Please join us for The Center at West Park’s sixth annual Glitz & Grit Gala

with Keynote Speaker Roberta Brandes Gratz, author, urbanist, and founder of the restoration of Eldridge Street Synagogue

and performances by The Center at West Park's Resident Artists

in support of our campaign to Save West Park!

on the evening of Tuesday, November 15, 2022

• Patron Reception at 5:30PM
• Performance Program at 6:30PM

at The Center at West Park, 165 West 86th Street (entrance on Amsterdam Avenue)

Host Committee

Peg Breen, Hon. Gale A. Brewer, Jennifer Rogers & Robert Carlock, Mary Crawford & Calvin Mew, Christabel Gough, Idith Korman, Lorna & Mitchell Schamroth, Arlene & Bruce Simon, Susan E. Sullivan & Ron Wilcox, Marian M. Warden, and Anthony C. Wood

(List in formation as of Oct 25)

All proceeds from the event will go to support our fight to save West Park from demolition and preserve this historic New York City landmark as an iconic home for arts & culture on the Upper West Side. 

Can't make it on November 15? Your donation to our campaign is gratefully appreciated and fully tax-deductible! We'll send you a video recording of the Performance Program a week after the event. 

COVID-19 SAFETY MEASURES

The Center at West Park is committed to providing a safe and healthy venue for our patrons, artists, and staff. All necessary precautions are being taken to adhere to current CDC and New York City and State guidelines. At this time, masks are optional and and proof of vaccination is not required for all Center at West Park events. 

ROBERTA BRANDES GRATZ

An award-winning journalist and urbanist, Roberta Brandes Gratz has been observing and writing about cities – how they grow, fall apart, recover – for more than 40 years. NYC born and raised, Roberta started her journalism career as a reporter for the New York Post under Dorothy Schiff. She left when Rupert Murdoch bought the paper and went on to write six books on urban change. Her last one, It’s a Helluva Town: Joan K. Davidson and J.M. Kaplan Fund, and the Fight for a Better New York draws on her observations, understanding and involvement in the critical issues of the city.

The book before that was: We’re Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City.

Earlier books were: The Battle For Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs; The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way; Cities Back From the Edge: New Life For Downtown, and A Frog, A Wooden House, A Stream and A Trail: Ten years of Community Revitalization in Central Europe. She was interviewed on radio stations across the country after each book.

Gratz’s writings have also appeared in the Nation, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review, Common Edge and various online publications. She has brought her in-depth research and expertise to appointments, consultancies, and speaking engagements around the world.

From 2003 to 2011, she served on the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, where, appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, she helped preserve New York City’s significant buildings and neighborhoods for seven years and the Sustainability Advisory Board for NYC under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In 2004, Roberta, with author/urbanist Jane Jacobs, founded The Center For the Living City centerforthelivingcity.org to build on Jacobs’ ground-breaking work.

Gratz was a member of the New York Governor’s and Mayor’s Task Force on Planning Manhattan’s West Side Waterfront after the defeat of Westway under Mayor Ed Koch and served on the Sustainability Advisory Board of NYC under Michael Bloomberg.

Gratz was a founder and leader in 1986 of the award-winning restoration of the historic 1887 Eldridge Street Synagogue, now the Eldridge Street Museum.