Niea Milwaukee 2009 Again

By LAURA KUSISTO

In a New York real-estate fantasy come true, young foodies driven from the East Village by rising apartment rents are seeing some of their old restaurant favorites appear in their new neighborhood, Williamsburg.

Lower East Side and East Village favorites, including Vanessa’s Dumpling House, Mama’s Food Shop, Momofuku and Caracas Arepa Bar, have all opened new locations in Williamsburg recently. For foodies it’s like living the dream: taking their favorite restaurants and transplanting them to a cheaper neighborhood.

“Walking down Bedford is really similar to walking down the Lower East Side any given night,” said Brian Whitton, a 27-year-old who runs a marketing agency. “It is actually a better time than the Lower East Side because the river keeps out the Meatpacking crowd,” he said.

Mr. Whitton lived on the Lower East Side for a couple of years before moving recently to Greenpoint, where he often journeys to nearby Williamsburg for cuisine.

He concedes the move has required culinary sacrifices, but the loss of some of his favorite restaurants was partially offset when one of his Lower East Side mainstays, the Meatball Shop, opened a location on Bedford Avenue in July.

In fact he says he likes the new spot better. On the Lower East Side, “it is a madhouse and you can never get a table. This one is 2½ times the size and I’ve got a table a couple of times,” Mr. Whitton said.

Michael Chernow, a Meatball Shop co-owner, said the decision to expand into Williamsburg was simple. “We live out there [and] we love the neighborhood,” he said.

The trend was highlighted this week when Max, an East Village favorite for hearty pasta and other Italian dishes, rented space at Driggs Avenue and South Second Street.

Luigi Iasilli, an owner, wrote in an email that he plans to close the East Village location as the neighborhood is getting “slow.”

“I finally found what I believe I was looking for,” he said of his Williamsburg site. “For me, [it is] going back to the roots, small space, $3,000 rent, a small yard, a mixed ethnic neighborhood with only a bodega across the street.”

Peter Levitan, a broker with Lee & Associates NYC, said retail rents are significantly lower, ranging from $30 to $80 a square foot, compared with $100 to $150 a square foot.

For other longtime Manhattan restaurateurs, the cheaper rents allow them to experiment with new concepts with less risk involved. Owners who made their mark in the East Village have opened places in Williamsburg, such as Betto and Isa.

Alla Lapushchik, who helped open village night-life favorite Death & Co., struck out on her own with Post Office on Havemeyer Street, which serves 100 kinds of whiskey.

“The rent is a little more forgiving,” said Ms. Lapushchik. “When you’re not super stressed because your rent is $10,000 a month, you can focus on the parts that you like.”

As Williamsburg’s warehouses have made way for luxury condos, some locals have decried the neighborhood’s transformation into a more mainstream, family-friendly place.

An influx of Manhattan restaurants could be taken as more evidence of the loss of Williamsburg’s unique flavor.

But Mr. Whitton, the recent Lower East Side transplant, welcomes the addition of familiar spots.

“If I knew a place I recognized, I would probably go there because I knew it and I trusted it and I’ve been there before,” he said.

$1.525 million

A one-bedroom condo in a loft space with industrial detail

Property Plus:  The apartment has oversized industrial windows and 12-foot ceilings.

Property Minus: In a part of Williamsburg that has yet to shed its gritty, industrial past

Listing Agents: Evan F Church, Kate Church and Chris Cavorti of Corcoran Group, 718-422-2506

$1,795,000

A three-bedroom condo with a loft-like living room and Manhattan views

Property Plus: The condo’s price was reduced by $130,000 about nine weeks ago.

Property Minus: The price is still at high end for the neighborhood.

Listing Agents: Stefanie Barlow, Deborah Rieders and Sarah Shuken of Corcoran Group, 718-422-2514

$649,000

This two-bedroom condo is situated in a complex of four connected brick townhouses

Property Plus: Elevator stops in apartment foyer

Property Minus: The building is about eight blocks from the nearest subway stop.

Listing Agents: Sonya Spitznas and Jessica Pfeiffer of aptsandlofts.com, 718-384-5304

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A22

By KRISTIN M. JONES

From a crucifixion on the moon to a woman who devours her lover’s brains, the films of the Polish director, screenwriter and novelist Andrzej Zulawski are filled with unforgettable images. Visceral and cerebral, tender and violent, with sensitive but extreme performances, they are marked by fascinating contradictions. They are also often masterfully crafted, with smart scripts and bravura sound and visuals. Like movies by David Lynch or Roman Polanski, Mr. Zulawski’s work addresses love, madness and troubled relationships, but his approach to storytelling and his cosmology of personal, political and biblical allusions are all his own.

