Gothamist Monthly Favorites

No ShopRite Cake for Baby Hitler

When you name your baby Hitler—or, in this case, Adolf Hitler Campbell—perhaps you are stacking the deck against him. A NJ family is upset that ShopRite refused to personalize a cake with "Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler." The boy's father, Heath Campbell, a "Nazi fan" (his other kids are JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlyn Hinler Jeannie) and Holocaust denier who decorates his home with swastikas, told reporters yesterday, "There's a new president and he says it's time for a change. Well, then it's time for a change. They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what [Hitler] did." ShopRite offered to write "Happy Birthday" with room for the Campbells to inscribe it themselves, but the outraged family took their business to Wal-Mart, which apparently supplied little Adolf's earlier cakes. For levity: Top 10 rejected names for Adolf Hitler Campbell ("9. Dahmer Amin Stalin Telemarketer Campbell").

Carriage Horses Don't Get Snow Days

The Humane Society writes in to alert us of the latest act of cruelty against NYC's carriage horses. "While airplanes were grounded on last Friday, Dec 19th during the snowstorm, the city’s horse carriages continued operation. Forcing animals to work in such oppressive weather conditions is cruel and this is just the tip of the abuse associated with the carriage horse industry." The footage was posted by filmmaker Donny Moss, who directed Blinders.

They added that "Over a year has passed since City Comptroller William Thompson documented in an independent audit the inhumane conditions the horses live and work under, yet the abuse continues. The Humane Society of the United States and our more than 217,000 members and supporters in New York City urge the City Council to shut this industry down." Last month PETA launched a new campaign against the industry as well.

L.I. Wal-Mart Employee Killed in Black Friday Stampede

Photograph of a Secaucus, NJ Wal-Mart earlier this morning by Mike Derer/AP

This morning, shoppers apparently broke down the doors of a Valley Stream Wal-Mart, and, in the process, trampled a Wal-Mart greeter to death around 5 a.m. The Nassau County police tell Newsday the store was a "mob scene" and that the worker was a temporary, part-time employee. One witness, Kimberly Cribbs of Far Rockaway, said that other Wal-Mart employees (some of whom were crying) asked shoppers to leave:

Though rumors circulated among the shoppers that someone had been badly injured, people ignored the Wal-Mart workers' requests that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, Cribbs said.

"They kept shopping. It's not right. They're savages," Cribbs said.

She said she entered the store after the worker was already being attended to by emergency personnel. As people waited, then pushed into the store, she said, "It was chaos."

A Wal-Mart employee, Jimmy Overby, told the Daily News, "He was bum-rushed by 200 people. They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

The Post reports that four other people--including a pregnant woman who was knocked to the floor--were taken to the hospital.

More Gripes Over the Grand Street Bike Lane

The new bike lane on Grand Street that a local shop owner recently called the possible "demise of Little Italy" continues to draw attention with complaints that fire trucks are struggling to maneuver around the new setup of the block. Ernest Lepore, owner of Ferrara Cafe who originally talked to Villager, appears to have taken his case against the lane to the Post, telling the paper, "I saw one truck back up four or five times before being able to squeeze into the lane. The firefighter was visibly frustrated."

Now Ferrara even has an anonymous firefighter on his side. A member of nearby Engine Company 55 told the Post, "It is a problem. It's something we've been talking about. We been changing our routes when we're driving around this area." But an FDNY spokesman denied that the new lane has affected response times. The FDNY and DOT have apparently been discussing the issue for over six months.

The DOT continued to support the bike lane, saying that MuniMeters with three-hour limits are being installed on the north side of Grand to keep delivery trucks moving and that No Parking zones at Grand Street intersections are coming as of Monday. A DOT spokesman told the paper, "The most important thing to emphasize is that this project is still being installed. We're still open to hear concerns from the community."

Photo courtesy Rather Be Biking.

Latest From Kent Ave. Bike Lane: Hasidic Chicken

The Hasidic community has been upset over bike lanes in their South Williamsburg for months, what with the immodest apparel of female bicyclists and the lanes taking up street space. Previously, the Hasidim announced they would use private buses to intentionally block bike lanes; now a reader tells us about her ride today:

Things have gotten pretty terrible in the saga of the Kent Ave. bike lane, at least for me. Today I had to ride between North Williamsburg and Fort Greene. On my way there, an older Hasidic man stepped right off the empty sidewalk and into the bike lane right in front of me as I was riding by Shaffaer's Landing. He seriously tried to play a game of chicken with me and stepped in that lane when I was a good 10 yards back so I would have to swerve around him.

On my way back around 4 p.m. things got a bit worse. As I was making a left from Wallabout onto Kent to go under the BQE (not the best route, I know, but I wanted to get home quickly) a bus drive by a Hasidic man (no other people on it) sped up to make the right onto Kent in front of me even though there was no room for him to make the turn. I know this is hard to explain in an email, but he made it impossible for me to access the far right side of the street. I had to turn in between two lanes of traffic. There was no space for me to get over until I got closer to the light, which had by that time changed. I tried to pull up into the gas station on that corner, but a huge truck with a crane started backing out. I had to swerve back into traffic where I hit a huge crack and bit it. My head almost got run over by a car. Fortunately, I got away with a scraped knee and the creeps.

Of course, by the time I finally made it back to the start of the bike lane again on the other side of the BQE there was a guy driving his minivan down it...IN REVERSE! Can't wait to bring this up at the Community Board meeting.

That would be Community Board 1. The next meeting with a scheduled public hearing is January 1, 2009 (we're checking to confirm whether that's still on).

Suffocating Subway Ads Take Over Train

Photo by Jake Dobkin.

In case you weren't feeling confined enough while riding through the underground tunnels of New York, the MTA has taken a step to ensure everyone gets that cozy feeling of claustrophobia during their commutes. As shown in the above photo, the organization is now allowing full window ads. These aren't the kind that you can see clearly out of either, as one disgruntled straphanger noted: "outward visibility is significantly reduced in outdoor lighting, and severely reduced to totally eliminated at night or in low lighting." Someone bail the MTA out before we all become walking billboards.

Cops on Fatal L.I. Wal-Mart Stampede: "This Crowd Was Out of Control"

The Wal-Mart worker killed during yesterday's morning Black Friday sale stampede at the Valley Stream store was identified as 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens. Newsday reports that the Wal-Mart entrance doors were broken down by a restless crowd of 2,000 shoppers--many of whom had been waiting for hours--as workers were getting the store ready for the 5 a.m. opening. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holidays, was pushed to the ground and trampled. Detective Lieutenant Michael Fleming, who is investigating the death, said, "This crowd was out of control," and "They overran him and kept running into the store. They pushed right over his body."

The Post suggests that the crowd became unruly because the store didn't open exactly at 5 a.m., and according to the Daily News, before the opening, "Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers."

Shopper Nakea Augustine, who took photographs of the mass of people, said, "Nobody was trying to help him. They were rushing in the store, rushing, rushing, rushing." A cop said that cops performing CPR on Damour were also stepped on by shoppers. Another shopper said that Wal-Mart employees' pleas to shoppers were ignored, "When they were saying [shoppers] had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since Friday morning!' They kept shopping."

While Wal-Mart called Damour's death a "tragic situation," Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers had a comment (Wal-Mart does not have union workers). Local 1500 president Bruce Both asked the NY Times, “Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner? This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.”

Det. Lt. Fleming also called the chaos "foreseeable." Damour's friends and family told Newsday that he "was an easygoing, helpful man who loved poetry." A friend also said Damour, who had done construction work, "was a big man and had no apparent health problems."

New School Student Occupation Day Two: Banners!

A group of New School students, perhaps numbering 75 or more, are continuing their occupation of a dining hall at the university's Graduate Faculty building at 65 Fifth Avenue. Taking over the room last night, the group announced, "We liberate this space for ourselves, and all those who want to join us, for our general autonomous use. We take the university in explicit solidarity with those occupying the universities and streets in Greece, Italy, France and Spain."

