My Rye

Rye's John Thain Featured in PBS Frontline on US Economic Collapse

You can watch the entire PBS Frontline on the US economic collapse.

Or just watch the John Thain excerpts.

The show starts with John Thain being called down to the Fed at 6pm on a Friday evening, saying it was around 5pm that same day when he got the call to head downtown. He was about the leave work because "I live in Westchester so I was trying to get out of the city early" (to his nice house).

They cover it all - the Thain office remodeling, the Thain firing.

It's good television.

Who Really Designed Bethpage Black? Rye Man Has Answer.

Golf's US Open is in swing out at Long Island's Bethpage Black course. Until 2002, golf architect A.W. Tillinghast was credited with designing the course.

That was until Joe Burbeck, 78, of Stoneycrest Road in Rye, called up Golf Digest Magazine in 2002 and told them what really happened. How does Burbeck know? His father Joseph Burbeck served as Bethpage State Park superintendent for over 30 years and was responsible for the design of the famous Black course during the 1930s under the WPA and Robert Moses. Tillinghast was simply a consultant on the job.

A 2002 article from Golf Digest has the entire story.

"Now 71, Joe Burbeck, his face weathered by decades of competitive sailing on Long Island Sound, is retired after a career with a Manhattan advertising agency. At a meeting last fall near his home in Rye, N.Y., he was apologetic. He had none of his father's papers. Maybe they're at Bethpage or at the state park headquarters. Somewhere out there was the proof he needed.

It turns out Joe Burbeck is right. His father did design Bethpage Black. The evidence always has been out there, if anyone had bothered to dig for it. It's in the official history of the Long Island State Parks, published in 1959. "The four golf courses constructed as work-relief projects were designed and constructed under the direction of Joseph H. Burbeck, the Superintendent of the park," the book reads, "with A.W. Tillinghast, internationally known golf architect, as consultant.""

Obama Photographer from Rye

Back in 1980, then student, aspiring photographer and Rye resident Lisa Jack took photos of a fellow Occidental College student, Barry. Twenty nine years later, Barry - who now goes by Barack - is the President of the United States. Obama spent his first two college years at Occidental before transferring to Columbia.

Jack, who is now a professor living in Minneapolis, found the photos in her home. She released them to Time Magazine and just last Thursday opened an exhibit with the photos at the M+B galleryin Los Angeles.

In a report on the photos, the LA Times said:

"Her life and Obama's intersected at the Cooler, a campus snack shop.

The young woman from Rye, N.Y., loved her psychology courses but cared enough about photography to find mentors on the faculty who tutored her in independent study courses. With a blanket thrown over the couch she recalls as "a plaid horrible thing," the living room of the apartment she shared in a nondescript quadruplex near the campus in Eagle Rock became Jack's makeshift photo studio. Students from her circle of friends and acquaintances would pose for portraits that she would hand in as her weekly assignments.

That day a friend was telling her about a student named Barry she ought to photograph "because he's so cute." Moments later, the man himself walked in. He agreed to the shoot.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about the session, Jack says, although it impressed her that Obama had taken the initiative to bring the big, banded hat, a leather, bomber-style jacket with a fur collar and cigarettes as grist for her lens. "He obviously thought about how he wanted to have his picture taken." Obama shared at least one characteristic with the other students who sat for her portraits: "I think the thing that everybody was trying to portray the most was how cool they were."

Jack appreciated Obama when she ran into him that summer in a Honolulu nightclub -- he a local, she a visiting summer student. "He was sitting there with a woman on each lap. They were babes, and I'm not a babe." But the president-to-be extricated himself, came over to Jack's table and chatted. That he'd show such courtesy while otherwise engaged "told me Obama was a cool dude," Jack says."

5:30 Candlelight Vigil Today (May 5th) at Claire's Climb

The Rye/Westchester Community will be meeting today at Claire's Climb in honor of the passing of Claire Gormley Collier of Stamford, CT, sister of Rye resident Phil Gormley. Claire, a 46 year old married mother of three, passed away following a courageous battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, or ALS.

Phil is the VP/Director of Friends of Claire, a charity created to support his sister and others fighting ALS, chairs the annual Jarden Westchester Triathlon at Playland Park, is a trustee of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and a Team in Training coach in addition to his full time position in the apparel industry. Phil, who lives in Rye with his wife, Nuria, and their three children, volunteers over 10 hours a week to charitable causes and organizes a dozen events over the year which raise over one million dollars.

Complete information for wake and funeral arrangements are available on the Friends of Claire website. Please read her incredible story and view her video, and/or donate to this worthwhile organization.

*Claire's Climb is located on the former Greenwich American (and American Can) property in Greenwich, CT near the Westchester County Airport and is the steep uphill climb during the bike portion of the Westchester Triathlon, where Claire has greeted triathloners in recent years.

No Recession at 401 Theodore Fremd Avenue in Rye

Just down the street at 555 Theodore Fremd Avenue, Tremont Capital Holdings is fighting off law suits after being sucked dry by scam artist Bernie Madoff to the tune of $3.3 billion dollars.

 

(PHOTO: Super Mario) But at 401 Theodore Fremd you'd think it was Mardi Gras (pre-Katrina). 401 is the headquarters for Gamco Investors, Inc. and its CEO, Mario Gabelli, raked in a cool $46 million payday in 2008. Super Mario had to withstand a 34% cut from his $71 million payday in 2007, according the Crain's New York. From Crain's:

"Mr. Gabelli, who started his Rye, N.Y.-based firm in 1977 and controls shares that give him about 95% voting power in board matters, awarded himself pay last year that amounted to less than 20% of Gamco’s total revenue. Most of his compensation is based on an agreement that reserves him a healthy cut of the firm’s revenue, but he also collected a $2.4 million “incentive fee,” according to a regulatory filing. He takes no salary, bonus, or stock awards. The second-best-paid Gamco executive, its president, was awarded $3.8 million."