Edie Windsor

Edie Windsor is used to waiting. Ms. Windsor was engaged for 40 years before her 2007 Canadian wedding to Thea Spyer. The pair waited 30 years to apply to be domestic partners, under a New York City law introduced in the 1990s. Now Ms. Windsor, 83, is waiting for the Supreme Court to decide whether to hear her challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, with a decision expected Monday morning.

Ms. Windsor is requesting a refund of the $363,053 in estate taxes that she paid to the IRS after being left all of Ms. Spyer’s property when she died in 2009. Had the pair been classified as married, Ms. Windsor would have been able to inherit the property shielded from taxes. Instead she was classified as if they had no relation to each other.

Ms. Windsor’s case has the potential to help strike down the definition of marriage in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, where it is defined as between a man and a woman. If she wins, the federal government will recognize the marriages of same sex couples in states where gay marriage is already legal, resolving a currently conflicting definition between the federal and state governments. The district court decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case challenging California’s Proposition 8 that prohibited gay marriage, declared a broader right to gay marriage, but SCOTUS is viewed as more likely to take Windsor.

“I’ve been asked, how would I feel if we win?” said Windsor. “What would that mean? It would mean everything. The beginning of the end of the stigma.”

In October the federal appeals court upheld the lower court’s decision that the law violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, despite an appeal by a group of U.S. House of Representatives conservatives who took up the case after the Department of Justice stopped defending DOMA in 2011.

Because of her age, Ms. Windsor and her legal team had requested the Supreme Court hear the case even before they won in appeals court.

Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Paul Weiss, has been working on the case pro bono along with the American Civil Liberties Union. Ms. Kaplan has pressed to expedite the process due to her client’s age, saying that “she wants to be alive when she wins.”

“I have a lousy heart,” said Ms. Windsor, who has suffered from a series of heart attacks, most recently this spring while walking close to her Greenwich Village home. She also survived emergency open-heart surgery in 1996.

The appeals court issued its decision in three weeks, but the Supreme Court has delayed deciding whether to take any gay marriage case until today’s conference, after the election. It is considering a group of gay marriage cases, including California’s Proposition 8 case.

Ms. Kaplan thinks that the money involved makes the case a good one for the Court. “I think every American gets in their gut what it means to pay a huge tax bill that you wouldn’t have had to pay if it weren’t for this discrimination,” she said, adding that the facts of Ms. Windsor’s life, being part of a decades-long loving relationship through intolerance and Ms. Spyer’s 30-year battle with multiple sclerosis, create a compelling story.

First meeting and quickly falling in love in New York City in 1963, Ms. Windsor and Ms. Spyer became engaged in 1967. The pair spent their time dancing and traveling to places like Africa while splitting time between their Greenwich Village apartment and a home in the Hamptons, the source of their estate taxes.

Though Ms. Windsor had dabbled in the nascent lesbian activism movement after she left IBM in the 1970s, her “real coming out” came after The New York Times announcement of her wedding on May 27, 2007, when she and Ms. Spyer heard received good wishes from one-time bosses and distant childhood neighbors.

The 2009 documentary Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement follows the couple’s relationship up through their Canadian wedding. The film shows Ms. Windsor and Ms. Spyer looking at old personal photographs and sharing their memories. Though she may be blurry on dates, she remembers certain moments, especially those of Ms. Spyer, with Kodachrome clarity.

Ms. Windsor said the court battle “keeps Thea alive for me, very alive.”

After her win in the district court she had two impulses: “I wanted to call Thea, and I wanted to call my mother.”

Even as her health was declining, Ms. Spyer was a great supporter of Ms. Windsor’s efforts on behalf of same-sex marriage. “She loved it,” Ms. Windsor said of her late wife. “Even as she was becoming more crippled and less eager to be out there, she loved it when I was out there.”

