Details

Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Category: The Goods

Published: 15 July 2015

We received this note about the lockers rooms at the Scarsdale Pool this week:

A Modest Swimmer writes:

I am not happy about the policy at the Scarsdale Pool regarding pre-adolescent boys in the women's locker room. A sign posted outside the women's locker room says that children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. That means if a boy, age 11+ has to shower or use the facilities-- and is at the pool with his mother or a nanny -- he uses the women's locker room where I am often changing or showering. It's disconcerting to have someone else's 11 year-old son sneaking a look at my private parts! Heck – pre-pubescent boys often look at porn online – what are they doing in the ladies locker room?

Details

Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Category: The Goods

Published: 22 July 2015

Information about the funds for the proposed Scarsdale Community Center is coming to light. Prompted by an inquiry to Scarsdale10583 last week, Executive Board member and former Scarsdale Mayor Ed Morgan has sent Scarsdale10583 the following letter that explains the current status of the organization and the funds. See the letter below where he explains that there is a split among the Board between those who wish to liquidate the fund and return them to the contributors and Morgan who advocates continuing to pursue the project. In the letter he explains the history of the SCC, the impact of the recession and tax cap and his ideas for moving forward.

In addition, Morgan sent us the link to the SCC's financial statements that are available on Guidestar.com. The current balance sheet, reproduced below, shows that as of June 30 2013 the fund was sizable. The balance sheet shows $557,049 in 2013, down from $578,013 in 2012.

Last, Guidestar lists the names of the Board as of 2013. The list is shown at the end of this article.

Here is the letter from Ed Morgan:

TO the SCC Board of Directors

Dear SCC Board Members:

Sometimes friends and neighbors may disagree about some matter; later, however that matter may work out, they may still remain neighbors and friends. In writing this letter to you, I observe that within the SCC we have recently had the first situation described in the preceding sentence; I hope that in time we may also at least have the second as well.

Some time has passed since my last update to you, and I should explain the recent situation to you.

The basic history of SCC is that we (and I am here referring to all of SCC's wonderful volunteers, including you as Board members and some of you as Executive Committee members) have accomplished extraordinary things with comparatively tiny amounts of money. Among other things, we have established that a majority of Scarsdale's residents favor having a community indoor pool/center facility, and backed that up by obtaining membership pledges, without the benefit of final construction drawings, from a high percentage of Scarsdale residents, a feat considered remarkable, even unique, by the highly qualified independent professional feasibility consultant engaged by SCC. We have obtained a widely praised, beautiful conceptual project design, by architects who have successfully built a comparable facility elsewhere in our County. With that conceptual design, and several studies, all pointing in the same direction, we have established the existing outdoor pool site as the most practicable Scarsdale site for the indoor pool/center facility, and one broadly accepted by the community. With repeated studies, internally by our own volunteers and externally with nationally recognized experts in the field, we have established both the conceptual soundness and the financial soundness of the proposed indoor pool/center facility for Scarsdale. The financial figures have required periodic updates, but the bottom line from all of the successive financial studies, taken together, is that a community facility such as that proposed (with all of the moneys involved serving the general public benefit rather than the profits of a commercial business) can be built with pricing competitive with other less attractive commercial, etc. facilities elsewhere in the region, and should therefore be financially feasible based on SCC's past history of broad community membership support. Additional meaningful work has also been accomplished in refining the conceptual design, the costings, and environmental and permitting aspects.

At that point, the greatest recession in 80 years intervened, with a slow and mostly tepid recovery, and exacerbated by the psychological effects of a State cap enacted on local property taxes. The original project process model assumed, with considerable encouragement at the time from all sorts of people including governmental officials, that once SCC established a significant membership base (successfully done) and perhaps a few other things (generally also successfully done), then the Village would step up, make the land needed available for project use, and advance the amounts needed to complete construction design papers, and environmental and permitting work, the same to be reimbursed to the Village from the anticipated Village bonds to be issued for project construction. The intention here was that it was to be reasonably certain that the project (including the architectural, environmental, etc. pre-construction work) over time would be paid for in full by the users of the facility through their memberships and other fees, and not by Scarsdale's taxpayers through their taxes. In short, the project was over time not to be subsidized by Scarsdale taxpayers generally.

The great recession and State cap, however, changed the original dynamics and made the original project process model obsolete, at least for the foreseeable future. In the interests of full disclosure, I note that key current Village Budget information (attached) is consistent with that view. For some, including some Executive Committee members, if the original model could no longer work, that has been enough. They have worked long and hard, even brilliantly, but they see it as time to abandon the effort and wind down SCC.

