York City Center Research Articles

Pal Joey, co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and Savion Glover (2023)

Review of: Pal Joey, co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and Savion Glover (2023) New York City Center, New York, 5 November 2023 I Can Get It for You Wholesale, directed by Trip Cullman (2023) Classic Stage Company, New York, 12 October 2023

Performing scienceLove + Science David J. Glass In Vitro Productions, New York City Center, New York, NY, USA, 26 May to 6 July 2023.

A biologist captures the humanity of scientific research in a play about the AIDS crisis.

Homeless in Midtown: The View from Mainchance

Alice M. speaks with some difficulty due to an early childhood brain injury. She worked with counselors at Mainchance—a New York City center for homeless adults where I volunteer as chair of the board—for four years before securing a studio in supportive housing with a Catholic agency in Queens. Proud of her childhood in Harlem, she has been in and out of institutional settings for most of her life. Her last bout of homelessness on the street lasted four years. For three years she slept in respite beds in churches and synagogues connected to Mainchance. She found employment in a sheltered workshop, established a bank account, and saved money while awaiting her eventual placement. Her face lights up when she talks about the kitchenette in her new residence.

Voices from the past: Reviving a rarely heard musical on a college campus

Inspired by New York City Center’s Encores! programme, we came together as a music director and stage director to develop a new college programme focused on producing rarely heard musicals. As faculty members, we select a little-known musical and research basic production history to provide a launchpad for hands-on learning for students. Our process involves examining a show’s production history, exploring the story and score in their original historical milieu, and mounting a workshop production. Given the many forgotten musical theatre pieces, this act of excavation is possible for any college musical theatre programme, including those with limited resources. In this article, we share our approach and process, connecting strategies and tactics to experiential learning, and reflect on challenges encountered and opportunities discovered during our workshop production of Richard Maltby, Jr and David Shire’s The Sap of Life, a show that spent several months Off-Broadway in 1961 and then disappeared into the composer’s closet for the next 54 years. For The Sap of Life, we seized the opportunity to offer our students the experience of working and learning directly from Maltby and Shire, who visited campus as guest artists. Our excavation process provides the opportunity for students and professors alike to learn more about how a musical is developed, written, honed and ultimately produced on the stage.

Longitudinal Quantitative Analysis of Radiation Oncology Staff Illness in a New York City Center during COVID-19: The Impact of New Guidelines on Operations and Employee Health.

PurposeThe novel coronavirus (COVID-19) forced radiation oncology clinics to overhaul operational policies, but the effect on employee safety has not, to our knowledge, been reported. The New York Proton Center (NYPC), a large freestanding clinic in New York City, New York, presents a 1-month experience of employee-reported health outcomes after the infiltration of COVID-19 and enforcement of policies designed to mitigate its impact.Materials and MethodsIn March 2020, new operational policies were implemented, including rigorous and frequent sanitation, visitor and treatment restrictions, distribution of personal protective equipment, work-from-home orders, and isolated nursing and radiation therapy teams. Employees of NYPC were prospectively monitored for exposure and symptoms of COVID-19. Work hours lost because of illness or quarantines were quantified from March 1, 2020, to March 31, 2020.ResultsAmong 95 total employees, 23 (24%) were quarantined because of symptoms (n = 15; 65%), high-risk exposure (n = 5; 22%), or self-quarantined with personal concern (n = 3; 13%). Of 44 full-time, on-site employees, 39% (n = 17, including 6 therapists and 5 nurses) missed significant work time, including 6 (14%) with confirmed COVID-19. At full capacity, NYPC would have used 7260 work hours during March 2020 from the full-time, on-site staff, which was reduced by 18.8% overall (25.2% of nursing and 13.3% of therapy work hours), all in the latter half of the month. Among the therapist lost work hours, 92% were from 2 of 7 distinct, isolated therapy teams (29%). Without isolation, the exposure was modeled to have been 100%.ConclusionDespite losing significant staff hours in our department because of COVID-19, early and aggressive adoption of current, recommended policy guidelines outlined in this manuscript allowed NYPC to continue patient operations at full capacity.

