BAM Artist Circle Chairs Chuck Nathan and Alisa Levin with John Turturro and wife Katherine Borowitz.

As John Turturro approached the head table, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Karen Brooks Hopkins, rose from her seat. “I present to you the consul general of Sicily,” she said in jest, introducing the actor to her tablemates, a group that included South African Consul General George Monyemangene, his wife, Louise Monyemangene, and Mr. Turturro’s better half, Katherine Borowitz.

It was a frigid night, smack in the middle of the city’s latest cold snap. Inside the grand foyer of the Peter Jay Sharp Building, however, the atmosphere was warm and bubbly. Many had braved the elements for BAM’s 2013 Theater Benefit, an evening honoring renowned British theater and film director Peter Brook and celebrating the U.S. premiere of his latest (quite beautiful) production, The Suit.

For his part, Mr. Turturro was very late. He plopped down directly to Shindigger’s right with a clownish wave, just in time for the main course, having already missed a delicious vegan spiced butternut squash and sweet banana soup.

A server rushed to Mr. Turturro’s side. “Are you vegetarian?”

“Um, no!” he shouted, reaching for a hefty portion of red-wine-marinated beef tenderloin over a less-hefty portion of saffron couscous, quickly polishing his plate clean. For a moment, Shindigger was concerned as the actor began eyeing the Mikado yellow floral arrangements. Would he devour those as well? No. He just wanted to wave an approving fork at the bouquet, it seemed.

Turning then to our left, Shindigger wondered if Mrs. Monyemangene was accustomed to sitting so far from her husband, who was positioned at the table’s opposite end.

“Oh, yes, all the time,” she sighed, confessing that this was her first BAM experience. Shindigger assured her that she was in for a treat and even convinced her to trade in a chalice of chenin blanc for the merlot we were drinking.

“Indaba wine is very popular in South Africa,” she explained.

Be that as it may, the merlot was delightfully jammy and eased our still-frostbitten soul; we refilled frequently. Ms. Hopkins soon moved to the podium and, standing beside BAM executive producer Joseph V. Melillo, addressed the room.

We spotted the artist Francesco Clemente, his wife, Alba Clemente, and former dance and theater manager Harvey Lichtenstein—namesake of the glorious Harvey Theater, where we would soon be seeing The Suit.

Eventually, man of the evening Peter Brook took the stage: “Theater is where the past and present meet,” the legend said. “That is something that can only happen in theater. That’s the strange nature of theater.”

When dinner concluded, guests were asked to enjoy dessert and then make haste. Hot beverages were wisely dished out in to-go cups. Before exiting, Shindigger struck up a conversation with Mr. Turturro.

“I live in the neighborhood and have been coming to BAM—” but that was all he could mutter before an elderly patron barged in.

“You’re too young for that part!”

The man, whose name we did not catch, was referring to Mr. Turturro’s upcoming turn as Halvard Solness in Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, to be performed at BAM this spring.

“Actually, he’s supposed to be my age,” Mr. Turturro responded. “They always cast him a little bit older.”

“Oh, I remember it as Oskar Homolka,” the well-heeled Ibsen fan continued, recalling the late Austrian actor who played the part in a 1957 TV dramatization.

“Nah, it’s supposed to be like a guy 45 to 50,” said Mr. Turturro, now age 55.

“Really!? Feeling that old? Feeling that life is over?”

“Nice to see you,” Mr. Turturro said, turning back to us with a subtle eye-roll.

“I’ve been coming here since I first saw The Gospel at Colonus. I’ve worked here; I’m a supporter and subscriber,” he continued. “I’m looking forward to the performance.”

With that, Shindigger exchanged a glass of merlot for black coffee and headed toward the Harvey Theater beside Consul General Monyemangene.

“We want to really congratulate the cast and producers of The Suit—it’s a fitting honor,” Mr. Monyemangene told Shindigger before boarding a shuttle that was transporting guests the several blocks to the theater to avoid the arctic chill.

After watching the powerful apartheid-era drama, Shindigger caught up with its radiant star, Nonhlanhla Kheswa, at a VIP cast reception in the lobby of the Harvey Theater. “Being welcomed so warmly by everyone has been so rewarding. I’m not a Brooklynite!” she said.

(Knowing that the Soweto native started her career at age 16 in Broadway’s The Lion King, and overflowing with merlot at this point, Shindigger must admit coming dangerously close to asking Ms. Kheswa if she didn’t think we should audition for the role of Simba. But she continued the conversation, mercifully saving us the embarrassment.)

“I like everything about The Suit, mostly, but I love working with Peter Brook. He’s so insightful, so wise,” she said, standing alongside her boyfriend, whom she met at a local restaurant.

“If I could just stay in Brooklyn and not have to live in the city, I would,” she confessed. “I really dislike being in the city.” Judging from the recent cultural explosion in the area surrounding BAM, she may just get her wish.

The Central Park Conservancy fundraiser this summer.

Last month, more than 700 tuxedoed and ball-gowned revelers gathered in the Museum of Natural History’s Milstein Hall of Ocean Life for the annual S.L.E. Lupus Foundation gala. As the attendees feasted on black American caviar, Margaret Dowd, the foundation’s executive director, was marveling at something else: the size of the crowd.

The foundation had not seen so many people at its annual gala since 2007. “It’s been very tough the last few years, and we had to cut expenses drastically,” she said. “In 2009, many of our donors said, ‘Our portfolios were really harmed and we have to cut our donations, but we’ll be back.’ And they did come back. This year has been much, much better.”

The benefit raised $2.5 million—a significant jump from the $2.2 million raised at last year’s. Things have not returned to the 2007 level, when the gala’s $3.2 million haul set a national record, which has yet to be topped, for lupus research funds collected at a single event, but the foundation is on track to raise 10 to 12 percent more this year than the previous one. Ms. Dowd added that the nonprofit’s spring luncheon saw such a dramatic spike in attendance this year—a 30 percent increase—that next year they plan to hold it in the Plaza.

In the months after Lehman Brothers collapsed, when it looked like the country’s financial system might fall along with it, the city’s nonprofits, long buoyed by Wall Street successes, learned that they would also share in its misfortunes. Staffs were sheared, budgets slashed, plans delayed, visions clouded. Charitable giving fell by 15.2 percent in 2008 and 2009, according to Giving USA, the annual tally of American philanthropy.