Courtesy BAMcinématek/Polish National Film Archive.

From Andrzej Zulawski’s ‘The Third Part of the Night’ (1971).

Although Mr. Zulawksi’s films have at times been acclaimed, the 71-year-old’s career has also been marked by censorship and critical neglect. Most of his work has long been difficult to see in the U.S. But a retrospective opening Thursday at the Cinefamily in Los Angeles and next week at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn, N.Y., will be the first in the U.S. to focus on the auteur’s potently imaginative films. Organized by BAMcinématek, the Polish Cultural Institute New York and the Cinefamily, it will include all 12 of his features and two rare shorts.

Mr. Zulawski’s unflinching vision was shaped by wartime violence and totalitarian repression, as well as by his family’s distinguished intellectual background. He was born in Lvov (now Lviv, part of Ukraine) in 1940, the child of Resistance fighters; as a young man he studied filmmaking in Paris and was an assistant to Andrzej Wajda. He co-wrote the script for his first feature, “The Third Part of the Night” (“Trzecia czesc nocy,” 1971), with his father, the writer, poet and diplomat Miroslaw Zulawski, whose experiences serving as a host for bloodsucking lice used to develop a typhus vaccine—which distracted the Nazis from his underground activities—fuel a haunting story of love and guilt in a world infected by cruelty. The director’s then-wife, Malgorzata Braunek, is indelible in a dual role as two mysteriously identical women, and the labyrinthine narrative, filled with spiral staircases and corridors leading to troubling memories, suggests a shadowy chambered nautilus.

Although the grim poetry of “The Third Part of the Night” went against the grain of the bland films glorifying socialism favored by the authorities, it was Andrzej Zulawski’s next project, “The Devil” (“Diabel,” 1972), that was banned on release. Set during the Prussian invasion of Poland in 1793, it’s a savage yet lyrical allegory for the Polish government’s reaction to the 1968 student uprisings. Manipulated by a mysterious black-clad man who rescues him from prison and seeks the names of his conspirators, the bewildered young protagonist is driven mad by the chaos and absurdity that engulfs him. Andrzej Jaroszewicz’s fluid cinematography and composer Andrzej Korzynski’s electric guitar intensify the story’s tragic momentum and dreamlike horror.

While living in exile in France, Mr. Zulawski shot “That Most Important Thing: Love” (“L’important c’est d’aimer,” 1975), with Romy Schneider playing an actress reduced to working in sleazy movies who lands a role in a production of “Richard III” after a besotted photographer borrows money from his sordid contacts to finance it. Schneider is heartbreaking as a worn beauty torn between her depressed husband and a new love; Georges Delerue’s rueful score conveys tenderness amid corruption and failure.

After the commercial success of “That Most Important Thing: Love,” Mr. Zulawski was able to return to Poland, where in 1976 he began shooting the hallucinatory sci-fi epic “On the Silver Globe” (“Na srebrnym globie,” 1988), based on a trilogy of novels by his great-uncle, Jerzy Zulawski, and featuring landscapes shot in Mongolia and the Crimea and inspired cinematography and music by the director’s frequent collaborators Jaroszewicz and Korzynski. But the script about a civilization founded by astronauts alludes to struggles for freedom from tyranny, and the authorities shut down the production before the film was completed. In the late 1980s, Mr. Zulawski intercut the surviving footage with narration describing the missing sections that plays over scenes of contemporary Poland, resulting in an eerie amalgam of wildly uninhibited storytelling and reminders of its personal cost.

That Mr. Zulawski found a fertile subject early on in the fallout of desire and obsession is evident in two vivid shorts made for Polish television, both involving love triangles: “Pavoncello” (1967), based on a story by Stefan Zeromski, and “The Song of Triumphant Love” (“Piesn triumfujacej milosci,” 1967), from a tale by Ivan Turgenev. Mr. Zulawski’s best-known film stateside, “Possession” (1981), with an award-winning, explosive performance by Isabelle Adjani, drew on the trauma of his own divorce. He then examined the ability of actresses to metamorphose onscreen in the fascinatingly multilayered “The Public Woman” (“La femme publique,” 1984), in which a naive young woman (Valérie Kaprisky) is chosen by a domineering director to star in an adaptation of Dostoevski’s “The Possessed.”

