TRIBECA PAC LAUNCHES SPOTLIGHT SERIES
BMCC’s Tribeca Performing Arts Center, the longest operating performance venue in lower Manhattan, has announced its lineup of events for the 2019-2020 season, including Elza, The Opera Collective, Shelley Nicole, Rhonda Hansome & Friends, and the annual return of the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus. Tickets for the Spotlight Series are $25 general admission and $11 for students and seniors, on sale now. To purchase, call 212-220-1460 or visit www.tribecapac.org.

JOAN PANTZER CELEBRATES 90!
Joan Pantzer, the longtime local resident who ran the Tower Cafeteria with her husband before it would become the Odeon, sent along this awesome picture taken on the occasion of her 90th birthday (!!!) at the Manchester Country Club in Vermont, where she now lives. Happy birthday, Joan! Love, Tribeca.

LATE NIGHT FIREWORKS, PROMOTING SCAMS?
J. and F. were both disturbed last week by fireworks that started at 10:40 off the shores of Battery Park City, so loud that they bolted upright from sleep. With help from Nick Sbordone at the BPCA, we figured out that they were sponsored by National Debt Relief. Two things we learned, collectively. First, you can figure out where the noise is coming from by entering “fireworks” into the 311 portal (this was news to me!). Second, J. smelled a rat, and she may be onto something. The Times had this on the organization and others like it: “The settlement companies typically harvest fees reaching 15 to 20 percent of the credit card balances carried by their customers, and they tend to collect upfront, regardless of whether a customer’s debt is actually reduced.”

Anyway, this is a digression from fireworks in the neighborhood, but it was interesting to connect the dots.

CELEBRATING THE MONARCH AT THE BATTERY
The 2019 Battery Gardeners’ Luncheon will honor the monarch butterfly in culture and science, as well as special guests Dr. Patricia Marroquin Norby, senior executive of the National Museum of the American Indian, and Craig Gibbs from the Wildlife Conservation Society. (The park is now an official waystation for the monarchs during their migration.) The event is on Sept. 17 at 11a, tickets start at $500 and are here; 100 percent of funds will support the perennial gardens.