Governor Paterson, coming off a week where he decided the media is and isn't racist amid still faltering poll numbers, has made a big change. No, not with his staff or policy—he got rid of his salt-and-pepper beard! Apparently when he was asked why he made the shave, Paterson joked, "More cutbacks."
As if the Mets needed anymore battering—now the team has to say that owner Fred Wilpon's huge losses from investing with Bernard Madoff aren't affecting the team! Investigative journalist Erin Arvedlund, who wrote a book about Madoff, claimed that Wilpon lost $700 million with the Ponzi schemer—and suggest that he'll have to sell the team next year. The Mets responded, "The author of the book has no knowledge or facts related to the Mets business operations or finances. Her speculation that the Mets - or any part of the team - is for sale is completely false and is irresponsible." But now Newsday points out one possible sign of belt-tightening, "The Mets have canceled their Instructional League, held annually in Port St. Lucie, and instead will have a "modified" program at their baseball academy in the Dominican Republic"—which will save about $250,000 and which former GM Jim Duquette thinks is a bad move, "[The IL] gives you a chance to extend the development of your young players, of your prospects. and they're not gonna have it. ...If you're development-oriented, it's not a good decision, in my opinion."
Just in case Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi didn't get the message that New Jersey doesn't want him visiting their state or the town of Englewood, where his country owns a 25-rooom mansion, there was a rally in Englewood to repeat the refrain, "Not In My Backyard!" The Star-Ledger reports that relatives of victims from the Lockerbie plane bombing spoke: Laurie Ciulla, whose father was killed, said that her family has been upset by the possibility of Gadhafi spending part of next month in the NJ suburb, "As a nation, we just simply cannot host Colonel Gadhafi. He is not welcome here any more than any other terrorist would be," while Jack Flynn, who son died, said it was "scary -- almost creepy" near the Libyan property (the protest was held on the neighboring property owned by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach) and that Gadhafi "was the man who ordered the bombing of Pan Am 103. There's no doubt about it."
In a study due out this week, Thomas Frieden, the head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reveals that during the Spring in NYC "about 800,000 people—about 10% of New York City residents—got infected with the flu. That's a lot of people." In all, the virus killed 47 New Yorkers, less than 1% of those infected. But could this be just a prelude to something far worse? Dr. Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, thinks so. A heavy report spearheaded by Varmus and the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology predicts that the swine flu could potentially kill between 30,000 and 90,000 Americans in the coming months, infect half of the population, and force some 1.8 million people into hospital ICUs. Frieden, however, thinks the report is over the top, and told C-SPAN, "Everything we've seen in the U.S... suggests we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change." Who to trust? The Daily News could not track Varmus down for comment, probably because he's busy stocking up on canned goods and ammunition for his bunker. (Either that, or raising money to build a new MSKCC Swine Flu Research Wing.)
This morning, a man bicycling on the George Washington Bridge took photographs of a guard sleeping in the west guard booth on the NJ side. According to Cliffview Pilot, taking the photographs was easy for Joey Lepore, who said, "I didn't even zoom it. I walked right up to the window... I saw him nodded out on my way over to the city and then again on my way back. Enough is enough!" And apparently this isn't the first time Lepore, who owns and operates Bicycle Tour New York, has seen a guard sleeping—he once said to one, "Please just stay awake. I'm not asking too much," and has photographs of a sleeping guard (possibly the same one as today) from August 5. MyFoxNY points out, "Officials have said that bridges and tunnels remain a prime target for terrorists. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Port Authority restricted photography on and on the bridge for security reasons (the rules have since been relaxed). In 2005 and 2006, the agency installed cylindrical bomb shields the section of the bridge's suspension cables closest to the deck." The Port Authority told Cliffview Pilot it was looking into the matter.
Earlier this year the Harlem home once owned by the late James Bailey (of Barnum & Bailey fame) dropped in price from $10M to $6.5M (soon after it was brought down to $3.5M). Now Curbed reports that the limestone castle on St. Nicholas Place and 150th Street has just sold for a $1.4M! Surely the gigantic price drop had more to do with economic climate than all the bad press for the circus he helped found. Regardless, the site points out that this could be the real estate steal of the year, going for around $170 per square foot; a "cold calculation [that] doesn't even include the Belcher mosaic glass, 12' high mercury mirror, French polished oak floors and all the other dramatic original details in need of a thorough dusting." Surely this selling price has Bailey rolling over in his grave like a well-tamed circus lion. Wonder how much he paid to have the home built back in 1888...
How much federal stimulus money does it take to change a lightbulb? Brooklyn Heights Association President Judy Stanton brokered a $650,000 deal in order to replace the already functioning streetlamps in Brooklyn Heights with more old timey looking ones. How quaint!
After talking to the victim of the "skank blogger" last week, the Post's Andrea Peyser features a different kind of New York woman in her column today: The second ex-wife of City Comptroller—and mayoral candidate—Bill Thompson. Sylvia Kinard-Thompson, who married Thompson in 1999, says their relationship started to go south in 2002, when he was elected Comptroller, "I wasn't sure if he was going through a midlife crisis, stress of a new job. I was willing to work on it. You hit a bump in the road, you don't just bail out... [But by 2004,] he was starting to stay out. He was on trips longer than he should have... I asked him if he was having an affair. He never acknowledged that he was; he never acknowledged that he wasn't."
Senator Chuck Schumer held one of his famous Sunday press conferences yesterday, presumably before spending the rest of the day chilling with Jay-Z and Beyonce at the summer's last Pool Party. The presser was held three days after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended major changes to air traffic over the Hudson River—changes which Schumer says fall short. The senator told reporters that the current regulations are "a mess. There are countless handoffs, gaps and holes in the regulatory authority, and that only leads to trouble." Trouble like the fatal mid-air collision between a single-engine plane and a tour helicopter earlier this month. Schumer is demanding (once again) that the FAA monitor all flights below 1,000 feet (pilots currently use a "see and avoid" strategy), the creation of a pilot training program for commercial sightseeing operations, and fully staffed control towers at Teterboro Airport and at other area airports. Radical, right? The TSB report admitted that the absence of a supervisor from the Teterboro tower at the time of the crash enabled a controller to make a "nonbusiness" cell phone call, which infamously involved joking about barbecuing a dead cat—actually making the genre of dead pet jokes even more inappropriate than ever.
If you were anywhere near the Village this weekend, you probably noticed a sea of doe-eyed teenagers and their parents arriving at NYU and trying to get a quick verdict on if this whole "going to college in New York thing" is all it's cracked to be. Well the New York Post has taken a quick scan of the new course catalog and is quick to give them a heads up—it's bogus! The tabloid finds classes that require students to play Guitar Hero (for "psychological" purposes) and another on exercise and brain chemistry where students take an aerobics class for an hour before sitting down for a lecture. Neuroscience professor Wendy Suzuki explains, "I got the idea at Equinox Gym. I took this kickboxing and dance class that made me feel great. I thought if I could make my students feel like that after my class, I'd be the best teacher in the world!" If that's not enough, the paper digs deeper and finds television classes?!?!?! (NYU has one of the top-ranked TV and Film studies programs in the nation.) The Post claims that parents were "livid," like one dad who saw the Guitar Hero class, "I just wrote a big check here. I'm not paying for him to study video games. It seems a bit watered down."
Almost two weeks after the story was broken by Miss Heather, the NY Post says they have learned that there's a scam artist running an illegal gym in Williamsburg. They spoke with the muscleman proprietor, John Suarez, who told them, "I can't own another gym, but I've got to make a living. I had a mistake six years ago. I'm trying to start a new life. It's not like I was scamming anybody." The problem is that he did scam 1,000 people out of membership fees for a gym that never opened in 2004, and then made a deal with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that he'd never operate a health club in the state again! To make matters worse for himself, when a Post photographer snooped around his new gym on South 3rd Street in Williamsburg, Suarez tackled him and damaged his camera—which of course brought on charges of assault, menacing and harassment. Following the incident he told the paper, "Things happen. I did what I had to do. And he did what he had to do."
Yesterday morning, the two toll booths on the NJ Turnpike were robbed, prompting NJ Turnpike Authority spokesman Joe Orlando to call them "the stupidest criminals in history." Why? Because the booths at Exits 15X and 16E are little used and don't have that much cash anyway. In fact, a toll collector's 8-hour shift at 15X usually only nets $200-$300. Spokesman Joe Orlando said, "This definitely wasn't a plot for 'Ocean's 11.'" The Star-Ledger reports that the robbers, in three different vehicles, "disguised their faces with bandannas and dark sunglasses and flashed guns at toll takers." The robbers used a white Nissan and dark Jeep to rob Exit 16E and the Jeep and a Mercedes—which had been carjacked an hour earlier—to hit 15X. The Turnpike Authority expects to find the criminals, as the 10 individuals who previously robbed the NJTA have all been captured.
The husband of a woman who was killed when an out-of-control van struck a parked car which then hit her told the Daily News, "This is horrible... She was a great mom. I have to raise my kids by myself. I have no choice. She did everything for us." Paula Jimenez, a Virginia resident and mother of two, was at a high school reunion picnic at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park; she was walking near some parked cars when the van "came barreling down an exit ramp off the Van Wyck Expressway... [The van] plowed into a parked car, which then smashed into the helpless Jimenez," severing her spinal cord and "severely injur[ing] her head and kidneys." The van's driver Jian Seng He was charged with second-degree homicide and held on $150,000 bail; his lawyer said his brakes malfunctioned while prosecutors say he was trying to chase another car on the Van Wyck. Grieving Andrew Jimenenz told the News that doctors called him to say his wife was brain-dead, "They were trying to keep her alive for organ donation. She always wanted to give up her organs. ... She always gave up herself."
