New York Today: New York Today: Treasures in a Costume Shop



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Give my regards to Broadway costumers. Credit Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

Updated, 8:48 a.m.

Good morning on this snappy Friday.

Halloween comes and goes just once a year. But city costume shops are in demand for a lot longer than that.

Broadway stages must be brought to life. Circuses must sparkle.

In an unassuming building on West 20th Street, an elevator opens to a bright fifth floor humming with sewing machines. Rulers and scissors cover tables; sketches fill bulletin boards. Shelves brim with spools of thread and hundreds of fabric rolls. Half-clothed mannequins are strewn about.

The roughly 40 people working in the shop, which is called Eric Winterling, are not bothered — at all — by Halloween. Instead, they’re working nonstop to meet deadlines for 26 shows.

In addition to some tuneups for “The Book of Mormon” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” the shop needs to make 22 jumpsuits for the Knicks City Dancers, decorating each with 1,000 hand-applied Swarovski stones.

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The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has asked for some theatrical pieces. And 75 costumes are due before the start of the “Aladdin” national tour: The shop is dressing Genie, Jafar, and the “Prince Ali” parade.

“This is what we call a sequin, versus a sew-on stone, versus a hot-fix stone, versus a bead,” explained the workroom supervisor, Claire Fleming.

“That’s an Escamillo, and that’s a Carmen,” she added, pointing at outfits the shop was making for an opera.

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The DNA of a costume. Credit Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

The busiest time of the year for costume shops like this one is in the spring before the Tony Awards, Ms. Fleming said.

She said the challenging bits made the job exciting.

“For the circus, if he’s in a wheel, you have to be able to figure out what fabrics will work for him,” she told us.

“And the Genie from ‘Aladdin’ has all this beading,” she added, “but he picks Aladdin up and spins him around, and Aladdin doesn’t have a shirt on — just a vest. It was cutting him up because the beads are glass.”

That was another problem for the shop to solve.

And it did, with a little bit of plastic.

Here’s what else is happening:

Weather

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Participating in Halloween shenanigans on the streets this weekend will be a little more bearable.

Maybe not today (or tonight) when chilly winds will keep it feeling like it’s in the low 40s.

But on Saturday, temperatures jump into the low 60s, and Sunday will be even warmer.

Not a trick; definitely a treat.

In the News

The former roommate of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who killed himself six years ago, pleaded guilty to attempted invasion of privacy. [New York Times]

The City Council voted unanimously to give freelancers a set of protections against wage theft, believed to be the first of their kind in the country. [New York Times]

The judge in the bridge-scandal trial abruptly adjourned court as lawyers were about the make their closing arguments. [New York Times]

Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence’s plane skidded off the runway at La Guardia Airport. [CBS]

Here’s why you’re still stuck on the bus. [New York Times]

School bus workers could go on strike next week. [DNAinfo]

Amtrak has agreed to pay $265 million to settle claims related to the derailment in Philadelphia last year. [Daily News]

Sales in Trump buildings have slowed. [New York Times]

The man who survived being crushed by a subway platform extender in 2010 has been awarded $10 million. [Gothamist]

A new suit asserts that more than half of Police Department stations in the city are not accessible to the disabled. [New York Post]

Pushing that crosswalk button may make you feel better, but … [New York Times]

Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “Courtesy and Homesickness on the E.”

Scoreboard: Penguins paddle Islanders, 4-2.

For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Friday Briefing.

Coming Up Today

Local architects will compete for the Pritzker Pumpkin at Pumpkitecture, a pumpkin-carving contest, at the Center for Architecture. 6 p.m. [$15]

Scream aboard the New York Haunted Hayride on Randalls Island. 7 p.m. [Tickets start at $37]

ArtCade Con, a video game festival featuring panels with game developers and not yet released video games, begins at La MaMa in the East Village. 8 p.m. [$16, tickets here]

Do the “Time Warp” at a zombie cabaret, followed by a screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” at St. George Theater on Staten Island. 9 p.m. [$25, tickets here]

Rangers at Hurricanes, 7:30 p.m. (MSG.) Devils host Blackhawks, 7:30 p.m. (MSG+.) Nets host Pacers, 7:30 p.m. (YES.)

The Weekend

Saturday

Learn about New York’s indigenous heritage and pre-colonial Manaháhtaan at a daylong symposium on Lenape identity at N.Y.U. 9:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. [Free]

Check out a spooky, 360-degree interactive Halloween pop-up shop at Macy’s Herald Square. 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. [Free admission]

Watch the Great PUPkin Dog Costume Contest at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. 11:30 a.m. [Free to watch]

Mingle with animals and fill up on beer at Brew at the Zoo at the Bronx Zoo. 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. [$45, tickets here]

Devils host Lightning, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Knicks host Grizzlies, 7:30 p.m. (MSG). Nets at Bucks, 8 p.m. (YES).

Watch “The New York Times Close Up,” featuring The Times’s Michael Barbaro and other guests. Saturday at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m. on NY1.

Sunday

Take the family to a Halloween party with a David Bowie-themed concert at the Brooklyn Bowl. 11 a.m. [Free, R.S.V.P. here]

… Or to a kid-friendly Halloween celebration, complete with a magic show, mask-making and more, at the Queens Botanical Garden. Noon. [Prices vary]

Watch a Halloween parade and pumpkin flotilla move through Central Park, at 110th Street between Fifth and Lenox Avenues. 3:30 p.m. [Free, R.S.V.P. here]

Celebrate México Now! wraps up with a Día de los Muertos concert, featuring several New York-based, Mexican bands, at Terraza 7 in Jackson Heights, Queens. 6 p.m.

Jets at Browns, 1 p.m. (CBS.) Islanders host Maple Leafs, 6 p.m. (MSG+.) Rangers host Lightning, 7 p.m. (MSG.)

For more events, see The Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.

Commute

Subway and PATH

Railroads: L.I.R.R., Metro-North, N.J. Transit, Amtrak

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking: in effect until Sunday.

Ferries: Staten Island Ferry, New York Waterway, East River Ferry

Airports: La Guardia, J.F.K., Newark

Weekend travel hassles: Check subway disruptions and a list of street closings.

And Finally…

Rattus norvegicus.

(No, that is not a spell from Harry Potter.)

That is the Latin name for the brown rat living in our subways, sewers and streets.

These rats remain quite mysterious, Carl Zimmer writes in The Times, but a new study is shedding some light on these dark critters.

“What is a New York City rat, and where did it come from?” a group of scientists had asked.

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Hi there, furry friends. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times

The group compared the DNA of our rats with that of international rats — rodents from 30 different locations, as far and wide as the Galápagos Islands and Japan.

They determined that brown rats have roots in northern China or Mongolia and at one point thrived on farms and in villages. Over time generations of rats expanded their range — first south, then northeast, then west — but those that ended up in Europe became what Mr. Zimmer calls “the true globe-trotters.”

“The brown rats of New York and other Eastern American cities trace their ancestry to those in Western Europe,” he writes.

Just like some of us in New York.

New York Today is a weekday roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning. You can receive it via email.

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