The case has made Ms. Windsor a sort of celebrity status in gay circles, said Ms. Kaplan, who walked alongside her in last June’s gay pride parade. “It was like walking with some combination of Mick Jagger and a great politician. It was unbelievable. She’d be walking down the side of the street and people were literally coming out to shake her hand, to kiss her,” Ms. Kaplan said.

For her part, Ms. Windsor seems to take her fame in stride: “I just happen to be an out lesbian who is suing the United States government.”

Revving up for the World Trade Center. (Christopher Brennan)

The press cameras started clicking when the chug of the motorcycle became louder and louder, nearing the room's front entrance. Paul Teutul Jr., the mustachioed and baseball-hatted owner of biker merchandise company Paul Jr. Designs, revved and wobbled his motorcycle through the door up to the speech podium on the first floor of 90 West Street, a dowdy Financial District building not far from the Battery.

Mr. Teutul was soon joined by Governor Andrew Cuomo, World Trade Center contractor Dan Tishman and 9/11 Memorial president Joe Daniels. They all praised the return of the bike to its place in the 9/11 Memorial Visitor Center, which had come under four feet of water one month ago during Hurricane Sandy and had been the chopper’s home since October of last year.

The motorcycle, which includes gold plating and parts modeled after the design of the new World Trader Center buildings, was completely submerged except for a tiny piece of its handlebars. To repair the damage done by the saltwater, Teutul took the bike back to his workshop upstate, from where it made its triumphant return today.

“In many ways this is to me a metaphor for exactly what we’re doing right now," the governor said. "The 9/11 site was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. I saw the water filling the site from every direction imaginable.” He said that New Yorkers recovered and “We come back better than before. This bike is just a perfect symbol and metaphor for that.”

Though a motorcycle is perhaps an odd recovery symbol for a city where the majority of residents don’t own a car, the best way to get to the southern tip of Manhattan until recently may still have been by motorcycle, as PATH trains began running again this morning and some subway stations around Battery Park remain closed. Also, it may be an especially fitting symbol for the governor, as he is an avowed gearhead.

Apart from using an outlaw-style motorcycle as a visualization for the rebuilding of downtown, Mr. Cuomo spent time praising the bike’s artistry to the audience, which was an odd mix of men in suits, men in motorcycle hoodies and press. He repeated that he is a “motorcycle aficionado,” saying that he rode on Thanksgiving because he rides even in the cold.

The governor, who some progressives may associate with the churlish and rogue stereotype of bikers for his refusal to voice definitive support for a Democratic majority in the State Senate, did not straddle the motorcycle, to the disappointment of pretty much everybody. Mr. Cuomo’s lack of staged motorcycle photos differentiates him from his fellow New York pol, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who probably has a smaller collection of refurbished bikes.

Bloomberg wants $19 billion. (NYC Mayor's Office)

As New York continues to grapple with closed subway stations and an overcrowded shelter system following Hurricane Sandy's late October destruction, the City is looking for a little help from its friends in Washington. Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent a letter to members of New York's Congressional delegation today, estimating the damage caused by late October's superstorm at $19 billion in public and private losses.

The Mayor's request to Congress includes a breakdown of the City's losses caused by the storm, including $5.7 billion dollars in lost gross city product and $4.5 billion spent by city agencies in the storm's wake. Mr. Bloomberg wrote that "the city will struggle to recover in the long term unless expedited federal funding is supplied." How much funding? Bloomberg is angling for $9.8 billion in additional money to supplement the $5.4 billion in FEMA assistance and the $3.8 billion dollars of damage that was covered by private insurance. FEMA money does not cover challenges like long-term housing solutions and shoreline restoration.

The number tops Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's post-storm estimate of damage totaling somewhere between $15 billion and $18 billion.

The damage in the greater New York area is expected to be much larger, with Governor Andrew Cuomo saying that he would be asking for at least $30 billion in aid several weeks ago. Governor Cuomo met with members of New York's Congressional Delegation today in Midtown Manhattan to discuss his request for aid.