During the depths of the recession, flashy parties, even if they were for a good cause, could seem a little déclassé. Making a show of how much money one had to give away called attention to one’s ridiculously good fortune, even though the recession left nonprofits more in need than they ever had been before.

“We have donors who, like many others in New York, are so wealthy that if they never saw another nickel of earned income it wouldn’t matter. They have more than they could ever spend,” said the head of a nonprofit who asked not to be identified. “For the people who really have the means, what you really want is for those people to give more and not less in tough economic times. And yet they were cutting back.”

From 2007 to 2009, giving by people with incomes of $200,000 or more dropped by $31 billion. Now, for the first time since the recession struck, a number of New York nonprofits say that 2012 looks like the year when the tide has finally turned. Gifts are more generous, long-dormant donors are reappearing and philanthropists are once again crowding cheek-by-jowl at charity galas, dining and dancing with checkbooks in hand.

On Monday afternoon, New York real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman announced a $200 million gift to Columbia University to study brain behavior. The gift is twice the size of the $100 million donation that hedge fund billionaire John A. Paulson made to the Central Park Conservancy this October—the largest ever to a New York City park. The previous record had been set just a few months before, in April, when amateur track cyclist Joshua P. Rechnitz pledged $40 million to Brooklyn Bridge Park to fund a field house and a velodrome with seating for 1,200 spectators. But even in April, $40 million paled in comparison to the $60 million gift David Koch made in February to redo the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue plaza.

The Central Park Conservancy was already on the path to one of its best years in a long time. Not only have smaller donations grown in 2012, but so has the pool of people making them; like many agencies, the conservancy has been recruiting younger philanthropists via social media and special events.

Conservancy spokesperson Dena Libner called 2012 a “strong year,” but, like virtually all the other nonprofits we spoke with for this story, she warned that the official tally would have to wait until 2013. Typically, the last few weeks of the year are among the busiest in the fund-raising world, with many racking up 25 to 30 percent of all annual funding during the holidays.

The ACRIA fundraiser.

At its annual dinner this November, the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America hosted the largest crowd it’s had in years—275 guests, up by about 70 from the previous year. The low point for the nonprofit’s major fund-raiser came in 2008, when the dinner drew only 170 people.
“We certainly have donors who make a good living by general American standards, but they’re upper middle class by New York standards,” said executive director Dan Tietz. “For them, in bad economic conditions, they think twice about whether they should buy a ticket or not.”
Mr. Tietz explained that this year, he and several other colleagues have noticed that the hesitation is gone—charity event attendance seems to be up across the board. “Now, we’re definitely seeing a willingness to give.”

Also tracking about 25 percent ahead of last year is the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, according to foundation president Myra Biblowit. She noted that the November 2011 ovarian cancer death of Evelyn Lauder, the businesswoman and socialite, may have encouraged people to give. “People also adored and revered Evelyn Lauder. Her passing was a huge loss to the world. I think people want to pay tribute to a remarkable person.”

Among performing arts groups, BAM, Lincoln Center and the Atlantic Theater Company are all reporting 2012 increases in fund-raising, an impressive feat, given that both Lincoln Center and the Atlantic Theater Company are also in the midst of capital campaigns.

BAM president Karen Brooks Hopkins noted that the academy has seen some major gifts this year, largely in conjunction with its 150th anniversary. Chase sponsored the anniversary with a gift of $1.95 million over two years, the Irene Diamond Fund contributed $5 million, McGarryBowen gave an in-kind contribution for the “BAM and Then It Hits You” campaign and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation coughed up another $1 million.

The Atlantic Theater Company has seen a 40 percent increase in gifts from individuals this year over the same period last year. As new donations have increased only 5 percent, the 40 percent increase is coming predominantly from larger gifts from renewing supporters.
Walter Sweet, the vice president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, told The Observer that while he has seen a bump in charitable giving among his clients, they’re not necessarily giving in the same way they once did.

Donors are no longer content to blithely hand out signed checks and continue on their way. Now they want to see results, to know how their money is being used, to feel actively involved. “They want impact,” Mr. Sweet said.

It’s worth noting that not all groups have been so lucky—the Metropolitan Opera is preparing to sell bonds for the first time since its 1883 founding to cover operating losses.

What’s more, outside of the New York area, nonprofits have had a more mixed record of success. Although the 400 most successful charities nationwide saw 7.5 percent growth in 2011, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, they expect flat growth this year, along with donations from some of the 166 largest companies in the United States, the majority of which said that they expect to keep their philanthropy budgets flat this year (although some, like Starbucks, increased their giving by 197 percent).

Kathleen McCarthy, the founding director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at The CUNY Graduate Center, said that the disparate performance between nonprofits either based in New York or with strong New York connections and the rest of the country boils down to the wealth gap.

“I think what you’re seeing may be a phenomenon of the social gulf,” said Ms. McCarthy. “The rich are giving more, and they’re giving more now because now is when they can get the tax break.”
The end of the year is generally a time when wealthy individuals take account of their tax situations, but this year in particular the looming fiscal cliff and less favorable tax breaks for the wealthy have encouraged potential donors to give now rather than later. One of President Obama’s proposals would drop the tax break that households earning more than $250,000 can get for their charitable gifts from 35 to 28 percent.

Lauren Katzowitz Shenfield, who leads Philanthropy Advisors, an organization that advises individual, corporate and foundation philanthropists, including heavy-hitters like Exxon Corporation and the Ford Foundation, told The Observer that the likelihood of a smaller tax exemption is fueling a flurry of year-end donations.

Hurricane Sandy, of course, is the wild card of 2012. David Saltzman, the executive director of the Robin Hood Foundation, said that the antipoverty group will be holding its breath these next few weeks to see if holiday giving is as strong as it usually is.

“Our fear is that people who have been so generous giving to Sandy relief might not be able to donate to poverty relief. Our hope is that they can dig a little deeper,” said Mr. Saltzman. “I think that people are remarkably generous when they know they can make a difference, and this is a year where people can make a difference.”

The HOPE Program, another antipoverty initiative, also admitted that Sandy had left it a little bit nervous about holiday giving, but at the moment, the nonprofit is about 20 percent ahead of schedule.

Sandy proved a more direct challenge for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a nonprofit that provides services to LGBT youth. Its annual gala was scheduled for October 29, the day the hurricane hit. It had to be canceled and replaced later with a more modest cocktail reception. But despite the setback, Hetrick-Martin is still on schedule to meet its fund-raising goal this year.