Some 150 National Guardsmen have been pulled from details patrolling the city's transportation hubs, as part of a restructuring that officials claim will actually make the soldiers more responsive to threats. Guard spokesman Richard Goldberg tells the Post, "We are at more locations now because we're not tied to specific facilities. You'll still see us at Penn Station and the airports, but you'll also see them at critical transport sites, like bus terminals." Last year the National Guard had 430 soldiers based in the city; now there are 280. Another spokesman asserts that because the troops are now stationed out of Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn instead of airports and train stations, they're better equipped to "selectively respond" to emergencies or as cops need reinforcements. Another bonus is that the drawdown will probably save the state over ten million dollars. But their absence has left some commuters, like administrative assistant Donna El-Maadawy, feeling very unguarded; she tells the Post, "I rarely see them anymore. Not having them present will makes me feel uneasy. You just never know when we may need them."
Those space-age automated public toilets—or A.P.T.s, as they're known in the business—are all the rage in the two locations where they've been installed. Cemusa, the Spanish company that won a contract in 2005 to install 20 of them citywide, says that the self-cleaning A.T.P. in Madison Square Park was used 2,736 times in a recent 30-day period, while the one in Corona was used 1,920 times. So why have only two been installed since the prototype was unveiled back in 2006? A spokesman for the DOT tells the Times, "Some communities don’t want A.P.T.’s." You'll recall that some Park Slope residents had objected to a proposed toilet at Grand Army Plaza, and a Councilwoman representing the Upper East Side also declined.
Some good news about the billion dollar bailouts the federal government made last year. The NY Times reports, "The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times." Still, the Times adds, "These early returns are by no means a full accounting of the huge financial rescue undertaken by the federal government last year to stabilize teetering banks and other companies. The government still faces potentially huge long-term losses from its bailouts of the insurance giant American International Group, the mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the automakers General Motors and Chrysler. The Treasury Department could also take a hit from its guarantees on billions of dollars of toxic mortgages."
Police descended on Walworth Street (between Flushing and Park) in Brooklyn, after two suitcases full of body parts was discovered on the sidewalk. According to the Daily News, a homeless man found the suitcases in plastic bags but then screamed, "Call the cops! There's a chopped-up person in the bags!"
It might not flow off the tongue as smoothly as some of their rhymes, but Run-DMC JMJ Way is finally here. The sign is at the intersection of 205th Street and Hollis Avenue in Queens, and you can see some video of the unveiling, which took place yesterday, here. The Daily News reports back from the ceremony, where DJ Run told the gathered crowd, "I lived right down that block," and DMC thanked the neighborhood locals on hand, who he says made them who they were. The late Jam Master Jay's mother was in attendance as well, wearing a shirt with her son's picture on it; she told the crowd, "This is a proud day for my whole family." Reportedly the documentary titled Two Turntables And A Microphone, which "will dissect Jay's death and celebrate his life," will be released later this year (see a preview after the jump).
It's August in a city election year, which means many registered Democrats (and Republicans, but mostly Democrats) are receiving campaign mailings from a candidate basically every day. And this weekend, Manhattan DA candidate Richard Aborn sent out one featuring former Vice President Dick Cheney! Featuring Cheney examining a rifle, the flyer says, "One candidate for district attorney has spent 30 years taking guns out of the hands of criminals"—ha!
The Rev. Al Sharpton will hold a vigil tonight outside police headquarters to support the families of men killed by police, including recent victims Omar Edwards and Shem Walker, as well as Sean Bell, who was killed outside his bachelor party at a Queens strip club in 2006. Sharpton's National Action Network is organizing the vigil. Walker, the most recent victim, was an army veteran who was killed by an undercover cop during a drug sting in Clinton Hill; NYPD sources say the cop had earphones in to keep in touch with his team and didn't hear Walker's demand that he get off his stoop. Cops say Walker kicked the officer in the head and grabbed for his gun in the ensuing scuffle; witnesses insist the cop never identified himself. And in May, Edwards, an officer himself, was killed while chasing a man who had broken into his car. Earlier this month a grand jury declined to indict the officer who fatally shot him.
A Bronx father of three was struck by a car last night in Hunts Point around 11:15 p.m. and is now in critical condition. According to 1010WINS, "Octavio Reyes, 58...was hit after he parked his car and then attempted to cross Bruckner Blvd. on his way home... The vehicle -- described as a black Lincoln Town Car -- was traveling southbound on Bruckner Blvd. when the crash occurred." The car apparently has heavy windshield damage. Police are investigating the hit-and-run and urge anyone with information to contact them.
After part of its ceiling collapsed over two weeks ago, resulting in its closure for the past two weeks, NYC Transit has announced that the West 181st Street station is open at 5 a.m. today for morning rush hour service: "Work over the past weekend was performed by an outside contractor and MTA New York City Transit maintenance personnel to stabilize some additional areas of loose brick and reposition scaffolding to maximize space along the platforms at both 168th Street and 181st Street stations."
The city added another 1,000 traffic enforcement officers last year, a workforce that has grown over 40% in the last five years, where ticket agents are reportedly racing to dish out tickets in an attempt to earn big bonuses in commission. Yet somehow they still ended up bringing in less revenue in the fiscal year that just ended than in the previous one. The Post reports that revenue from parking tickets dropped almost $30 million this past year (to a measly $595M). A spokesman for the mayor believes it's because more people are beating tickets online. But driver advocates such as Glenn Bolofsky, founder of ticket-beating site parkingticket.com, told the Post, "They just don't have the money. If revenue is down, it's only because individuals and businesses can't afford to pay." Maybe the city could bring in some more dough if they actually took a stand against the rampant traffic violations going on unchecked at major intersections. And no matter how many tickets agents write, we're pretty sure that they're not getting any money from this guy.
Last Friday, author and journalist Lynn Harris published a "Complaint Box" post on CityRoom about how hard it is for pregnant women to find seats on the subway, based on her experience during her two pregnancies and her friends' experiences. She writes that while people are very nice to offer her seats when she's taking the subway with her now-born children, she wonders, "Where were you people when I was pregnant? Oh, right. You were sitting comfortably in your seats. While I stood. In August."
If anyone did give up a seat — which, O.K., did happen, on days when there was a partial eclipse, a unicorn sighting and alternate-side parking suspended, or when I finally started asking for one — the donors appeared in this order of likelihood: (1) older woman, (2) younger woman, (3) minority man.Continue reading "Pregnant Women Find Subway Seats Hard To Come By"
If not for a five-set loss in the Australian Open final, Roger Federer would be rolling into Flushing Meadows with a chance for a true Grand Slam. But that loss to Rafael Nadal means Federer, who won the French Open and Wimbledon, will be looking for "only" his third major championship of the year and his sixth straight title in Queens. Not bad for a player written off during the American hardcourt season in March. Nadal lost in Paris as the four-time defending champion in the fourth round and didn't even play Wimbledon because of patellar tendinitis in both knees. Since returning earlier this month, he hasn't looked sharp in two hardcourt events in Montreal and Cincinnati.
Queens magician Richie Magic decided to skip past the vaguely creepy vibe that many in his profession put out and go all the way to full-on terrifying for a "trick" he pulled at his Elmhurst shop yesterday. Magic, who changed his name to pursue his dream after working as a corrections officer for 26 years, yesterday celebrated smoking his final cigarette by eating an entire carton in 6 minutes, 3.7 seconds, breaking a previous record. Magic, whose website claims his shows range from "mild to wild" said that his habit had nagged at him since "a lot of kids ask me to mentor them" and the News says he did not want to be "a hypocrite to aspiring magicians and street performers." Richie's wife Barbara (yes, also Magic) also butted out her final smoke yesterday, although she said she couldn't watch her husband's stunt. A 9-year-old girl who recently saw Richie Magic set the record for stuffing 20 lit cigarettes in his mouth in 29 seconds said, "It was cool. But disgusting."
Friends and fans continue to mourn the death of Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, who was found dead in his SoHo apartment Friday afternoon. The Daily News and Post are both reporting that police found a half-empty bag of crack underneath his chest. Initial reports mentioned a crack pipe and prescription drugs at the scene—among them the Post now says were bottles of Xanax, painkillers Vicodin and oxycodone and antacid Prilosec.
Another day, another story about Senate Majority Pedro Espada's questionable dealings! Today, the Post reports that Espada has "turned his Bronx nonprofit health center into his own 'cash for clunkers' program when it bought an old, gas-guzzling junker from his eldest son." The charity that runs the Soundview Health Clinics "picked up a 2001 Ford Expedition" with over 175K miles on it from Pedro G. Espada last year (you may remember Pedro G. Espada from this). While spokesman Alexander Fear said it was a good deal, it's unclear why the car was needed—apparently the group "has bought a series of upscale gas-guzzlers, including a Cadillac Deville, a GMC Envoy SUV and luxury Chrysler 300C -- periodically replacing them with newer vehicles." Espada, his son, his daughter-in-law and an employee "convicted of committing fraud for one of his campaigns" all have use of the CCDC's cars. The Post also has an editorial titled "BOSS PEDRO"—"Watch out, Boss Tweed -- here comes Pedro Espada. And from the looks of it, the Bronx up-and-comer just can't wait to claim title to the top spot as New York's most corrupt politician ever."
