marbled black tables.

The “place to be” will be the 75 foot long banquette of cushioned seating from where you and your squeeze will view the “well-to-do” promenading down Renaissance Square. BLT Steak has a private room for parties, too, and the sprawling complex on Main Street seats about 200. The atmosphere impeccable. The visual, exciting. The food expensive and with a high, proven caliber. 

 

Geoffrey Thompson, standing in the Reception Hall of The Ritz-Carlton Residences. This gives you an idea of the Ritz-Carlton world. WPCNR could not take photographs of the actual hotel interior.

Next, we’ll take a look at the Spa and the 42 Restaurant.

Parody of Puttin’ on the Ritz, (c) Irving Berlin Estate.

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From Abigail Adams, Director of Communications, White Plains American Red Cross. December 16, 2007: In covering the aftermath of the 208 West Post Road fire that left over 40 persons homeless, who are being housed by the city, Centro Hispano and the White Plains Red Cross, WPCNR interviewed Abigail Adams of the Red Cross. In view, she said, of the number of persons who could produce no identity because they left the home so quickly, she suggests every homeowner or apartment dweller create a Go Kit in case they have to leave their home in a hurry.

What is a Go Bag? Ms. Adams expains: 

You asked about a Go Bag and what should go in it .  A Go Bag should be readily accessible should you have to leave your home quickly.  It should be easy to carry , nothing heavy so you are able to move quickly unencumbered.

You should customize your kit according to your needs.  Think what you would need if you didn’t have access to your home and need to put your life back together.

Items to include :

Ziplock bag with a form of identification , critical information including insurance, bank information , medical history and emergency contact and some cash, picture of family in case you are separated.

Flashlight

Extra medication

radio to listen to emergency news

emergency blanket

non perishable food

first aid kit

You can find more information about a go kit at redcross.org.

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WPCNR ON THE AISLE. Review By John F. Bailey. December 12, 2007: Robert Cuccioli’s charismatic performance as Don Quixote and Rosena Hill’s haunting Dulcinea in the new White Plains Performing Arts Center production of Man of La Mancha give the White Plains Performing Arts Center  new life. Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains have just 4 more shows to catch this duo and their company at the WPPAC.

Robert Cuccioli Emerges as Man of La Mancha.

Mr. Cuccioli commands the stage acting and singing.   His opener,  Man of La Mancha has the rollicking thrill of adventure of a western theme song that makes Quixote not an old man to be pitied, but suddenly the heroic figure we all imagine ourselves that we could be. You root for him, you want him to succeed. As Sancho his sidekick sings, you like him.

Rosena Hill gives the underwritten role of Aldonza , the sixteenth Century Inn housemaid/chattelle, moxie, savvy and toughness tempered with previously unlocked awakening of emotions in three solos of delicate precision in vivid operetic style — here she is suspicious of an adoring Don Quixote as her lusting inn louts look on.

Cuccioli masters acting three parts. He is  Miguel de Cervantes (the Inquisition-jailed playwright, poet who tells the Quixote story to his fellow prisoners in the Inquisition dungeon); Alonso Quijana, the delusional noble who believes he is Don Quixote a knight of yore out to confront the evil knight, The Great Enchanter. And of course, Quixote himself. He actually transforms himself into Quixote before the audience — a feat of theatrical magic.

He is a  pleading meek Cervantes attempting to protect himself against his fellow prisoners by creating a play for them to save his manuscript.  He captures the nuances of a delusional person spot on in his Don Quixote.   His Quixote makes you believe in dreams again, awakens forgotten courage with an  on-the-edge, straight-at-you, committed rendering of his big song , The Impossible Dream at the beginning of Act II.

 He turns The Impossible Dream signature song from the sweet crooner’s staple we are used to hearing that has marked the song in the  past, into a majestic anthem robust with machismo, edge,  commitment bringing out the lion’s heart in the observer like Hail to the Victors.   His soliquoy starting Act II leading into this song instantly grabs the attention of the audience in which he shares the self-doubt everyone has when summoning courage.

Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains have just 4 chances to hear Mr. Cuccioli sing The Impossible Dream. You’ll come out of the theatre ready to start a revolution.

Do not expect a romantic duo of Cuccioli as  Quixote and  Rosena Hill as Dulcinea approaching this show, their relationship is different.

Ms Hill in her limited scripted lines renders the rough, tough personna of a loose sixteenth century trollop.

Her three big songs get to you. You experience   Aldonza’s  hope rising and falling with her solos. In act one, She colors in the suspicion, touching bewilderment and growing wonder that a man, (Quixote) could actually think her a person of value when she delivers Act I’s  What Does He Want of Me?  I loved this song.

 In Act II, the pity of her character, and the depth of  her heartbreak, is  chillingly etched like cut glass by her singing Aldonza after she is assaulted by the inn thugs.  The clear edge of her soprano is deeply moving. The pain of realizing dreams only to be dashed just when hope is brightest works the heart strings. theater. Her crystal like voice  carves a hurt that will wound your heart.

In her ultimate moment when she refreshes Quixote’s memory of them while he is dying by singing Dulcinea at  one of several pinnacles of the show, her voice descends like teardrops in gentle waves, ascends like joy,   growing ever stronger with each new plateau of pitch that heals  your heart as she had wounded it before.

 

Cuccioli is supported by a cast that works with him well – despite his pathological charisma. Carlos Lopez (right) as Sancho Panza, Quixote’s squire,  provides great Danny DeVito-like comedy relief. 

Viewers be warned the show has laughs to lighten the Spanish Inquisition up, but there are dark moments, very dark moments, after all it is  the Inquisition. Mr. Lopez’s Sancho Panza provides those light hearted moments  in The Missive that he delivers to Ms. Hill in Act I, attempting to apprise her of Quixote’s devotion to her,  followed by his explanation for following Quixote, I Really Like Him.

When Cuccioli is offstage – the cast carries the narrative well. The prisoners in the Sixteenth Century prison where all the action takes place are incorporated into Cervantes, the new prisoner’s play. The audience actually sees a play within a play.  Quixote’s being dubbed knight by the innkeeper (Robert Quisley) singing Knight of the Woeful Countenance is a fine comic scene. The Moorish dance (reflective of Cervantes real-life imprisonment by the Moors during his lifetime) is very entertaining.

The  lowlifes of the Inn sing Little Bird, Little Bird where they stalk Hill as Aldonza, the inn trollop is high camp.   The stirring march, The Golden Helmet of Mambrino is another comic moment featuring the entire company There is a brawl at the imagined inn in which Quixote and Sancho “save” Hill from the menacing Muleteers, and for a moment idealism triumphs, but only for a moment.  The eventual plight of Hill at the mercy of the lowlifes  is gratuitously graphic for a family audience and could have left more to the imagination, the director Luke Yankee’s only mistake.

Quixote’s quest comes to an end when the Great Enchanter knight confronts him and the play moves to its conclusion, when Cervantes himself back in real time is summoned by The Inquistor. You have to follow this musical carefully to get whether you are back in the prison or in the play Cervantes the author is creating for the prisoners.

The set by Michael Hotopp with its perpetual fog has the grim towering power of authority and gloom with shafts of light that cruelly mock the plight of its captives. The tricks that Lighting Designer Thom Weaver executes contribute eloquently to mood transitions especially with Cuccioli’s Impossible Dream highlight.   

The orchestra was directed by Steven Gross – and to his musicians’ credit, Jay Hassler, Lisa Pike, Dan Urness, and Jonathan Gleich –  laid musical beds for Mr. Cuccioli and Ms. Hill – without overpowering the lyrics; they subtlely bridged scenes with just-right interludes and made the singers the stars.

WPPC’s Man of La Mancha – Mr. Batman’s first major production for WPPAC is hopefully what the theatre needs.  If Jack Batman, the new Executive Producer  of the White Plains Performing Arts Center succeeds in saving the WPPAC,  he will owe a part of it to Mr. Cuccioli and Ms. Hill and the obvious team effort that delivered this great show.  Man of La Mancha  will lose money yes,  perhaps, but it gives credibility that WPPAC can deliver shows that you will want to see.