For others, however, then and still including me, that was not and is not an acceptable answer, at least if there were other options to be explored which could still complete the project for the benefit of all Scarsdalians. For me, having gotten as far as we have, it would be a betrayal of trust to all those members and others who have long supported SCC if we were not to pursue alternate ways of getting the project successfully completed. I will therefore neither support nor have any part in any SCC liquidation.

Based on advice we have received from several people knowledgeable in major fundraising efforts, it still remains reasonably possible that the project can be completed using a new project process model. To be sure, the new model would also be new to Scarsdale, differently structured than less formal "pass the hat around" kinds of efforts which have often been seen in Scarsdale. With the development fairly recently of more accurate costing information, and reflecting also the special features of the conceptual design widely lauded in the community, the total project cost would be expected to be in excess of $20 million. Based on general industry experience, the costs prior to commencing construction for construction design work, environmental, permitting, etc. would be expected to be in excess of $1 million, probably nearer to $2 million. Under the new model, fundraising would have to cover all of that pre-construction work, as well as being available for a much larger portion of total construction costs than previously anticipated, in return for seeking and gaining Village approval of the right to use the site and probably a modest amount of bonded funding as well.

The major fundraising approach, which has been successful elsewhere and which we are told could also be successful in Scarsdale, would include initially development of a feasibility study and plan, and then a period working with potential major donors sufficient to cover most of total project costs, all prior to returning for the smaller public portion of the fundraising campaign. At this point, SCC already has a portion of what would be needed for the feasibility study and plan, and fundraising would be needed to cover the rest of that cost.

To get there, several SCC actions are needed, including the following. First, the Board and Executive Committee need to be restructured to include a significant component of people with fundraising skills while retaining the other skills we have long had in excellent abundance. Second, we need to reopen membership, since about one third of Scarsdale residents were not even in the community when membership was last open, and others have also asked about such an opportunity. As contemplated by the most recently prepared SCC financial analysis provided to the Village and the public, a very special discounted membership would continue for those faithful SCC members who have been with us for many years. The new memberships would be structured differently for the current circumstances, but would still include some discount in post-opening membership fees, albeit a smaller one than provided for the original SCC members. Third, and in addition, an active "friends" of SCC group would be launched, in part to accomplish modest fundraising for current costs but more importantly as part of a larger media effort and events to publicize the SCC in the community and keep interested residents periodically informed.

For some time I have urged implementation of these actions to the Executive Committee. However, given that some Executive Committee members wish to proceed with an SCC liquidation, there has been an impasse. I am very grateful to those who have indicated willingness to seek an alternative process model for completing the SCC project. However, the impasse nonetheless continues, which doubtless has been mystifying to many in the community.

I still have faith that the basic SCC concept is sound, and hope that the work so capably already done will eventually lead to the realization of the indoor pool/center facility so long desired by thousands of Scarsdale residents. Under the totality of the circumstances described above, however, I have concluded that I should resign as SCC President, and I hereby do so, effective immediately.

I continue to wish SCC, and everyone connected with it, well now and for the future. Should new leadership decide to overcome the impasse mentioned and move forward toward the SCC objectives, please let me know. I would be pleased support such efforts to the extent that I can be useful.

Sincerely yours,
Edward A. Morgan

According to Morgan, continuing SCC officers currently include: Bart Hamlin, VP; Steve Bush, Controller; Meredith Lonner, VP Membership (among other things, handles refund requests at mslonner@earthlink.net); and Alan Garfunkel, Secretary.

Board members as of 2013 include:

CHARLOTTE BAECHER
LARRY BELL
NEIL BICKNELL
HOWARD BLITMAN
MARY BLUM
STEVE BUSH
MERRELL CLARK
BILL DOESCHER
ALAN GARFUNKEL
BART HAMLIN
NORBERT HENNESSEY
BARBARA JAFFE
WENDIE KROLL
BETTE LANDES
MEREDITH LONNER
ANTHONY MANSON
ED MORGAN
JON NEEDMAN
EDA NEWHOUSE
ROBERT NOVEMBER
DEBORAH PORDER
DOUG RACHLIN
MONICA RIECKHOFF
ERIC ROTHSCHILD
JAMES BUCK
JANICE STARR
KEVIN DIERKING
EVELYN STOCK
SHARON STRASSBERG
TARA TYBERG
JOE KAUFMAN
BRADFORD PERKINS
EVA ROMAS WILSON
STEPHANIE GLASER

Balance Sheet as of 2013

Details

Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Category: The Goods

Published: 07 July 2015

Though it was a long time coming, warm temperatures and summer days are finally here. With the kids gone -- or at least at camp for the day -- and calendars cleared of commitments and meetings, there's finally time to catch up on your reading. What to read? We turned to Elizabeth Bermel, Director of the Scarsdale Library, for her list of what Scarsdale is reading – and also threw in a few books on our list of favorites.

