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The Scarsdale InquirerFounded in 1901
VOLUME 90, NUMBER 52 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2012 ONE DOLLAR
Editor’s Notebook
Inside
Hoping fora green buyer.....................8
Lifestyles........................... 4
Obituaries .........................4
Opinions/Letters .............6-7
Edgemont-Hartsdale ............. 8
Arts & Entertainment ...........9
Sports .............................11
Classifieds .................. 12-13
Sandy post-mortemThe Scarsdale Village Board, as a
committee of the whole, continues to review the village’s response to Hur-ricane Sandy and ways it can improve.
The study is divided into sev-eral fact- nding areas. Trustees Bob Steves and David Lee are addressing issues related to personal safety and well-being. Trustees Stacey Brodsky, Bob Harrison and Steves are consider-ing communication issues. The role of the public utilities is being examined by Trustees Kay Eisenman and Jon Mark. Mark and Harrison are also looking at the question of burying utility lines, and Eisenman and Brod-sky are examining whether modi ca-tions to existing village tree laws and policies could mitigate future storm damage.
To date, the committee has re-viewed recommendations of the Ad-visory Council on Technology and the Scarsdale Planning Board, and heard reports from the village police and re chiefs. Once the fact- nding is com-plete, the board will convene public meetings to consider what changes should be adopted going forward.
Holiday scheduleScarsdale Village Hall will close for
the New Year holiday Monday, Dec. 31, at 12:30 p.m. and remain closed through Tuesday, Jan. 1, the national New Year holiday. The library will close Monday, Dec. 31, at 1 p.m. and will be closed Tuesday, Jan. 1.
The sanitation department’s sched-ule will be affected by the holiday. The regular Tuesday trash pickup will be made Wednesday; all other regular trash pickups are unchanged. Com-mingled recyclables will be collected Thursday, Jan. 3, and newspapers Friday, Jan. 4, on the Monday-Thurs-day route. There will be no pickup of bulky trash next week.
The Scarsdale Inquirer of ce will be open Monday, Dec. 31 and closed Tuesday, Jan. 1.
By ILENE NECHAMKIN
As all the world knows, about three-fourths of the village lost power after Hurricane Sandy, and some houses went dark for 11 days. Village life acquired a 20th century feel, with impassible roads, no electricity and, incredibly, no Inter-net. In a report to the Scarsdale Village Board of Trustees dated Nov. 19 and pre-sented to a committee of the whole ear-lier this month, the Technology Advisory Council recommended ways to prepare for the next blow-out without losing 21st century amenities.
The committee suggested moving the village web servers and email server into the “cloud,” or Internet hosting, elimi-
nating any interruptions in service. The idea, though tech-savvy, is unavailable to the village — especially for police de-partment operations — because it would not conform to state and federal privacy restrictions.
But the report makes other more use-ful suggestions. Noting that “the village was extremely proactive through the Blackboard Connect system,” the com-mittee identi ed the real problem as the failure of residents’ telephones. The up-dates and messages the village sent out were not received.
The committee recommended the vil-lage redouble efforts to publicize the emergency noti cation system, so more residents will sign up — and register
multiple telephone numbers and email addresses. It suggested using inserts in water and tax bills, requests in the vil-lage newsletter, cable TV station an-nouncements and banners.
It also suggested using “crowd sourc-ing” as a way for residents to report road closures, trees down and other safety is-sues. (It’s similar to the system used by Wikipedia; an unspeci ed public con-tributes and deletes content to online en-tries, and edits other people’s writing.)
The committee said that mobile de-vices with GPS could be used to report issues like coyotes, downed trees, pot-holes, graf ti and road closings, with police and public works employees up-dating the data base, saying whether the
problem has been addressed, or not.Mayor Miriam Flisser thought the
crowd sourcing “is a very informal sys-tem for critical information,” and some trustees were leery of the system’s accu-racy — and the liability issues.
The village should also consider Twit-ter, the committee said, text messages limited to 128 characters. The mayor could have tweeted that the library has power, for example.
A key advantage of tweeting, the com-mittee said, is “the redundancy of infor-mation dissemination. A single tweet can appear on Twitter, on SMS, on email, posted on Facebook, posted on Linke-dIn, etc.” Many of cials, including the governor and county executive, were
tweeting to the public after the storm. The committee’s most far-reaching
idea was not speci cally technology related — the possibility of Scarsdale running its own electric utility, or con-tracting directing with out-of-state utility crews to supplement Con Ed. Wellesley and Concord, two towns near Boston, have their own utility companies.
Burying utility lines should also be investigated, the committee said, at the cost of $1 million per mile.