Performance Review

Abstract The Golden Apple, book and lyrics by John Latouche, music by Jerome Moross, directed by Michael Berresse, New York City Center, New York, May 2017

A novel method for material characterization of reusable products

Product reuse contributes favorably to waste management and resource recovery by diverting products from terminal disposal to second-hand urban markets. Many organizations with social mission incorporate in their activities the process of reuse, thus making valuable products available to second-hand customers through their thrift stores. Data management and product classification are an important aspect of quantitative analysis of second-hand products circulating through reuse organizations. The New York City Center for Materials Reuse has, for the last 10years, organized the reuse activities of most not for profit organizations, and collected valuable information on the strengths and weaknesses of their operations. One such finding is the casual, and inconsistent approach used by these organizations to keep a record of the level and value of the reuse efforts they undertake. This paper describes a novel methodology developed to standardize record keeping and characterize commonly reused post-consumer products by assessing the outgoing product flow from reuse organizations. The approach groups material composition of individual products into main product categories, creating a simplified method to characterize products. Furthermore, by linking product categories and material composition, the method creates a matrix to help identify the material composition of products handled by reuse organizations. As part of the methodology, whenever adequate data are not available about certain types of products, a process identified as “field characterization study” is proposed and incorporated in the implementation to develop meaningful and useful data on the weight and material composition. Finally, the method incorporates the estimation of the environmental impact of reuse using standard models available through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other worldwide entities. The diversified weight and size of products poses a challenge to the statistical significance of the estimated weights. A case study is presented, illustrating how the proposed methodology can be applied to estimate environmental benefits from the sale of second-hand products in reuse organizations.

Epidemiology and outcomes of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteriuria in kidney transplant recipients.

Little is known about the epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) bacteriuria following kidney transplantation. We determined the incidence of post-transplant CRKP bacteriuria in adults who underwent kidney transplant from 2007 to 2010 at 2 New York City centers. We conducted a case-control study to identify factors associated with CRKP bacteriuria compared with carbapenem-susceptible K. pneumoniae (CSKP) bacteriuria, assessed whether CRKP bacteriuria was associated with mortality or graft failure, and compared outcomes of treated episodes of CRKP and CSKP bacteriuria. Of 1852 transplants, 20 (1.1%) patients developed CRKP bacteriuria. Factors associated with CRKP bacteriuria included receipt of multiple organs (odds ratio [OR] 4.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1-20.4), deceased-donor allograft (OR 5.9, 95% CI 1.3-26.8), transplant admission length of stay (OR 1.1 per day, 95% CI 1.0-1.1), pre-transplant CRKP infection or colonization (OR 18.3, 95% CI 2.0-170.5), diabetes mellitus (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.0-7.8), and receipt of antimicrobials other than trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (OR 4.3, 95% CI 1.6-11.2). Compared to CSKP bacteriuria, CRKP bacteriuria was associated with increased mortality (30% vs. 10%, P = 0.03) but not graft failure. Treated episodes of CRKP bacteriuria were less likely to achieve microbiologic clearance (83% vs. 97%; P = 0.05) and more likely to recur within 3 months (50% vs. 22%, P = 0.02) than CSKP episodes. CRKP bacteriuria after kidney transplant is associated with mortality and antimicrobial failure after treatment.

C1-1: Evaluation of Screening Colonoscopy per Patient Adenoma Count at a Large New York City Center Using Population-based Data

Background/Aims Bowel preparation quality is critical to adequate visualization of adenomas during colonoscopy. We determined the total per person adenoma count (PPAC) in a population undergoing screening colonoscopy during a six month period to assess the utility of this measure as an indicator of bowel preparation quality.

More Graduates: Two-Year Results from an Evaluation of Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students