Glenn Yabu and George Pushelberg of international design firm Yabu Pushelberg were two of the donors who stepped up to help make up the difference, sponsoring an emergency initiative that raised more than $70,000.

“While our personal donations reflect increasing support as the agency’s needs have increased this year, we also looked to other ways to reach even further,” they wrote in a joint e-mail to The Observer. “Sometimes it’s making a donation directly to your charity of choice, and sometimes it’s working with the development staff on creative ways to boost donations.”

kvelsey@observer.com

"Last night, while my favorite human Gary Shteyngart was dripping gherkin juice and pickled cod balls onto his green polyester shirt, I noticed a tear trickling down his face," wrote Felix the dachsund, in remarkably similar prose to his human owner. "I peered over his slumped shoulder and saw on the interwebs that in a couple weeks, some famous people are gathering at BAM to make fun of him."

Mr. Shteyngart is known for his willingness to blurb books, and he is not shy about drumming up publicity for his books and events. If he weren't so funny and clever in his tactics, we might take issue with it. But he is.

The full letter from Felix below:

Dear BAM,

Last night, while my favorite human Gary Shteyngart was dripping gherkin juice and pickled cod balls onto his green polyester shirt, I noticed a tear trickling down his face. I peered over his slumped shoulder and saw on the interwebs that in a couple weeks, some famous people are gathering at BAM to make fun of him. Not only that, you monsters are actually selling tickets to the public for this public humiliation of my friend. BAM staffers, I say to you: this small, furry excuse of a human being already suffers terrible asthma, an overabundance of gnarled body hair, and bouts of midnight gas. He has trouble buttoning his own shirts, doesn’t own a comb, and bribes his own MFA students to write his books. His hardship started years ago, first as a young Russian émigré tortured at Hebrew School, when he arrived in America speaking no English with a mere two shirts and a bear coat, and then again at New York City’s Stuyvesant High School, when his fellow immigrant teens would sabotage his Bunsen burner to get ahead. He struggled to make money in his 20s by writing grants for programs like “Torah Tots,” attempting to secure foundation money for the important purpose of introducing 3-year-olds to the murders and rapes of the Old Testament. In short I say to you, hasn’t Gary suffered enough? Why must you persecute him more? And also will this be live streamed on the web, so I can watch from the comforts of my luxury dog crate?

Sincerely,
Felix the Dachshund

Part of the problem was the logistics of getting a live studio audience when the subways, tunnels and bridges close and people are being urged to stay home.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert both cancelled Monday night shows. David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon are both scheduled for the show to go on (as of this afternoon), although Letterman moved up the time of the taping to 3:30. Decisions about tomorrow's shows haven't yet been made.

Looks like we may have to resort to Netflix tomorrow--assuming we still have power.

The sun rises over Downtown Brooklyn. (DBP)

At the ready. (Andrew Hill/OSC)

When Tucker Reed finally stepped up to the lectern inside the new BAM Fisher Building on a Thursday morning at the end of July, the crowd could barely handle any more news about just how stupendous Downtown Brooklyn was, is and will be.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, entering her fourth decade at BAM, welcomed the crowd into the brightly lit practice space on the third floor of the two-month-old red brick theater, tucked in behind BAM’s original performance hall. This would be the linchpin of the latest, greatest cultural district in the city. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn borough president and cheerleader-in-chief for 11 years now, warmed up the crowd with his typical act. "Everywhere you look, things are looking up in Downtown Brooklyn," he barked. This was, is, will be the center of the universe.

Next came State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose grandmother grew up on Albany Street in Crown Heights. He had made sure to wear his Brooklyn lapel pin, a gift Mr. Markowitz bestows on everyone he meets. Though he was a Long Island guy, Mr. DiNapoli was an adopted son of this former outer borough, at least for the day, for the good news he was bringing: economic growth in Downtown Brooklyn had outpaced the rest of the city over the past decade, according to a new report prepared by the comptroller’s office. This was, is, will be an economic powerhouse.

On the same streets where Jay-Z had once slung crack (and would soon be headlining the Barclays Center he ostensibly helped build), legitimate businesses had replaced illicit ones, and they were thriving. Thousands of new residents had moved in, filling the striking and unspectacular condo-turned-rental-in-the-downturn towers along Flatbush Avenue. National brands including H&M, Sephora, Target and Shake Shack were replacing the pawn shops and cellphone outlets on the Fulton Mall.

It’s not your bubbe’s Brooklyn anymore. It’s Tucker Reed’s.

Having just turned 32, Mr. Reed has been making a name for himself since the middle of the last decade, when he launched the DUMBO Business Improvement District (BID). The event at BAM was his big coming out. Since January, Mr. Reed has run the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a BID of BIDs, overseeing the MetroTech office park, Fulton Mall and the Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn corridor, an L-shaped spine of older office buildings, mostly filled with government agencies and legal firms. It is the city’s third-largest business district, after Midtown and Lower Manhattan, but it is still trying to define its identity after decades of fitful, relentless redefinition and rebirth.

On this day, Mr. Reed was the man with the plan. After a little over six months on the job, he had developed a strategic framework for Downtown Brooklyn, the first major vision statement since the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning of 22 blocks along Flatbush Avenue in 2004. The partnership, with its $6 million annual budget, was created in part to oversee the development on the horizon

“Just look out this window and you can see the changes to the built environment,” he said, gesturing through the floor-to-ceiling glass. “If the first phase of the partnership was focused on facilitating the execution of public-private projects, the next phase will be on synthesizing these disparate investments into a Downtown Brooklyn mosaic.” (He has a soft spot for management speak.)

Mr. Reed smiled his broad, boyish grin, his handsome blue eyes glinting. He wore a navy suit that barely contained his impressive bulk, still in good shape a decade after his time as a defensive end ended with two torn ACLs. Under this was a white shirt, pink houndstooth tie and a crimson pocket square with blue trim. Put together, dressed to impress.

It is hard to believe that three years earlier, Mr. Reed, with his quick smile and charming character, was instead donning a flak jacket and fatigues every day to go to work. It was not the streets of Brooklyn but Baghdad he was rebuilding as an adviser for the State Department. He had traded in a war zone for lofts and brownstones. Still, the job was basically the same, except for the IEDs.