And the committee also suggested posting hard paper notes on bulletin boards. “The problem is getting people to know where to look for them and up-dating them.”
The trustees made no promises.
Committee urges better use of technology during storms
Game On considers purchasing Frank’s site
By DEBBIE ANDERS
Game On 365 announced last week that it will abandon the idea of leasing the foreclosed Frank’s Nursery site from the Town of Greenburgh and may instead buy the land on Dobbs Ferry Road outright to build a 94,000-square-foot sports complex. The change in plans comes after area civic associations and the House of Sports — a competing athletic fa-cility in Ardsley — led a lawsuit against the town for violating a county law requiring foreclosed property to be sold and not leased.
The town ignored the lawsuit and posted the Game On proposal as a referendum in the November elec-tion. Two-thirds of the voters supported it even after an environmental report showed carcinogens had seeped into the groundwater beneath the property. Residents near the site have also complained about improper zon-ing, traf c issues and the excessive height of the pro-posed dome.
Town Supervi-sor Paul Feiner al-leged that the goal of the lawsuit was to delay the proj-ect inde nitely. In an email to the In-quirer Wednesday, he said selling the property “is the most practical ap-proach to imple-menting the desire of voters to have an indoor sports facility on Dobbs Ferry Road. The town will gener-ate more than $1.5 million from the sale, and Game On will pay all the taxes and be responsible for the cleanup. And we won’t be tied up in litigation for years.”
In a statement, Game On, based in Tarrytown, said Greenburgh would bene t by receiving reve-nues when the land was sold, rather than have them spread out over the term of a 15-year lease, and that it would “avoid years of legal wrangling that would delay construction.” Of cials from the company said the sale would relieve the town of paying prop-erty taxes as well as the cost of any environmental remediation.
Martin Hewitt, project manager for Game On, said that his company’s efforts with the town will “eliminate a scenario where the property sits unoc-cupied through a long and unnecessary lawsuit.”
Edgemont community activist Bob Bernstein questioned Game On’s motives and said he thought its decision was based more on a lack of money from investors and the expense of the environmen-tal cleanup associated with the lease. “I nd it very dif cult to believe that the town and Game On now
By TODD SLISS
The number 22 has great signi cance for Suzanne Busby. She was 22 years old when she was hired as a recreation supervisor by the Village of Scarsdale in 1990, her rst foray into the profes-sion. And after 22 years working for the village, the last 11 as superintendent of the Scarsdale Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation, Busby is retiring.
Forty-four-year-old Busby’s retire-ment, surprising to many, is of cial once the new year hits, though she will stay on in a part-time capacity to help ease the transition as Scarsdale looks for a replacement through the Civil Ser-vice employment system. Assistant su-
perintendent Jason Marra will serve as the interim superintendent.
Busby’s career in Scarsdale, as a rec-reation supervisor from 1990-93, as as-sistant superintendent, from 1993-2001 — both under then-superintendent Ken Batchelor — and superintendent since 2001, are best summed up in two words: professionalism and pride. Those are both traits she got from her mentor, Batchelor.
“The thing that Ken instilled in me is that this is a profession and I learned from the beginning that if you are pro-fessional in how you deal with people and have good customer service that goes a long way,” Busby said in a re-cent interview. That’s why you will rarely, if ever, see a rec department em-
ployee heading to work in sweats and a T-shirt.
In the beginning Busby learned from Batchelor by running programs that al-ready existed, but she was also given the freedom to test out her own ideas. Some didn’t last, while others have stood the test of time. Over the last 22 years, there isn’t a rec program she hasn’t in uenced.
“She was trained, she was groomed and she was certainly ready to take on the responsibility of running that de-partment,” said assistant village man-ager Steve Pappalardo, who came to Scarsdale in 1987. “She did a fabulous job. She was able to work through the natural changes and evolution of how this community relates to sports and recreation. That changes. Recreation
programs are supposed to be all-inclu-sive. They still are.”
But there was one opportunity Busby felt she was missing due to the morn-ing-to-night, weekday-to-weekend de-mands of her job, and that was spending more time with her 8-year-old twins, Brendan and Kevin. She knew that if she waited until she was 55 to retire, her boys would be college-age and the time would have been lost. Busby is lucky — she has given her best years rst to Scarsdale, and will give her even better years to her family. And the door is cer-tainly not closed for the well-respected, well-connected pro to return to work when and if she wants to.