Having a college degree is increas­ingly important in the U.S. labor market, and workers with a degree earn substantially more, on average, than those without. Recently there has been an un­precedented national focus on boosting the stubbornly low graduation rates of students in community colleges. Community colleges serve millions of the nation’s undergradu­ates, but only about one-third of those stu­dents graduate within five years. Graduation rates are even lower for students who enter college without the math, reading, or writing skills required for college-level courses and thus need to take developmental (remedial) courses. In addition, most college students take longer to graduate than is considered normal. For example, a survey of students who started at a public two-year college found that only 4 percent graduated with an associate’s degree within two years.Educators have tried many reforms to help improve the success rates of community college students. Most of the reforms have been short term, lasting only one or two semesters, and have addressed no more than a few barriers to student success. The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is an ambitious and promising exception. Operated by the City University of New York (CUNY), which serves over half a million students annually and is the largest public university system in the country, ASAP provides a comprehensive array of services and supports over a three-year period to help more students graduate and to help them graduate sooner. The program aims to simultaneously address multiple barri­ers to student achievement over multiple semesters, and is one of the most aggressive efforts in the country to improve the success rates of low-income students. In 2007, CUNY, with the support and funding from the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), launched ASAP at all six CUNY community colleges. ASAP requires students to attend college full time and provides them with a rich array of supports for three full years, including a tuition waiver that covers any gap between a student’s financial aid and tuition and fees, special seminars and block-scheduled classes, enhanced advising, career services, free MetroCards for use on public transportation, and free use of textbooks. In 2009, CUNY, in partnership with CEO and CEO’s evaluators, conducted an internal evaluation of ASAP and found very promising effects for participating students. At that point, CUNY decided to expand the program and commissioned MDRC to conduct an external study to test ASAP’s effects using a random assignment design, the gold standard methodology in program evaluation. MDRC’s study focuses on three CUNY community colleges: Borough of Manhattan, Kingsborough, and LaGuardia. For the study, ASAP targets low-income students who need one or two developmental courses to build their reading, writing, or math skills. The study compares ASAP with regular services and classes at the colleges. MDRC’s report provides results for the first two years of the three-year program. Key findings include effects on: •Semester-to-semester retention. After the first semester, ASAP consistently increased the likelihood that students would enroll in each subsequent semester by 8 to 10 percentage points. The effect on enrolling in shorter intercessions (winter or summer) was even larger.•Credits earned. ASAP increased the average number of credits earned over two years by 7.6 credits (37.9 for ASAP students vs. 30.4 for control students), a 25 percent increase that represents 13 percent of the college-level credits required to earn a degree.•Graduation. ASAP increased the proportion of students who earned an associate’s degree in two years by 5.7 percentage points (14.5 percent for ASAP students vs. 8.7 percent for the control group). It’s important to note that these students had to fulfill developmental education requirements before earning at least 60 college-level credits to graduate. In fact, data from the first cohort of students in the study shows that this effect grows substantially by the two-and-a-half-year mark: 33.3 percent of program group members had earned an associate’s degree, compared with 18.2 percent of control group members — for an impact of 15.1 percentage points. Based on results from their own internal study of early cohorts of students and the promis­ing early effects from the random assignment evaluation, CUNY committed to substantially expanding ASAP beginning in fall 2012. By fall 2014, CUNY aims to serve over 4,000 students at the six participating community colleges — three times more than were served in fall 2012.

Using the American community survey to create a National Academy of Sciences–style poverty measure: Work by the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity

AbstractThe need to improve the U.S. poverty measure has received renewed attention as state and local governments have initiated antipoverty efforts and wish to judge their effect. This paper describes the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity's implementation of the National Academy of Sciences' recommendations for measuring poverty. The center's decision to use the Census Bureau's American Community Survey as its principal data source created the project's central challenge; many of the items needed to construct the academy's measure of resources are not included in the survey and needed to be estimated through a variety of methods. The resultant measure creates a higher poverty rate and a demographic profile of the poor that is quite different from that generated by the official measure. The paper concludes with observations about these differences and how this new picture of poverty has begun to influence policymaking in New York City. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Access Walking Distance, Transit Use, and Transit-Oriented Development in North York City Center, Toronto, Canada

This study had two main objectives: to examine how variations in walking distance to rapid transit are related to mode choice as well as to auto ownership and use and to investigate whether temporal changes in the built environment associated transit-oriented development in close proximity to rapid transit (subway) service encourage residents to use transit. The city of Toronto, Canada, and one of the fastest-growing suburban centers of Toronto–-the North York City Center located near the northern edge of Toronto on the Yonge subway line–-were selected as case studies. With the 2001 Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) data, a quantitative analysis was employed; it that focused on home-based trips by using the city's subway network to demonstrate how walk-access distances to rapid transit are related to subway mode share, auto ownership, and auto use. Further analysis was undertaken to examine the temporal changes in land use and related travel behavior over a 15-year period by comparing TTS data for 1986 and 2001. The results of the analyses illustrate quantitatively the strong association between convenient walk access, lifestyle, and transit use, not only during peak hours but also throughout the day. The results show how the promotion of focused development within a convenient walking distance of rapid transit service in a relatively low-density suburb of Toronto has, over 15 years, been accompanied by a substantial shift in residents’ travel behavior toward increased transit use.