They've hung up some banners, issued a "communique," and at least one student is wearing a beret. According to the manifesto, this is "a response to specific conditions at the New School, the corporatization of the university and the impoverishment of education in general." But that's not all:

It is not just this university but also New York City that is in crisis: in the next several months, thousands of us will be losing our jobs, while housing remains unaffordable and unavailable to many and the cost of living skyrockets...Be assured, this is only the beginning...with this occupation, we inaugurate a wave of occupations in New York City and the United States, a coming wave of occupations, blockades, and strikes in this time of crisis.

Looks like we're gonna need more banners. According to the Times, the protest "echoes dissidence among many of the school’s faculty members, who in the past week have cast votes of no confidence in [New School President Bob] Kerrey’s ability to lead the school." The students demand Kerrey's resignation, as well as other officials' termination; they want the next president, EVP, and Provost to be elected by students, faculty, and staff; and they want to stop the the school from "tearing down" 65 Fifth Avenue.

Graduate student Marcus Michelson tells the Times, "This is about starting a dialogue. And to do that you have to be seen as an equal. People just don’t give equality away, you have to take it." But an unidentified school official who stopped by the nascent autonomous zone grumbled, "You are going about this the wrong way."

Tourists Get Blogged Hard With a Vengeance

Maybe one blogger can make a difference? Beer enthusiast Aaron Goldfarb has had it with tourists who dare invade our fair city with their money and slow walking. So he's sending a misanthropic message to the world with his NYC tourist blog that these shabbily dressed visitors must be stopped. Or at least mocked. Goldfarb spends his days documenting every Midtown tourist step, profiling them by their tapered jeans or cowboy hats, and snidely imagining their insipid chatter. Also on notice is anyone who eats pancakes or looks at department store holiday windows! His tagline: "Give me your tired, your poor, your disgustingly fat retarded sloths that get in my fucking way every time I try to negotiate midtown." But could it be Goldfarb (pictured here looking touristy with our 43rd president) doth protest too much, and secretly loathes the tourist within?

Half New Yorkers Struggling to Pay for Groceries, Study Finds

A report released Tuesday by the Food Bank for New York City has found that approximately four million New Yorkers—one in two—are having trouble paying for groceries, a 26 percent increase since the last survey in February. The Hunger Experience 2008 Update also found that college degrees are increasingly useless protection against indigence; one out of every three (36 percent) NYC college graduates had difficulty affording needed food this year, up from 11 percent in 2003. Lucy Cabrera, the food bank's president, says, "The results of this report are devastating. These numbers should be a wake-up call for all New Yorkers." The Food Bank NYC sources and distributes food to the estimated 1.3 million New Yorkers who rely on emergency food. Today you've got until noon to help the Food Bank by bidding on one of their cool celebrity decorated lunchboxes. (Just please don't outbid us on Mike D's Jacob the Jeweler box.) [Photo Cred]

FDNY Bar Brawl Sparked By Civilian's FDNY T-Shirt

It took officers from four precincts and the elite Emergency Services Unit over a quarter of an hour to break up a massive bar brawl at McFadden's on 42nd Street and Second Avenue around 10:30 on Saturday night. Police say a crowd of about 20 people were involved in the melee when it erupted out onto the street. Five people were finally arrested, including two firefighters, and another two firefighters were given summons for disorderly conduct after they went to the stationhouse and harassed cops about the arrests.

The Times reports that John Tew, 37, of Rescue 4 in Queens, and Matthew Veitch, 27, of Ladder 173 in Queens, (both from Long Island) were drinking at the bar with friends for several hours before the group spotted 22-year-old Christopher DiForte of Staten Island wearing a T-shirt with the department's logo. An NYPD source tells the Daily News, "It was a run-of-the-mill T-shirt. The real firefighters took umbrage that he wore it." One firefighter asked DiForte which unit he was in, and when he replied that he was not in the FDNY, they started harassing him.

They NYPD source added that in the ensuing scuffle DiForte began "swinging his pint glass wildly... and shattered the glass on the head of 25-year-old Matias Acevedo, a friend of the firefighters, who suffered a nasty gash." DiForte and two other men were also charged with assault; all five of the arrested men were released Sunday. As for the T-shirt, you can buy yours at the FDNY Fire Zone, "a not-for-profit corporation established to fund Fire Safety in New York City and the professional development, training and education of members of the FDNY."

Bike Lane Brouhaha: Officials Backpedal on Kent Ave

We continue to receive emails about the controversial Kent Avenue bike lane in Brooklyn, which has become the front line in the battle over bike lanes. On one side are business owners and residents who insist that the new "No Stopping" signs on Kent, installed to accommodate the bike lane, are onerous; on the other side are cyclists who enjoy the sense of a safer commute between north and south Brooklyn, and cherish the hope for a Brooklyn Greenway completely separate from traffic. Here's an email in response to yesterday's story about a cyclist who says Hasidim in South Williamsburg are making good on their promise to obstruct traffic in protest:

Things have gotten pretty terrible in the saga of the Kent Ave. bike lane, at least for the people who live or work on this block. Today I had to drive home my 5 year old daughter from hospital, after she went through surgery last week, it was 6 p.m. when we arrived in front our home at 450 Kent Avenue and it was freezing cold outside, after driving around for 15 minutes, I finally found a halfway illegal parking spot 4 blocks away from my home, I had to walk with my cranky just out of hospital daughter in my hands, all while she was complaining why I had to park so far.

This is 1 of 100 such stories that happen every day here on our block. Now back to the issues: we lost over 100 parking spots, there is no way to pick up/drop off a passenger or make a delivery in front of our house, buses cant stop to pick up kids, you cant call a car service to your house, and all you had to write was Hasidic chickens and Hasids Say Cyclists Too Sexy for Bike Lanes. I want to invite you to my house, and give you a consignment, come with your car, find a legal parking spot within 5 blocks of my house, walk down to our building very slowly and count how many bikes pass by. I bet U, it wont be more then 1.

On the other hand, anyone who rides a bike through South Williamsburg—or anywhere in NYC—knows that buses and other vehicles routinely block the bike lanes, with little enforcement from the NYPD—who in fact are among the city's most shameless bike lane blockers. Nevertheless, community pressure has become so intense that Councilman David Yassky, Borough President Marty Markowitz, and other officials want the DOT to paint over the bike lane on the northbound side and to remove the "No Stopping" signs on the east side of Kent Avenue, "until such time as an appropriate community-endorsed solution can be developed."

Their full letter to the DOT is published after the jump. And in still more NYC cycling news, City Room reports that yesterday the City Council discussed two bills: One that would mandate access to bike parking in most office and retail buildings, "provided that such building can reasonably accommodate the storage of such bicycle," and a second that would require garages and parking lots to provide at least one bicycle parking space for every 10 car-parking spaces. But a representative of city building owners, Sylvester Giustino, urged caution, wondering how the city expects owners to "screen bicycles and bicyclists for terrorist activity."December 5, 2008

Commissioner Joseph Palmieri

New York City Department of Transportation

Brooklyn Borough Office

16 Court Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

Dear Commissioner Palmieri,

Increasing the availability of bicycle lanes throughout New York City is a critical goal that we share with the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT). That said, we strongly believe that this goal must be balanced with an appropriate consideration for the local businesses, schools, and residents that stand to be most affected by the installation of these lanes. We write to express our concern that these considerations were not appropriately balanced when DOT installed the two-way bicycle lane on Kent Avenue. This has created an adverse and unnecessary impact on residents, local businesses and bikers alike.

Since the installation of this lane and the accompanying “No Stopping” signage, businesses that rely on their ability to load and unload on Kent Avenue have been forced to risk both physical danger and repeated fines. Many of these businesses are dependent on retail customers who can no longer find parking to do their shopping. Repeated requests to find an effective and immediate solution for these businesses have been ignored by DOT or have not been met with the urgency that the situation warrants.

