The
Fight for City and Suburban Homes: A Model For Successful Community
Action
by
Anne Ashby Gilbert (Coalition to Save City & Suburban
Housing, $10)
As I write this column, I realize that it
has been five years since I began writing this column. So for
this issue in the way of celebration, I will feature some of my
book reviews from this period of time.
In November of 1999, I wrote: The Fight for
City and Suburban Homes: A Model for Successful Community Action
by Anne Ashby Gilbert is a wonderfully concise history of
dedicated private citizens organizing a group called Coalition
to Save City and Suburban Housing to fight for the complete land
marking of the fourteen buildings, then owned by Peter Kalikow,
located between East 79th Street on the north and East 78th
Street on the south. This book is one of thanksgivings for
the modern day saint-like people who toiled for a decade to preserve
the city and suburban homes complex. Included in the book is an
appendix for Ten Elements for Community Action, most helpful principles
for community work.” To this day tours are still given of this
housing complex by members of the Coalition. Betty Cooper Wallerstein,
one of the Coalition leaders is head of the very active East 79th
Street Association. This book is available at Logos and a worthy
addition to one’s bookshelf of books about New York City.
The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin,
$10).
From May 1998, I wrote: “As a bookstore owner,
I find Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop (originally published
in Britain in 1978, published for the first time in the United
States in 1997) a very haunting tale. The travails of a bookshop
owner are many
and Florence Green’s were especially poignant.
Living in an old deserted house, running a bookshop and dealing
with a small town more interested in a lending library than purchasing
books, Green had already major challenges opening a new business
without incurring the enmity of a wealthy lady who wanted to turn
the site of the bookshop into an arts center. The denouement of
this story is quite moving.”
Staurt
Little
by E.B. White (Harper Collins Harper Trophy Paperback
$4.95).
I conclude in May of 1998 with the following: “A
classic for children and adults alike, E.B. White’s Stuart
Little is a marvelous book for spring, great adventures and
new beginnings. Who can forget the sailboat race Stuart has in
the Central Park toy boat with the fat boy named Leroy who wears
a blue serge suit with a white necktie stained with orange juice?
There is also Stuart’s friendship with Margalo the bird who saves
him from a garbage truck and then heads up north when spring comes.
Stuart sets out to find her and has more memorable adventures
on the road of life.” Happy Spring!
Transit: #4, #5, #6 Lexington Avenue Subway to
86th St., M15 Bus (First & Second Aves.), M86 Bus
(86th St.), M79 Bus (79th St.), M31 Bus (York Ave.)
Upcoming Events
At Logos
Wednesday, May 7, 2003 at 7 P.M., KYTV will discuss Atonement
by Ian McEwan
Wednesday, May 14, 21 and 28, Study and Discussion of Augustine’s
City Of God at 7 P.M.
Wednesday, June 4, at 7 P.M., KYTV will discuss Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
Children’s Story Time every Monday at 3:30 P.M.
Education
Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001.
Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919.Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express
consent of the publisher. © 2003.
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