WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. March 12, 2014: 

A spokesman for Sustainable Playland informed WPCNR today that Sustainable Playland does not expect “to receive the keys to Playland” until September 1. Labor Day or after, effectively meaning the county will be running Playland this summer and more significantly running it at another year of losses due to the legislature inaction on the plan.

(The County Board of Legislators  Labor Parks Planning Housing Committee continues to analyze the Sustainable Playland proposal which the legislature has had for three years.)

Geof Thompson, spokesperson for Sustainable clarified that contrary to a news release put out by the Committee yesterday, new rides would begin to be added to Playland beginning year one of the Sustainable takeover beginning with Kiddyland and moving on from there. Previously, a news release from the Westchester County Committee analyzing the Sustainable Playland proposal has said that the Sustainable vendor which would add the rides would not be adding them for four years.

(To wit from the Committee Press Release: At Wednesday’s Labor Parks Planning Housing Committee meeting of the Board of Legislators, legislators learned that Central Amusements International (CAI), which SPI is contracting to run the amusements and “Aqua Zone” at Playland, will wait until Year 4 in the PIP to totally remake the beach front area with water rides and other attractions.
Harckham announced last month an ambitious schedule for the PIP review in the LPPH Committee, culminating with a committee vote on May 13, 2014. Next Tuesday LPPH Committee members will make a Playland site visit to see where the Field House will be erected, and also to see how much of the Parking Lot will be affected by the renovations and new structures.)

Thompson clarified that the three outdoor fields proposed for the present Playland Parking Lot have been cut to two and the field house will remain at 35 feet in height, but be 15% smaller in area, with the same number of indoor fields inside.

Asked if Sustainable financials have changed with the county have changed, (previously, Sustainable was to have paid the county $2.5 Million this year to defray the Playland debt service), Thompson said this is not clear that it would be presented to the county finance committee.

Nevertheless, if the county is stuck with operating Playland in summer 2014, it means the county legislature by its inaction the last three years on the proposal to date has cost the taxpayers another year of Playland alleged losses.

Apparently, the vote if it actually takes place May 5, is coming too late to get the county off the financial hook for Playland in 2014

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From the New York Attorney General’s Westchester Office Assistant N.Y. Attorney General In Charge,Gary Brown March 11, 2014:

Assistant N.Y. Attorney  General  Gary Brown (who is in charge of the New York Attorney General Westchester Office announced on Radio WVOX today that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the White Plains Department of Public Safety will stage a no-questions gun buyback program at the White Plains Fire Headquarters from 9:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. Saturday morning March 22. The Attorney General Office has confirmed this morning that the date is March 22 .

Mr. Brown said all guns are acceptable and those turning in firearms will be paid in debit cards. Mr. Brown announced the news at the close of his radio program this afternoon on WVOX Radio. Details will be forthcoming.

In previous New York Attorney General Gun Buybacks, the process worked this way:

During the buyback program, people will be paid with debit cards when they turn in a gun to law enforcement officers. Each gun turned in will be screened before any money is given out. Guns must be transported to their drop-off site unloaded and in plastic or paper bags or boxes.

Antique and nonworking firearms will net $25. People will be paid $50 for rifles and shotguns and $75 for handguns. Those turning in assault weapons will receive $100. Licensed gun dealers and active or retired law enforcement officers are not eligible for the program.

Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman in announcing the New York State gun buy back program previously said:

“By encouraging gun owners to turn in their weapons through our cash-for-guns program, we’re removing deadly firearms from locations where they can be stolen or otherwise misused, keeping them out of the wrong hands.”

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 WPCNR SOUTH END TIMES. From the Council of Neighborhood Associations. March 11, 2014:

The next meeting of the Council of Neighborood a is scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 7:30 pm, at Education House (downstairs Meeting Room), 5 Homeside Lane, WP (off North Street). Please mark your calendar.

Our guest speakers will be the Hon. Ben Boykin 2nd, newly elected Westchester County Legislator, District 5, and the Hon. Nadine Hunt-Robinson, newly appointed WP Common Councilwoman. There will also be a brief presentation by Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona, who will discuss the meds safety/ disposal crisis.  A question and answer period will follow their presentations.

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FaTye and Brittany Johnson as Coalhouse Walker and Sara the icons of Ragtime at the revival in Westchester Broadway Theatre

Not One, But Two Romances Ladies and Genlemen, that Tug Your Heart Strings. Victoria Lauzun as Mother and Joey Sanzaro as Tateh. How they come together is just one of those things

Strolling, tennis playing residents of New Rochelle, toiling immigrants, Negroes creating a new music, legends  J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini and anarchist Emma Goldman colliding together seamlessly, up close and personally, tragically and inspiring!

Ragtime tells America’s story as touching, heart-breaking and as dramatic as it gets:

The sound of distant thunder
Suddenly starting to climb…

It was the music
Of something beginning,
An era exploding,
A century spinning
In riches and rags,
And in rhythm and rhyme.
The people called it Ragtime…
Ragtime!
Ragtime!
Ragtme!

I have been reviewing shows at the Westchester Broadway Theatre for 14 years.

The Standing Ovations Studios rambunctious, irreverent, in-your-face overwhelmer of a revival of the 1998 musical Ragtime , that officially opened Friday night in Elmsford is the best production WBT has ever presented that I have seen. Easily it is the most involving and emotionally connecting.