Read Mayor Bloomberg's letter below:

                                                                                    November 26, 2012

Dear New York Delegation Member:

As you are well aware, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damage to the City of New York, impairing our infrastructure and displacing tens of thousands of people. While the impact of the storm will be felt for some time and the challenges are great, I am confident that the City will rebound and emerge stronger than ever.

Throughout this period the City has worked productively with New York State, and I am hopeful that together with our partners in the federal government, we will be able to secure the necessary resources for a successful recovery. Therefore I am requesting your assistance in securing supplemental and expedited funding for the City of New York.

We estimate total public and private losses to New York City from Sandy to be $19 billion. After subtracting private insurance of $3.8 billion and FEMA reimbursement of $5.4 billion, the net cost to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy will be approximately $9.8 billion. This assumes a FEMA reimbursement rate of 75 percent of covered costs and necessary Congressional appropriations. Federal legislative action will be required to address the budget gap that will result once available FEMA funds and insurance proceeds are drawn down. This funding will be needed to address the significant local expenses that have been and will be incurred, including costs that are ineligible under FEMA such as hazard mitigation, long-term housing solutions, and shoreline restoration and protection.

Initial cost assessments include the following components:

• $4.8 billion in uninsured private losses
• $3.8 billion in insured private losses
• $4.5 billion in losses to and costs incurred by City agencies
• $5.7 billion in lost gross City product
• $0.2 billion for US Army Corps of Engineers

The City will struggle to recover in the long term unless expedited federal funding is supplied. Congress has long funded the response and recovery from natural disasters in supplemental appropriations. In the past decade Congress has authorized supplemental appropriations after hurricanes, floods, and tornados including $120 billion worth of aid in several bills passed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

New York City agencies worked around the clock to implement preparatory measures to mitigate the effects of the storm as well as respond to its aftermath. Because of the sheer impact of destruction, many City agencies are only now beginning to focus on the recovery. For example, the Department of Transportation is estimating $1 billion in incremental costs, including nearly $800 million for street reconstruction alone. Additional federal assistance is required to ensure that the storm costs, currently estimated at $4.5 billion for City agencies, do not compromise the services and operations that New Yorkers rely on the City to provide.

Whether it was a small retail store in Coney Island that lost its inventory in a flood or a restaurant in Staten Island forced to close due to a loss of power, Hurricane Sandy caused an estimated $5.7 billion in lost gross product in the City. These businesses are crucial to the City’s economy and to the communities that rely on their services, and the work of recovery will not be complete until they are back in business.

Four weeks ago, as Sandy was approaching our shores, President Obama committed federal resources to this storm and its recovery. Since then we have worked closely with his Administration on everything from cleanup to temporary housing. With our combined efforts, I am confident that we can secure the funding needed to ensure the swiftest and smartest recovery for New York City. Thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Sincerely,

Michael R. Bloomberg

Mayor

 

Raul Rodriguez of Picture the Homeless. (Christopher Brennan)

The winds of Hurricane Sandy caused massive damage to the New York area when it made landfall at the end of October. But the gusts of the superstorm blew more than just debris, dislodging New Yorkers from their homes and into a constellation of already full shelters. Yet in spite of the issue of overcrowding both before or after the storm, there may actually be large amounts of space to house people in the city.

Hoping to capitalize on the renewed awareness of homelessness and the dire situation in the city's shelters, advocacy group Picture the Homelesss and a number of its allies held a rally Friday morning in Harlem to draw new attention to its regular reports on vacant properties in the city. Picture the Homeless has long argued that landlords across the city have left properties vacant while they wait for property values and rents to rise. The practice, known as warehousing, is legal, but it robs the city of precious living space at the same time.

“If you were able to pull out the money for Sandy, you were able to pull out the money before Sandy,” Raul Rodriguez, an organizer with Picture the Homeless, declared, criticizing the city's failure to capitalize on rundown properties.

Mr. Rodriguez was standing in front of one such building, a boarded-up rowhouse on 129th street between Adam Clayton Powell and Malcolm X boulevards. Supporters, bundled up against the cold morning air, stood behind him and chanted slogans such as “Vacant buildings are a crime, landlords need to do some time."