Tucker Reed grew up in Newtown, Conn., trading on both his physical and mental intelligence. When not practicing his blitz on a tackling dummy, he was practicing for the coming season’s play. Junior year, he played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

Newtown is a town of about 25,000 just outside of Danbury, where Mr. Reed spent most of his time growing up except for regular trips down to Manhattan to catch a Giants game or go to the theater or a museum. It was a journey his 94-year-old grandfather made seven days a week until about six months ago, traveling to the Illustration House, a small Chelsea gallery that he ran for the past four decades with Mr. Reed’s uncle. It was through him, and a Brooklyn-bred grandmother “who never left the city too far behind” that Mr. Reed gained much of his appreciation for New York and for the arts.

“It makes for a richer life a more well-rounded experience,” Mr. Reed said. “I never deluded myself beyond the karaoke floor that I’d have a future in the arts or entertainment, but it certainly informs a bunch of the fun work I get to do now with cultural organizations.”

Mr. Reed was raised by his mother, a fact he credits with stoking his self-reliant spirit. The family lived what he calls a modest, working-class life, which drove Mr. Reed to overachieve in his pursuits but also to want to give back. “You like to think that if you are a good person, and you are trying to do the right thing, that there are people out there to help, and for government to help as well,” he said. “That wasn’t always my experience, so I’d like to think that I have a responsibility to improve people’s lives.”

He decided to attend nearby Wesleyan, which, in addition to all the artsy kids from afar there to start electronica bands and celebrate Zonker Harris Day, attracts a number of locals looking for a good school (which is not to say that Mr. Reed shied away from the more-than-occasional drink, as a former member of the football team, who now works at a financial firm in Downtown Brooklyn, explained).

Mr. Reed not only played football to help pay his way through school but also joined the National Guard. After those two torn ACLs in sophomore year, Mr. Reed was given a medical discharge, a stroke of bad luck that may well have saved his life—Mr. Reed graduated in 2002, which would have almost certainly have put him on the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Still, Mr. Reed found time for his other pursuits, taking a role in the student government and acting in, among other pieces, 7 Minutes in Heaven, the first original piece by his dormmate Lin-Manuel Miranda, who later achieved fame with In the Heights. During the summers, he ran an ice cream shop on an island off the coast of Maine with another college buddy.

After graduating with a bachelors degree in government, Mr. Reed spent a year on the island teaching high school social studies while also making time to travel to India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The following year, Mr. Reed arrived in New York on a Coro public service fellowship, which took him through a number of internships at City Hall and the community lending division at JPMorgan. In 2004, Mr. Reed officially joined the Bloomberg administration in the Department of Small Business Services. He spent a little over a year there integrating two older departments that had now been combined into one while also focusing on expanding and reforming the Workforce1 career centers.

It was Rob Walsh, commissioner of the department, who recommended Mr. Reed to Jed Walentas, the DUMBO scion and up-and-comer in his own right taking over his father’s empire in DUMBO. The Bloomberg administration had become staunch advocates of businesses improvements districts—their number has nearly doubled in the past decade—and Mr. Reed was tapped to launch this latest effort. “He has this rare understanding of both the public and private sector and how to get them to work together,” Commissioner Walsh said.

Mr. Reed used to jog over the Brooklyn Bridge many mornings from his apartment in Carroll Gardens, and he was always struck by how many tourists would walk over from Manhattan and immediately turn back around. “My goal was to put DUMBO on the map,” Mr. Reed said. In the span of two years he had, converting a nonexistent advocacy group into one of the foremost BIDs in town.

He built the first pedestrian plaza in the city, at Pearl Street, opened the archway under the anchorage to the Manhattan Bridge, formerly a DOT storage lot, and launched a program to install free wifi in the neighborhood. He presided over a landmarking of DUMBO that preserved its character, then pivoted to a rezoning that carved out room for new development.

“He just has an instinctual understanding of how urban spaces work,” Mr. Walentas said. Meanwhile, a tech sector blossomed and a residential market boomed into the poshest in the borough.

For all the good Mr. Reed had done in the city in his five years here, he still had a longing for greater fulfilment. “I felt like everything that was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan was really the challenge of my generation, and I wanted to be a part of that in some way,” Mr. Reed said. He found a posting for an adviser to a provincial reconstruction team, a small group of 100 civilian and military experts assigned to Division Headquarters in Baghdad.

Mr. Reed arrived in Iraq in May 2008. After five years of war, the situation on the banks of the Tigris was unspeakably worse than along the East River, yet both had undergone a considerable building boom that now needed managing.

“The mandate was, get as many projects built as possible, and let's really start to demonstrate that the tide was turning and and conditions were improving,” Mr. Reed said. “But it was like community development gone wild.” He said it was common for a local battalion commander to be out on patrol, run into a sheikh, ask him what they needed, and voila, a school or hospital would materialize out of nowhere—with no one to run or even necessarily fill it. This not only created underutilized resources but a new vulnerable infrastructure that if not defended and put into could use could become a nest for insurgents.

“There was a lot of the best intentions that were meeting just a kind of discoordinated effort, and not through the fault of anyone specifically, but, I think, through the fault of being in a war zone,” Mr. Reed said. It was a year after the military surge, and things had begun to improve, but untold amounts of work remained to be done. Mr. Reed makes mention of 18- to 20-hour workdays.

“He’s kind and generous, but holds people accountable for their actions,” Lou Ann Linehan, a diplomat in the Basra consulate who was Mr. Reed’s superior in Baghdad, said in an email. “He fills up the room with his personality. He does not suffer fools.”

One of his fondest projects—something only a New Yorker could cop to—was helping to rebuild the sanitation network. “You’re working on trying to restore the most basic level of service where you’re training people to follow a set route, come at a dependable time each day to build the trust of the customer so they know if I go and put my garbage out at 5 o’clock it’s going to be picked at 5 o’clock, and that’s the most basic level of service because the place had evolved into complete chaos,” Mr. Reed recalled. “People aren’t really caring about garbage when you’re worrying about if you’re going to get blown up.” Yet that is part of the reason regular trash removal was so important—the ubiquitous piles of garbage were a popular hiding place for IEDs.