In one great mesmerizing matinee Sunday, Cuccioli (1990s Broadway’s Dr. Jekyll, Westchester Broadway Theatre’s original Phantom) the actor-singer of the El Greco countenance anchored, delivered and articulated a production WPPAC had to have from him —  a must-see. A truly clutch professional performance. Many a great moment.

The WPPAC gave you Broadway North Sunday afternoon up close where every seat is Broadway Orchestra close. It has even dressed up its lobby with an art gallery and piano music before the show, slowly turning WPPAC into a theatre experience.

 If you care about theatre in White Plains – you should see this show. Perhaps all who have seen it will give the previously troubled theatre the second chance it needs.   WPPAC created the magic of a smash Broadway production that all who see it will not forget. It is easily the best performance WPPAC has ever done.

Too bad it cannot be held over for the Ritz opening.  For information on seats left, go to www.wpac.com. or contact 914-328-1600`

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WPCNR Mayberry RFD Record December 12, 2007: The White Plains Council of Neighborhood Associations chose by acclamation its 2008 slate of officers Tuesday evening. New Co-President Charles Lederman announced a series of Task Force Committees he was seeking members to work on from any neighborhood association who is interested. The task would be for members of such committees to research issues and report to the associations to streamline the CNA ability to react in timely fashion to developing issues.

Council of Neighborhood Associations Officers 2008: L to R, Paula Piekos, Secretary; Joel Rudikoff, Treasurer; Candyce Corcoran, Co-President; Charles Lederman, Co-President; Tony Spinelli, Co-Vice President. Not pictured: Patti Cantu, Co-Vice President. Don Hughes, a representative of the North Broadway Association appointment as Corresponding Secretary was pending, dependent on whether the North Broadway Association Board desires to rejoing CNA officially. The organization has not formally rejoined.

The committees Lederman suggests are on Comprehensive Planning, Public Safety, Education,  Membership and Reachout, By-Laws Issues.

The meeting centered on the homeless issue temporarily moved forward at last Monday evening’s Common Council work session. The organization felt that the warring governmental entities, the County Executive and the Mayor, and other interested parties around the county should be brought together in a public meeting to solve the problem of the drifting homeless, putting politics aside.  There was a strong consensus that the association needed to reach out and proselytize to other associations of the advantages of CNA encouraging them to bring their issues to the monthly CNA meetings in order that CNA could ally with them on their position.

The organization heard several issues that concerned various representatives: the Orchard Street development coming up December 18 at the Planning Board; the resurfacing of the Station Development issue and the continuing threat of burglaries in the outer neighborhoods.

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WPCNR THE HOMELESS NEWS. By John F. Bailey. December 11, 2007 UPDATED 10:40 PM: As the cold edge of  a December night descended with a cold misery of rain predicted, Paul Anderson-Winchell, Executive Director of Grace Church Community Services told WPCNR tonight that the 17 “cots”  (13 for men, 4 for women) supported by the White Plains Common Council in a sense of the council vote last night were ready for unregistered homeless tonight.

A drive by at 10:15 PM indicated no stragglers outside the 186 Post Road facility, and all appeared quiet. 

He said most of the beds have already been planned for unregistered undomiciled persons who have been working with his Project Trust offices during the day, having meals at Open Arms Shelter recently. He said that no one will be turned away. Asked if overflow at the Open Arms Shelter would be bused to over Warming Shelter locations in Yonkers, New Rochelle and Mount Vernon, he did not have an answer. Anderson-Winchell said he would have to see how the demand went for a few days to see whether a transit service would be needed to transport overflow unregistered homeless to those locations.  Winchell said Project Trust counselors are going out with White Plains Police tonight to seek holdouts in certain locales where he believes they are holded up.

Anderson-Winchell said it had always been Grace Church’s intention to have a Warming Shelter at Open Arms for the unregistered homeless, it was the “cot” issue versus chairs issue that had sparked the protest.

However, Anderson-Winchell said last night the 17 beds are substantially short of what is needed to care for the unregistered undomiciled population around the city in various hiding places.