The vacant building he was standing in front of was owned by the city and was spraypainted with the large letters "H.P.D.," for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the agency responsible for creating low-income housing in the city. Picture the Homeless’s report counted 3,551 vacant buildings with the estimated ability to house 71,707 people and 2,489 vacant lots that could be developed to house 128,873 additional people. Manhattan and Brooklyn had the largest numbers of vacant buildings, with 987 and 1623 respectively.

According to Mr. Rodriguez the group picked this location because of the large number of city-owned buildings in Harlem that could be more easily converted to affordable housing than privately owned buildings or lots. The report’s findings said that 10 percent of vacant property is publicly owned.

The group also contrasted potential rent assistance and affordable housing with the tough reality of the city’s shelter system. Though the event ended up relating little to the problems of those homeless after Hurricane Sandy specifically, Kendall Jackson, a homeless shelter resident and member of Picture the Homeless, said that the $1,800 per month that the FEMA offered to give landlords to house homeless residents was a much better deal for taxpayers than the estimated $3,500 dollars per month that it costs the city to support someone with a shelter.

Mr. Rodriguez, now in his 40s, has been in and out of the shelter system since he was 14. Though currently not living in a shelter, he told The Observer, “Everybody that’s been in the shelter system goes through all the avenues to try to find housing, but all they find is nothing.”

Even before Sandy, the City’s shelter system was overcrowded, prompting Mayor  Bloomberg to open 10 new homeless shelters in recent months. Picture the Homeless says the number of those seeking shelter every night before the storm was between 46,000 and 48,000, including 20,000 children. Add to that the tens of thousands the city predicts may be homeless in the wake of Sandy, and New York is staring down a serious housing crisis.

They're working today. Are you? (Mayor's Office)

While some employees may have off for today’s Veteran’s Day holiday, others have become veterans of the post-Sandy recovery effort.

Along with the traditional New York City school closings, several of the City’s offices were closed on Monday, such as the Department of City Planning and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as might be expected on a federal holiday. But for offices dealing with the ongoing recovery effort from Hurricane Sandy, the holiday was just another day of trying to restore power, heat, and hot water to those still without it, another day to clean up and safeguard New Yorkers ravaged by the storm.

The Office of Emergency Management has been functioning nonstop since before Sandy made landfall two weeks ago, and that goes for today, too. "It's 24 hour shifts around the clock no matter what day it is,” OEM spokeswoman Nancy Greco said. The New York City Housing Authority said in a statement that recovery efforts “are moving forward without regard to the holiday. NYCHA has maintained sufficient frontline staff and contractors to continue recovery efforts without interruption.”

The Department of Sanitation's workers also are working, though they would normally be given the holiday off. Many of New York City's Strongest removing storm debris and catching up on recycle service which resumed yesterday. The Department of Buildings has also continued inspecting buildings on Staten Island with its full force of inspectors in spite of the holiday. Firefighters were at their normal levels of staffing with additional workers aiding the Hurricane Sandy recovery.

Other city departments have returned to normal after working long hours during the immediate Sandy aftermath. The NYPD is allowing any officers and workers who are veterans to take the holiday off of work. Then again, the Police Department does not normally get off for the holiday, so this is mostly business as usual.

The non-holiday extended beyond government offices. Chris Olert, a ConEdison spokesman said that the nature of the utility company means that people are constantly working no matter the day—but today they are working even harder than normal due to the holiday, with almost no one getting off. “Are there 14,000 people here?" Mr. Olert said. "We have 14,000 working at ConEdison. It’s pretty close to that today because of the restoration work.” A spokesperson from the Long Island Power Authority said that LIPA’s workers, including over 10,000 linemen and tree trim crews, were “all hands on deck.”