Here are a few suggestions – and if you have books to share, please tell us about them in the comments section below.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

If you like Kate Atking's #1 bestseller Life After Life, pick up A God in Ruins, that re-examines the lives of some of the characters in the earlier book.

Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again.

A God in Ruins tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy--would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather-as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have.

"He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future."

An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man's path through extraordinary times, A God in Ruins proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.

Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine--a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love.

Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her "How did you get to be the woman you are today." She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naive girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.

Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman's complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world.

For those who prefer to listen rather than read, the audio version is narrated by actress Linda Lavin.

Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir By Wednesday Martin

When anthropologist Wednesday Martin suggested that the wives of Manhattan's most successful men get their own annual "Wife Bonus," she created a stir. Do these wives really receive a paycheck for serving as the spouse to their successful man? Here's the book that looks behind the doormen on the Upper East Side and tells the real story of marriage for the one percent in 2015.

Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe.

After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place. She understood the other mothers' snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns; display rituals; physical adornment, mutilation, and mating practices; extra-pair copulation; and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking, and hilariously unexpected.

Every city has its Upper East Side, and in Wednesday's memoir, readers everywhere will recognize the strange cultural codes of powerful social hierarchies and the compelling desire to climb them. They will also see that Upper East Side mothers want the same things for their children that all mothers want--safety, happiness, and success--and not even sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs can protect this ecologically released tribe from the universal experiences of anxiety and loss. When Wednesday's life turns upside down, she learns how deep the bonds of female friendship really are.

Intelligent, funny, and heartfelt, Primates of Park Avenue lifts a veil on a secret, elite world within a world--the exotic, fascinating, and strangely familiar culture of privileged Manhattan motherhood.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." ...This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. From Red s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.

Brimming with all the insight, humor, and generosity of spirit that are the hallmarks of Anne Tyler s work, A Spool of Blue Thread tells a poignant yet unsentimental story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity. It is a novel to cherish."

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.

The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.

Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. With this novel, the first in a trilogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy's great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction.

The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer:

From the "New York Times" bestselling, award-winning author of The Dive From Clausen's Pier, a sweeping, masterful new novel that explores the secrets and desires, the remnant wounds and saving graces of one California family, over the course of five decades.

Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. Struck by a vision of the family he has yet to create, Bill buys the property on a whim. In Penny Greenway he finds a suitable wife, a woman whose yearning attitude toward life seems compelling and answerable, and they marry and have four children. Yet Penny is a mercurial housewife, at a time when women chafed at the conventions imposed on them. She finds salvation in art, but the cost is high.

Thirty years later, the three oldest Blair children, adults now and still living near the family home, are disrupted by the return of the youngest, whose sudden presence and all-too-familiar troubles force a reckoning with who they are, separately and together, and set off a struggle over the family's future. One by one, the siblings take turns telling the story--Robert, a doctor like their father; Rebecca, a psychiatrist; Ryan, a schoolteacher; and James, the malcontent, the problem child, the only one who hasn't settled down--their narratives interwoven with portraits of the family at crucial points in their history.

Reviewers have praised Ann Packer's "brilliant ear for character" ("The New York Times Book Review"), her "naturalist's vigilance for detail, so that her characters seem observed rather than invented" ("The New Yorker"), and the "utterly lifelike quality of her book's everyday detail" ("The New York Times"). Her talents are on dazzling display in "The Children's Crusade," an extraordinary study in character, a rare and wise examination of the legacy of early life on adult children attempting to create successful families and identities of their own. This is Ann Packer's most deeply affecting book yet.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarity

Finally available in paperback the #1 "New York Times" bestseller from the Australian author of Big Little Lies and What Alice Forgot. At the heart of The Husband s Secret is a letter that is not meant to be read... "My darling Cecilia, If you re reading this, then I've died..."

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret something with the potential to destroy not only the life you have built together, but the lives of others as well. And then imagine that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive.

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all she s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything and not just for her. There are other women who barely know Cecilia or each other but they, too, are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband's secret.

See more great book selections on the Scarsdale Library website.