Busby and her family recently moved
Book study pulls it all together
T H E M Y S T I C A L , M A G I C A L W O R L D O F H U G O C A B R E T
By CARRIE GILPIN
Immersing themselves in a mystical world of art, literature, lm and science, Scarsdale Middle School Cooper 6 students spent ve weeks this fall exploring French silent lms of the early 1920s, the line drawings and story of “The Inven-tion of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick, Martin Scorsese’s lm version of the book, French culture and language, library research into the history, technology and culture of Paris in the 1930s, and literary analysis and theme, book-to-movie adaptations and movie reviews of the book and movie.
Students were engaged in the unit through English, art class, French language classes and library studies. Technology will be added after the new year.
SMS librarian Liz Waltzman’s initial desire for students to study the book and movie prompted her to go to Cooper 6 English teacher Janie Fitzger-
ald two years ago and propose a collaboration. Waltzman knew that Fitzgerald had spent several summers continuing her professional de-velopment at the Jacob Burns Film Center. The two women created a ve-week unit on the book and lm that captivated students and honed their critical and creative thinking skills. The teachers have ne-tuned the unit this year and plan to further deepen it next.
“The Invention of Hugo Cabret” is historical ction written and illustrated by Selznick and published
in 2007 by Scholastic. It is about a 12-year-old orphaned boy living in Paris’s Gare Mont-
parnasse railway station in 1931, where he tends to the station’s clocks. The
533-page book has 284 pictures. Selznick drew the illustrations
with the aid of a magnifying glass, since each original is
only a few inches wide and tall. Continued on page 12
Villlage bids farewell to parks superintendent
Continued on page 3
“She’s very hands-on. She’s always been open to improving things and open to new ideas.”
— Assistant superintendent Jason Marra
“The town will generate more than $1.5 million from the sale, and Game On will pay all the taxes and be responsible for the cleanup.”— Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner
Continued on page 5
Lily Foley presents her group’s analysis of the movie review. Below, illustration by Brian Selznick.
INSET PHOTO SCARSDALE INQUIRER/JIM MACLEAN
PAGE 12/THE SCARSDALE INQUIRER/FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2012
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Selznick himself has described the book as “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a ip book or a movie, but a combina-tion of all these things.” The book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal, the rst nov-el to do so, since the award is for picture books. The book combines elements of text and illustration to evoke the sense of early motion pictures, and uses the real-life lms of Georges Melies, a French illusionist and lmmaker working in the early 1900s, and the French lmmakers, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, as part of its story.
Scorsese developed the book into a 3D movie, “Hugo,” released in 2011. It received wide acclaim, winning ve Os-cars for cinematography, art direction, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing. Last year, Fitzgerald took all her students to see the movie, and this year acquired the lm to show students in class, which took less time out of their day.
The interdisciplinary study was ex-panded to include Sarah Whittington’s French language class and Miriam Freedman-Carmen’s art class. Jeffrey Tuttle’s technology classes will also par-ticipate in the collaborative learning after the new year, with exploration of wind-up toys to augment the portions of the book and movie that feature an automa-ton, a mechanical man who is wound up with a key and then writes with a pen. Hurricane Sandy forced school to close for six days and interrupted much of the unit’s work this fall, especially technol-ogy’s schedule, Fitzgerald said.
Students started the year by writing memoir pieces in English and creating a life events graph that would be used in Freedman-Carmen’s class. They watched a video interview of Selznick, and took notes. Students explored the author’s thought process in researching writing and illustrating the book, com-pleted prereading activities and learned new vocabulary. They read, discussed and analyzed the literary elements of characterization, theme, symbol, fore-shadowing and plot. Selznick’s drawings were used to enrich the discussion of the book, which was read in class. Portions of the written sections of “Hugo” were listened to on audio books. Students used the online program Edmodo to write responses, all of which were vis-ible to classmates and their teachers.
“I loved reading the book and watch-ing the movie,” said Sophie Grippo. “It’s history, fantasy and realism all at the same time.”
Grippo’s mother Phyllis said her daughter enjoyed the unit so much she insisted the family watch the movie to-gether at home.
Further into the unit, students re-viewed presentations created by Waltz-man on the lms of Melies and Lumiere Brothers, Selznick’s book and Scors-ese’s movie. They then spent class
time at “discovery stations,” rotating through four different activities to get background on historical context for the novel. The discovery stations included viewing and analyzing lm clips to teach the history of early cinema; researching the automaton — the mechanical man in the story — at work conducted at Phila-delphia’s Franklin Institute; looking at and analyzing a music video of Melies’s “A Trip to the Moon”; and discovering the magic and illusion of Melies’s short lms.
Sixth-grader Aliza Mehlman said the discovery stations were the thing she re-members most about the unit, and that what she liked the best was comparing the book to Scorsese’s lm.