A Kew Gardens man tried to get a bouncer arrested for roughing him up, but cops ended up booking the accuser when they discovered he was caught on camera inflicting the damage onto himself. The Post reports 34-year-old Khuram Murtaza had been thrown out of Rouge Gentlemen's Club in Maspeth around 1 a.m. Tuesday and called the cops to report he had been beaten up, showing them that his face was bloodied and bruised when they arrived. But bouncers simply showed police surveillance video that revealed Murtaza smashing his own face against a car, cutting his nose. Murtaza was charged with falsely reporting an incident; he had been arrested in Forest Park earlier in the summer for criminal mischief. Reviewers of the club had nothing but good thimgs to say about bouncers, that they remember your name and even look out for you when use the ATM. Regulars also note that Rouge is the spot to go to for "young Russian girls," though some have immigrated so recently that they're "not much in the way of witty conversation."
Unlike most preseason football games, last night’s 27-25 win by the Jets over the Giants was worth the price of admission. The game was close throughout and the Giants came close to tying things up at the end. More importantly, both teams emerged from the game without suffering any significant injuries and that is the problem with the preseason.
While there's still no word on just who was lucky enough to pick up the winning ticket to Friday night's $333 million Mega Millions jackpot in the Bronx (one of two winning tickets), lottery officials did reveal just where it was printed. Fordham Grocery and Convenience Store on Fordham Road will receive a $10,000 prize for selling to the winner, but the only detail they know is that it was a Quick Pick ticket. Store owner Michael Patel said that he sold over 2,000 tickets in the days leading up to the drawing and had his suspicions that the lucky winner may have been a man who bought 200 tickets Friday night. Maybe he's laying low just as MTA worker Aubrey Bryce did for three weeks when he won Mega Millions last month. Patel and his son Bhavesh posed posed for the News with a handwritten sign reading "Winner!! Mega Million Jackpot $166 million here!!" (Take some pride, fellas—round UP.) One local who shops at the store told NY1, "I'm really, really happy. It happened right here at my spot on my block where I play all the time. It could have been me, so God bless them. I won $10, so I'm grateful."
Last night, a woman was injured when an out-of-control van came "skidding" off the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park exit in Queens. According to the Daily News, "the woman, who had come from Virginia to attend a high school reunion, was talking on a cell phone when the van smashed into the parked Toyota she was standing next to, police sources said." A witness told WABC 7, "The white van was on the expressway changing lane to lane and going very fast. For some reason it then turned towards the park, came on the grass, crashed into a blue car then hit one of the girls. She went flying up into the air and then the van just kept going and spinning around, eventually around the tree." The victim, Paula Jimenez, is reportedly in critical condition. The Post reports the driver, Jian Seng He, 49, was "charged with assault, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an accident"—he also may have been fleeing from another accident at the time.
Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people—the AP estimates 1,000—gathered in Times Square to rally for health care reform. And many of those there invoked the memory of late Senator Edward Kennedy in appealing for a single payer system—signs mentioned Kennedy, such as "TeddyCare For All."
For the second weekend in a row, Parks officials did end up going ahead and closing down city beaches along the coasts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island due to the residual effects of what was Tropical Storm Danny (yes, they are closed to swimming today, though sunbathing and some surfing is okay). Long Island beachgoers didn't have much better luck with Nassau County shutting down 20 of its beaches and Suffolk following suit with a couple more. Well there's always Orchard! WCBS 2 also says that Suffolk officials discouraged swimming at 64 other spots along the Sound due to "sewage discharges and elevated bacteria levels" that occur sue to storm runoff water. While the storm itself did not create much of a stir, it managed to rough the tides up once again, just a week after Hurricane Bill drew out hordes of surfers looking to catch 10-foot waves. One Mastic Beach resident said, "You feel like you're gonna break your neck or something. The waves are strong, you can feel the current tearing at your feet."
Before Ted Kennedy made his way down to Washington and onto his burial at Arlington National Ceremony, he was bid adieu Friday night by New York's most famous living Kennedy, his niece Caroline. After she and her cousin Robert greeted some of the thousands of visitors at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Caroline spoke before the crowd in a tribute to her Uncle Teddy. She described her moment of reflection the night he died saying, "I looked up and there was this one star hanging low in the sky that was just bigger than all the rest and brighter than all the rest. I know it was Jupiter but it was acting a lot like Teddy." Still unable to shake her botched attempt to fill the Senate seat of Hillary Clinton at the beginning of this year, the News introduced her speech by immediately mentioning that her last time in front of the cameras as "a tentative, tongue-tied U.S. Senate hopeful." Yesterday Caroline played a less vocal but still visible trole during the funeral, serving as one of her uncle's pallbearers at his funeral.
The 4 train conductor and train operator who were caught allowing a 9-year-old boy into the train's operating car were apparently done in by the same culprit that many New Yorkers have fallen to—a little mishap involving some broken glasses. After initial suspensions, the MTA completed their investigation into the incident last month where a passenger heard the 4 train's announcements sounding a little squeakier than usual, only to be flabbergasted by the sight of the youngster emerging from the operating car. And while the MTA's look into the incident did discover that the boy was in fact in the area that is most definitely off-limits, neither of the two employees who allowed it were fired when it was confirmed that he did not actually operate the train.
The NYC Parks Department selected a new operator for that touristy chestnut, Tavern on Green. By picking Dean Poll, who already runs the Central Park Boathouse, the Parks Department is kicking out the restaurant's current operator Jennifer LeRoy. The Post says Poll's bid (apparently offering to spend $25 million to restore the space) was better than LeRoy's and adds, "Although it had revenues of $36 million in 2008, Tavern paid just 3.5 percent of that amount in rent to the city following a generous contract originally signed by LeRoy's well-known dad, Warner, during the depths of a fiscal crisis in 1973." (Poll pays 16.5% to the Parks Dept. at the Boathouse.) Poll's lease is for 20 years and the NY Times reports that besides updating the plumbing and kitchen facilities, his "proposal calls for an outdoor cafe and bike racks. The Crystal Room, often used for weddings, will be reconceived as a conservatory-style dining space." Plus, there will be two entrances—one for banquet dining and the other for the restaurant and a new bar—in an effort to make it more welcoming to casual dining. Poll also said he wants to keep the union employees.
News about Rep. Charles Rangel's assets—and his problems disclosing them—continues to trickle in. After adding $500,000 in previously undisclosed assets to his 2007 finance report, the Post revealed that he also forgot to disclose the sale of a Harlem townhouse—worth as much as $1.3 million—and also that he "failed to reveal a staggering $3 million in various business transactions over the same period." This, from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee!
NJ lawmakers are probably happy now: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi will not be staying at the Libyan government-owned mansion in Englewood, NJ when he comes to the U.S. next month to address the United Nations. Rep. Steve Rothman announced yesterday, "I am very pleased that Moammar Khadafy will apparently not be coming to Englewood," apparently because Gadhafi's visit—which would include a large Bedouin tent—"would have presented unnecessary safety and security issues for the residents of Englewood and the Libyan diplomats." And the public uproar probably helped pressure the Libyan government, too. Instead, the Daily News reports, "Khadafy is expected to seek rooms for himself and his large entourage at one of New York's luxury hotels." Hmm—will he seek a hotel with rooftop space for him to set up the tent?
The NYC Medical Examiner's Office has completed an autopsy of celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM, whose body was found in his Soho apartment yesterday afternoon. According to TMZ, "There has been no determination as to the cause of death -- more tests are needed, including toxicology. That could take several weeks to complete." It's suspected that he may have died of a drug overdose, as a crack pipe and numerous prescription drugs were reportedly found near his body. Friends had become concerned when he didn't go to Las Vegas for a gig and called the authorities to Goldstein's $2 million apartment at 210 Lafayette Street (One Kenmare Square).
Police are looking for a man that they believe has committed three sexual assaults this month in Upper Manhattan. NY1 has newly released surveillance video of the man described as in his 30s, 5-feet-9-inches to 6-feet tall with a medium build. His latest attack came last week when he followed a 69-year-old woman into the elevator of her building at 158th Street and Riverside Drive and raped her—robbing her as well. The other two assaults took place in Hamilton Heights over the past few weeks, one also in an elevator at West 144th Street and Convent Avenue and the other in an alleyway at West 148th Street and Broadway. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said, "I would urge women to be particularly aware and alert when they frequent 24-hour shopping locations. We've seen this in the past, where people are lurking outside and following the women from the locations." One woman told NY1, "I have pepper spray on my keychain. I think my dog will let me know before I'm aware that [an attacker's] behind me. And I have something else that I'm not supposed to carry, but I carry it. That's basically it."
George Steinbrenner is being sued by a cable executive claiming that The Boss stole his idea for the YES Network. Bob Gutkowski is suing Steinbrenner for $43 million, claiming that he pitched the idea that the Yankees start their own network back in 1996, six years before YES hit the airwaves. Gutkowski had worked with Steinbrenner while he was president of MSG network, negotiating the historic 12-year, $493.5 million deal to bring the Bombers to cable in 1988. The suit says that The Boss wanted to use the threat of starting a network to get $1 billion for a 10-year extension from MSG, who had been taken over by Cablevision (which had ousted Gutkowski from his former role). Gutkowski claims that Steibrenner said to him and his partners, "You are my guys. If it goes forward, I will do it with you." But Steinbrenner did not "do it" with Gutkowski, instead stalling him and stringing him along, according to the executive. The Yankees have called the suit "false and frivolous" and denied Gutkowski had any role in developing the YES network.