Some of Mr. Zulawski’s most shocking movies are among his most brilliant, such as the erotic and stomach-turning but richly metaphorical “The Shaman” (“Szamanka,” 1996), which caused a scandal in Poland and was criticized for its depiction of post-Communist unease. In a jaw-dropping performance, an unknown whom Mr. Zulawski discovered in a Warsaw café (Iwona Petry) plays an outrageously carnal student who is either deranged or supernatural. She is drawn into an affair with an emotionally damaged anthropology professor (Boguslaw Linda) obsessed with a mummified bog man.

Mr. Zulawski’s most recent feature, “Fidelity” (“La fidélité,” 2000), was inspired by Madame de Lafayette’s “La Princesse de Clèves” and stars another muse, Sophie Marceau, as a photographer known for her raw images and the wonderful Pascal Greggory as the aristocratic husband she is tempted to betray. As in many of Mr. Zulawski’s films, when hearts break, bodies do too. It’s also, like all of his work, a paean to creative freedom.

Ms. Jones writes about film for the Journal.

Corrections & Amplifications: The central character in “The Public Woman” is asked to star in an adaptation of Dostoevski’s “The Possessed.” An earlier version of this article said it was an adaptation of “The Idiot.”

Edited by CRISTINA LOUROSA-RICARDO

The rules governing America’s most popular retirement vehicle are about to change. And that could mean huge savings for millions of workers who are building nest eggs for the future.

Spurred by the U.S. Labor Department’s effort to force plan administrators and investment companies to disclose the cost of 401(k) retirement plans, companies are looking to reduce fees and offer new investing choices.

Last week, the Labor Department released a final rule governing the disclosure by mutual-fund companies and other 401(k) administrators to employers of the fees they are charging to run the plans. Administrators will also have to disclose the costs to workers investing in the plans.

The deadline for the disclosures to employers is July 1. And 60 days after that disclosure, employers will have to provide detailed information to participants about fees, expenses and investment performance.

Until now, it has been difficult—if not impossible—for many 401(k) participants to determine how much they are paying in fees. The fees, which vary by type and size, aren’t typically disclosed in annual statements to investors.

Analysts and companies in the industry say the increased disclosure will allow companies to negotiate better deals and allow employees to request more cost-efficient plans.

Already, the prospect “is putting downward pressure on fees,” says Lori Lucas, leader of consulting firm Callan Associates’ defined-contribution practice.

Over the past few years, Fidelity Investments, ING U.S., Manulife Financial’s John Hancock unit and BlackRock have rolled out low-cost index target-date funds—a category that attracts a large portion of 401(k) investments—alongside their higher-fee actively managed funds.

Last month, Charles Schwab introduced a new 401(k) product consisting only of inexpensive index funds.

—Kelly Greene

and Anne Tergesen

The Wall Street Journal

Costly Living

Planning to retire this year? You could be starting off at a disadvantage—financially, at least—if you live in one of these 10 states.

TopRetirements.com, a guide to retirement destinations and communities, recently published its list of the 10 worst states for retirement, looking primarily at financial considerations. The site evaluated each state in terms of its fiscal health, property taxes, state income taxes and cost of living.

Here are the states where your retirement dollars might not go as far as you wish:

Connecticut. The report says the state has some great towns for retirees and “considerable charm.” But those charms come at a price: steep property and incomes taxes, and a high cost of living.

Illinois. Most pensions and Social Security payments aren’t taxed, but Illinois’s economic troubles—including deficit spending, unemployment and foreclosure rates—are “among the worst of any state,” according to the report.

Rhode Island. High property taxes are coupled with underfunded pension and health liabilities and budget deficits.

Vermont.Residents face “very high” median property and incomes taxes, the report says, as well as a top-10 cost of living.

Massachusetts. Social Security income and most government pensions are exempt from taxation. But property taxes are among the highest in the country.

Rounding out the bottom 10: New Jersey, Minnesota, New York, Maine and Wisconsin.

—Glenn Ruffenach

Encore Blog

SmartMoney.com

Delaying Payments

A revamped program launched last week aims to help homeowners who’ve lost their jobs from going into foreclosure. But experts warn there are drawbacks that could saddle some borrowers with even more debt.