The extra manpower is necessary as, even two weeks after the original wallop of the storm, thousands remain without power. ConEd announced Monday morning that it was wrapping up power restorations to customers who were not in flooded areas of Brooklyn, Queens,and Staten Island. Some 16,000 ConEd customers are still without power throughout the city.

LIPA reported Monday morning that 28,000 customers outside of flooded areas, mostly in Nassau County, remained without power while 46,300 were powerless in flooded areas of the Rockaways and Nassau and Suffolk counties because of the need to survey flood damage in the buildings.

So maybe in addition to saluting our veterans today, New Yorkers might also want to take a moment to celebrate the heroic efforts of all the city employees who are out there helping us recover. No doubt they've all developed their fair share of war stories.

Guangcheng and Bale. (Michael Stewart/Getty Images)

Standing in a Manhattan event space with cocktails and views of the Hudson, Chen Guangcheng was far removed from the countryside house that confined him for over a year and a half, before he captivated the world in April and May by escaping from house arrest in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, being taken in by the American Embassy in Beijing. Blind since childhood, Mr. Guangcheng climbed and felt his way past the guards posted around his home by the local authorities, who had imprisoned him for 51 months on charges largely considered to have been fabricated, before releasing him to his home. A self-taught, or “barefoot,” lawyer, he had irked the local authorities by legally challenging their unlawful land seizures, treatment of the disabled, pollution and incidents of forced abortions and sterilization to enforce the one-child policy.

The Chinese activist was surrounded by fellow lawyers on Wednesday night, though they were less likely to be from his village than from The Village, where, after some diplomatic tension between the U.S. and China, he now attends NYU Law School as a visiting scholar. Human Rights First, an organization that advocates the government for greater American leadership in fighting for global human rights, honored Mr. Chen at its annual awards dinner, held at Chelsea Piers’ Pier 60. 

After an introduction and interview between Meredith Vieira and HRF President Elisa Massimino, actor Christian Bale presented the award: “He climbed walls. He navigated fields, ditches, woods—journeyed hundreds of miles to make it to the US embassy—all while keeping his shades on. Steve McQueen in The Great Escape has nothing on this man.” Mr. Bale had attempted to visit Mr. Chen with a CNN crew last year but was roughed up and chased away by guards. Meeting him for the first time right before the event, Mr. Bale also spoke the written remarks of Mr. Chen, who wept on the Brit’s shoulder while receiving the award.

The enthusiastic American corporate/pro bono lawyers who made up a large part of the crowd celebrated their rural Chinese counterpart’s award and had already raised $2 million dollars for HRF leading up to the event. NYU Professor Jerry Cohen, an expert on Chinese law who helped bring Mr. Guangcheng to New York was also honored, and executive producer Howard Gordon accepted Human Rights First’s Sidney Lumet award for Integrity in Entertainment for his show, Homeland, which deals with national security and human rights.

However, Mr. Chen’s thoughts in his speech turned away from New York and Hollywood towards the serious situations of individuals in his own homeland. He said, “While we enjoy ourselves tonight many of our friends are missing" and spoke of his nephew, who now faces prosecution for stabbing three men who invaded his home in the aftermath of his uncle’s dramatic escape.

The Observer spoke with Mr. Chen through an interpreter before the event. His voice bubbling with the emotion that would overwhelm him on stage, he spoke of working for his homeland. “Being here is absolutely of the most practical use for China. What I’m studying now is useful for the situation in China.”

Though Mr. Chen is studying abroad as a Chinese citizen with the approval of the government, he may not be able to return to his homeland to continue his activism should the state see him as a threat. “I absolutely would love to return—and I feel like at some point I will go back. But I feel like at that point China will be a different place than it is now,” he said. He had previously been reported as hoping to return to China within several years, but the actions against his family by local authorities may have diminished that possibility.

As China seems more distant, Mr. Chen is taking English classes and adjusting to life in America, including large fundraising dinners with celebrities.

