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Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at a policy change that has stopped payments to some education firms that serve Hasidic schools. We’ll also meet two theatrical performers and producers who are opening their own space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. New York City education officials are blocking payments to 20 companies that provide education services, primarily for students in yeshivas. The move marks a change in the city’s approach to education contracting, particularly in cases involving parents of private school students with disabilities who seek city-funded services. While there is a process — parents must ask a hearing officer to order the funding — the city has until now assented to most such requests. Now it will fight those that would channel payments to any of the 20 companies. My colleagues Brian M. Rosenthal and Eliza Shapiro write that together, the firms collected $60 million to provide special education last year alone. The shift comes after … [Read more...] about New York Blocks Payments to 20 Firms That Serve Hasidic Schools

When Gavin Kaysen announced in March that he would leave his longtime position as Café Boulud ’s executive chef to open his own restaurant, plenty of people in the restaurant industry — and those who watch it — were surprised. As Daniel Boulud’s right-hand man, Mr. Kaysen was a player in one of the most successful restaurant empires in New York. But the bigger surprise was where Mr. Kaysen, 35, planned to open his restaurant, Merchant : not in Manhattan or Brooklyn but in Minneapolis, his hometown. A chef with no shortage of opportunities in New York had decided to leave. “I had some people ask me candidly, ‘Why? Why leave New York? Why move there?’ ” Mr. Kaysen said. Traditionally, chefs trained in New York and then stayed, with the goal of running big kitchens or opening their own places. Yes, there have always been chefs who have left, for reasons that are familiar to New Yorkers of any profession: to have more space for children, or to be closer to family (the reason … [Read more...] about Chefs Move Beyond New York

On a cold Tuesday afternoon in January, four women made their way down Guernsey Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They had just finished lunch at Acre , a Japanese cafe and shop, where they had been served bento boxes and green tea, and were headed to 50 Norman , a new warehouse space nearby that housed three other Japanese businesses. The women, all Japanese immigrants, had driven in from New Jersey, at the advice of their friend, Chieko Koie, who had already dined at Acre and was interested in visiting the warehouse after seeing it on Instagram. The group’s first stop at 50 Norman was Dashi Okume , which sells dashi, a soup base typically made from ingredients like dried fish, seaweed and mushrooms. The business, which opened in Tokyo in 1871, offers various ready-made dashi powder blends, as well as bins of dried ingredients for customers to make their own. “For Japanese people, dashi is really important for making food,” Ms. Koie said. “It’s like a piece of home here in … [Read more...] about Sake. Dashi. Soba Shops: Japanese Chic Takes Root in Brooklyn

Sasha Petraske, who helped restore lost luster to the venerable cocktail as the founder of the New York cocktail bar Milk & Honey and other polished drinking spots around the world, was found dead on Friday morning at his home in Hudson, N.Y. He was 42. His wife, Georgette Moger, said he had died overnight. The cause had not been determined, she said. Mr. Petraske’s role in the modern cocktail revival is difficult to overstate. The opening of Milk & Honey in 1999, in a narrow space on a dark, little populated block of the Lower East Side, has been called instrumental in the revival of cocktail culture across United States and beyond. Though unmarked and unadvertised, Milk & Honey became a phenomenon, known for its unapologetic dedication to expertly crafted, pre-Prohibition era cocktails, not to mention its eccentric reservation system and exacting rules of decorum. In a Manhattan bar world then ruled by glitz and noise, sloppy drinks and sloppy behavior, it served as … [Read more...] about Sasha Petraske, 42, Dies; Bar Owner Restored Luster to Cocktail Culture

The mystery of who closed two lanes onto the George Washington Bridge — turning the borough of Fort Lee, N.J., into a parking lot for four days in September — exploded into a full-bore political scandal for Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday. Emails and texts revealed that a top aide had ordered the closings to punish the town’s mayor after he did not endorse the governor for re-election. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, emailed David Wildstein , a high school friend of the governor who worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge. Later text messages mocked concerns that school buses filled with students were stuck in gridlock: “They are the children of Buono voters,” Mr. Wildstein wrote, referring to Mr. Christie’s opponent Barbara Buono. The emails are striking in their political maneuvering, showing Christie aides gleeful about some of the chaos that resulted. Emergency … [Read more...] about Christie Faces Scandal on Traffic Jam Aides Ordered

See the article in its original context from February 25, 1984 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. When he died last December at the age of 64, Paul de Man left behind a provocative school of literary criticism that will be studied by generations of scholars to come. And even now, two months after his death, his students and colleagues at Yale University say his absence - as teacher, as critic, as inspiration - has left a huge gap. The death of a professor leaves a university … [Read more...] about YALE STILL FEELING LOSS OF REVERED PROFESSOR