This was a matter of personal import, as well, since Mr. Reed was venturing out into these same streets three to four times a week from the relative safety of the Green Zone. In talking about his time in Iraq, Mr. Reed is careful to be matter-of-fact, not wanting to sound boastful or self-important. His posting is something he felt obligated to do, but it was also just another job to do and do right. “There was the physical danger aspect to it, which, when you're in the situation, you kind of push to the back of your mind, because if you don't, it will drive you crazy,” Mr. Reed said of the challenges of working in a war zone.

When he got homesick, he would watch Rick Burns's New York documentary, and it helped inform his view of the city when he returned. “I watched the whole series while I was over there again, there is some quote in there from Fitzgerald talking about how New York burns with all the effervescence of the sun,” he said. “With all that ligh,t how could you not want to be a part of it?”

After only six months, Mr. Reed had been promoted from an adviser to chief of staff, but after seven more, he found himself exhausted. It was time to return home to the bright lights.

The day after his big announcement, a clear, muggy Friday morning, Tucker Reed was giving a tour of his downtown domain, strolling through the leafy confines of the MetroTech Plaza, having just walked over from the noisy scene on the Fulton Mall. The two are closer than even locals realize, and in many ways they remain worlds apart, though upscale developments on both sides—a French bistro recently opened in MetroTech—draw them ever closer. Mr. Reed considers this his top priority.

“For me, one of the big things is the Downtown Brooklyn experience,” he said. “We want to create a destination, with everything so close together, but it can be very confusing since there’s not a grid, there’s no easy path.” Everything from smartphone apps to digital kiosks is in the works.

After returning from Iraq, Mr. Reed spent a few wayward months figuring out exactly what to do with himself. He moved into his girlfriend’s Midtown studio—she had departed their Carroll Gardens apartment when he headed overseas—and mostly spent his time decompressing, visiting with family and friends and traveling around the country. He passed the foreign service exam and considered moving to Washington, but eventually took his old friend Jed Walentas up on an offer to join Two Trees.

He spent two years as a project manager working on everything from the new Mercedes House project on the Far West Side to liaising with City Hall and managing philanthropic efforts on behalf of the Walentases. Much as he enjoyed his work in the private sector, he jumped at the opportunity to take over the partnership when Joe Chan, its founding director, stepped down last fall.

“I had met him during a tour with Jed once, and I remember being impressed, but when he came in for an interview for the job, we knew immediately he was our guy,” Forest City Ratner executive vice president MaryAnne Gilmartin said. “His resume just blew us away.

It was a tumultuous time at the BID, where competing interests among the areas long-time developers often ran up against each other. On top of that, a scathing report from City Comptroller John Liu charged the partnership with mismanagement of funds, spending lavishly on executives while local needs were ignored.

Much as he did in Iraq, Mr. Reed focused on finding common ground among the competing parties, stressing their shared interests: let’s capitalize on the 56,000 college students, more than in Cambridge; better wayfinding, connectivity and open space are key; tech, tech, tech. He made of point of meeting with all 120 partnership members, not just the big shots on the board, though he has also conscripted them into monthly one-on-ones.

If there are any skeptics, they are among the groups that have long been critical of the partnership, most notably Families United for Racial and Economic Equality. Mr. Reed met the group within the first few months of taking over and even agreed to go on a walking tour of the neighborhood, which impressed the member of FUREE. But when he released the strategic plan, they were disappointed. "We worry it's largely lip service," Patrick Gomez, a FUREE board member said. "So far these policies have mostly benefited the luxury developers, and the elite business interests that dominate the boards of the Partnership. We look forward to working with the Partnership to promote development that uplifts the long-time residents, local small business owners and workers who have contributed to the area's success."

While Mr. Reed is willing to work with local groups, he was clear that it is not his first priority. “We are not a city agency, a housing advocate, a workforce development provider or an enforcement organization,” he responded

Despite such objections, Mr. Reed is upbeat. At the end of the tour, standing in front of Shake Shack—regarded by some as the clearest sign of the changes to Downtown Brooklyn—Mr. Reed surveyed his domain. “Within 10 or 15 blocks, it’s really all here, from Brooklyn Bridge Park to the BAM to the Barclays Center,” Mr. Reed said. “We have to think about how to knit it together. It’s not about going to the office or going to the Fulton Mall anymore. You’re coming here to see a show, to shop, to work, to live. You really don’t have to leave the area—you can do it all.

The citadel, like so many other parts of Fort Greene, has been transformed. A seven-story building—the Brooklyn Academy of Music's new performing arts hall, the Richard B. Fisher building—now rises from its arches ("Landmarks won't let you put a building on top of another building. Only Norman Foster got away with it on 57th Street," Mr. Hardy remarked. "But we were able to convince Landmarks that it was complementary.")

Scheduled to hold its first performance on September 5, BAM Fisher is ambitious when it comes to both its own future and that of the surrounding neighborhood, seeing its opening as a key turning point in the development of the Brooklyn arts district.  Indeed, BAM is one of many new cultural institutions coming to the area soon, among them the Theater for a New Audience and Barclay's Arena (although Barclay's cultural contributions are more dubious, it will mean venues ranging from 200 to 19,000 seats).

"The idea of the BAM cultural district is so powerful. It's already happening. It's got to happen. It's truly amazing," Mr. Hardy exclaimed Thursday afternoon when the building was unveiled.

As BAM representative after BAM representative emphasized, BAM Fisher wasn't built as just a building, but as a way to engage with, and be more accessible to the community. Several of them brought up the fact that the sidewalk outside BAM Fisher was graded to rise to the door in a gesture of accessibility and symbolic welcome, eliminating the need for any steps, a fact that most residents will probably find less impressive than the $20 tickets to all Next Wave festival performances at the venue this year.

All community transforming goals aside, the building provides BAM with something it has long desired—a small, 250-seat black box theater that can host the emerging artists and experimental, intimate performances that the 875-seat Harvey Hall and the 2,100-seat Howard Gilman Opera House cannot. (BAM's last small performance space, never ideal, became its cafe several years ago).

Besides the theater, the 40,000-square foot building also holds rehearsal space, classrooms for vastly-expanded arts education programs, offices and a swanky roof deck—a $50 million project that was funded with $30 million of city money, $3 million of state grants and private contributions.

"Most of the performing arts centers you see around the country are 20th century buildings. Edifice, edifice, edifice, plaza," Ms. Brooks Hopkins told the crowd of reporters gathered for the tour on Thursday.

"We believe it will be the prototype for the 21st century performing arts center," she gushed.