In addition to the businesses along Kent Avenue, many local residents have been affected by the sudden change in parking regulations. The resultant loss of parking in an area that already faces a parking shortage has forced families to park far from their homes and has impaired their ability to drop their children off at school, receive deliveries, and load and unload passengers in front of their homes.

In light of the difficulties and inconveniences that have resulted from the installation of the bicycle lanes on Kent Avenue, we respectfully ask that DOT remove the newly installed “No Stopping” signs from the east side of Kent Avenue and that you paint over the northbound bike lane until such time as an appropriate community-endorsed solution can be developed.

We are deeply troubled by the negative effect that this effort has had on the Greenpoint/Williamsburg community’s opinion about bicycle lanes and biking, which are a critical part of the North Brooklyn community. We affirm our enthusiastic support for the Brooklyn Greenway, and we hope and expect to see the Kent Avenue bike lanes, which greatly increase bicyclist safety, return once the DOT and the community have developed a collaborative plan. Until that time, we feel it is unfair to leave the bicycle lanes as they are.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to our offices with questions.

Sincerely,

David Yassky (Council Member, 33rd District), Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn Borough President),
Daniel Squadron (State Senator-elect, 25th District), Diana Reyna (Council Member, 34th District), Evan Thies (Chair, Sanitation and Environment Committee Community Board 1)

cc: Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City Department of Transportation

Photo of Kent Avenue Bike Lane courtesy I'm Not Sayin, I'm Just Sayin's Flickr.

Alleged NYPD Subway Sodomites Appear in Court

Here's a lede you don't see every day, courtesy the NY Times: "A New York City patrolman used his baton to sodomize a man in a subway station, and two complicit colleagues helped him cover it up, the Brooklyn district attorney charged on Tuesday as he unsealed indictments against three police officers. Using graphic detail, the district attorney described an attack that he said left the man, Michael Mineo, with a gashed anus and blood on his hands." (We'll miss you when you're gone, paper of record.)

The accused officers appeared in Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday for the arraignment, during which D.A. Charles Hynes charged that immediately following the subterranean violation, Mineo showed officers the blood only to be ignored. Officer Richard Kern, the sodomite in question, allegedly told him "that if he reported the circumstances to anyone, he would be arrested and charged with a felony." Hynes also compared the incident to the other notorious NYPD anal rape, that of Abner Louima 11 years ago, and he took pains to make sure the jury understood "the comparison, is that the allegation that an instrument in each case was shoved up someone’s anus." Got it!

The Daily News has it that a plainclothes cop in the courtroom yesterday called Mineo a faggot, to which he responded by blowing a kiss. At a press conference later, Hynes told reporters that Kern, age 25, could be sentenced to 25 years in prison. Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales have been charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct for allegedly covering up the incident. Cruz's lawyer insists the D.A. doesn't "even have a paper-thin case." And Police union chief Patrick Lynch says the public should withhold judgment until the jury reaches a verdict: "We have earned the benefit of a doubt with our blood and sacrifice."

Paterson's "Obesity Tax" Would Raise Price of Pop

As part of his desperate effort to close an estimated $15 billion budget deficit this year and next, Governor Paterson is proposing, among other things, a tax on roughly 15% of non-diet soft drinks, the Daily News reports. On Tuesday Paterson will officially announce his $121 billion budget, which emphasizes broad cuts in education and Medicaid. "I expect it to be an unmitigated disaster for health care institutions in New York," Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, tells the Times. The obesity tax would raise some $404 million a year, but the state shouldn't expect any revenue boost from teens like Amaury Garcia, 16, who works at a flower shop in Penn Station. She tells the News the tax would simply drive her to abstinence: "I don't like to buy Diet Coke. I'll just not buy any sodas if it goes up."

Chris Crews, New School Student

As you've probably heard, for several days a group of students at The New School University occupied a dining hall in the Graduate Faculty building at 65 Fifth Avenue, which is scheduled for demolition. Among their demands were the resignations of university President Bob Kerrey and other officials, and voting representation on the search committee for the interim-Provost and the Provost.

Yesterday a scuffle with security led to the arrest of one student, and last night police were stationed outside the room and preventing students from leaving to use the bathroom or receive any supplies. According to the New School Free Press, around 3 a.m., "after roughly an hour of discussion and comment on a seemingly endless torrent of tangents," students voted to vacate the building without getting the desired resignations, but with some concessions from the administration. Yesterday afternoon one of the dissidents, Chris Crews, a first year MA student in the Department of Politic in the New School for Social Research, responded to our questions via email from the "New School in Exile."

So what happened with the "excessive force” mentioned on the New School in Exile blog? The students attempted and successfully took over a side entrance out of the building that had street access to 13th Avenue. This was done so we could let supporters inside who had been turned away by security at the main (Fifth Avenue) entrance, as well as to bring in more supplies. During that time security attempted to force students out of the doorway and re-close the door.

Students attempted to use crates, boxes and miscellaneous items to prevent this. This led to the primary security officer on premise assaulting several students in the process, and two heated confrontations with what we deemed to be excessive and unreasonable force. We also have video documenting the chief security officer attacking the students, as well as other confrontations with the police.

How many students are in there now? At this time, I would estimate we have somewhere between 80 and 100 people. There was a huge influx of new people that came in after noon today. So we have die-hards from last weekend when the occupation really got started, and people who just joined in the last hour or two.

Are police immediately outside the room to arrest anyone who steps out alone? Not yet. The only person who was arrested so far was arrested outside of the side door during the earlier scuffle I mentioned. The NYPD showed up and then left, but returned again about half an hour ago. It’s not clear what the police might do, or if the university would seriously bring in the police to arrest the large group here now.Have any faculty members joined you or voiced their support? There have been faculty memberswho have come in throughout the day, and others whom students talked with while they were out flyering and canvassing on campus. The overall sentiment has been extremely positive, although we have not seen any formal faculty statement yet on the occupation.

Why are you occupying this particular building? It is being held for two major reasons. First, this is the only student space on campus where we can gather and study, access the library, or otherwise work as groups, study sessions, etc. Additionally, this building is closing at the end of the semester (next week) and will not be re-opened, further signifying the loss of student resources without any real alternatives being provided.

What do you hope to change by occupying the building? We hope to have our demands met, in particular the resignation of university president Bob Kerrey, executive vice president James Murtha, and board of trustee member Robert Millard. Additionally, we hope to raise the larger issues of student empowerment, institutional transparency and a focus on academics.

How long do you think students will continue the sit-in? We are committed to occupying the building until our demands are met, or the police drag the last one of us out.

Do you have enough supplies? Yes, but more are always welcome!

One student, Marcus Michelson, told the Times the occupation was intended to “start a dialogue.” But when Kerrey came to speak with you today, the students refused to meet with him. Why? Because our demands are simple, we want his resignation. There isn’t really any need to negotiate that point, and since he wasn’t willing to make that statement, there wasn’t anything else to hear from him. I think the “dialogue” issue is a bit of a canard coming from some of those who just want to improve things, not actually change the structure of how this university operates.

So what’s so bad about Kerrey? Besides his involvement in the massacre of Vietnamese villagers in Thang Phong as part of Operation Pheonix? Or his involvement with appointing people like L-3 Communications who are involved with interrogation and torture of detainees in Iraq? Or his support of pro-war, conservative politics as the head of an institution devoted to critical academic research and scholarship?

I’m told you changed your list of demands. What are the demands now? The list of demands has not fundamentally “changed.” We are still calling for the resignation of Kerrey, Murtha and Millard. We are still calling for an institutional role for students, and not simply lip service about how student input is important and matters a lot to them. We are still calling for more resources to go to students. We are still calling for institutional transparency in decision making.

Kerrey’s blog has been experiencing technical difficulties. Have you occupied that, as well? Perhaps…

Are You Hoed Out if You Donate to the UHO?

