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February 1, 1999 Issue
"I was once asked to bring a lawsuit against outdoor cafés. I like outdoor cafés. It gives the city a European feel. That's where I part company with my brother and sister activists." GROUND RULES: Not everything in every issue appears on our website. If it is available online, the article title appears below as acolored, underlined "hot link," which you can click on to read the full text; ifthe article title below is black, the full text of the article is notavailable online. For more information on getting copies or reprints of articlesthat aren't on our web site, call New York Magazine's Information ServicesDepartment at 212-508-0755.
--Attorney Jack Lester, from "Neighbors Unite!"
| FEATURES Neighbor's Unite BY SASHA ABRAMSKY The streets are clean, quiet, crime-free -- and residents are determined to keep them that way, nixing clubs, grocery stores, movie theaters, even toy stores. How a growing army of quality-of-life activists and a cadre of gadfly lawyers is battling commercial enterprises of every stripe. Brickbats and Bonbons Gael Greene and John Simon have been calling them as they see 'em since New York's earliest days. Over lunch at The Four Seasons, they dish three decades of dining, drama, and other indiscretions. Alma Matter Physicist Brian Greene's lectures on string theory are the hottest ticket on the Columbia campus, and his book The Elegant Universe is compulsively readable. Explaining the seductively named "Theory of Everything" in comprehensible terms, Greene threatens to do for string theory what Stephen Hawking did for black holes. Did we say the professor's also very cute? Cover Me NYPD Blue's sexiest plainclothes detective (Kim Delaney, not Rick Schroder) rounds up some not-so-usual suspects for a lineup of simple, effortlessly chic spring clothes. GOTHAM
| DEPARTMENTS The National Interest BY MICHAEL TOMASKY At the GOP meltdown, dumb politics and empty seats Media Moral minority: Maureen Dowd is angry with just about everybody Restaurants L-Ray's languid, Tex-Mex charms MARKETPLACE Instant gratification: a tiny camera, the softest slippers Smart City Fee-for-all: How to find a bank that won't cost you money Sales & Bargains Rx for broken heels and distressed bags; pre-loved wedding dresses THE ARTS In Paradise, Melanie Griffith plays a fine foil to James Woods | Theater BY JOHN SIMON No steam, no heat in Fosse; no play in Fugard's Captain's Tiger Art Ray Johnson: A major artist who worked in a minor key Classical Music Another Gershwin concert looks at contemporaries Vernon Duke, Oscar Levant, and Maurice Ravel Pop Music Ani DiFranco's music finally catches up with her fan base CUE Intelligencer Classifieds |