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 BOULEVARDIER. By John  F. Bailey. April 12, 2012:

 

This Sunday will be the  last day of business for the “meet, greet, and deal center” of White Plains, the classic City Limits Diner on the corner of Central and Tarrytown Road, opposite County Center. It is closing for renovations that will last the next 6 to 8 weeks and reopen in July as a brand-new City Limits, with new décor, new rich interior and façade.

 

 

It will be hard to match the popularity of City Limits, easily the best known in the city. Renovations have begun on the exterior on the place that it’s easy to say, “Let’s go to the Limits.”

 

Unofficially the City Limits has been the “Stork Club” of White Plains where the Mr. and Mrs. White Plains rub elbows with the elite for twenty years.

 

 

THE LAST BREAKFAST: Jim Benerofe, Dean of White Plains Journalism and John Bailey at City Limits this morning, enjoying a last breakfast.Photo by Steve Morton

 

City Limits has also been “The Official Hangout of the White Plains Week Award Winning Television Program” for the last 11 years. When I began the show with Alex Phillipidis and Jim Benerofe in 2001, we all wanted to do lunch after the show. I said we needed to do this just like Walter Winchell, the man who invented news commentary in the 1930s, did after he did his radio program. Winchell met with his entourage at the Stork Club in New York in that era. Winchell also occupied Table 51 at the Stork. At City Limits, you can see the Big Three of Westchester Television News hanging out at Table 51. We love it there, where the laughs come easy, and the gossip is notorious and cannot be used on our show.

 

Every Friday, the White Plains newsmen who matter, Peter Katz, Jim Benerofe and me, who do the television show everybody watcheson the internet at www.whiteplainsweek.com or Fridays and Mondays at 7:30 and 7 (Channels 45 & 76) , have been having lunch at this uniquely atmospheric art deco treasure. Shiny, cromey, tiley and funky, after being redesigned from the original Livano’s restaurant and opened in 1994 by the Livano Family, City Limits has served the tasty (upper cut above the usual diner fare) breakfasts, lunches and dinners you cannot match anywhere else in a lively, slap-dash, uplifting atmosphere.

 

 

Eggs Benedict and a side of sausage in progress.

 

It delivers what every real reporter needs, black coffee and a donut, and atmosphere.

 

What’s so unique about City Limits? It’s internal hub-bub you cannot find anywhere else in the city where City Limits burgers sizzle on an open grill night and day. It’s the electrifying distinctive “ding” of City Limits silverware that gets your attention like the “NBC” jingle.

 

Last Soda Fountain in the City.

 

The bustling bakeshop, and airy interior

 

 

 

It is the authoritative “clunk” of the City Limits china; the “come on in pardner and have a cup of java” hospitality signified by the classic Coffee Cup and donut suspended over the hostess platform. The silver signs: “Bakery. Ice Cream,” and “Capucino bar,” the comfort of the booths, and the good will of the snappy dressed wait staff in their signature dress shirts and ties who deliver the most courteous, fastest service in town. They are also the best dressed.

 

 

Raymond, with the Livano family since 1985, demonstrating City Limits classic fashion look.

 

The City Limits  brims with life. Usually jammed for lunch, it’s where you want to meet to discuss things where you won’t be overheard;  treat the kids on vacation or start a weekend off right. You can hear everybody at your table, but the people at the table next to you cannot hear you, the six degrees of separation is just about right. I do hope the acoustics are preserved.

 

The coffee is the best in town. The breakfasts are outstanding, especially the eggs benedict and my favorite side, the fat sausages.

 

The place sounded and felt like life was moving inside. No pretensions. And they were always glad to see you

 

They were the only place you could get the soft shell crab wrap (just now coming into season, I will miss that), and my favorite, the black angus City Limits burger.

 

I will miss the beers, the egg creams and those great Friday lunches of the past

 

Man, we’re all  going to miss this place.

 

 

 

Coming in July…the New City Limits

 

 

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From the Westchester County Board of Legislators. (EDITED) April 11,2012:

The Board of Legislators’ law that aimed to change the membership of the county’s Board of Acquisition and Contract was “not properly enacted” because of a “fatal flaw,” a judge said today.

            The decision finds for the Astorino administration and the county attorney, which had argued that the law passed last December by the Democratic-controlled Board of Legislators was invalid.