BAM was so excited about the whole thing that they even had mini chocolate cheesecakes from Juniors emblazoned with a likeness of the building. Impressive!

So what does a 21st Century performing arts center look like?

First of all, the rehearsal room is not in the basement, noted Mr. Hardy. "When artists see this, they say," here he paused to adjust his bushy white eyebrows into a quizzical expression, "'This is the rehearsal space?'"

Second of all, it has a roof terrace with a retractable roller-cover (a New York rarity save for a few select locations like the Gramercy Hotel) that offers expansive views of the borough (we even saw a blimp drifting across the sky). Its plants? Native and non-invasive.

"This is all local stuff," Mr. Harvey said. "This is not imported exotica."

It also has classrooms—a first for the arts organization—to run its many educational programs, now held in some 1,400 schools around the city, or in rented spaces. The classrooms, an expanded educational offerings, especially over school vacations, are meant to make BAM more accommodating to Brooklyn families.

But most impressive of all is the theater itself, painted not black but a midnight blue and built for maximum flexibility. Except for a single row of built-in fold-up seats (covered in blue and gold upholstery), almost everything else can be moved. Bleachers retract into the wall and platforms of seats can be moved into or out of the space and arranged in any configurations. Even the air conditioning vents can be moved to accommodate light configurations.

Above the stage, a metal tension grid replaces a catwalk—a slightly springy surface spanning the entire room that allows stage crews to place lights and audio equipment anywhere in the room ("I should have worn pants!" cried one woman on the tour as she looked down at the stage far below her feet).

The area is wired with all variety of digital and audio equipment. In fact, there is so much electrical conduit in the building that they actually had to do tests to determine that there was enough concrete to make it safe, explained one of the BAM bigwigs.

"Which it is," he assured the group, perhaps seeing the somewhat perplexed expressions.

kvelsey@observer.com

Those bands are:

MAY 3RD

• The Walkmen
• Sharon Van Etten
• Twin Shadow
• Jherek Bischoff
• Zs
• Callers
• People Get Ready
• yMusic
• JACK Quartet

MAY 4TH

• St. Vincent
• The Antlers
• Tyondai Braxton
• Buke and Gase
• Sinkane
• Ava Luna
• Missy Mazzoli and Victoire
• NOW Ensemble
• Hubble
• Joakim

MAY 5TH

• Beirut
• Atlas Sound
• My Brightest Diamond
• yMusic
• Caveman
• Oneohtrix Point Never
• Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang
• Skeletons
• Brooklyn Youth Chorus
• The Yehudim
• Benjamin Lanz
• DJ Set by Pat Mahoney and Nancy Whang (previously of LCD Soundsystem)

Not to say we told you so, but: some of the biggest acts in the festival (Sharon Van Etten, St. Vincent, My Brightest Diamond) made appearences as opening acts or onstage with The National during their six-night run at the Beacon Theater in December.

For what it's worth, this marks one of the largest rock festivals ever to be held in the borough's confines. While it might not reach Kraftwerk-levels of entry-point scouring desperation, it should be a hot ticket no less (and if anything, makes the recently-announced Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago look downright bush-league*).

For matters of context, and because footage of their most culturally significant live performance is difficult to embed, here is a video of The Walkmen playing "The Rat", a pretty great song:

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

“I always like to put things that are a little bit ironic together. So here you have a place like BAM, which is a great contemporary-arts cultural institution, and then you have an arena, which, people think about sports and circus and so on. And then you put them together, and then I think you’ve got something special.”

Indeed, Mr. Ratner has been a master of irony through decades of development:

• He had a rapidly gentrifying stretch of Brooklyn declared blighted, and then condemned.
• He has acquired a taste for hip-hop.
• He gets the light touch from the newspaper of record whose headquarters he built.
• He lives in Manhattan.
• He hired, then fired, Frank Gehry from the Atlantic Yards project after a lifetime of developing blasé buildings.
• Ratner's rats.

(If these are not exactly ironic, well, neither is a cultural institution putting on shows in a sports arena, either.)

Fifteen Minutes, Extended

Warhol! The pop artist is the auteur of modern celebrity--but will people shell out for, you know, his art, when they can witness his legacy by flipping on E!? Of course, they will. That famous Self-Portrait in vivid red, the centerpiece of today's Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction, would look great over the fireplace. Also featured: Urs Fischer's Untitled (Lamp/Bear), the giant stuffed teddy bear that's been parked outside the Seagram building (take that, FAO Schwarz). There are tons more Untitleds at the auction--it's almost as though the twentieth century was marked by both numbing anomie and the proliferation of individual viewpoints at the expense of the artist's authority! Jeepers!--including pieces by Cindy Sherman, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, and Cy Twombly. Our bidding hand is Twombling with anticipation!

Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, viewing at Rockefeller Center from 10am-12pm today, auction of lots 1-66 begins at 7pm, lots 101-265 May 12 at 10am, call (212) 636-2050 for further information.

Thursday, May 12

Louvre It!

There simply aren't enough cultural institutions in New York to accomodate every would-be art supporter. So New York tastemakers are looking even further east than Museum Mile--like, toward Paris. The American Friends of the Louvre gather at the house of Gerard Araud, France's Ambassador to the U.N., for an evening of saying, "Euhhh, oui, bien sûr..." (The Ambassador's personal chef is doing the catering--who's ready for some snails?) We'll be chatting up Ultra Violet, French performance artist and Warhol superstar about the work we picked up at the Christie's auction; asking the talented Mr. Kipton Cronkite about his art enterprises, and pestering the ambassador to commit a few felonies for us (diplomatic immunity, and all that). 

Soiree Au Louvre, 740 Park Avenue, 8:30pm, visit aflouvre.org/soireeaulouvre for tickets.

Friday, May 13

Royal Engagement

Happy Friday the 13th! Perhaps you'll get lucky at tonight's Princes Ball and land yourself one of the four single royals visiting New York. No, Prince Harry's not going to be there--sorry, ladies, duty calls! Crushing on a Swedish royal? Sorry, not your scene, we're afraid. Actually, the four sons of Serbia's Crown Prince Alexander will be masquerading tonight at Cipriani, looking for a Grace Kelly-type to spirit back to Belgrade. (The Serbians held the ball last year, too, but evidently none of New York's finest ladies suited their fancy--though they hope, too, to raise money for Serbia's neediest through Lifeline New York.) We've been bedazzling our mask for weeks--stay away from Prince Dimitri. He's ours!