Cash-strapped homeowners with a Freddie Mac-backed mortgage who are unemployed can now be absolved from paying their mortgage for up to one year while they try to find work. Previously, the company allowed a six-month break for such homeowners, and extended that period on a case-by-case basis.

Borrowers who decide to proceed with forbearance will need to meet several qualifications, including showing proof of a job loss.

While experts agree that the extension could help many borrowers, they warn that the program has potential pitfalls.

When the temporary relief ends, borrowers will have a hefty bill to pay. And they could find themselves in a deeper hole than they were before. Late fees aren’t added to the mortgage while it’s in forbearance, but interest is accruing and the unpaid principal that would have been paid during the relief period will be due when it ends.

Freddie Mac says the borrowers who aren’t able to pay that amount in one lump sum could be offered alternative payment options, such as paying that amount over time while simultaneously making their regular monthly payments.

—AnnaMaria Andriotis

Real-Time Advice Blog

SmartMoney.com

Dream House or Spouse?

It may not be possible to put a price on love, but the square footage and location of where that love story takes place is a different story.

Many couples take their potential partner’s apartment into account before entering into a relationship, according to a survey by Rent.com and RedShift Research, and are reluctant to pack their bags if the relationship breaks up.

Real estate apparently holds value better than relationships. Given the choice between their dream home and a perfect spouse, 30% of the 1,000 Americans surveyed said they would choose the dream home.

—Quentin Fottrell

Pay Dirt Blog

SmartMoney.com

‘Jobs and economic growth” will be the focus at today’s crisis summit in Brussels, but judging by recent meetings European leaders will address the financial symptoms rather than the causes of their economic woes. For insight into the latter, they might do well to read a report on Europe published last week by the World Bank, of all unlikely places.

The study’s lead authors, World Bank economists Indermit Gill and Martin Raiser, conclude that the Continent’s basic growth model of the last half-century is seriously amiss, and that it will take more than well-meaning summitry to fix it.

Some of the news in the report is good. Europe, despite its woes, still accounts for one-third of world GDP with only one-tenth of world population. Before the financial crisis, half of the world’s $15 trillion in trade in goods and services involved Europe. Within the Continent, the single market has created a boom in cross-border trade and investment, raising the incomes of millions of Southern and Eastern Europeans over the last few decades.

As for the bad news, the first source of trouble is the labor market. European workers aren’t nearly as productive as they ought to be, especially in the South. Labor participation is low, and those who are employed are working less than they used to. In the 1970s, the French worked the longest hours among advanced economies. By 2000, they worked a month and a half less than Americans each year.

Europe’s demographics also aren’t on the side of growth. Populations across the developed world are graying, but Europe’s low productivity growth means that its future labor shortfall will be especially acute. It doesn’t help that Europeans draw social security benefits earlier and more easily than their developed-world peers. Pension commitments will strain national budgets even if Angela Merkel gets her way on handcuffing euro-zone public debt.

Which brings Messrs. Gill and Raiser to the other serious drain on European growth. Big government, by their calculation, shaves about two percentage points off growth once public spending passes 40% of GDP. Some welfare states are better-run than others—think Sweden and Germany—but the World Bank report highlights a few important connections between the welfare state and growth.

Today, European governments spend more on social protection than the rest of the world combined, thereby entrenching powerful disincentives to work and enterprise. Social protections have also come at huge direct cost to taxpayers. Europe’s giant debts arose because of “public spending to protect societies from the rougher facets of private enterprise,” the authors write. It’s rare to hear an institution such as the World Bank that is typically sympathetic to its political bosses put the matter so clearly.

A few policy fixes suggest themselves. Labor is still not as mobile within the EU as once envisioned. Easing restrictions on immigration from outside the EU is highly controversial, but it would help Europe face its demographic and economic shortfalls. Wealthy European countries have suffered a net drain of 1.5 million highly educated people to the U.S. alone in the last few decades.

But something deeper that needs adjustment. “From North Americans,” the authors write, “Europe could learn that economic liberty and social security have to be balanced with care: nations that sacrifice too much economic freedom for social security can end up with neither, impairing both enterprise and government.”

Messrs. Gill and Raiser call Europe a “lifestyle superpower”: It attracts tourists in droves, and its residents enjoy peace and a high standard of living. But it’s not getting richer. Unless it again puts income growth ahead of income security and redistribution, the Continent will continue to decline as an economic power.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page 14