Ragtime gives  theatre goers all this top-of-the-line 40-member cast has—right from the anthem Ragtime .  The anthem  I quite above   introduces the colors of America at the turn of the 19^th century from white New Rochelle residents lofting tennis balls  to immigrants from Latvia, Ireland,and Blacks up from the south from the Robber Barons and architects of America’s success to  all seeking success in America.

It never lets up on the audience from its hour and 20 minute first act to its 55 minute second act at rolls like an express train of emotions…it overwhelms with 32 songs—by the second time Broadway composing team of Composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens who executed a 4-song  audition score for original producer Harold Prince and beat out 7 other  4-song writing teams to win the task of writing this score. The score won a TONY as Best Original Musical Score in 1998. Their first hit was Once On an Island in 1990, then the musical score for the Disney movie Anastasia, followed by their winning the competition to compose Ragtime.   Their latest work, Rocky, The Musical premiers next Friday in New York City.

Part of the Ensemble sing What A Game at the Polo Grounds in New York. Made possible through the ingenious manipulation of set , music and choreography

Director John Fanelli and Set Designer Steve Loftus takes us back to the future with clever use of an arched set and revolving stage that simulates assembly lines in Detroit, the Polo Grounds, a court room, docksides.  We even have a model T Ford.

Coalhouse Walker (FaTye) comes to tea in New Rochelle greeting Mother (Victoria Lauzun

While choregrapher Greg Gramham has created ensemble numbers that do not look like dances they actually move the plot. And move it does. In a musical of this length and breadth the scenes never lag, you never yawn during songs that take you by the heart and soul.  The audience was enthralled, brought to tears, warmed, shocked, they connected with the characters  through the magical book of Ahrens & Flaherty put E.L. Doctorow’s novel on the stage.

The musical explores how prejudice against blacks and immigrants and denial of justice from by the suburban community of New Rochelle results in tragedy that turns Coalhouse, the ragtime musician into a violent activist.

FaTye,  a fixture with Standing Ovation Studios,  gives his best performance I have seen him do. When he reconciles with Sarah played by Brittany Johnson, his girl, who has taken refuge in a New Rochelle family home…their duet Wheels of a Dream warms the heart, and their chemistry delivers. The tragedy inflicted upon the couple tugs on your heart and will not be soon forgotten.  Their second duet, Sarah Browneyes gives breathing life to what two people mean to each other.

Joey Sanzaro below plays Tateh, a Latvian immigrant with his daughter,  delivers  as believable a role in an ongoing cameo scenario I have seen in a long time. He is touching, tough, self-starting, showcasing the palette of skills demonstrated by the immigrants who came with nothing, and made something of themselves.  You root for him.

The heroine who is the other storyline in this massive juggling of historical themes that hit home today is Victoria Lauzan above whose diamond contralto  puts the heartbeat into the “connectors” of the show (and believe me all the songs are good and connective).  From her Goodbye My Love (to her husband who is leaving on a polar trip with Admiral Perry), to the disdainful What Kind of a Woman (sung when she finds Sarah’s baby abandoned in her garden in New Rochelle, and she decides to take the baby in). Then Ms. Lauzan as she gradually realizes how sheltered she has been delivers a haunting anthem in the bring-down-the-house Second Act:  You Can Never Go Back to Before. which she sings with Mr. Sanzaro (above)

History you say you want history, drama?

You’ve got it:

Nadine Zahr as Emma Goldman (left) doing another deft cameo roll as the anarchist with one of her recruits, Todd Ritch, the younger brother who is inspired to fight for justice for Coalhouse and the oppressed workers

You meet Henry Ford (Todd Allan Little) , J.P. Morgan (Steven Stein-Grainger), Emma Goldman the activist (Nadine Zahr), and the Notorius Evelyn Nesbitt, Cali LaSpina (The “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee” girl).

The audience loved this show mounted as best  as any I have seen at the WBT. Only seven Actors Equity Members grace this 40-performer ensemble and you would never know it.

The orchestra laid a seamless ragtime beat into most of the soungs, and laid an unobtrusive supportive bed for the songs, that performers sung with a clarity that was as professional sounding as you could wish for. Even the children performers you could understand.

The audience rose to its feet. The Show had them at first spotlight.

For box office information, contact 914-592-2222 or go to www.BroadwayTheatre.com.

Ragtime lives for all-time through May 4. Cautions: gunshots, violence, emotional situations  that can affect younger children and adults. But that’s our country folks.

Don’t take my word for it. After the show ended some comments overheard by yours truly: “Just incredible,” “what a great show.” The speakers appeared so entertained they did not want to leave.They just stood there saluting this effort.

It is as Ms. Nesbit (Cali LaSpina of Scarsdale, above, “the Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Girl” shown performing “The Crime of the Century” with vampy, impish delight) would put it,

“It’s the Musical of the Century”

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• Friday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 36. East wind 7 to 9 mph.
• Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 26. North wind 7 to 9 mph.
• Saturday: Increasing clouds, with a high near 45. Northwest wind 6 to 9 mph.
• Saturday Night: A slight chance of snow showers after 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 29. Northwest wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
• Sunday: A slight chance of snow showers before 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 41. Northwest wind 9 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.