Weekend Watch: Yards Supporters Approve It; Yards Opponents Sue to Block It; Earth Spins on AxisBruce Ratner’s Brooklyn juggernaut kept churning through the weekend, as two residential buildings in the way of his Atlantic Yards dream moved closer to a date with the wrecking ball. The Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that’s been pushing this megaproject all along, unanimously voted to condemn any and all structures that stand in its way. Ratner’s Forest City already owns the buildings in question, having thoughtfully bought them two years ago; what it doesn’t own, and has little authority over, are some of the tenants’ stabilized rents. Thirteen of the affected residents immediately banded together and sued. The charge: You can’t condemn a building without officially erasing the tenants’ leases first. The question is now, and surely not for the last time, in State Supreme Court. Which should hold up that wrecking ball for at least a little bit.
A Nod for Atlantic Yards, and Then a Lawsuit [NYT]
party lines
Bette and Joy’s Happy, Raunchy Halloween
How does Bette Midler celebrate Halloween? If her tenth annual Hulaween Gala at the Waldorf the other night was any indication, by lacing into a string of good-natured obscenities to browbeat other celebs into supporting her New York Restoration Project, which cleans up, replants, and maintains neglected city parks.
It was a crowd of well-heeled, big-drinking nature lovers, all of whom had enough money to buy some fabulous costumes, like the man dressed as a Christmas tree covered in ornaments and the half-dozen Andy Warhols roaming about, including an unrecognizable Michael Kors, who’d added a prosthetic forehead and nose to his face. “What are you, Golda Meir?” Harvey Fierstein, dressed as John from Peter Pan, asked Midler’s co-emcee, Joy Behar. “No! What? I’m the Queen!” she replied, hitting his arm. “I’m the blues,” said Willie Nelson, dressed in a black suit and looking exactly like Willie Nelson. “I’m Flora, the goddess of the garden,” said Midler, her thoughts trailing off. “Who are you?” she continued. “Oh! It’s Shalom. Goodness, what are you, dear?” Shalom Harlow, in a bikini, satin robe, Afro, and abdomen full of bullet wounds, said she and her date were dressed as Scarface. As she reached to say hello to Midler, she spilled a sizable amount of “coke” all over the Waldorf’s pristine carpet. Midler laughed. No one bothered to clean it up.
Foodievents
Today: Better Cooking Through ChemistryShirley Corriher, a former research biochemist at the Vanderbilt Medical School, kicks off a series of classes on “The Science of Cooking” tonight at 7 World Trade Center. Science is the next big thing in the food world, we think: More and more people are becoming interested in why things burn, turn weird colors, and cook the way they do. On the highest level, they call this sort of thing “molecular gastronomy,” but it’s basically as simple as high-school chemistry. To RSVP, call Alyssa Zahorcak at 212-298-8616 or send an e-mail here.
Subsequent classes include “The Science of Wine,” “The Science of Beer,” “The Science of Taste,” and “The Science of Cheese.”
“Behind the Scenes: The Science of Cooking,” New York Academy of Sciences, 6 p.m. 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., at Barclay St., 40th fl.
Earlier: Spanish Chefs Cook With Dirt, Dazzle Avant-Garde at Weekend Demo