Sound Shore

Sculptor Bob Clyatt has been busy at his home studio in Rye, preparing an installation for Rye Town Park Aug. 21. I had a chance Friday to see his work in progress and learn about the Japanese process of raku, which he is using to fire the clay and give the sculpture a crackled look.

The sculpture will have some familiar faces — Clyatt used various friends and fellow creative-types as models. Here is Bill Lawyer, a park administrator, with his likeness.

Clyatt, a California native, likes to combine the classical, rigorous study of human figures with contemporary, spontaneous touches. He is using the Japanese raku technique to fire the clay, and I’ll be writing about that for LoHud.com.

(more…)

Professional trapper Jim Horton caught a coyote in Rye Saturday, not far from one of the two coyote attacks on children in June. Trapped in the woods off North Street, the coyote was aggressive and had to be euthanized under direction from state officials, Horton said.

It’s not known whether this coyote was a perpetrator in the attacks. “We don’t know that, because unfortunately they didn’t take any DNA when they brought the child into the hospital,” he said. “So we couldn’t definitely ID the coyote as being the attacker.”

Today he was installing traps today in Rye Brook, which, like other surrounding communities, is stepping up its own coyote-control program. The village has lots of information on its web site, including maps (at right) of the places where coyotes have been sighted. The police blotter is also posted, showing coyote-related calls since January.

Traps were to be set on village-owned property in the woods surrounding Rye Hill Park, Rich Manor Park and the new detention basin area between Edgewood Drive and Bluebird Hollow. The parks are open but the areas with traps are marked with signs to keep away. And that gives you one more reason to keep your pet on a leash.

If you haven’t gotten the message yet: Don’t run from coyotes or let them wander around. Scare them off with noises and gestures. “We don’t want them to feel comfortable on people’s property,” Village Administrator Chris Bradbury said.

For my family it’s a summer vacation ritual: Getting the whole clan together for a photo, setting up the automatic shutter on the camera, checking the results and being kind of disappointed. Mom has her eyes closed, Junior’s face is blocked, and the dog is facing backward.

If you’ve been through this too, you might be interested in the annual family-portrait fundraiser organized by the Woman’s Club of Rye. For almost 20 years now, the club’s Children’s Philanthropy section has offered outdoor family portraits in scenic spots around Rye. Photographer Carroll Hudders takes the portraits and donates 25 percent of the proceeds to the charity, says Bobbi Cavicchio of the club’s PR committee.

Reservations for photos in September and October may be made at Rye Recreation Sept. 17 from 9 to 11 a.m., or Sept. 18 from 10 a.m. to noon.

Rye High School held its graduation ceremonies June 19.

Read on for the full list of graduates or click here to view the Rye High School photo gallery.

Looking for your friends? You can view the graduation lists or photo galleries for all local high schools and colleges by clicking on these links!

Congrats to all!

(Photo courtesy of Meagan Kanagy/The Journal News.)

(more…)

Starting at dinner time on Sunday, your television is gone. The Internet was never invented and you will lose your cellphone, PDA, pager and laptop. Well, at least for 10 days.

Eric Yaverbaum of Larchmont and Mark DiMassimo of Rye are encouraging fathers to turn off all electronic devices as part of their OFFLINING campaign. Professional marketers by trade, the two have become disenchanted with the world marketing has wrought — entire families spending more time glued to iPhones, Blackberries, the Internet and television than with each other.

Their solution: Between Father’s Day and Thanksgiving, pledge to have 10 No-Device Dinners with family. String the days together or space them apart over the coming months, but the goal is for fathers, mothers, sons and daughters to spend more time communicating without distraction, DiMassimo said. Thanksgiving would be a No-Device Day.

“As long-time marketing professionals, my partner, Eric Yaverbaum, and I have devoted much of the last two decades convincing people to click here, call now, shop online, log on, search, pay bills in your underwear, trade from the beach, and add “friends” to your digital network,” DiMassimo said. “I remembered what my father – a man who had designed integrated circuits, from the first speed dial to a giant particle accelerator, had said to me when I was a boy: ‘We invent technology to be our servant, not our master.’”