Since Mayor Bloomberg was robbed of his chance to engage in Weiner Wars this election year, he's settling for the next best thing—the Wiener Wars! Yesterday on his weekly radio show, Bloomberg was asked about the recent crackdown of illegal vendors outside the Met. Since it was reported that veteran Dan Rossi was taking advantage of a 19th Century law that allowed vets to vend without paying, more veteran have been making their way to Fifth Ave, many employed by vendors who use them to beat the law and allow them to sit idly nearby. The mayor said, "They hire a vet to stand there and [he] has nothing to do with [it]. That's as much fraud [as] minority and women-owned businesses where you just hire somebody that's a minority or woman and say, 'Oh, you're the name person.'" As for Pasang Sherpa, after being evicted from his $600K lease to vend at the Met, Rossi hired him to man his stand after seeing Sherpa crying on the Met stairs. Now Sherpa simply joined in on the "rent-a-vet" system, paying disabled Leo Morris Jr. $100 a day to nap in his car near Sherpa's new cart.
Last night, the Democratic candidates for NYC Public Advocates squared off for a WABC 7-televised debate, and it got good fast: Within 10 minutes, City Councilman Bill de Blasio attacked frontrunner and former Public Advocate Mark Green, "I have to say, with all due respect to Mark Green, he has a little amnesia. He did not stand up to Rudy Giuliani when it mattered most, when Rudy Giuliani wanted to stay on for 90 days at the end of 2001. Mark caved in to him for political reasons.” Green retorted, "There was not any public official in the eight years of Rudy Giuliani who stood up to him more often and more successfully." Green also told moderator Diane Williams, "Diane, let Bill attack me one more time because he needs it emotionally."
The multi-state lottery drawing, Mega Millions, was up to $333 million when last night's drawing occurred—and one of the two winning tickets was sold in the Bronx! The winning numbers: 1-17-31-37-54, and the Mega Ball number was 31. The Daily News reports, "After taxes, the cash payout is estimated at $210.4 million. If no winners emerge, the jackpot will go up to $430 million - the largest lottery payout ever." Lottery ticket sellers wouldn't mind, as bigger jackpots mean more sales; a Lower East Side bodega owner said, "Some people buy $20 and $50 worth of tickets. One guy bought $100 worth today." And Newsday reveals, "Three New Yorkers, including one in Queens and one in the Bronx, hit for the second prize, worth $250,000. They had all five numbers correct, but failed to hit the Mega ball." Late last month, MTA worker Aubrey Boyce revealed he won the July 7 Mega Millions jackpot (he took a $55 million cash lump sum from the $133 million total) three weeks after the drawing.
A Staten Island man may have prevented the rape of a local 15-year-old girl when he heard her screams from inside the woods near his home and immediately raced out wielding a baseball bat. The girl was walking to a friend's house on Cleveland Avenue in Great Kills Thursday night around 9:30 p.m. when she was dragged into the woods by her neck by a man described as a heavyset Hispanic male, about 5-foot-5 and about 200 pounds. The girl said to her attacker, "Please don't rape me," and he responded, "No, don't scream."
Danny has been downgraded from "Tropical Storm" to "Tropical Depression," but it'll still cause dangerous surf this weekend. 1010 WINS reports that "Danny had been mostly absorbed by a low pressure system associated with a cold front over North Carolina," with hurricane specialist Lixion Avila explaining, "We were expecting that that was going to happen sooner or later. It happened a little bit sooner. Basically Danny has been swallowed by the big low." The NYC Parks Department hasn't closed beaches, but warned that "beachgoers [should] exercise caution at all city beaches due to Tropical Storm Danny. Large swells are expected to produce dangerous surf conditions and life-threatening rip currents during the next day or two. The coastal impact may result in temporary restrictions, including requirements that swimmers remain in shallow waters and closures at city beaches during this weekend." (More details here.) And beach-side businesses will be taking another hit this weekend—the manager of the Jones Beach food court said, "It's been exactly like this. It's been like a ghost town."
Celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM, was found dead in his Lafayette Street apartment this afternoon. He was 36. According to TMZ, "Sources tell us he was found in his apartment at around 5:20 PM. We're told drug paraphernalia was found at the scene. Our sources say DJ AM had not been seen or heard from for a few days -- one of his friends went to check on him, but got no response after knocking on his apartment door."
Tomorrow afternoon (at 2 p.m.) Times Square will serve as the stage for a Health Care rally, the NY Times reports. Over 75 "Democratic and health-related groups that support President Obama’s goals for overhauling the health care system" will converge on the Crossroads of the World to get their voices heard. The paper points out that amongst those groups will be the Upper West Side Baby Boomers and "Raising Women’s Voices, a group that mobilizes women as advocates for better health care. They and others want to ensure that any final legislation guarantees that pregnant women will have health insurance." Currently 13% of pregnant women are uninsured, with some insurers classifying pregnancy as a pre-existing condition and declining coverage. CityRoom reports that "midmorning, groups of demonstrators will congregate at sites across the city, including Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, which has closed. They will then walk to West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, where the demonstration will begin." President Obama's website notes that the rally is in tribute of the late Ted Kennedy.
Yesterday we mentioned that there was a car crash—which included an overturned taxi car—at 24th Street and 7th Avenue. Streetsblog has two photographs of the scene and it looks like the crash involved two cabs. Three people were injured, one of them critically, in the 1:45 p.m. incident, but there are no other details about what happened. Well, we can imagine.
Today, a funeral was held for Eric Pagan, the 42-year-old bouncer who was killed while trying to intervene in a dispute outside East Village bar Forbidden City over the weekend. A bartender in the neighborhood told NY1, "Taz was always the protector. I used to work at the bar next door to where he used to work and he was always there if we needed him... Anytime anybody ever needed him, Taz was there. He's such a wonderful guy and he's so missed. Avenue A will never be the same. You walk down the block and expect to see him." We're told that East Village bars Drop Off Service, Planet Rose, Forbidden City, Common Ground, Habibi Lounge, and Superdive will donate 50% of their register on Monday, Aug. 31 (all day and night) to set up a college fund for Pagan's children, a 14-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son whom he adopted when the boy's mother died.
The Staten Island Advance reports, "A chilling murder-suicide yesterday, capped with a bomb scare, ended a deadly 24 hours on Staten Island that included two more public suicides, each in a borough park, and a fatal motorcycle crash." In the case of the murder suicide, a man called 911 saying, "I shot my wife. Yeah, it was an accident, and I shot the cats too." John Pizon said he would leave his door open for EMT, but when cops arrived to the home in Bulls Head, they found Pizon dead from a gunshot wound to the head; police also found grenade and other firearms in the home (Pizon apparently collected Civil War firearms). On Tuesday night, a retired police officer was found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in Great Kills Park and yesterday morning, a 22-year-old man's body was found hanging from a tree in Willowbrook Park. The man who discovered the body in Willowbrook Park was walking his dog, "I saw the waste basket turned up and him, hanging there... I felt sad and scared."
The name Hell's Kitchen, unlike those of Dumbo and SoHo, was not a creation of the real estate world. CityRoom revisits how the push to change the menacing moniker occurred nearly 50 years ago, when three teenagers were stabbed and two were beaten on West 46th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue. Business owners became upset with the press using "Hell's Kitchen" in coverage of the crime and offered the more neutral "Clinton" after the DeWitt Clinton Park. For real estate purposes, Clinton has become more accepted, but does anyone really use it? A 56-year-old told CityRoom, "Anything was better than Hell's Kitchen... But 20 years ago you wouldn’t be asking me this question. Then the streets were filled with hookers and junkies. And I remember. I’m old so I use old name. A new name doesn’t change the place." And a 26-year-old said, "Clinton is a stupid example of gentrification. I’ll never call it that. It’s a name like Hell’s Kitchen that make New York neighborhoods quirky." Google Maps shows Clinton above 42nd Street and Hell's Kitchen below, while Wikipedia sticks with Hell's Kitchen. And the city can't make up its mind: The DOT calls it "Clinton/Hell's Kitchen" while the City Planning office goes with "Clinton."
The Dyckman Farmhouse Museum has been burgled! The NY Post reports that 43 artifacts were stolen when the Parks Department was renovating it, which was reported back in 2007. "City records obtained yesterday reveal an alarming list of period pieces, lavish décor and jewelry stolen when the Parks Department and the nonprofit Historic House Trust hauled belongings out of the Inwood museum for an interior renovation." Some items date back to 1800, some made gold, some adorned with diamonds... and even a family cradle was swiped! The case has now been closed, and the "inconclusive investigation revealed several questionable decisions by the Parks Department, such as giving keys to Dyckman to 'a lot of Parks staffers and personnel over the years' and failing to always lock up." The original home was destroyed during the Revolutionary War, so, we suppose, this too shall pass.
Englewood, NJ Mayor Michael Wildes is stepping up the fight to keep Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi—and his air-conditioned Bedouin tent—from the estate the Libyan mission to the U.N. owns. Wildes is going to court to file an injunction on the renovation work being done at the estate, "If the U.S. State Department won't shut this down, we will. New Jersey's governor, its two U.S. senators and its U.S. congressmen are all on board on this."
Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada's non-profit (but profitable enough for him to have been paid $460,000 in 2007) Soundview Health Network remains a source of questions from state officials. Earlier this summer, the NY State Comptroller's office yanked a $3 million state grant to the clinic because Espada, on the application form, claimed there were no outstanding tax liens, claims or judgments over $15,000... only there were (the Post says it owes about $1 million in taxes now) and now Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office is investigating whether Espada gave false statements about his business's health. The Times Union also mentions the new investigation "is separate from ongoing probes involving Espada's campaign and the Soundview organization... Cuomo's office is looking into whether Espada improperly benefitted in his successful primary election last year by allegedly using Soundview employees and resources for political activities. Questions about Espada's residency and his failure to file complete campaign disclosures are also under investigation."
Wednesday night a few Russian women were ticketed $250 a piece for swimming past 6 p.m. at Brighton Beach. The Parks security allegedly threatened to jail them and check up on their immigration statuses. While the Parks Dept. told us that "New York State law does not allow you to swim at your own risk," the swimmers (and eyewitnesses) say that the lifeguards never alerted them that the beach was closing, and simply clocked out without getting anyone out of the water.
Just because a bank makes a mistake doesn't mean you get to benefit: A Long Island man was arrested for refusing to give up the $11,270 accidentally deposited into his Capital One account. Newsday reports that Carlos Morales' account was "mistakenly credited"—which really means "A bank teller had erroneously deposited these funds." Morales withdrew the money over a five-month period and Nassau County's Crimes Against Property Squad said even though Capitol One "contacted the defendant on numerous occasions asking the defendant to return the funds," Morales didn't respond. He is now charged with grand larceny. Also, if the ATM "accidentally" gives you more money than it should, report it and return it or you could faces charges.
Ack! There's way too much going on in the weather department. For brevity's sake the activity can be boiled down to one word: rain. Looking at the satellite image above you can see three rainmakers: Tropical Storm Danny off the coast, a bunch of tropical moisture along the East Coast, and a bunch of clouds associated with a cold front that stretches from Michigan down to Texas.
Somehow a simple "dog bites dog" headline has garnered nearly a week of news coverage. Actor Gerard Butler (or his "people" as it were) is refusing to give up any vet records (including a bill) or photos showing his pug Lolita was bit by a Queens couple's greyhound, called Mayfly. The couple says Butler threw their dog against a fence during the incident, and told them it should be "put down." WABC talked to Fred Varecka (Mayfly's owner), and he told them, "[Butler]'s in damage control mode right now to try and protect his image." A few more new details: there were two greyhounds, and Varecka says one of them, "lunged at the pug and barked but my wife had good control of the dogs." When they asked him to leash his pug, Butler walked away and they followed him, and that's when Butler hulked out; "In a matter of seconds he slapped the dogs face, dog went flying up against the fence."
Our Italian Greyhound friend Buckley
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries says that there are 65 condominium developments in Brooklyn which are "either financially troubled or on the verge of distress". He said, "There was an irrational exuberance of construction in the area these past few years," and Crain's reports that he's "in the early stages of approaching developers and banks behind some of these properties with a proposal to convert the unsold units into affordable housing." (Apparently it's unrelated to the city's own from-foreclosed- to-affordable-housing push.) The Local has a list of the developments; Curbed notices, "There's some shockers on there, including the blockbuster One Hanson Place conversion." Possibly related: Prices were cut on the remaining units at One Hanson Place ("One of the biggest was a 23 percent price reduction on a 1,500-sf, 2-bed, which went from $1,222,431 to $945,000").
The National Transportation Safety Board says that the air traffic controller on duty at Teterboro Airport during the crash between a small plane and sightseeing helicopter had a "light" workload and "nothing should have prevented him" from alerting the small plane's pilot about aircraft in his route. The crash, which killed nine people, occurred as the controller were on the telephone, joking about a dead cat. Additionally, the NTSB has made suggestions for air safety over the Hudson River, "including having helicopters and planes fly at separate altitudes" and that "pilots who are to fly in the Hudson River air corridor and around the Statue of Liberty complete a special training course."
At an event where Mayor Michael Bloomberg, alongside the city's Veteran’s Affairs employees and NYC Service participants, helped put together care packages for overseas troops, the mayor was asked about the Wednesday night debate between Democratic mayoral hopefuls City Comptroller Bill Thompson and City Councilman Tony Avella (the two Democrats spent much of the debate attacking the mayor). Bloomberg said he didn't watch the debate but apparently heard about it, suggesting the candidates "wasted an opportunity" in attacking him instead of giving reasons why they would be good for the city, "I'm not going to 'face' either of them... I'm running on a record, and I'm trying to lay out the things that I would do if given another opportunity."
Zach Hyman's latest nude subject is stealing the headlines from him. Today the NY Post talks to the 26-year-old Kathleen Neill, who was charged with public lewdness when she stripped down in the Metropolitan Museum's Hall of Arms and Armor. She wants the prudes in this town to lighten up, and told the paper, "I want people to have the freedom to express themselves. I want the city to drop the charges. I would love to be able to go to museums and see stuff like this happen on any scale." Since it's already legal for women to walk around topless in New York, maybe next year's topless march should focus on the full monty.
Last night, a man crossing Queens Boulevard at 44th Street was hit by an unmarked police car. The Daily News reports witnesses say the pedestrian Evelio Villa, 47, and his girlfriend had the right of way and the car went through a red light—"This guy was flying. He went like a bat out of hell. There was no screeching brakes, no tire marks, nothing." However, a police union source tells the paper that the car from the 109th Precinct had the green light and that Villa was intoxicated (another police source says the car turned on its sirens when it saw Villa). Villa's girlfriend says the car was going slow but actually accelerated as it approached, "I tried to grab him, but by that time he was in the air." Villa is in stable condition at Elmhurst Hospital with a fractured shoulder and the police officer driving the car has not been charged.
The Kennedy family estimates (via Twitter) that 25,000 people paid their respects to Senator Edward Kennedy at the J.F.K. Presidential Library in Boston yesterday. The library was scheduled to close at 11 p.m., but stayed open until 2 a.m. due to the long lines. The family said, "We could not be more grateful for the amazing support. Thank you."
Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of liquidating Ponzi king Bernard Madoff's assets, has asked a judge to define what constitutes investors' losses. Naturally, some investors believe they are owed the inflated (hello, 46%, 950% returns), very fake and non-existent amounts that Madoff listed on their last balances—while Picard thinks they are owed simply what they invested minus withdrawals. The Post reports, "A decision could prove crucial in how Madoff's assets are divided among his victims, because some investors -- whom Picard calls 'net winners' -- might be denied a share if their withdrawals exceeded their investments." The Manhattan Bankruptcy Court will have a hearing about the matter in...February. And we must bring up this December 2008 quote from one burned (Berned) investor: "The point with [Madoff] was that I always got every document. If you get all the documents, you are not suspicious."
Yesterday, Governor Paterson signed a bill that bans texting while driving. Now driver will be prohibited from texting or using electronic devices like iPods and laptops—or else they'll be fined $150; the ban also extends to reading the devices and sending images while the vehicle is moving. Governor Paterson said, "The risks associated with texting while driving are well documented. As we learn more and more about just how dangerous this practice can be, I urge all New Yorkers to drive with caution and get in the habit of putting their cell phones away while driving to protect their own lives and the lives of others." The Elmira-Star Gazette adds, "The new law also includes measures aimed at making teens safer drivers. It requires 30 additional supervised driving hours before new drivers can take a road test and reduces from two to one the number of passengers under 21 allowed in a vehicle with a new driver when a supervising adult is not present." The dangers of texting while driving are the centerpiece of that distressing video from Wales, showing young women in a terrible crash (video after the jump).
Who doesn't love a good heroic dog story? Word is that a concerned canine named Max saved an 89-year-old woman in Little Neck last Friday. The pup, who is a neighbor's dog, made a ruckus after finding Tina DiLuca face-first in her garden on a 90-degree-day. His barking caused Maria DiLuca, her daughter, to rush outside. She said, “We live next door to Max and we’re used to hearing him bark. But he didn’t sound right. I looked out the window and I saw my mother laying there. She’s lucky she fell in the dirt and not the concrete.” Currently the 89-year-old woman is recovering from four fractured ribs and a few abrasions in the hospital, and is expected to stay there for a few weeks. Hopefully Max is getting some extra treats and belly scratches at home.
This is Max!
If you thought you were getting your untaxed cigarettes from the Poospatuck tribal reservation this weekend, think again! A federal judge stopped the tribe's sale of untaxed cigarettes to those outside the tribe because NYC complained that people would of course buy untaxed cigarettes instead of taxed ones in the city and that the untaxed cigarette trade leads to bootlegging. The tribe has 30 days to appeal, and they vow to fight it. However, Mayor Bloomberg said, "The city will go after every dollar that is owed to city taxpayers." According to the NY Times, "City officials estimated that the sales deprived the city of $420 million from 2004 to 2008."
Last night the Yankees kept their winning ways going up in The Bronx behind a couple of Bombers who are practically old timers at this point—Andy Pettite and Jorge Posada. The 37-year-old pitcher climbed to third on the team's all-time wins list with 189 (tied with Lefty Gomez) and his 38-year-old battery mate blasted a three-run homer in the first to provide Pettite with all the help he'd need to get the victory.