Today's Post once again blows the lid on what has long been a not so well-kept secret: that the folks around town who sit alongside the jugs labeled UHO (for United Homeless Organization) actually keep that money for themselves while merely paying a $15 a day fee for the jug and a folding table. The Post labels them "glorified beggars" and talks to one who says that the jug is like "giving a homeless person a suit." They also speak to a college student who was irate and told them, "I want my quarter back. That's ridiculous." The paper also reports that UHO does not have the required license to solicit on the street and accuse them of "murky expenses" coming from the nearly $100,000 in contributions the organization reported last year.

Tom Lee, Partner of the Late Arthur Russell

Even if you aren't familiar with Arthur Russell, the film capturing his life and music, Wild Combination (watch trailer here), will intrigue and likely make you an instant fan. The late musician's partner, Tom Lee (pictured to the right of Arthur), is a major voice in the film. Still living in their East Village apartment, he recently talked to us about what life with Arthur was like, and how it has changed since he died in 1992. The film plays at MoMA tonight and December 19, and is just one of the many ways Arthur is still being celebrated today.

When did you meet Arthur? I met Arthur in the summer of 1978. I had just moved into New York from New Jersey and I was working on West 29th St for a fine art silk screen printing company. Through contacts at work I found a cheap studio on Avenue A, between 12th and 13th streets. I used to come home each day on the R train and walk along St. Mark’s Place. I started to notice Arthur on the phone along the wall of the Gem Spa, a newspaper and magazine store. I was also going out to some bars and clubs to hear music with college friends and it seemed over the course of a few weeks I would spot him. It intrigued me that I kept noticing him and I became determined to say hello and meet him. When I think back to that time I think I was looking for a way to make some friends in New York and he seemed like a good place to start!

Finally one night I saw him at the Gem Spa buying an ice cream around 2 in the morning on my way home from the club, Hurrah’s. I followed him a bit and we began to talk. In the week that followed I saw him again on the phone and he didn’t have a pencil but gave my number to his friend Ernie, with whom he was talking. We soon started to hang out together, either at his apartment on East 12th Street, where I live now, or at my apartment on Avenue A. The advantage to staying at my apartment was that I had a telephone and electricity.

At the time Arthur was working on contrasting sounds of the male and female vocals of “Is It All Over My Face?”, which I found very odd compared to the music that I favored, but we fell into each other’s worlds quite easily. We went to see music together, usually people who he knew or groups I was interested in. We’d go to places such as The Kitchen, Tier 3 and CBGB.What drew you to him? Arthur had a laid back manner with a spiritual foundation from his interest and study of Buddhism. His would sometimes go to talks at a center. He had close ties to this world through his friends Tej. I would sometimes be on the sidelines at these events or just not in attendance. At times I would enter his apartment, tapping on the unlocked door of this six floor walk-up, to find him quietly meditating on a raised shipping pallet behind a curtain in the living room. He was a gentle person who could easily have a strong, vocal reaction to recording studio mishaps but would not dream of killing a roach, mosquito or mouse!

What was your day-to-day life like back then? We soon developed a domestic relationship amidst his busy music work. While we did not live together until 1980 we were generally staying at one another’s apartments, making food for each other, going to movies and meeting friends through those years. Arthur usually always made the same meal, a one-pot mixture of brown rice with carrots and onions. Butter and tamari sauce finished it off. We were both vegetarians and only when he was very ill and on the advice of his doctor did he eat fish or chicken for the extra protein in hopes of giving him some extra strength. He also taught me his Iowan ways of buttering corn on the cob by rolling it in a piece of buttered bread. He could eat ear after ear of corn in the summer!

He shared with me his frustrations with studio recordings, feeling like the engineer failed to get the balances right or missed a great take. I would try to talk to him about the successes but it was rare that he came home particularly excited about a new recording. I think because he generally considered so much of it as works in progress, waiting for an additional vocal, keyboard, drum, or guitar track to be added, after he listened endlessly on his walkman to all the ‘takes’ from a particular session. He faithfully purchased a small lunar calendar each year and scheduled his studio recording times, and moments when he would cut his hair, around the times of a full moon, which was thought to give you an extra boost of energy and spirit. With the help of his friend, Kirk Winslow, he also looked to numerology to make sure he was choosing the best dates and song and album titles, in relation to proper number sequences and totals.

What is your favorite memory of him? As I cooked dinner most nights we would usually coordinate eating with watching the “Muppet Show” at 7:30. We both liked the silliness of the various characters and how they would tease and interact with the guest hosts. About an hour later we would have a nightly ritual of determining if we should go get some ice cream, who should go get it and what kind. Being somewhat ‘health conscious’, but still wanting a treat we would finally agree on Hagen Dasz honey vanilla, Arthur usually being the one to go up and down the six flights of stairs to get it! Since I had the “9 to 5” job I would soon be off to sleep while he put on his headphones and played the Casio keyboard, quietly recording into the night in the next room. I still have one of those keyboards, the Casio MT30, which he worked with many, many years ago. He often placed a battery on a key to create a sustained drone along with his playing and singing. Besides his interest in various drum machines, and keyboards Casio’s, DX7’s, etc., Arthur went through innumerable boxes of cassette tapes, each new version of the ‘Walkman’ and batteries, batteries and more batteries!

I have fond memories of Arthur preparing for various performances with his and Steven Hall’s group, the Sailboats or with Ernie Brooks and The Necessaries. As usual there might have been some frustrations for him if a particular music executive didn’t show up or a complaint about the sound system but I also remember the tenderness of our personal time together. I remember one particular late night walking home from a gig with him along a very quiet, desolate lower Broadway, just above Houston Street. It was perhaps 1:00 AM and there were no cars or businesses to be seen. We might have easily walked a few blocks right in the middle of the road. That gradually changed to the busy area it is now. I was so happy just ambling on home with him carrying his cello.

How have you seen the city change, both personally and through the music/social scene, from the era that was shown in the film? Of course there were many parts of the East Village that were not safe in the early ‘80’s, and you were always looking over your shoulder or had a heightened sense of awareness that I feel isn’t as necessary now. But it was also our ‘neighborhood’, and if we didn’t know where the other one was we would know to stop in at The Bar on Second Avenue, or at the St. Mark’s Bookstore. In that time before cell phones we would leave each other quick notes on the kitchen counter, such as: “I’ll be right back,” “I went for a run,” “Be back at 9:00, put the rice on.” There would also be ones that might say: “Here’s $20.00..make it last,” or “Can you leave me $5.00?” He bought a lot of cassette tape on Canal Street in those early years!

His music spanned different genres, do you have a favorite period of his work, or song? When I first met Arthur I wasn’t crazy about his ‘dance music’. It was not something that I enjoyed previously and I did not get the connection that he was making with it to other genres. I really loved the old tapes that I would find in bins around the apartment with many of the songs that are now on the recent record, “Love Is Overtaking Me.” I would ask him to sing me those songs and he did go back to many of them over the years while working with other musicians. I soon grew to like all of his music, because I could hear and understand it more from its genesis. Songs like, “Tell You Today,” and “In The Light Of The Miracle,” he worked so hard and passionately on. I loved the dreamy quality of “The World of Echo” music and when he performed that music in many downtown venues I always hoped that my friends would hear it and like it as I did. I might have felt particularly connected to much of this music because it was developed concurrently to our relationship. Together we started to print post cards and album covers at the silk screen printing company, where I worked.

I love so much of Arthur’s music. It feels deeply personal and tender to me. After he died I couldn’t stop listening to “The World Of Echo” music, which for me means all the many cassettes with alternate takes and versions that didn’t make the final cut. I can happily listen to a 45 minute take of “Being It”! I can also drift away to the hypnotic sound of “Platform On The Ocean.” I have memories of our conversations about that song and can picture sitting on the floor with him around the big reel-to-reel tape machine making suggestions for splicing various segments together. After making an especially lengthy edit he would make me a cassette copy and I would go out for a walk with it and then return to talk to him about my reactions.

