Good morning. It\u2019s Tuesday. We\u2019ll find out how a cutting of a tree that Anne Frank saw while in hiding during World War II ended up on a college campus on Staten Island. We\u2019ll also get details on former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was hospitalized with pneumonia in Florida.<\/p>\n
From the window in her family\u2019s hiding place in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, Anne Frank could see a chestnut tree in a courtyard garden nearby. One day, she wrote in her diary that raindrops shone on the branches, \u201cappearing like silver.\u201d On another day, she noted that the tree was \u201cthickly covered with leaves and much more beautiful than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2011, the tree \u2014 by then diseased and rotting \u2014 was knocked down in a storm. But cuttings have given rise to saplings. One has just been planted at Wagner College on Staten Island.<\/p>\n
The view could not be more different. Lori Weintrob, a professor at Wagner, called the college\u2019s 105-acre campus \u201can idyllic space up on a hill\u201d with a view of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. She said the idea of a bridge was appropriate for the Wagner College Holocaust Center, of which she is the founding director. The center, she said, works to build bridges between the campus and the community and encourages dialogue among Jews, Muslims, Christians and Hindus.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaten Island, like New York City, is a melting pot,\u201d Weintrob said, \u201cso this is a great place to create these relationships, to inspire students by showing how you can connect people of different faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the campus is also a place to teach Anne\u2019s story \u2014 and the story of the people in her life who were \u201cupstanders,\u201d as Weintrob called those who did the right thing under extreme pressure.<\/p>\n
Weintrob said the tree \u201csymbolized the freedom she was longing for and that, if she hadn\u2019t been deported to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, that she might have been able to attain.\u201d And she mentioned Miep Gies, the secretary who helped Anne while she was in hiding \u2014 and preserved her diary.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes Anne Frank\u2019s story is interpreted more as being hopeful, but we have to put it in the context that she doesn\u2019t survive, that there\u2019s the reality of that and that the Jewish community in the Netherlands was obliterated by the Holocaust,\u201d Weintrob said. \u201cSo the emphasis is that even though these people who resisted or did extraordinary deeds are the exceptions, they are the role models.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weintrob said that Leo Ullman \u2014 who, like Anne, spent time in hiding in Amsterdam during World War II \u2014 and his wife, Katherine, approached Wagner last year about donating a tree for the campus. \u201cThe significance to me is to keep the story of the Holocaust in people\u2019s minds,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe that the tree is relatable.\u201d He also mentioned Weintrob\u2019s work and that of her colleague at the center, Laura Morowitz.<\/p>\n
Ullman is a former chairman of the Anne Frank Center USA, which had made plans in the early 2000s to import 10 saplings from the tree in Amsterdam, then more than 150 years old and weakened by a fungal infection. Municipal officials in Amsterdam had decided that it needed to come down; the backlash that followed prompted them to brace the tree with a structural support, but it was no match for the storm in 2011.<\/p>\n
The Wagner seedling\u2019s path wound through the Midwest. One of the seedlings from the tree in Amsterdam was bound for the Children\u2019s Museum of Indianapolis. Lauren Bairnsfather, the chief executive of the Anne Frank Center USA, said that seedling was quarantined in a nursery in Indiana, where horticulturists \u201cmade grafts from the original tree\u201d that grew into saplings, including the one for Wagner. Two others have been planted in New York City.<\/p>\n
Bairnsfather said Wagner was a noteworthy site because the Holocaust center has focused on women\u2019s experiences in the Holocaust, which she said were often neglected in scholarly studies and teaching. But she also said the spot where the tree was planted made a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey chose that location so when people come to campus, this is what they see,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want the tree to become part of the identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weather<\/p>\n
Expect sunny skies and a high in the low 80s. Tonight, there will be increasing clouds with a low around 63.<\/p>\n