Why Organizational Ties Matter for Neighborhood Effects: Resource Access through Childcare Centers

How does neighborhood poverty affect the poor's ability to access resources such as health care and job information? Most studies have focused on individuals or neighborhoods; we focus on organizations - specifically, whether organizations are less connected if located in poor neighborhoods. Our case study is childcare centers. We ask whether centers' organizational ties provide parents access to important resources, and whether neighborhood poverty affects this capacity. Based on qualitative fieldwork in 23 New York City centers, we develop hypotheses about this process. We test them on a representative sample of 293 centers. Findings uncover that centers provide important resource-access through their ties and that neighborhood poverty does not undermine this capacity. We suggest that organizational ties may help explain the inconsistent results of the neighborhood effects literature.

September 11th in New York City (NYC): the effect of a catastrophe on IVF outcome in a New York City based program

Objective: The events of September 11, 2001, provoked extraordinary levels of stress at both the regional and national levels. Severe stress affects many aspects of human physiology and may impact human fertility. Several studies indicate that anxiety and especially depression may lower pregnancy rates in women undergoing ART. We therefore sought to evaluate IVF outcomes comparing pre- and post- September 11, 2001 cycles in a New York City center. Design: Retrospective analysis evaluating IVF outcome of 397 consecutive patients who underwent IVF at a single institution in NYC during a 13 week series encompassing the events of September 11, 2001. Materials and Methods: We analyzed 397 consecutive fresh IVF cycles during the series that included September 11, 2001. Only patients that underwent an embryo transfer were included in the study. The patient groups were divided into those that had a pregnancy test before September 11, 2001, and those that had a pregnancy test after September 11, 2001. Statistics included Chi-square and Student’s t-test where appropriate. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Two hundred and thirty-four patients (58.94%) had a pregnancy test before September 11. One hundred and sixty-three patients (41.06%) had a pregnancy test after September 11. There were no differences in the age, mean number of oocytes harvested or number of embryos transferred when comparing the two groups (Table 1). Clinical pregnancy rates were similar between the two groups (Table 1). There was, however, a significant increase in pregnancy loss in patients with a pregnancy test date after September 11 (Table 1). Consequently, the delivery rate was significantly reduced in the group of patients whose pregnancy tests were performed after September 11 as compared to those patients with pregnancy tests prior to September 11 (Table 1). Tabled 1 Conclusion: A significant increase in pregnancy losses was noted surrounding the events of September 11. This resulted in nearly a 25% lower delivery rate for patients with a pregnancy test date after September 11, 2001. There are many possible explanations for these findings, most significantly including psychological stresses. A further study will hopefully clarify these issues.

Where they danced: patrons, institutions, spaces: Dollars for Dance: Lincoln Kirstein, City Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation

In October 1952, when Lincoln Kirstein became managing director of New York's City Center, few American foundations supported the arts except on a limited and sporadic basis. Seven months later, th...

A Day with Camilla Williams

Her friend and colleague, Todd Duncan, creator of George Gershwin's Porgy on Broadway in 1935, called her “Diva”. She is Camilla Williams, lyric soprano, who in 1946 was the first African‐American to receive a regular contract with a major American opera company. Her debut role at New York's City Center Opera was as Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Other leading roles Miss Williams was to perform with this company for the next six years were Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci , Mimì in Puccini's La bohème , and Verdi's Aida. Then, in 1954, she appeared as Butterfly with London's Sadler's Wells Opera and later the Vienna State Opera. Miss Williams was also a distinguished concert artist, performing throughout the United States, in fourteen African countries, and in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia. From 1977 to 1997, she was professor of voice at Indiana University's School of Music. Although Miss Williams has officially retired, she is still teaching privately. Recently, Sony reissued the thrilling 1951 Columbia recording of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess starring Lawrence Winters and Camilla Williams. Once again we can hear her vocally and theatrically exciting Bess. Winters is a superb partner, and the performance is further enhanced by the beautiful singing of June McMechen, Helen Dowdy, and Eddie and Inez Matthews, as well as the luminous conducting of Lehman Engel. In 1995, I had the privilege of spending a day with this charming, elegant, and courageous pioneering opera diva at both her lovely apartment and memorabiliaenriched studio in Bloomington, Indiana. Miss Williams is a delightful raconteur and graciously shared many of her fascinating experiences with me.