What do you think of the documentary, Wild Combination? I think that Matt’s movie captures the essence of Arthur. He establishes an historical context and weaves in a personal story. It is evocative of Arthur and the time we were together. I feel honored that Matt chose to have our relationship be a ‘touchstone’ for this story. Arthur was involved with many different musicians, engineers, producers, and record company people. Matt told this story through a few people and I think it makes it very personal while at the same time allows people who did not know Arthur get a strong sense of him.

Where do you think Arthur would have gone with his music, did he talk about a direction he had wanted to go in? It is hard to say what Arthur would be up to now. On the new CD, “Love Is Overtaking Me”, is included the song “Love Comes Back” that was one of the last songs that he worked on. Perhaps he would have wanted to have some do a mix of that song, bringing in some drums or additional keyboards or vocals. I do know the he would have kept working each day, negotiating studio time and listening to music on the radio and new CDs. He would have been thrilled that his fan base has grown as it has. He always liked to point out a young fan at one of his concerts, or ask his nephew Beau what he thought of some of his music. When we would talk about record album designs he would ask me if my nephew, Kevin, who was around 5 or 6, could draw a “dinosaur disguised as a space ship”, or was it a ‘spaceship disguised as a dinosaur?” He was very interested in fresh ideas that were not influenced by things that were overly familiar or popular. He wanted to make the sounds that people would be listening to hear on the street…from boom boxes, (which today, would mean what people are hearing on satellite radios or on their iTouch.)

Arthur would constantly bring home records from record stores and I would be a little irritated because we didn’t have the money to buy these records that he would listen to for just a few times. He was mostly interested in hearing the quality and sound of the production, how the drums were balanced, the mix and levels of the vocals. I always remember when he brought home a Chet Baker record and while I at first thought he shouldn’t have bought yet another record I was mesmerized…it quickly became a personal favorite and I was grateful to have it. Arthur was interested in vocal music and he liked Chet’s a lot. He would listen consistently to Indian vocal music, both traditional and contemporary, which seems to have influenced him a bit on his cello and vocal styling. He was also a big fan of Terry Reilly’s, too.

What bands/musicians are you currently listening to? I’ve always been a big Nick Drake and John Martyn fan so when reviewers make mention of Arthur sounding like either of them I am very pleased. Currently on my regular playlist is the music of Jose Gonzalez, Low, Little Dragon, Great Lakes Swimmer, Teddy Thompson, Sam Cooke, Arcade Fire, Mark Kozelek, Chet Baker and Nat Baldwin. I would go to see any of them if they were playing in New York. (Of course Sam and Chet would not be playing anywhere that I could go to!)

What's the best venue to see music here now? It can be hard to see music in New York because you generally have to stand at the places that the people I like to see perform…but I still go to the Bowery Ballroom, Brooklyn Lyceum, Highline and others.

In the film it shows a lot of Arthur's music on tapes that were never released, what are you doing with these now? I feel fortunate that Steve Knutson has brought forth so much of Arthur’s music on Audika. He’s been so passionate about each project and is responsible for nurturing Arthur’s legacy. We have had a good working relationship and friendship since we first met!

Best cheap eat in the city. I like the restaurant on my street called S’mac/Sarita’s Macaroni and Cheese. I can take care of my own vegetarian cooking so this is a fun indulgence. They have some great combinations of ingredients in their macaroni and cheese and while their clientele may be mostly NYU’ers I like that their staff seem like they are friends and family. It’s friendly, always busy and yummy! While I am waiting for my brie, fig, shitake mushroom, rosemary mac and cheese I can go up First Avenue, between 13th and 14th to the Birdbath Bakery. Their huge cookies are so good and I brought a delicious almond cranberry tart to a Thanksgiving dinner.

Which New Yorker do you most admire? When Arthur started to get more ill over the last couple of years of his life we would be more and more at home. Our social circle grew smaller and he was working at the tape machines, keyboard and drum machines in the apartment, still booking a little studio time but mostly keeping up with doctor’s appointments and trying out a variety of medicines. With more time at home I remember we started watching baseball together and watched a lot of Yankee games during some years that they were not doing so well. I have since grown to be a very big fan and go to games with my friend, Mark. For the past number of years one of my favorite New Yorkers has been Jorge Posada. He represents to me a ‘regular guy’…hard working and passionate about what he loves to do. His young son had a lot of health challenges when he was born and I admire how Jorge and his wife have dealt with that, too.

Another New Yorker whom I admire is an old friend of mine, Mikel Rouse. He is a composer and musician and he is some one who has kept working on his music over the years. Check out his website and give him your support. He has passionate and caring political views tempered with a good sense of humor.

What are you doing these days? I’ve been a schoolteacher for the past 14 years and I feel lucky to go to work each day in my first grade classroom. I am fortunate to work in a great school with supportive colleagues. I am happy to keep at it BUT, if I could leave New York, it would be to live in Maine, where I have a small house and wonderful community of friends (including Arthur’s sisters, Julie and Kate)!

Given the opportunity, how would you change New York? As many people might hope for I wish that New York was an affordable place for people to live…not just artists and musicians and dancers, who enrich our lives with their work, but for anyone who might want to live here and take advantage of life in the city.

Thu Tran, Food Party

Thu Tran is the host and creator of Food Party, quite possibly the only cooking program you should be watching. The show is a labor of strange love between the 27-year-old and her friends, who hand-make the supporting cast, sets and props. In the first two episodes, cardboard versions of Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and LeBron James make dinner plans with Tran, and the artist spends a good half hour whipping up snacks made from common household items like spray cheese, Buffalo chicken wings, and tree-grown doughnuts. Also making appearances on Food Party are the devil (who plays righteous rock hero guitar), and a lovelorn ice cream cone that lives in the permafrost freezer compartment. Maybe just watch some segments here.

Thu Tran and her collaborators are currently putting final touches on the fourth episode. From the looks of a preview posted on their site, major changes are coming to the pantry. We met up with Tran last week at the Roebling Tea Room to discuss the show, the mysterious ubiquity of Elijah Wood, and the fate of the crusty but beloved Senior Baguette, token Francophile.

What happens to the Baguette? It's a secret, I don't want to give away the ending. But someone gets sick.

He looks dead in the sneak peak. All shall be revealed.

[a hamburger arrives at the table] I like the squishy picnic bun.

Have some of my fries. I'm too full. I ate a lot of eggs.

Like how many eggs? Well, I made all this gravy for Thanksgiving. This turkey gravy. And before we ate my friend Peter made all this bacon as a snack so then we poured the drippings on the turkey and I made the gravy with the bacon-turkey drippings. So I just made scrambled eggs with tomatoes and scallions and all the gravy. It was so good.You just came back from touring with Girl Talk, what were you up to on the tour? Me and my friend Chris were doing the props and visuals. This particular tour, the North American tour, was 35 shows, 33 cities, and 2 cities in Canada. We dressed in costume and made giant inflatables, toilet paper guns, lots of confetti. For the lighting - Chris jigsawed out the logo and dropped it in fluorescent wire. We all went to school together and have known each other for a really long time. We're like family.

Episode 4 is coming out soon? We'll finish editing it today, and start planning out the release party.

Do you cater those yourself? I actually hosted one at MonkeyTown and the chef there, Ryan, he probably hates me because the first premiere we had I brought over 8 cartons of quail eggs and told him my deviled egg recipe. He made three varieties and they were awesome but for the third episode I had to prepare them myself and it was really, really tedious. I got two of my friends to help me peel like 300 quail eggs for the shoot.

I fried some quail eggs the other night. They're really cute.

The outside was nasty. They smelled. That sounds about right. Oh, I also cooked an ostrich egg for the third episode. I opened it on camera because we only had two and I didn't want to fuck it up. When I cut it open there was so much liquid and it totally smelled like cum. I was whisking it and I was like [makes grossed out face] this smells like cum!