On August 14, a cab driver struck and killed 8-year-old Axel Pablo who was crossing 112th Street near Lexington Avenue. While some witnesses said the driver was speeding and talking on his cellphone, police investigators reportedly found no evidence of Shaiful Alam being on his phone and did not charge him. Now it turns out that Alam has "an astounding 11 points on his license from July 2007 to July 2008," according to the Post, which adds, "Under state law, a driver with 11 points or more in an 18-month period gets an automatic license suspension. State officials could not immediately determine why that did not happen to Alam."
Author and journalist Dominick Dunne, who died yesterday at age 83, wrote about high-profile crime for Vanity Fair. His interest in the topic—and sympathy for victims—stemmed from his 22-year-old daughter's murder in Los Angeles; her killer, her boyfriend, served less than 3 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. The NY Times explains that Dunne often said, "I’m sick of being asked to weep for killers. We’ve lost our sense of outrage," and current VF editor Graydon Carter said, "He never pretended to be objective in covering trials. He was always writing from the point of view of the victim because of what happened to his daughter, and he had a riveting way of knowing, almost like Balzac, what to tell the reader when." Carter also described Dunne as "equal parts Walter Winchell, Louella Parsons and Yosemite Sam. He had equal standings in the worlds of society, crime, and journalism, and he fit in well in all three" to the Post. Here's Dunne's VF article, "Justice," covering his daughter's killer's trial.
Mayor Bloomberg was back in court for the third time in three months, giving a three-hour deposition in the second discrimination case he's had to deal with lately—this one brought by the Justice Department after complaints of unfair hiring practices from the Vulcan Society of black firefighters. The Times reports Bloomberg testified that he "did not recall receiving a report more than six years ago warning him about sharp differences in the passing rates between white and minority candidates for firefighter jobs." The mayor was not expected to testify until he went off about the case, unprompted, during his Congressional testimony in support of Sonia Sotomayor. The case may now head to trial this fall to determine if there was intent in the city's alleged negligence. A lawyer for the Vulcans said, “We’ve presented documents to him showing that the proportion of blacks in the Fire Department...is lower than the proportion that was in the Fire Department in the 1990s. (Bloomberg) dismissed that as minor differences — unimportant — at the same time that he said that he and the city have a great interest in expanding diversity."
It's hard to win when you are accused by a 60-something-year-old couple of abusing their dog. But alas, that is the situation actor Gerard Butler is currently in. Yesterday news came out that a greyhound belonging to the couple encountered Butler and his pug on the street. The pug was unleashed, and the greyhound was leashed.
A building in the East 30s—252 East 32nd Street—is being evacuated, apparently due to a parapet wall collapse. The current Department of Buildings complaint notes, "FDNY REQUESTED A STRUCTURAL STABILITY CHECK DUE TO CRACKS IN THE PARAPET" and a category code of "30 BUILDING SHAKING/VIBRATING/STRUCT STABILITY AFFECTED." Update: There's apparently no imminent collapse suspected, but East 32nd Street is still closed.
City Councilwoman Letitia James won't stop til she gets enough ... rejection from the MTA? She's still lobbying for the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station to be named after the late King of Pop, or for a plaque to go up recognizing he filmed his video for "Bad" there. She told the Daily News, "The Transit Authority has already said, 'Beat it,' literally" since MTA guidelines prohibit plaques and memorials in subway stations for some reason. As for renaming the station, the organization is still developing the guidelines for station naming rights. Earlier this year, however, the MTA agreed to sell naming rights at Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street to Bruce Ratner for $4 million (over 20 years). So James wonders, "if the Michael Jackson foundation offered them $10 million for naming rights they'd consider listening." Not that the foundation has offered that, but if they were the MTA should definitely consider it. In the meantime, James is starting a petition drive at the singer's 51st birthday celebration. If you've never seen the full 16-minute version of the Martin Scorsese-directed video, you can watch it here (part 1) and here (part 2).
It couldn't have been scripted better: A cute receptionist helps catch a career criminal—thanks to her deep love for Law & Order: SVU—and then appears on the Today Show and gets props from Detective Olivia Benson herself!
The story of the stand-up comedian being sued for defamation by her Jewish mother-in-law continues to be gobbled up by media outlets across the nation. Both comic Sunda Croonquist and her lawyer husband Mark Zafrin say they were blindsided by Rose Zafrin's suit. The husband whose firm will represent Croonquist told the Post his reaction to the suit was, "What — are you trying to scare us? My wife's from Paterson!" The black comedienne, whose observational jokes about differences in ethnic customs suddenly became too much for her mother-in-law, says she keeps a kosher house and converted to Judaism (for her marriage, not her career). When asked about the lawsuit by Entertainment Tonight, she said, "I felt sick to my stomach I was sickened. ... I thought maybe a phone call would suffice." She also mentioned to the TV show that she had shows here at Stand-Up NY and Comix this weekend. If this ends up in Judge Judy or Cristina's Court, we think we know who the special guest star will be to mend the parted sea between the two. Croonquist recently revealed that she was inspired her to grab a mic for the first time after being encouraged at a party...by none other than Jackie Mason.
New York investor Hassan Nemazee, whose prolific political fundraising for Democrats like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Charles Schumer, was released on $25 million bond yesterday. Nemazee is " accused of lying about his assets to obtain a $74 million loan from Citibank." The NY Times further explains, he "orchestrated the fraud by using forged documents showing that he held accounts with collateral worth hundreds of millions of dollars," but the accounts never existed or were closed. Nemazee did end up paying the money back to Citibank on Monday, but was arrested on Tuesday. He is under house arrest—monitoring device plus no computer or Internet access—at his Upper East Side duplex, which the Daily News says is worth $20 million (that plus his $8 million Katonah estate are what's securing his bond). Vice President Joe Biden, Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Sens. Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd and Schumer told Politico they plan to return his donations. Time has a 2-minute look at Nemazee.
Move over, Clementine Lee, the Parks Department has a new Public Enemy #1: The older Russian women enjoying a swim at Brighton Beach—and yesterday a few of them were handed $250 tickets for cooling off in the water. A tipster writes in: "I guess there's a sign somewhere on the boardwalk that says swimming is not allowed 6 p.m. to 10 a.m., but I never noticed it. It's hot, it's August, and some people have to work during official swim hours."
The South Shore National squad of Staten Island went down to Williamsport and certainly put up a fight in the World Series tournament, but in the end couldn't get the job done against San Antonio in a 4-1 defeat in last night's nationally televised game. Most little league double plays are prompted by careless baserunning by a kid who doesn't know how many outs there are, but San Antonio pulled off three DPs last night simply with their sharp fundamentals. The Texas tweens, who probably get to play all-year round without any real winter to deal with, were able to get themselves out of three separate innings in which South Shore National had loaded up the bases, twice with nobody out. Star lefty pitcher Angelo Navetta (pictured) got banged up and taken out early, not making it out of the 2nd inning. Manager Mike Zaccariello said after, "He just wasn't Angelo." Mayor Bloomberg saluted the Staten Island youngsters, saying he was "impressed by the spirit of the players and the devotion of the parents in the stands." After the defeat, the mayor said, "On behalf of the entire city, I congratulate them on a great season that is the stuff of dreams."
Yesterday, the "Preview Site" for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened to the public. The actual memorial won't be ready until the 10th anniversary next year and the museum won't open until 2012, so the Preview Site has photographs, mementos (like an 8-foot Statue of Liberty covered in condolence cards and tributes), videos, models, and more from the day. Monica Iken, whose husband died during the 9/11 attacks, told the Daily News, "This is going to allow people to see what this memorial and museum will look like in the future. It's been difficult, but this is a wonderful day and it makes you realize it's going to happen - we are going to have this wonderful memorial."
If bedbugs in the office are the next city scare, sign us up for bubble living. NY1 got an anonymous tip that "workers on eight floors of the Department of Homeless Services building on Beaver Street have been getting bitten by insects since Monday." But the DHS said, "We immediately began taking corrective action, and are extending it to all premises occupied by DHS. We are aggressively addressing the situation with an expert contractor and building management. No DHS employee has reported bites received from our building." Related: David Letterman doesn't understand what why Mary Louise Parker is so freaked out about bedbugs.
Last night, Democratic mayoral hopefuls City Comptroller Bill Thompson and City Councilman Tony Avella went head to head during a debate that aired on NY1. Only their main target was Mayor Bloomberg, the now-Independent (who is also on the Republican ticket); Thompson railed, "For the last eight years we have had a Republican mayor, Mike Bloomberg, who has focused on Wall Street, big developers and the wealthy. From jobs to housing to education, we need to go down a different path in this city," while Avella said, "The people of this city twice voted for term limits. The message could not have been clearer. And the arrogance, I'm sorry the arrogance of Billionaire Mike Bloomberg to think he's so important that he could overturn the term limits law, I think is disgraceful. I think he should be turned out for that reason alone."