Carlin the kid. (WFMU)

George Carlin, passed on in 2008—he would prefer died—but the celebrated, foul-mouthed comic will live around the corner from where he grew up in the 1940s, the 500 block of 121stStreet in Morningside Heights. After months of disagreement, Community Board 9 voted last week to rename the 400 block of 121st Street after the controversial comedian.

The vote, 25-4 with 3 abstentions, comes after months of disagreement. Perhaps fitting for a man with an album called Class Clown, Carlin is still riling up his Catholic grade school, Corpus Christi, which is attached to Corpus Christi Church on the block between Broadway and Amsterdam that was almost renamed. Rev. Raymond Rafferty, the pastor at the church, had protested naming the street where the school is located after a well-known atheist and opponent of religion.

Speaking with The Observer after the board’s decision, Rev. Rafferty said that the church would not take any action to challenge the renaming of the street at the City Council level, where the community boards’ decisions are almost always honored. The curt Rev. Rafferty said the church is “not actively involved” in the process after compromising with the community board to move the sign to a different block.

Kevin Bartini, a warm-up comedian for The Daily Show, championed the cause of renaming the street and collected 9,000 signatures in support on the Internet. He was quoted in the Coulumbia Spectator as stressing the importance of the neighborhood to Carlin, saying, “He would not be who we know and love today had he grown up somewhere else.” Carlin, forever carrying the stamp of his Catholic upbringing like the red marks on a bad student’s knuckles from whacks with a nun’s ruler, also repeatedly referenced growing up at religious school, though almost always negatively.

Rev. Rafferty had originally rejected a proposal for the street sign to be on the 500 block but on Amsterdam Avenue, which is farther away from the church. He is particularly focused on not having school children see the sign as an approval of their wayward predecessor who found secular success. Noting Carlin’s endorsement of drug use he said, “If I had my own way, I would name nothing after him.”

Co-founders Alex Rowland and Norlin.

The Observer sipped its gin and tonic, watching as groups of middle aged men in tie-less suits mulled over the future of the internet—and their pocketbooks. The event was organized by Alphabird, a San Francisco-based company who is in New York in an effort to reach a mezzanine level of fundraising, and brought in a mish-mash of tech types, investors and start-up hopefuls to the dimly lit back section of The Tippler, a Meatpacking District cocktail bar. And, as expected from a gathering of people intent on profiting from the next viral video explosion, everyone had a lot to say—mainly about themselves. 

The Alphabird team—which has recently gone global by purchasing an Australian company, billing itself as an “audience company”—believes the next big thing is online video advertising.

Joe Abrams, an advisor to Alphabird and the co-founder of Intermix (the company behind MySpace), believes that the two and a half year old Alphabird is getting big at exactly the right time, as he expects advertising dollars to start pouring into websites that can get specified information about their viewers. “It took 20 or 30 years for advertising to say TV is a medium, and you know what? I want to reach a new demographic on TV,” he said, adding that for the Internet, “it’s a much more compressed cycle.”

Chase Norlin received his Wikipedia page for starting the first YouTube, ShareYourWorld.com, in 1996 when Internet connections chugged along steam engines. He cofounded Alphabird and thinks that the advent of broadband will bring video to the forefront of the web. Mr. Norlin sees his company, which recently has upped its employee count to 88, as “a poor man’s Google,” because of its broad-based approach that includes social, content, publishing, tools and mobile sectors.

And this youthful perspective was the toast of the room yesterday evening. The youngest person in the room, seventeen-year-old and Blair Academy boarding school senior Jeremy Conway, continuously attracted the attention of groups of men. Mr. Conway was accompanied by a personal Virgil who also happens to be his mother’s investment banker, Ed Taylor. Mr. Taylor, who handled almost all of Mr. Conway and his business partner/schoolmate Liam Cohen’s questions, explained the project as a collecting place for independent films and webisodes that would launch within 90 days. Mr. Conway said he had received the idea when he was on a date with the “woman of [his] dreams” whose movie had lost funding. Despite the received inspiration we sensed the date was unsuccessful.