Where do you get an ostrich egg? We couldn't find it in New York but I think you can find it at Whole Foods.

I don't think so. Yeah huh, in Cleveland at the Whole Foods. Alex Lombardo, who also went to school with us, got it from the Whole Foods in Virginia. Our egg budget for that show was so high. We spent like $300 on eggs. That was our biggest expense by far.

Tell me about the new direction of the show. We're trying to make it really contained. So it's not like Gossip Girl, where you have to watch every show to know what is happening.

Yeah. It's not like Gossip Girl. What's up with Ice Cream Cone? We've have three different guys doing his voice. For the first episode I did it and adjusted the voice in Garage Band with the female voice filter. Peter played the devil, Jack Frost, the snowman, and the Italian chef and he did the ice cream voice in some of the videos but his voice is kind of Elmo-like. Zachariah Durr did it and sounds kind of forlorn and creepy and that's now the official voice now.

Did you anticipate Ice Cream Cone's popularity? No. But we knew he was the coolest puppet. My boyfriend (who makes handmade dolls) made it out of scraps for fun and I was like oh my god this is so cute, so we put it in the show.

Is the set for the show in your apartment? For the first two episodes the set was in my apartment in Cleveland. Two of my friends who run a gallery there had a space four times the size of this tea house and divided it up and rented out a studio space to me for like $75 a month so we just built a giant cardboard set there. Mainly me and Dave Krofta, who now lives in Chicago. We spent a couple months building it. And I had a solo show in Cleveland so it was for that too. We shot it with a tiny team Zachariah, Dave who helped me build and was the main puppeteer, me, and my boyfriend Danny B. who wasn't my boyfriend at the time. Just 5 people. That was it. I moved to New York to figure out how to sell this and lived in Williamsburg but it wasn't going to work. It was a tiny shithole apartment and I could barely afford to pay rent. I went to school to blow glass so I found work doing that immediately but it wasn't good money. Eventually we moved to Bed Stuy and found a place that was dirt cheap and huge so we built the set in the living room there. Danny and I teamed up with two friends who have real jobs and stubs or whatever and luckily they were cool with having a cardboard set instead of a living room. We shot four episodes in that apartment. They’re all friends, about 12 people. I cooked really well for them.

The stuff you cook for your friends isn't like what you make on the show? No! Food for my friends is more home style food that actually tastes good. For the show it's more what would be entertaining or interesting.

Tell me what's in your fridge all the time. Sriracha, two-liter bottles of Coca Cola, juice, parsley, the fresh flat leaf Italian kind [laughs]. We're in Greenpoint so a styrofoam tray of pierogies, heavy cream, eggs, there's always condiments, lots of condiments, half jar of mustard that doesn't get touched, ketchup, and bacon.

Wow. Yeah. But when I came back from the tour all that was in there was a half jug of about-to-expire milk and half a cookie. It was so depressing.

This is your third apartment in the city. Do you leave behind a token Thu Tran artifact when you move? By accident, maybe.

No ice cream cone puppet sitting in an otherwise empty room? Oh yeah! We saw out a hole in the drywall and fill it with gold coins and pom poms. I still have a giant bag of pom poms that I bought in Cleveland - so many for so cheap. They're tiny white sparkling pom poms. We use them as confetti and we used them as snow in the Christmas special.

Do you have a favorite restaurant in the city? I don't really eat out that much but I cook home a lot. I like to go to Chinatown for good Vietnamese, like for pho. Lately I've been going to this place on Baxter Street called Thai Son. It's not as good as my father's but it's fine. There's a place called Pho 69 that I went to just because it's called Pho 69 and their pho blew - it sucked. There's also that Malaysian place and they make this really fishy noodle and it's made with anchovies - laksa. It has mint and cucumber with really thick rice noodles. My boyfriend hates when I eat it because it's pungent. We have to eat it outside.

What are some of your favorite cookbooks? I read cookbooks and food writing a lot. I have a subscription to Gourmet magazine that I keep in my bathroom [laughs]. I have old cookbooks my mom made when I was little, literal notebooks. My mother's actually a shitty cook. I mean, my dad's good but my mom cuts corners. The first time my mom served me wine she served it in a coffee mug. It was kind of sweet and effervescent and I was like mom what is this? She held up a jug of Carla Rossi sangria and I was like oh OK. And then she was like, and I also put a little Mountain Dew in it. I also have Joy of Cooking, this weird Indian cookbook my friend gave me called Packed with Love. I think her family had gone to the Taj Mahal for Christmas and she brought me back that cookbook. I like reading it because I don't recognize the ingredients. I read MFK Fisher; I like her style. It's not dish-centered it's life-centered. And we're trying to move towards that with Food Party. I got into Euell Gibbons when I was in Nebraska on my residency at the Art Farm. Euell Gibbons stuff is pretty funny. I started reading Waverly Root but found him pretty windy.

If somebody hooked it up, would you collaborate with a famous chef in the city for a dinner? Yeah man. Yeah man. I'm open to anything.

Under what circumstances would you leave NY? I love living here. I think right now I have too much energy to live anywhere else. Just going on tour, I don't think I could live in any of those cities. The lifestyle, you go to work you come home settle down and watch TV. I love being here. It caters to people with lots of energy.

Do you have a strange only in NY story? Like I saw the same stray cat in two different spots in the city over a one-week period. That's fucked up. Similarly, I saw Elijah Wood twice you know.

In different locations? Yeah. There's this wine bar next door to where I used to live and my friend and I were just smoking a cigarette and saw him so we were like let's go in. So we went in and tried to sit down but he was leaving and my friend followed him but I decided not to. Then, I was working on a video shoot for Gogol Bordello and they hired me as the food stylist for the Eastern European meat feast. And one of the gypsy backup dancers was his girlfriend so he showed up to hang out with her. So I saw him twice.

That's fucked up. What is the future of Food Party? We're going to keep making them. We need to find a studio because my place in Greenpoint is too small. Hopefully we'll have this cool workshop set up and we can produce and shoot as we go and it'll be cool.

Tell me more about the fourth episode. Writing out the prop list is the funniest thing: Baguette coffin, Sailor wheel. The fourth episode is kind of our attempt at making a dramatic episode. And it has this Clue vibe, like the Tim Curry movie. Peter is actually a really good dramatic performer and in this episode he plays the doctor and the Italian chef again. Zachariah plays the baguette and the ice cream cone, who have similar voices. Andrew WK did a voice over for us so that was cool. And there's a reading rainbow sequence where we tell the story of how a dish originates.

Would you ever open a restaurant? Maybe when I'm 40. I think a restaurant is a real commitment. To me that's like buying a house. It ties you down. So when I'm 40, when I'm ready to be tied down.

How old are you now? 27. But maybe you could say that I'm 37?

Did you get the answers you wanted? Yeah.

Did you get the questions you wanted? Yeah.

What's the oddest reaction you've gotten to Food Party? I don't know how we got the blog press; it came out of nowhere. We're kind of bad about promoting ourselves. We have a web site and You Tube and we each have our respective Facebook and My Space pages that we link out to. And then we have screenings, like premieres for each episode.

Do you get odd emails? We got our first fan art! It was pretty exciting. After the New York Magazine write up I got fan mail from dudes. Our show has a real girly aesthetic but I get all these marriage proposals from dudes. I've been getting that pretty steadily. Like one or two a day. Then one a week. And these days I just get one a month so it's tapering off. But the fan art is like all these sexy eggs with high heel shoes and it says Food Party at the top in his own lettering. It looks like it took him forever to draw. And he apologized for coloring it unevenly but it's like, perfect.

He's like, 'oh sorry for coloring it so unevenly but I'm currently incarcerated in maximum security federal prison'... [laughs] Yeah, it ruled! I emailed to tell all my friends. And they were like, wow Thu, all your dreams are coming true.

Photos courtesy Thu Tran.