More information is available at http://www.OffliningInc.com and you can also sign the pledge at the website. Just be sure to do it before Sunday.

The life of onetime Sound Shore resident William Kunstler will be examined Tuesday, June 22 at 10 p.m. on PBS as part of their documentary program POV.

According to the press announcement, “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe” “examines the life of this radical attorney from a surprising angle. Kunstler’s two daughters from his second marriage grew up lionizing a man already famous for his historic civil rights and anti-war cases. Then, in their teens, they began to be disillusioned by a stubborn man who continued representing some of the most reviled defendants in America — this time accused rapists and terrorists. The man who had marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., and who had defended the Chicago 8 anti-war protestors, Native American activists at Wounded Knee and prisoners in the Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York was now seen kissing the cheek of a Mafia client and defending a man charged with assassinating a rabbi, terrorists accused of bombing the World Trade Center and a teenager charged in a near-fatal gang rape. In this intimate biography, Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler seek to recover the real story of what made their late father one of the most beloved, and hated, lawyers in America. The film is the winner of the L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth Vision Award, 2009 Sundance Film Festival.”

Along the way, it looks at Kunstler’s start in civil rights litigation, a successful housing discrimination suit on behalf of an African-American couple in Westchester on behalf of the late Paul Redd and his wife, Orial, of Rye. Redd is interviewed in the film, saying, “It made no difference to [Kunstler] what color you were… If he felt you were being discriminated against and he could help out, he did.”

Kunstler lived in Port Chester in the 1950s, and in Mamaroneck in the 1960s and 1970s. He died in 1995.

Watch the trailer for the William Kunstler documentary and learn more about it on the PBS website.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey honored students she nominated for admission to our nation’s service academies at her annual Service Academy Review Board (SARB) ceremony yesterday. Local students include:
-  Neil McMillan, Larchmont, Mamaroneck High School, Accepted to U.S. Naval Academy

– John Robertson, Pelham, Pelham Memorial High School, Accepted to U.S. Military Academy – Vincent Young, Rye, SUNY Maritime, Accepted to U.S. Naval Academy – Jack Mandy, Rye, Rye Country Day School, Nominated to U.S. Naval Academy

In December 2009, Congresswoman Lowey nominated 36 students from Westchester and Rockland Counties for admission to the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, or U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.  As of today, 18 students have been accepted for admission this summer.

The state appellate court has upheld a  judge’s decision that the waste system on Hen Island is adequate.

Shareholder Ray Tartaglione had sued Kuder Island Colony, the corporation that owns the 26-acre private island off the coast of Rye, alleging that summer cottage residents allowed waste to seep into the Long Island Sound and failed to properly dispose of trash.

Tartaglione frequently attended City Council meetings with Mr. Floatie, a human waste mascot pictured here, to press city officials to inspect the island.

A state Supreme Court Justice ruled the system was satisfactory in 2008, and Tartaglione filed an appeal.

The appellate court delivered its decision April 20.

(more…)

Hix Park and Glen Oaks residents have had to contend with a half-dozen burglaries since Oct. 30. Police are looking for commonalities among the struck residences which have been hit during the late afternoon and early-evening, thankfully when unoccupied. But these are not all homes where everyone is out at work or school and some residents are feeling that their comings and goings are being watched.

Jewelry has been the target.

Police are urging residents to report anything that catches their eye and makes them uneasy.

A story running Dec. 2 in The Journal News outlines some of the thinking of police and more info about the burglaries.

Maybe a discussion here of who has had work done at their homes recently and who has landscapers and the like in common with neighbors on hit streets might reveal a commonality police are looking for.

The city of Rye has started collecting Toys for Tots in conjunction with a program run by the United States Marine Corps Reserves who will distribute everything collected to needy children in Westchester during the holidays. Rye is hoping to double last year’s collection of $2,200 in toys! Toys should be new, not gift wrapped and appropriate for ages 0-18 years. Go to police headquarters at 21 McCullough Place or city hall at 1051 Boston Post Road  and look for the short chimney like boxes. Toys will be collected until Dec. 18. Monetary donations can be made on the Web site, www.toysfortots.org, at any  time. Let’s give a poor kid a smile this season!