The gathering of technology and testosterone did attract some female attention though. As The Observer was leaving, we overheard a trio of made-up twenty-something women saying, “What? Alphabet?” “No, Alphabird,” and “Huh?” before being told what the company was and changing the subject of conversation to “I’m not single. You’re definitely single. You should go over there. Go!”

cbrennan@observer.com

Viola Davis (left) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (Getty Images)

Won’t Back Down, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as a parent and teacher struggling to turn around a failing school, is a movie that clearly wants to say something, even if The Observer had a hard time hearing what they were saying because of chanting protestors.

The film, directed by Daniel Barnz, premiered Sunday night at the Ziegfeld and was attended not only by the cast, but by the New Yorkers for Great Public Schools Coalition, an umbrella group of parents that gathered across the street. The protestors oppose the “parent trigger” laws that inspired the events of the film, through which parents can take over a failing school and possibly turn it into a charter school. Shouting “Move on over corporate takeover,” the group protested the film's financial backers, right-wing billionaires Philip Anschutz (of Walden Media) and Rupert Murdoch (CEO of News Corporation).

Mr. Barnz told The Observer: “The whole movie is about the benefits of protesting. There are many scenes of protesting in the film. I happen to know that what they’re protesting is different from what the movie is actually about. They’re here protesting parent trigger laws and as I explained to you this is not a parent trigger movie.” The film’s fictional law requires both parents and teachers to vote to take over the school.

“You don’t want a movie to feel like it’s an issue thing. You want it to feel like a human drama. I mean Oscar Isaac’s character, his whole narrative is about someone who’s a big union believer and is struggling with that in the course of the movie.”

The film’s stars, wearing grave political faces in addition to red carpet gowns, were ardent about education reform but wary of appearing anti-union. Ms. Gyllenhall said that she came from “the most progressive left. I wouldn’t be allowed to go home for Thanksgiving if I made an anti-union movie.”

When asked by The Observer about the film’s goals, Lance Reddick, who plays Ms. Davis’s husband, said, “I don’t know. I just know that things need to change. The other thing is I’m not really about gutting teachers unions because I’m a member of three unions and I wouldn’t be able to make a living if I wasn’t.”

Mr. Barnz, Ms. Davis, Ms. Gyllenhaal, and Rosie Perez also sat down earlier in the day at the Education Nation Summit to speak with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner. The summit showed a few of the film’s tear-jerking scenes between real-life panels discussing education reform.

Amy Adams (Getty Images)

The stars of The Master, the new movie that is not about Scientology but may actually be about Scientology, were not very forthcoming about the film’s possible religious inspiration.

Amy Adams, when asked if she researched the religion for her role in the film, said, “No, I actually read Dianetics a long time ago because my mother had the book lying around the house” before saying, “I am not talking anymore about Scientology.”

Ms. Adams talked to the Observer Tuesday night at the Ziegfeld Theatre screening of The Master, which Paul Thomas Anderson wrote and directed. Mr. Anderson was originally scheduled to be at the New York premiere organized by the Weinstein Company but was absent on the red carpet.

The film, which focuses on the relationship between a returning World War II sailor (Joaquin Phoenix) and a charming cult leader (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), swept the Venice Film Festival awards and has generated extra buzz due to its similarities with the beginnings of Scientology.

Madisen Beaty, who plays Mr. Phoenix’s love interest in the film, was mum on all topics alternative religion, though not shy in her appreciation for Fashion Week.

At least one red carpet walker who was not involved with the film shared his thoughts on film’s storyline analogy. Thomas Matthews, the Kennedy-dating son of MSNBC host Chris Matthews and actor on HBO’s The Newsroom had read the L. Ron Hubbard’s introduction to the religion and said “I think there was a lot of really good stuff about positive attitude, about presenting yourself to other people.” When asked about Scientologists in Hollywood Mr. Matthews said, “… I don’t know who is and isn’t. I love Elizabeth Moss though. I think she’s great in Mad Men.”