Craig Zucker, TAP'D Water

Not too long ago New York's tap water hit the marketplace; bottled and labeled TAP'D NY, the company even suggested refilling the $1.50 bottle from a tap when its empty. Craig Zucker is the man behind the idea, a for-profit business that gets its product from the city's public water system "to source the world's best tasting tap water, purify it through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally, leaving out ludicrous transportation miles." Zucker told us a little bit about his idea, future "water pairings" taking place around the city, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

How did you come up with the idea for Tap'dNY? It started with the idea that, contrary to what Coke/Pepsi/Fiji and the rest would want you to believe, there's nothing wrong with our local water (certainly nothing worth shipping in someone else's water from 8000+ miles away, or sending your dollars to Fiji and France $2 at a time for). Add to that the question "what would a completely honest bottled water look like?" and all of the sudden people getting really excited.

How do you purify the water before bottling it? You think I'm filling them at my sink, don't you? We're bottling 100s per minute at a local bottler. The purification process is called reverse osmosis. It's a wee bit scientific, but essentially we start with award winning water (New York's) then purify the hell out of it.

Do you think that bottled water has a different taste from NYC tap water? NYC tap water has chlorine in it. You can taste it. By the time we're done though people can't seem to work out which is ours and which is Fiji. Try it for yourself. If you can't tell the difference, isn't it better to buy local?

What are some of the biggest myths about tap water? The main myth is that it's dirty. New York City is one of only 5 major cities in the country that comes from such a pure source that the EPA doesn't require filtering at all. It comes from upstate, on it's own power (the whole system is on a slope) and it's pretty good. If you're seeing discoloration or other impurities, it's probably taking place in the last 100 feet. The pipes inside your building aren't always the best.Is there any state/city's tap water that you'd rather not drink? People should check with their local water authorities to see if there are any issues. The good news is 95% of the US has fantastic water. And personally I drink tap water whenever it's available.

What has been the general response to Tap'dNY? Really great. People seem to understand the concept. I get calls all day every day from people looking to buy it elsewhere, but I'm not willing to ship. If Tap'dNY winds up in LA (and it probably will) it will be because we're purifying their water for them, not shipping them ours.

There has been an event featuring "water pairings" at a restaurant using Tap'dNY, can you tell us how that idea came to fruition? And do you have any more events in the future? Essentially, we wanted to bring together some local-minded locals and introduce them to their local food and drink to get them thinking local… and we wanted to do it free of charge. Our first was hosted by Dogmatic Restaurant (home of a unique and locally sourced gourmet sausage system) and was really fun. Next up, we've got a mystery restaurant (too many crashers the last time for us to just post the details now), Tap'dNY and a few other local treats on the menu. All of it free. Hungry? Sign up at locallytapd.tumblr.com, we've only got 50 seats, but we'd love to have you.

Please share your strangest "only in New York" story. No joke, I saw a squirrel and a pigeon fighting over a piece of chewing gum. This recession is hitting everyone hard. But we're all in it together and we'll all get out of it together if we support our own.

Which New Yorker do you most admire? Philip Seymour Hoffman. Incredible actor. But also everyone I know who sees him on the street has overwhelming good luck come their way immediately after. Really. I've got 6 friends with stories that prove that the Hoffman Effect is real. I'm starting to think there's a book in it some place. If Tap'dNY had a celebrity spokesperson, I'd love for it to be him. Think he reads Gothamist?

Given the opportunity, how would you change New York? We're talking about giving the city the money to turn back on all of the broken water fountains so everyone can have access to water again… but I've got a lot of ideas beyond that. I'm an idea guy. Ooh, here's a fun one I did the other day, text "where is" and the name of a bottled water to 30644, and my system texts you back how far that bottle traveled to get to you. We're still working out the kinks, but it's free and fun, give it a go.

Under what circumstance have you thought about leaving New York? Every time the Giants play across the river. Other than that, not all that often.

Do you have a favorite New York celebrity sighting or encounter? I told you about Philip Seymour Hoffman, right? What I might not have said was that I saw him too. It was the day Tap'dNY got funded.

What's your current soundtrack? Kanye West is on the stereo now, but the jury's still out. Bill Withers is my heart.

Best cheap eat in the city. Dogmatic is a good place to start. You can get a whole meal, made with gourmet, locally sourced ingredients, for less than $10. I'm also partial to Katz's deli, the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (taro is amazing), and Rosario's Pizza.

Best venue to see music. If you ever get the chance to see anything at Radio City Music Hall do it. They only get great acts once in a blue moon, but if you see Philip Seymour Hoffman on the street, your next stop should probably be Radio City to find out who's there. Odds are they're your favorite band and they've got one seat left. It's the Hoffman effect! That guy is amazing.

Bill Murray Slumming It at Brooklyn House Parties, Lackluster Bars

It was around 3:30 a.m. on Halloween when Bill Murray surfaced at Dave Summers's loft party in East Williamsburg. The 58-year-old Garfield star—who had never met the 29-year-old Summers—had been party-hopping with indie darlings MGMT after their show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, and wound up staying at the loft until one sanctimonious hipster finally told him, "I think you're making bad life choices." Murray's wife of 11 years divorced him last May, and Page Six Magazine has strung together a number of Bill Murray sightings at random parties and lame bars in NYC, where he sometimes talks to young women!

They're calling it a mid-life crisis, but let's just call it Being Bill Murray; he's rich, famous, single, perennially hip—and how cool is it that he's wandering among the little people instead of staying sequestered behind the velvet rope like his peers? Sure, maybe he is, as Page Six puts it, a little "stuck in his own version of Groundhog Day meets Lost in Translation," but who could blame him? As Phil Connors' mused in the former film, "I was in the Virgin Islands once. Met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina-coladas. At sunset we made love like Sea Otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over?" You keep trying Bill Murray—and if you want to crash our office party, we won't judge you.

Visiting Sesame Street

As mentioned, yesterday we found ourselves on Sesame Street, where even the sunny days couldn't sweep the rain clouds away—but Elmo & Co. sure made it all seem a little bit brighter. Speaking of the lil red guy, he had a message for you all:

The series is now filming their 40th season, which will begin airing next November. From Big Bird's doors, to the stoop, to Oscar's garbage can...the set has pretty much remained the same for all those decades, while PBS and the show remain ad-free (check out some of the brands on the shelf at Hooper's). And don't forget: you can make your own muppet now!

We'll be heading back to Sesame soon to ask the muppets some hard-hitting questions, if you have any questions you need answers to—leave them in the comments!

Love Saves the Day, Colorful East Village Icon, to Close!

East Village kitsch mecca Love Saves the Day (MySpace) will close next month after more than four decades in the neighborhood, Vanishing New York reports. Originally opened in 1966 on 77 7th Street, the day glo-painted shop moved down the block to its current location at Second Avenue and 7th Street in 1983, just in time for a cameo in Desperately Seeking Susan, in which it's immortalized as the boutique where Madonna traded in her leather pyramid jacket for rhinestone studded boots.

The cluttered store was always packed with eclectic items ranging from funky threads to Star Wars paraphernalia to obscure pop culture ephemera. According to the Villager, the landlords tried to triple the rent in 2005, but owner Leslie Herson and her husband were able to negotiate a new three-year lease. Now it's 2008, and with rents declining, you'd think they'd have a better chance of hanging on. Of course, there's probably also a shrinking market for their inessential oddities.

Perhaps another factor, according to Racked, is that Leslie passed away over the summer. Her husband still maintains an LSD in New Hope, Pennsylvania (home of Ween), but that's small consolation when one contemplates the corner of Second and 7th without Love Saves the Day. No matter what depressing chain store comes in its place, it's now clear that we've officially become the old grouch droning on about how things used to be so much better in the old days. But they really were!

Photo courtesy S.D.

Starbucks Hanukkah Blend, The Sasquatch of Coffees

[UPDATE BELOW] A reader sent us this photo, taken by a friend, of a special edition Starbucks menorah cup, which supposedly contained the chain's "Hanukkah Blend." This individual claims he bought it at an unspecified location on the Upper West Side, where the barista told him "we're serving it at Starbucks in Jewish neighborhoods for the next two weeks."