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING<\/p>\n
In effect until May 14 (Solemnity of the Ascension).<\/p>\n
QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building is going to be out of service, pending repairs.\u201d \u2014 David Simms, an assistant fire chief, after an electrical fire damaged the Eugene O\u2019Neill Theater<\/a>. As a result, \u201cThe Book of Mormon,\u201d which has run there for 15 years, has canceled performances today and tomorrow, and producers did not say when they would resume.<\/p>\n The latest Metro news<\/p>\n Giuliani remains in critical condition<\/p>\n Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani remained in critical condition yesterday, recovering from pneumonia<\/a> in a hospital in Florida, his spokesman said.<\/p>\n The spokesman, Ted Goodman, said that Giuliani, 81, had needed a ventilator to breathe after he was hospitalized. But Goodman said yesterday that the former mayor was now breathing on his own. Goodman also said that Giuliani \u201cis the ultimate fighter \u2014 as he has demonstrated throughout his life \u2014 and he is winning this battle.\u201d<\/p>\n Goodman announced on Sunday that Giuliani was in the hospital but did not say then what his symptoms were. Goodman said yesterday that Giuliani had been diagnosed with restrictive airway disease stemming from his proximity to ground zero in Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. The condition makes respiratory illnesses more threatening, Goodman said.<\/p>\n My colleague Jonah E. Bromwich writes that it is unclear whether Giuliani has publicly mentioned such a diagnosis before. But the former mayor has noted that he was a frequent presence at the Trade Center site, and in recent years his lawyers have alluded to potential lung disease related to toxicity from the attacks.<\/p>\n Last summer, Giuliani sustained a fractured vertebra when the car he was a passenger in was rear-ended in New Hampshire, where he had become a regular as he seemed to let his attachment to New York wane. He arrived in a wheelchair at the annual ceremony at the 9\/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan in September. He was photographed that day smiling with a body brace strapped under his suit jacket, over his shirt and tie.<\/p>\n METROPOLITAN diary<\/p>\n Along the park<\/p>\n Dear Diary:<\/p>\n It was April Fools\u2019 Day, and the weather kept changing from sunny to drizzle, as if the gusty wind was moving the sun back and forth behind a cloud.<\/p>\n I put my jacket on and off as I walked along Prospect Park. The trees were still bare, but spring was slowly awakening with yellow forsythias, and every child walking by stared at my new purple hair, hungry for color.<\/p>\n A guy in the bike lane yelled, \u201cHey!\u201d<\/p>\n I turned to him.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry,\u201d he said, pointing to someone else. \u201cI\u2019m talking to this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you actually look familiar,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo do you,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n I entered the park to hear pop music near the band shell. Two people with a portable speaker were dancing.<\/p>\n I wanted to join the party, but I realized that I hear the music, so I\u2019m in the party. I danced along from a distance.<\/p>\n From high above, hundreds of blackbirds swooped down like falling peppercorn into the black-and-white woods ahead. As I got closer, I saw specks of tiny green buds emerging on each tree limb.<\/p>\n I left the park, passing three people who had converged because their dogs could not contain their joy. The people laughed like old friends, but within seconds they had walked off separate ways.<\/p>\n As I passed Seeley Street, I overheard a friend through the open window, cheering on a drum student.<\/p>\n I laughed. I should be getting home before the possible rain, I thought, but today, everywhere was home.<\/p>\n \u2014 Mare Berger<\/p>\n Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here<\/a> and read more Metropolitan Diary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. It\u2019s Tuesday. We\u2019ll find out how a cutting of a tree that Anne Frank saw while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,40526,40527,40524,40525,40528,200,14869,40529,40530,40523,37298],"class_list":{"0":"post-75545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-amsterdam","8":"tag-amsterdam","9":"tag-anne","10":"tag-center-usa","11":"tag-colleges-and-universities","12":"tag-frank","13":"tag-giuliani","14":"tag-netherlands","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-rudolph-w","17":"tag-staten-island-nyc","18":"tag-trees-and-shrubs","19":"tag-world-war-ii-1939-45"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116523895920403716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}