A few more details about yesterday's fatal car crash on the Brooklyn Bridge, which closed inbound lanes for hours. The Daily News has a photograph of the crumpled car and reports, "Investigators believe Andre Donald was traveling from his home in East New York, Brooklyn, just after 4 a.m. when he lost control of his 2008 gray Honda Accord and crashed. The [stationary, yellow] DOT truck, which was unoccupied, sported a flashing electronic arrow meant to alert motorists to its presence... Investigators are not certain what caused Donald to hit the well-marked yellow truck but were checking if he had been drinking in the hours before the accident, police sources said." And WPIX's Linda Church was at the bridge during the accident and said, "This car was literally trashed, the whole first half of it. It was a horrible accident... He somehow hit the back of this big bridge truck with all the yellow arrows. Hard to say how he missed it but clearly he missed it and clearly he was going very fast."
Police have arrested four men in connection with Monday night's shooting of a man found at LaGuardia Airport. The victim, who is in stable condition, was discovered in the taxi holding area between Terminals C and D. According to NY1, "The suspects picked up Cedric Click, 26, of Las Vegas Monday night at the LaGuardia Marriott in Rodriguez's 2008 silver Pathfinder. Once Click entered the car, the suspects allegedly stole $700 in cash, jewelry and other personal items from him. Click was then shot once in the chest when he tried to escape, according to officials." And the whole incident may stem from...drugs. The suspects—three Brooklyn residents and one from Queens— were charged with "second degree attempted murder, first degree assault, criminal possession of a weapon, first degree robbery and criminal use of a firearm."
Plans for Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral services have been made: The Boston Globe reports, "The path of remembrance for Senator Edward M. Kennedy will follow the trail of his celebrated life - from his beloved Hyannis Port to his fallen brother’s presidential library in Dorchester, from the Mission Hill church where Kennedy prayed for his daughter to survive her bout with cancer to Arlington National Cemetery, where he will be buried beside his brothers after losing his own yearlong battle."
While it's a beautiful, almost crisp morning, it seems to confirm what we suspected—it's summer's last hurrah because Tropical Storm Danny—or at least its effects— is headed our way. The American Red Cross has already issued a hurricane alert to Long Island—apparently Danny could become a Category 1 hurricane. Of course, Newsday notes, "Forecasters warn storm-tracking paths are unpredictable. The storm is expected to arrive about 100 miles east of Montauk Point by Saturday night, but the margin of error is 150 miles east or west of that, said meteorologist David Wally at the National Weather Service in Upton." Today's high is expected to be 78 degrees.
From NotifyNYC: "Construction crews will conduct an evacuation drill tomorrow August 27, 2009 at the WTC site in Manhattan. The drill will begin at 11:30 AM. Traffic, subways, and PATH will not be disrupted. You may hear a siren during the drill."
A 21-year-old Brooklyn man convicted of kidnapping a young girl was sentenced today to 10 years in prison despite his pleas for "mercy and leniency." Bernard Mutterperl wept before a judge, pleading that he needed help "outside of jail" as punishment for the Mother's Day 2007 incident in Midwood where he followed Xochil Garcia home and grabbed the girl, who was then 11. But the judge fell on the more stringent side of sentencing that could have fallen anywhere from 3 1/2 to 15 years. Garcia, now 13, testified at the trial this spring and spoke again in court today, recounting how she has suffered panic attacks and feared going out alone. She looked at Mutterperl and said, "You messed up my life. Some people want to fight me for no reason. Some people want to be my friend so they can be on TV ... I do not have any real friends now because of this."
As Lincoln Center approaches the final stages of it's revamp, the NY Times gets real with some fountain talk. They report that there will be a new one with choreographed water effects put in place by the firm responsible the Bellagio Hotel outdoor aquatic explosion. Because nothing says Lincoln Center like Las Vegas. One designer at the firm told the paper, "New York is probably extremely nervous about the fountain. They may be expecting something gimmicky." The final "look" will be unveiled on September 30th, and at least one critic has already spoken out, Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of Columbia University' historic preservation program, "said he did not understand why Lincoln Center decided to replace the fountain, designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1964. 'It' the thing that upsets me most of all about what's happened at Lincoln Center.'" Indeed, replacing an iconic fountain that's been the backdrop in many a film, not to mention weddings and other events that have shaped people's memories, is a little bit mind-boggling. Dolkart adds: "You wouldn't want to tear down Grand Central Terminal because Frank Gehry is going to design a masterpiece in its place." Oh wouldn't we?
Author and journalist Dominick Dunne, who wrote covered high society crime trials and wrote novels about high society crime, died at age 83 in Manhattan. His son Griffin Dunne said the cause was bladder cancer. Dunne was a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, which notes he "famously covered the trials of O. J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and Phil Spector, as well as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton... His first article for the magazine appeared in March 1984—an account of the trial of the man who murdered his daughter Dominique. Throughout his life, Dunne was a vocal advocate for victims’ rights." Vanity Fair has an archive of Dunne's articles and profiles; for instance, writing about meeting Claus von Bulow, Dunne observes, "On that May Sunday of the seventh week of his second trial, the Danish society figure was dressed in tight blue jeans and a black leather jacket."
Last night, actress Mary Louise Parker was on Late Show with David Letterman, revealing that she's been worrying about that feared scourge, bedbugs. But Letterman didn't seem very convinced they were a real threat, asking, "Is it that treacherous? Is it that dire?... What's the worst that can happen if you have bedbugs?" Oh, Dave, if you only knew!
Mayor Bloomberg's expansive and record-spending campaign for a third term must be doing its job effectively with the latest poll showing his lead expanding—but damn it if it isn't driving New Yorkers c-razy! The latest Quinnipiac poll shows that 78 percent of New Yorkers have seen the mayor's ads (20% more than last month!), but almost half find them to be "annoying," more than those who see them as "informative." Today's Times has a front page article about Bloomberg's reelection bid being "most meticulous campaign in New York City’s history." The paper goes inside headquarters to find workers "condensing and cataloging (voters) into tiny data points" with workers on hand who speak Farsi and Tagalog among the many languages they cover. Also: "His field team is so persistent that, when volunteers call to solicit voters’ support, some report that they have already been called by the campaign — three times." Despite a Quinnipiac pollster saying "Mayor Mike might be wasting his money on that zillion-dollar TV buy," Bloomberg stretched his lead over Bill Thompson to 50-35%, a five point gain from last month. Maybe people secretly love picturing a Mr. Feeny-like Bloomberg as he's depicted in the spot after the jump.
Fire up the grill, America, it's still summer out there. That pastime is a bit of a tricky one here in New York, however, as Central Park doesn't allow grilling at all, and Prospect Park allows it in only nine designated locations. (For a list of all the designated locations, just in time for the last two weekends of summer, go here.) Now, the Daily News reports that citizens are chafing under the limitations and grilling wherever the hell they want to, and "Illegal grills are firing up all over Prospect Park."
A lawyer for the man arrested for the murder of an East Village bouncer claims that his client Louis Rodriguez is innocent. Rodriguez is accused of shooting Pagan in the face outside the bar Forbidden City after allegedly hitting someone standing on the sidewalk with a van. The Daily News spoke to lawyer Paul Brenner, who said, "An off-duty cop was present. He said Mr. Rodriguez was definitely not involved...My client wasn't there" While Brenner doesn't know the cop's name, he asked the Manhattan's DA office about him. A rep from the DA's office told the News, "We will, of course, investigate all information that comes to our attention, but for now, the charges speak for themselves." A memorial for Pagan has been growing outside Forbidden City and his mother told WCBS 2 that when she found out he was killed, "From there, my heart, my heart, I don't know what happened. From there, I got a pain here, and I - am beat."
Governor Paterson was back at the scene of the crime today, attempting to wipe the slate clean and put the lid on what has been a disastrous campaign on his part of critiquing the "orchestrated" treatment of him from the media and how it illustrates that we are not in a postracial society. Paterson returned to the Errol Louis's radio show where he first made the remarks last week. Today he said, "I was wrong to get into an assessment of how the media views me. I do not think that race has anything to do with my poll numbers anything to do with my political issues in this day, and shouldn’t have said it. Straight out."
Despite their uber cheap ticket prices, Chinatown bus companies are often shredded by complaints from riders for their recklessness and neighborhood residents for their blatant clogging of the area's already congested streets. According to amNewYork, the NYPD has finally stepped in: towing 11 buses and handing out 63 summonses on August 14, 20 and 21. This comes after it was revealed that most bus companies owe an average of $5,600 in fines. One company in particular, New Century Travel, takes the cake owing a whopping $136,387.35. Most of their tickets even date back to July 2007! "It's way overdue...This cannot be a one-time thing," Susan Stetzer, district manager for Manhattan's Community Board 3, said of the towing effort. "They're using public streets as their locations to make money as a private business and on top of it, they're not even paying fines. It's a loss of revenue for the city." The buses have been called "purgatory on wheels," and solutions for their vehicular messes have been thrown around for years now— one of which was creating a terminal to house them— but to no avail.
The Daily News says that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has essentially been turned into a "hotel booking agent" because the State Department is trying to find a suitable place for Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi to stay—with his air-conditioned Bedouin tent—during his United Nations visit next month. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "We are involved in discussions... We, of course, are sensitive to the concerns [of Gadhafi's potential neighbors]. No decision has been made ... regarding where he will stay."
One man took to NY1 after being duped by AEG Live when he bought tickets to one of Paul McCartney's Citi Field concerts this summer. They report that Roger Scholl bought two tickets (at $190 a pop) in the field's B6 section, but that section was moved to a less desirable area after the transaction went through. Scholl explains, "What they did was they took where B6 was supposed to be, where the seats were that we had bought, and on the new seating chart there was a section called B5-1 that had physically taken the location where B6 had originally been." After complaints to both the Mets and AEG, he still ended up in the new B6 area when the show started. The Mets have now told NY1: "The seating plans for the Paul McCartney shows underwent some late adjustments due to changes in the staging and production that affected a small number of seats. The Mets worked diligently with concert promoters and Paul McCartney's management to relocate customers whose views in their estimation were compromised." Though they say the sightlines remained consistent with the price, AEG has given disgruntled customer a refund.