We've spent over an hour calling around to Starbucks across the city and even corporate headquarters, and though we're told there is a "Holiday Blend," nobody knows squat about any Jewish-themed coffee or beverage receptacle. (Other than this mug.) Guess what? The more the menorah cup eludes us, the more we're starting, inexplicably, to care.

At the Starbucks on 76th and Broadway, a manager tells us that while they have no Hanukkah themed paper cups, they will sell you the "Christmas Blend" (her words!) in a blue and gold Hanukkah themed bag. Not good enough! We're beginning to think the Hanukkah Blend could be the new Shamrock Shake. Also, if this is supposed to be a Hanukkah menorah, shouldn't it have a couple more candles?

UPDATE: Well, we were hoping for a Hanukkah miracle, but it looks like the skeptics have won the day. A press liaison for Starbucks writes: "We are dedicated to serving every customer regardless of how they choose to mark the holiday season. For our customers celebrating Hanukkah, we offer a selection of Hanukkah themed merchandise including mugs and tumblers. We do not offer Hanukkah blend coffee, nor do we carry blue to-go cups in our stores."

Brave Nanny Explains How She Saved Tot in Mumbai

The Indian nanny who saved the toddler of a Brooklyn couple in Mumbai gives her first interview to the Daily News. During last week's terror attacks, Sandra Samuel says that little Moshe Holtzberg, just shy of his second birthday, was covered in blood and next to his mother's body when she found him.

The child's parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, ran the Chabad-Lubavitch Center, which was seized by terrorists on November 26. Samuel, who usually had Wednesdays off, had decided to stay work that day and ended up hiding out in the service kitchen for hours when the terrorists took over.

"At around 11 [on Thursday, November 27] morning, I suddenly heard the baby calling me," Samuel said. "He has a way of calling me, 'Sanda, Sanda, Sanda.' I told Zaki [the handyman] I was going up, and he said, 'No! it's a trap! They will kill you.' But I said to him, 'I don't care, I am going to get the baby.'

"Baby was standing next to his Ima [mother], who was laying on her side. His Aba, Rabbi, was laying next to her, on his stomach. Their eyes were closed, unconscious.

"Next to them, I saw the legs of a man out from under the table, with blood. Baby's pants also had a big circle of blood.

"The terrorists must have been upstairs. I grabbed the baby and I ran, then I got Zaki, and we ran out."

Moshe's parents were found dead after Indian commandoes regained control of the Chabad House. Samuel says that after rescuing the child, she told the police to check on the other hostages, but they ignored her. Now she regrets not doing more, "I should have gone in again. I should have tried to help them. I should have checked to see what's wrong. What kind of a person am I to have just run out?"

NYU is Not Suggesting CUNY to Students

A reader sent us a scan of a flier she found at NYU's student center, "It’s a flier for a NYU financial aid plan that basically tells students that can’t afford NYU to go to CUNY," and points out it's crazy that "NYU can’t give its students decent financial aid even though John Sexton flies to Abu Dhabi every other week and we keep buying new buildings all over the city." The school's tuition is around $50,000.

We're getting confirmation from NYU about the flier (full version after the jump), which almost seems like it could be fake, but it seems legit to our reader, who added, "'In and Of the City'" is something NYU's administration talks about a lot to new students – it's a selling point they use for people coming from the suburbs who are really enchanted with 'NYU the dream school.' NYU has really terrible financial aid, and I guess they're just kinda giving up on getting people to stay. I mean, we're like dead last among private universities for financial aid, but they just keep building new buildings. Sexton does say a lot of stuff like this all the time… dunno, I'm just fed up. NYU isn't just a dream school… it's almost like a nightmare."

Update: NYU spokesman John Beckman tells us the flier is a fake, "Another satirical triumph for desktop publishing...I am sure the fake NY Times headline about the Iraq war will inspire many others."

Video of the Day: Subway Circa 1905

This video takes you on an underground ride from 14th Street to 42nd Street. Not that exciting, right? Well it was filmed in 1905. As Andrew Sullivan notes, watch to the 5:00 mark where it gets real good.

Kottke proposes it is running on the contemporary 4/5/6 line, and presents "a 1904 map which shows the then-IRT line in question (in red). At 42nd St, the line runs crosstown to Times Square and then up the 1/2/3."

Susan Mikula's Polaroid Experiments at CHC

This Friday at CHC Gallery (511 West 20th Street), part-time New Yorker and full-time photographer Susan Mikula will unveil her solo exhibition titled "sic transit," which exploits "the idiosyncrasies of a Polaroid camera." The photographer comments on her work saying, “I'm obsessed with the passing of time and the way light changes. When I've done what I set out to accomplish in a photograph, I have preserved the skipping and floating and grinding of time.”

Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC and Air America, also chimes in and invites you all out to the opening this week via her Twitter (Mikula is her longtime girlfriend). She notes: “Susan's abstract visions are familiar enough to make you worry she might have gotten into your head and stolen your memories -- she can make you feel reminded of things you've never done.”

All of Mikula's prints at the show originate from her vintage Polaroid shots; learn more here.

Mom's Makeover to Woo Juror, Prove Son's Innocence

Today, the Times, Post and Daily News look at one devoted mother's fight to prove her son's innocence. Doreen Giuliano, whose son John Giuca was convicted in the murder of a college student, transformed herself from a 46-year-old married Brooklyn mother to a sexy 30-something California transplant in order to catch the eye of a juror from her son's trial (see before and after pictures at left).

According to the Post, "So [juror Jason Allo] wouldn't recognize her from the courtroom, Giuliano altered her appearance by hitting the gym, visiting a tanning salon, dying her hair and buying a new wardrobe of short-shorts, tight blouses and pushup bras." (Her husband would wait up for her in their Prospect Park South home after her dates.) Now Giuliano said she has Allo saying on tape that he should never have been jury.

In 2003, Fairfield University student Mark Fisher, a NJ resident, was found wrapped in a blanket, shot mutliple times, and dumped on Argyle Road. It turned out he had crossed paths--through mutual friends-- with Giuca and friend Antonio Russo, who were charged with his murder. Prosecutors said they referred to themselves as part of the "Ghetto Mafia" and a jury later found them guilty two years later. But Giuca's family and friends have maintained he was set up and that prosecutors didn't do a thorough job--spurring Giuliano into action.

Apparently Giuliano followed other jurors, but decided to target the 32-year-old Allo and would bike around his Brooklyn neighborhood wearing revealing clothing. A Vanity Fair article details Giuliano's plan, which included months of getting to know Allo, who eventually told her, "Technically, by law, I shouldn’t have even been in that jury. Because they ask you in the beginning when you go to jury duty, they read you a list of all the witnesses.… And if you know or are affiliated with these people in any way you have to let them know," implying he did know some.

Giuliano, who says "I woulda had sex with him if that's what it took," is using her tapes of conversations with Allo to get her son's conviction overturned. And the NY Times spoke to Allo and revealed to him that his old flame "Dee Quinn" was actually Giuca's mother; he said, "There was something about her that didn’t feel right," and denied knowing any of the witnesses at the trial.

Attack of the Giant Snowflakes!

Photo by Tien Mao.

Giant snowflakes are coming down on the city. Why are these suckers so big? According to this meteorologist, "Whether snow is more dry or more wet depends on the snow to liquid equivalent. When the temperature throughout the troposphere is well below freezing the snow is termed a 'dry snow'. A dry snow has little to no liquid within the snowflakes. During a dry snow, snowflakes tend to be smaller. Also, when trying to make a snowball, it falls apart for the most part." Our very own Joe Schumacher adds: "the flakes are really wet so they don't bounce off each other like they do when it is cold and they are completely frozen."

But let's back up for a second: this is good snowball-making snow? Get thee outside!