 

            In his ruling today, Acting State Supreme Court Justice Barry E. Warhit removed the temporary restraining order he had issued last month that prevented Public Works Commissioner Jay Pisco from serving on the A&C board. The judge said the legislators failed to publish the required legal notice about the law to give the public a chance to have a permissive referendum.

           

           While the issues of the case have to be litigated further, the judge said that the legislators who brought the legal proceeding – Board Chairman Ken Jenkins and Legislators Peter Harckham and Lyndon Williams – “cannot meet their burden” to show they are likely to win on the merits of the case and that they are therefore not entitled to an injunction.

           

           “The administration argued from the start that this law was not properly enacted,” said Ned McCormack, communications director and senior advisor. “If the legislators want to change the composition of the Board of Acquisition and Contract, they need to follow all legal procedures. The public is entitled to this.”

           

In his decision, the judge cleared the way for the A&C board to “resume meetings in accordance with the ordinary course of business.”  

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WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. Special to WPCNR from The Business Council of Westchester. April 10, 2012:

The Westchester Business Confidence Index, increased from 54.2 in the 4^th quarter of 2011 to a current level of 64.8 (on a scale oThis reading represents a tremendous increase in confidence overall since the inception of the index in December 2008, when levels were at 27, and is the second-highest reported confidence level since then, next to the second quarter of 2011, when it was at 66.3.

 “This tells me that our combined efforts to improve Westchester’s economy are successful. We’re  working with our legislators to reduce the inhibitors to business growth, and with our county government officials, through our Coalition for Business Development, to make Westchester more welcoming,” said Business Council President/CEO Dr. Marsha Gordon. “The results are seen and judged most effectively in the small and mid-size companies that call Westchester home – and we know that they are hiring, they are spending, and they are beginning to flourish once again. Let’s all keep up the good work.”

 

The Westchester Business Confidence Index – used to track key business metrics, such as trends in  staffing levels, top line revenues, bottom line profits, Capital spending budgets, and other industry performance data each quarter – compiles information from more than 100 CEOs and business leaders of BCW-member companies.

 

This elevated confidence is driven by improved revenue and profit outlooks and higher anticipated employee hiring rates: 22% of Westchester companies have more job openings compared to a quarter ago (with just 7% of companies having fewer openings). Westchester’s buoyed outlook is  likely riding on the back of on optimistic nation, as the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate, “held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent last month after falling by 0.8 percentage  points in the year ended January,” per Bloomberg.  In fact, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “the jobless rate in the U.S. could drop to as low as 6 percent by the first half of 2013.” Westchester is currently running at about a 6 percent jobless rate according to the Westchester Department of Economic Development.

The owner of a professional multimedia firm remarked: “In my industry, we believe businesses are starting to spend more money. They understand that they cannot stagnate in this economy and expect to increase profits. They need to become proactive and make changes. Increase their brand exposure and awareness.”

 

Bolstering that theory, survey respondents report that overall, capital spending budgets are slightly up since last quarter, with 21% or respondents intending to increase spending since last quarter and almost a third of respondents (31%) reporting plans to increase their spending compared to one year ago.

 

The CEO of a technology services concurs that business is back on track: “I feel that businesses in general held back spending on technology but have started to spend again… we see an increase in closing compared to a year ago.”

 

Revenue projections are also more optimistic than last quarter, with jumps of 14 points and 16 points,  in the number of companies expecting increased revenue compared to 3 months ago a nd a  year ago, bringing both of those totals to 59%. That means that a strong majority of respondents have a positive outlook for revenue change over the next two quarters. In alignment with optimistic revenue projections, the majority of respondents indicated high expectations about profit numbers, with an 11% increase in the number of companies who expect to report higher profit than three months ago.

 

All in all, this leads to higher confidence in the business community, with the majority of respondents (60%) reporting increased confidence compared to 1 year ago and 43% reporting an increase in confidence since last quarter. These numbers represent vast improvements over last quarter, when only slightly over a quarter of respondents reported a sunny outlook. Expectations for Westchester County’s outlook, in particular,    soared  for the first time since the inception of the index in 2008, the majority of respondents expected that Westchester’s economic conditions would fare better than that of our regional neighbors.

 

As the CEO of a not-for-profit observes: “Westchester is doing better  than other areas. Proof is in the housing market!” 