Cipriani, 110 East 42nd Street, runs from 9:00pm-1:00am, information and tickets at princesball2011.charityhappenings.org

Saturday, May 14

Vox Popular

Yep, the Met is still performing Die Walkure--he (no longer quite so) fat lady keeps singing, but the much-discussed show goes on. Those looking for something new--and a tad more risky--are encouraged to drop in on the New York City Opera's Vox 2011 festival, featuring a variety of experimental works, including Mary Shelley (sounds romantic!) and something called All Three Acts of a Sad Play Performed Entirely in Bed. God bless the City Opera--someone needs to bring opera into the 19th century! 

Vox 2011 festival begins today at NYU Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place, at 1pm with a panel discussion (performances begin at 2:30pm), continues tomorrow at Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street at 7:30 with drinks to follow, visit nycopera.com for tickets.

Sunday, May 15

Lears for Fears

Brooklyn Academy of Music's production of King Lear has been widely praised--and rightly so. It's pretty rare to see Shakespeare in New York without indulging a movie star's vanity! (Are your ears burning, Al and Denzel?) For those who aren't sated by the epic performance of Derek Jacobi as Lear, the Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt (recently the author of Shakespeare's Freedom, a book we'll read as soon as we finish Franzen's Freedom) drops in from Harvard to explain the play to us. He's talking "cultural poetics," which reminds us of those literary theory classes we used to sleep through. But now we want to learn! What could be better than this? As the King himself says: "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."

BAMcafé, 30 Lafayette Avenue (Brooklyn), 7pm, call (718) 636-4100 or email tickets@bam.org for tickets.

Monday, May 16

Deadline News

Never fear, Tina's back from the wedding! And she's tanned, rested and ready for other matters. The Newsweek/Daily Beast editor hosts tonight's Deadline Club Awards Dinner, an annual fest thrown by the Society of Professional Journalists. No, it's not the American Society of Magazine Awards--those were last week--nor last month's Pulitzers (when did journalism awards season become as bloated as awards season-awards season?). The awards honor small papers as well as large ones, and plenty of magazines, too. Guess our nomination for Best Calendar Section got lost in the mail?... Meanwhile, the HBO movie Too Big to Fail gets a premiere too big to miss, with the likes of Paul Giamatti and Cynthia Nixon on hand to celebrate the film alongside "Dealbook's" Andrew Ross Sorkin, whom we presume got a great deal for his book when HBO bought the rights. And to think that, in 2008, we feared the near-collapse of the global banking system would put an end to flashy Museum of Modern Art-hosted movie premieres....

Deadline Club Awards Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, wine reception at 6:30pm and dinner at 7:30pm, visit deadlineclub.com for tickets and information; Too Big to Fail premiere, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, arrivals at 6pm and screening at 7pm, private event

Tuesday, May 17

Horsing Around

What has Tom Brokaw even been up to these last few years? The greatest chronicler of American generations moderated a Presidential debate memorable for the candidates blocking his TelePrompTer; he wrote some books your dad probably read; and he goes to parties! While nowhere near as social as his onetime NBC network-mate Katie Couric, Mr. Brokaw does host a few things that match the horsey, outdoorsy, masculine hauteur of a South Dakotan obsessed with the U.S. military. Tonight brings a Brokaw-hosted private screening of Buck, a documentary about a real-life horse whisperer. If anyone knows about soothing tones, it's a former network news anchor!... Meanwhile, anyone who missed the legendary quadrilingual Simon de Pury as an auctioneer during the Phillips de Pury sale can catch him at the Free Arts NYC benefit--at which he'll auction more, shall we say, affordable works by the likes of Terence Koh. The host committee includes power-pair Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict and art world superstar Yvonne Force Villareal--it wouldn't be an art benefit without her!

Buck screening, Dolby Screening Room, 1350 Sixth Avenue, 7pm, cocktails to follow at Rue 57, 60 West 57th Street, private event; Free Arts NYC Benefit Auction, Chelsea Art Museum, 556 West 22nd Street, VIP Auction 6pm, event from 7pm-10pm, visit freeartsnyc.org/benefit2011 for tickets and information.

Wednesday, May 18

The Graduates

As we go on, we remember... We've been out of school long enough to have forgotten that mortarboardy feeling of abject terror and unearned accomplishment attached to earning a Bachelors' degree. And we don't want to go back! But we might try to sneak into NYU's graduation ceremony to get a glimpse of Bill Clinton, who's delivering the graduation address and collecting an honorary degree in return. (Columbia's commencement was yesterday, with NBC News veep Alexandra Wallace-Creed. Guess everything is cooler downtown!) If anyone asks what we're doing there, we'll tell them we're there to see the Gallatin kid--you know, the one studying the semiotics of 1980s Brazilian teen cinema. Works everytime. It all goes down at Yankee Stadium--all the better to inculcate twentysomethings into the cold, characterless, corporate world they are entering!

Yankee Stadium, 1 East 161st Street (Bronx), arrivals begin at 9:45am, event runs from 11am-1pm, tickets available to NYU affiliates through nyu.edu. 

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Youth and Beauty 

Ah, Karen Russell. Or, as the Swamplandia! author might render it, Karen Russell! Never has a young author provoked such envy since that little minx Freudenberger. (Is it a girl thing?) But back to Ms. Russell: The 29-year-old phenom was pegged as an under-40 author to watch on that queasiness-inducing New Yorker list last summer, and now it's time to actually watch her--in a conversation with the novelist Kevin Brockmeier moderated by dreamy Granta editor John Freeman. Us, jealous? Why ever would you ask? ... We're all young once, of course. It used to be that all the hot things wanted to make movies. The old downtown gang is the subject of the new doc Blank City, opening today at the IFC Center. Jim Jarmusch and John Waters, among others, drop in to explain why they haven't made a good flick since the 1980s. 