“I enjoyed this unit,” Mehlman said. “As a grade, we read the book over a course of a few weeks, then watched the movie. I think that this method worked well for all students in sixth-grade Eng-lish, and should be used in the future. I liked it because it gave us time to pro-cess all of the happenings, and re ect together as a class,” she said.
In French class this year, world lan-guage chairman Sarah Whittington ex-panded upon what her colleague Sandra Chan created during the rst year of the Hugo Cabret interdisciplinary unit two years ago. Chan, who now teaches at Scarsdale High School, had created a PowerPoint presentation of “The ABCs of Hugo Cabret” with each of the letters of the alphabet corresponding to French and English words from scenes of the movie or the book. Students continue to use this presentation, and Whittington has added French culture and history to it.
“I like to show them what it was like in Paris in 1931, and that sets the scene for them. We cover the Paris parks, the French Colonial Exposition of 1931, zoos, architecture, the arts, cabaret dance and poetry, cinema, fashion, food and transportation. We discuss the true story of the train crash in the Montparnasse train station, which occurred in 1895 but which Selznick and Scorsese use in the book and movie, set in 1931. Every Par-is train station has a huge clock, and we
look at all of them,” Whittington said.Whittington also had students writ-
ing “imaginings,” putting themselves into the life of Paris in 1931, in cafés or homes. One student created fashion using her own closet contents. Another created a successful café, and named it after her French teacher. “One boy said that when he began to read the book af-ter studying the time period, he could re-ally imagine what Hugo’s city was like,” Whittington said.
Each of Fitzgerald’s four sections of English has a few French students in it, and those students came back to Eng-lish class to present what they learned to the rest of the class, who take Span-ish language. Every student in the grade will take art and technology at some point during the year, and will receive the Hugo Cabret connections in those classes. Fitzgerald sat in on French and art classes with her English students.
In Freedman-Carmen’s art class, stu-dents created pictures for an art memoir with drawings that emulated the artis-tic style of Selznick. “In art, we made vignettes about a vivid experience that had happened in the past,” said Mehl-man. “We drew these memories in the same style as Brian Selznick does; pic-tures that are very small, but express our memory clearly,” she said.
The drawings use the crosshatching technique. Students were assigned to pick a real life event, write several para-graphs about it, use chronological order to show the sequence of the event, and then to create a storyboard illustrating how the student would tell the memoir with pictures. After students nished their work in art class, Fitzgerald hung the students’ artwork on the walls of her classroom and students discussed them in class.
Becca Sklar explained her vignette to her classmates in Fitzgerald’s class Dec. 10, saying “This was a traumatic event when I fell down some stairs when I was small. The rst picture shows me fall-ing, and the second is an overhead view of me on the ground. The next one is a close-up of my face with a tear,” Sklar said.
One of Selznick’s techniques is “big picture” drawing, where he focuses on a small detail such as an eye or thumb. Sklar had used this technique with a close-up drawing of her tear-streaked face.
Sklar explained in an interview with the Inquirer before class that the art classes created the drawings of their individual events using ebony pens to make four small and one larger picture of an event in their lives. They were to incorporate as many lm techniques as possible, just the way lmmakers do with lm, and the way Selznick did in his book.
Students had studied the vocabulary of lm in Fitzgerald’s class, and learned how to read a screenplay. Afterward, they read and analyzed movie reviews in teams, and debated whether or not the movie keeps the spirit of the book alive.
“All of the photographs [taken by Scarsdale Inquirer photographer Jim MacLean for this story] were shot dur-ing our analysis of the movie reviews on the book-to-movie adaptation of ‘Hugo’ that we had been studying as part of our visual literacy unit,” said Fitzgerald.
“The students had already watched the movie and completed their ‘Re ec-tion on The Invention of Hugo Cabret’ and the ‘Book to Movie Adaptation of Hugo’ assignments in which they formed their own value judgments of the movie. There were ve different teams analyz-ing ve movie reviews from ve differ-ent sources. On the blackboard, teams of students wrote their ndings including the ve-star rating the professional mov-ie critic gave the movie, their group’s ve-star rating of the movie review, the evidence the movie critic gave for his or her rating, and whether or not this movie review is a reliable source. Each group member took a turn articulating what was discussed as a team presenting their ndings to the class,” she said.
“Weaving the analysis of literature, visual literacy, art, French and technol-ogy together created rich learning expe-riences that my students will not soon forget, and I cannot wait to teach this unit again next year,” said Fitzgerald.
SCARSDALE INQUIRER/JIM MACLEAN
Caroline Schuh, Nabiha Qadir, Sean Michael and Ian Lerner answer a question about their analysis of the movie review.
Book study pulls it all togetherContinued from page 1