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WPCNR MILESTONES by Peter Katz (special to WPCNR) April 9, 2012:

 

Although I never worked with Mike Wallace during my news and broadcasting career, we were nodding acquaintances over many years at uncounted events due to the fact that my father had worked with him in the mid-1950’s, and I had first met him as a youngster who yearned to get into television.  

 

MIKE WALLACE, 1950s

Until 1955 or so, Mike Wallace had not been known as a journalist. His career in radio and t-v was checkered. During the 50’s, he had been on a number of shows originating in New York, including a daytime show on CBS with his wife at the time, Buff Cobb. He had done commercial work, hosting of quiz and variety shows, and just about anything else that came along. Channel 5 here in New York, which went by the call letters WABD, (standing for its founder Allen B. DuMont), decided it was time to establish a news department and begin daily news programming. Among the key people hired were Ted Yates, Sanford Socolow, who would later go on to produce the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and Mike Wallace.

 

Wallace would on rare occasions be sent out with a film crew for a story, would anchor the evening 15-minute newscast, and would also do the live commercial on the program. The sponsor of the program was Bond Clothing. My father was display director for the clothing chain, and was responsible for the in-studio set-up of the store’s live commercials. In fact, he had that responsibility on other shows the store had sponsored on the DuMont network.

 

As a child, I had the opportunity to see early television from the inside, watching shows such as “Captain Video” at the DuMont studio in the old John Wanamaker Department Store in Manhattan. Now, I was getting to hang around with Mike Wallace doing the news at the state-of-the-art DuMont Tele-Center at 205 E. 67th street. And, in early television one of the rules was that you had to be kind to the sponsor’s kid.

 

When I first met Mike Wallace, he was with Ted Yates, the program’s producer. Yates would soon invent the late night interview show Night–Beat at DuMont, which would establish Wallace as a tough interviewer and create his cigarette-brandishing tough reporter image. It was in studio 3, on the 3rd floor at DuMont. As an aside, my co-hosts on White Plains Week, John Bailey and Jim Benerofe, and I recently visited the studios on 67th street. They’re still home to Channel 5, which now is Fox television. What was studio 3 has been converted into the Fox5 newsroom.

 

At the time, two shows originated back to back in studio 3. The studio was divided by a large translucent rear projection screen. On one side of the screen, Wallace sat on a stool reading the news and moved to the commercial set at the appropriate time to tout the virtues of a Bond suit. On the other side, an interview show featuring television personality Tex McCreary was set-up to follow the Wallace newscast.

 

Four things I remember now about the late Mike Wallace: first, he was very nice and encouraging to me to pursue a career in television; second, he was himself excited about the prospects for the burgeoning medium of television to have a serious impact on society; third, his face was terribly pockmarked; fourth, over the years, he was kind enough to remember me even as I was pursuing the career as he had encouraged me to do.

 

 

Mike Wallace

1919-2012

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This morning, I thought back over the years to a time when this holiday was more meaningful to me than it is today, and created this verse:

Sunrise Service

In the crisp bite of early dawn

Roused by the ever loyal mom

To a warm breakfast then driven to a school rendezvous on the way

To play Jesus Christ is Risen Today .

Up and through the dark back road to old Flag Hill above the Saw Mill

We were driven, six chosen musicians to play fanfare

Celebrating the resurrection of  long ago as first rays of dawn broke the chill.

After we played our  brassy peal of annunciation

The pastor announced simply, “He has risen” and said an invocation,

On the downbeat from our instructor,

We played the joyous hymn and song burst forth

From the tiny band, voices vibrant beyond talent

Took up the simple refrain, “Je US CHRIST has riSEN toDAAY”

With each verse our  brass tones played fuller, bolder triumphant

Expanding our chests with pride, courage and steadfast  melody.

From crisp wind no longer did we cower.

Sun blaze rose in the east across our town,

Upon the last jubilant coda, the echoes  did sound

Descending across the valley below  and above to the high tension tower

In somber words the pastor’s message told the story

Of empty tomb, of the incredible happening

And for the rest of the day we who had played

Announcing the news in song and peal of brass

Had recreated that time of myth that has endured in faith

The thought of which renews us still that our time here will not from memory pass.

In the holiday dinner that would follow,

Cousins, aunts and uncles would gather

With the matriarch of the family.

Today we are scattered,

Do not gather together as we did then in harmony

Still I feel the warmth of those Easters past

When those who have departed we think of once more

And how they created a family that would last.