Karen Russell, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, 7 p.m.; Blank City at IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue, visit ifccenter.com for showtimes and tickets

Thursday, April 7

Company Policy

What do you get when your TV, the New York Philharmonic and Stephen Sondheim have a drunken threeway? A production of Sondheim's Company starring Christina Hendricks, Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert and Jon Cryer. (Charlie Sheen, alas, was busy rehearsing for his turn as Sweeney Todd.) Not everyone in the cast is a TV carpet-bagger: Patti Lupone gets the show-stopping "Ladies Who Lunch," and Tony winner Anika Noni Rose plays Marta. It won't be a walk in the park (with George) for the performers. Says Ms. Rose, "This feels plenty staged to me--with sweat running down the back of my neck! It's not gonna be some cute little performance with a book in hand." Thankfully, Ms. Rose assures us most of her co-stars have the requisite stage experience: "You don't just jump into Sondheim. It's like saying, 'I'd love to do some crosswords. I'll take the Times Sunday.'" Good luck, Mr. Colbert! 

New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, 7:30 p.m. (performances continue through Saturday), nyphil.org

Friday, April 8

Yale to the Chief 

Boola-boola! It's a Yalien invasion when the Ivy's Glee Club celebrates its 150th anniversary with a concert at Carnegie Hall. Maybe it's just an allergic reaction to New Haven, but boy, do these kids have spirit! So if you're looking to meet a spouse who can bear you babies with a legacy advantage, this is the spot to be. We used to think glee clubs were dorky, but that was before a certain hit TV show came along. "I do watch Glee, but I think they're more of a show choir than a glee club," sniffed Emily Howell, club president. Duly noted--so yeah, still dorky! ... One performer who doesn't have a dorky bone in her body? Catherine Deneuve, that's who. The Gallic stunner is celebrated tonight with a special screening of the new documentary Catherine Deneuve, belle et bien là, at the French Institute. Ms. Deneuve has been a star since the 1960s, and she's still doing great work, as anyone who saw her smoke up a storm in A Christmas Tale can attest. The lady even made Repulsion attractive.

Yale Glee Club, Carnegie Hall, concert at 7:30 p.m., tickets at carnegiehall.org; Catherine Deneuve, Tinker Auditorium at French Institute, 22 East 60th Street, RSVP at cinema@fiaf.org

Saturday, April 9

Beer Summit

Hey, art world--enough with the white wine! It's so damn civilized. If you really want to get those creative juices flowing, you need something a bit more festive (if not illegal!). How about beer? The RH Gallery's latest installation-art piece, the Kunst Biergarten, is an indoor suds-haus inspired by the Munich-based artist Wolfgang Ellenrieder (how very Bavarian!), whose art is on view in the gallery. The Biergarten is meant to start a conversation about contemporary art, some of which one may need to be half-drunk to appreciate! The curators and critics invited were asked to submit possible conversation topics with their RSVP. Here's a freebie from the Eight-Day Week: How many brews will it take before somebody stumbles into one of Mr. Ellenrieder's gorgeous canvasses? Prost!

RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street, 5 p.m., invitation only

Sunday, April 10

Silence Is Golden

Want to pick up a Laurie Simmons print without getting out of your PJs? BAMart's silent auction is quieter than most: Bidding for items by the likes of Jeff Koons, Richard Serra and Cindy Sherman takes place largely online, making the charity ritual less like the game of sneaky one-upmanship we all know and love (watching people slink up to your coveted item is half the fun!) and more like the online auctions we've all been doing late at night for years, ending up with too many misshapen "vintage" cashmere sweaters in the bargain. Let your computer do the bidding for you and enjoy yourself at the reception, where Ms. Simmons and Carroll Dunham, honorary artist chairs of the auction, will sip cocktails and tell you about how very proud they are of filmmaker daughter Lena. 

Peter Jay Sharp Building, Dorothy W. Levitt Lobby, 30 Lafayette Avenue (Brooklyn), cocktail reception 3-6 p.m., auction information at bam.org/auction

Monday, April 11

Colons and Canciones

Things could get a little awkward at tonight's Ballet Hispanico spring gala, where perky-but-tough news diva Katie Couric is serving as the event's cochair, and Dr. Jonathan LaPook will be on hand as a vice chair. (Other chairs of various types include Dr. Mehmet Oz, investor Roland Betts, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Nora Ephron.) But back to awkward! Dr. LaPook--Couric completists will remember--was the same guy who gave the newscaster that famous on-air colonoscopy. The group will celebrate Ballet Hispanico's 40th year and try not to giggle. ... If you're free for lunch (it's Monday, live a little) drop in on the Matrix Awards, but be warned: Don't take the red pill. If you do, you will discover the mind-bending truth: that the Matrix Awards have nothing whatsoever to do with Keanu Reeves. Instead, the ceremony honors women in communications. It will be hosted by the mistress of on-message and our new First Tablescaper Sandra Lee. Also: That irascible Rosie O'Donnell will present an award to her publicist, Cindi Berger. We're betting on a Medal of Valor. 

Ballet Hispanico Spring Gala, Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, cocktails at 7 p.m., dinner at 7:45 p.m., program to follow, call 212-362-6710 for tickets; Matrix Awards, Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Avenue, lunch begins at noon, tickets at nywici.org

Tuesday, April 12

Keith on Smiling p>

Keith Olbermann, you may recall, was a television announcer that yelled a lot, back when Howard Beale was on-trend. Then he left his gig to team up with Al Gore (a guy who never yelled enough). Mr. Olbermann's new show on Current doesn't start for a while, though, so he's got time on his hands to tweet up a storm and moderate panels, like today's Paley Center symposium on Ernie Kovacs, the pioneering television comedian who was actually Letterman back when Letterman was in rubber pants. Other panelists include comedian Robert Smigel of TV Funhouse and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog fame, and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In producer George Schlatter. Let's hope Triumph shows up to hump Keith's leg. 

The Paley Center for Media, 25 West 52nd Street, 6:30 p.m., tickets at paleycenter.org

Wednesday, April 13

Mass Appeal

You know how Sandra Bullock was always the one you got when Julia Roberts was booked? That's been the rep of Governor Deval Patrick: second-tier Barack Obama. How unfair! Anyway, Mr. Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts (hello? executive experience?), is publishing a memoir, A Reason To Believe, the title of which is a brazen refutation of the title of President Obama's memoir, The Audacity of Hope. (You see, hard-nosed reason beats blind faith every time.) The governor is in New York today, where he'll be meeting with well-wishers from the worlds of business and politics at-pass the mini-muffins!-a private breakfast. The gathering at Random House headquarters will be co-hosted by A Better Chance, the nonprofit organization that sent young Mr. Patrick to preparatory school. Money well spent, we'd say!

Random House, 1745 Broadway, 8 a.m., free books and breakfast for attendees, private event

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_