Clearly sick of wasting press conference time disguising the inevitable, Jets' Head Coach Rex Ryan has reportedly given the starting quarterback job to rookie Mark Sanchez. FoxSports broke the news that Ryan told Sanchez and Kellen Clemens this morning before making the decision official at his next press conference this afternoon. Ryan had said early on in camp that he was hoping to avoid any dragged-out controversy by naming his starter for September 13th's season opener before the third preseason game and apparently stuck with that, despite Sanchez looking like a deer in headlights when he stepped onto the field against the tough Ravens' defense Monday night. The Jets' new coach said he would not hesitate in going into the season with a rookie running the huddle after seeing the success Joe Flacco had last year while Ryan was coaching in Baltimore. Other than Sanchez's flashy first pass, neither he nor Clemens have made a clear case for the job in the two exhibitions. But if there's been any general consensus from local media on the SoCal youngster, it's that it must be difficult to say no to this Sex in Spikes.
Today may be the last hot day of a summer with few hot days. A westerly breeze will push the afternoon high into the upper 80s. Tonight, a cold front will move south from Canada, bringing with it a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm. More importantly, it appears that the front's passage will kill any chance of hot weather for the next couple of weeks.
Jennifer Aniston's co-star (and maybe-beau), Gerard Butler, is back in the news. Last we heard Butler's bodyguard attacked a photographer's car, and now the NY Post reports that the actor allegedly hit a couple's dog late Monday afternoon in LIC. While walking his own pug, Lolita (unleashed!), Butler encountered Fred and Maria Varecka and their greyhound, Mayfly (leashed). When Mayfly went for Lolita (Butler claims taking two bites at her neck), the couple says the actor "slammed Mayfly's head against a fence, screaming, 'That dog should be put down!'" The couple, in their 60s, said the encounter left them shaking, and when they told him he should put a leash on his dog, "he kept on going and going, ranting and raving... He was being verbally abusive." A police report was filed, but no citations have been handed out. Butler's PR spinderella says that he spent the evening at the vet's office, and even shelled out $3,000 for the visit of another family's pet he met there. Meanwhile, Fred Varecka tells the paper, "I thought a lot of him as an actor. And he might still be a good actor. But I don't respect him as a person." No word on whether there will be a ceremonial trashing of their Butler DVDS (Phantom of the Opera and 300).
Peter Cammarano, who resigned as mayor of Hoboken due to accusations that he took $25,000 in bribes during his 21-and-a-half days in office, got a nifty payout from the city: According to the Jersey Journal, "Cammarano received $12,904.04 for his one month as Hoboken mayor, according to city payroll records. Of that $12,904, $4,254.46 of it was paid to Cammarano for his unused vacation days... He was inaugurated on July 1, 2009 and his resignation was effective at noon on Friday, July 31. On his last day in office, Cammarano was paid for half a day. Acting Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sworn in later that day." You know how many unused vacation days? Twelve—he got all of them, they weren't pro-rated or anything! That's super generous of Hoboken.
If a story involves the words "skank" and "ho," an anonymous blogger, a besmirched model, and lawsuits, hell, it can be a Maureen Dowd op-ed column. The imbroglio between model Liksula Cohen and "Skanks in NYC" blogger Rosemary Port—Port wrote that Cohen was a "psychotic, lying, whoring...skank," Cohen successfully sued to have Google give up Port's e-mail address—gives Dowd an opportunity to opine about anonymity on the Internet, "If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I’d never come to work. I’d scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming," and dubs the Cohen-Port affair "the Case of the Blond Model and the Malicious Blogger."
In a case that seems suspiciously like a win-win for everybody involved, a Midwood grandmother is suing her stand-up comedian daughter-in-law for "defaming her with racist lies" in her comedy routines. Sunda Croonquist of Paterson does pretty standard comedy club material about her husband Mark Zafrin's family, sharing her experiences as a black woman marrying into a Jewish family, joking that "Jews don't know how to whisper" and having "two kids in two years makes her suicidal, having two kids in one year would make her Orthodox." After years of allegedly enjoying the material, now Ruth Zafrin has apparently taken offense to the barbs she finds "malicious" and "based on hatred towards her." Two other in-laws have signed on as co-plaintiffs and to give the whole affair the ultimate whiff of a hack sitcom pilot, the comedian Croonquist is being represented by her lawyer husband, taking on his mother. Croonquist claims that her in-law and family jokes are not mean-spirited (she also "converted to Judaism" and "keeps a kosher house"), but rather, "natural laugh-getters." In case this all isn't enough free publicity for everyone involved, watch Croonquist's act and decide for yourself after the jump.
The naked truth about the Standard Hotel originally broke on Curbed in early July, and now it's made it all the way to the desk of Brian Williams after getting daily coverage in the New York papers this week.
On Sunday night, a livery cab driver was killed in the Bronx. It turned out that Jose Peña-Segura's suspected killer was a man on parole for attempted murder: Benny Delgado, 31, who was caught while fleeing the scene, "has more than 20 arrests on his rap sheet" and was "released from prison in 2007 after serving 12 years on an attempted murder conviction," according to the Daily News. Now Delgado has allegedly confessed to the murder, saying that he and a friend named Jason called Peña-Segura to exact revenge—a Bronx prosecutor read Delgado's statement, "Jason was upset because Jose's associate took some pills from him but didn't pay. We weren't able to find Jose's associate, so I went after the next person. I told Jose to go to an address that I knew was fake. When we arrived, I shot him in the back of the head." And in the process of questioning, Delgado also admitted to shooting another man (a heroin dealer) in the Bronx, "[John Latigua] said he didn't give a f--- about us dope fiends. I then took out my gun and shot him in the chest."
Oh, Charlie! Rep. Charles Rangel, the powerful Democrat from Harlem who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, has now added "more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets" in an amended 2007 financial report. According to CQ Politics, among the additions are "an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands. None of those investments appeared on the original report, which was filled out by hand and filed in May 2008."
The Real Estate Group of New York released its August data on the Manhattan rental market yesterday, "Renters have been able to take advantage of relatively bargain prices, which continue to significantly lag in year-over-year trends, while this flurry of activity has led to decreasing inventories around Manhattan good news for landlords and property managers." Notably, in non-doorman buildings, rents for studios dropped 8.03% vs. August 2008, while one-bedrooms were down 5.92% and two-bedroms fell 8.24%; in doorman buildings, studios were -7.09% (vs. August 2008), one-bedrooms -10.02% and two-bedroms -6.87%. TREGNY says "we’ve seen some landlords begin to test the market again this month with price increases," but "it seems to us that this is still a gamble unless one truly feels their current inventories can withstand the market’s current volatility." TREGNY's CEO Dan Baum added that landlords want their tenants, "The concessions out there right now are pretty aggressive."
A driver was killed in an accident on the Brooklyn Bridge earlier this morning. According to WCBS 2, "New York City police say the man was driving toward Manhattan when his car collided with a city Department of Transportation dump truck... Police say the truck was equipped with an arrow on top of its cab alerting drivers to work crews on the bridge. It wasn't immediately clear whether the truck was moving or parked during the crash." The driver was pronounced dead at the hospital. Currently, the inbound lanes and the ramp from the eastbound Brooklyn Queens Expressway to the bridge are closed.
Senator Edward Kennedy, scion of the one of America's most famous political families, passed away at home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts late last night. He was 77. His family said, "We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever... He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him." (Full statement from the family after the jump.)
With the Justice Department's release of a report on the CIA's abuses in overseas prisons and Attorney General Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor to decide whether a full criminal investigation is needed, former Vice President Dick Cheney released a statement. Cheney says having a special prosecutor look into the matter "doubts about this administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security...The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions." The AP's assessment of the released documents: "Interrogators took the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding beyond what was authorized. Mock executions were held." Specifically, "In one instance, suspect Abd al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole ship bombing, was hooded and handcuffed and threatened with an unloaded gun and a power drill. The unidentified interrogator also threatened Nashiri's mother and family, implying that they would be sexually abused in front of him, according to the report." Cheney also said, "This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of Al Qaeda members and associates since 2002," but Newsweek wonders if the information gained was useful.
Earlier today, a small plane—carrying a flight instructor and a student pilot—crashed at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall parking lot in NJ. The Record reports that plane "[crushed] its nose gear... bringing it within 100 yards of JC Penney. The plane departed from Essex County airport and shortly after takeoff the pilot reported a rough running engine. He then tried to put the plane down in the mall parking lot, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said."
The very same hotel management that has encouraged guests to let it all hang out in the past, is now changing their tune. Yesterday there was a lot of chatter about the unofficial peep show that High Line visitors have been getting from the Standard's guests. The hotel took down all of their online cheerleading that encouraged such behavior, and today they told the Daily News, "The hotel will make a concerted effort to remind guests of the transparency of the guest room windows," and noting "the hotel has always been sensitive to the concerns of its friends and neighbors." The NY Post talked to some visitors of the park yesterday, who want the show to go on! One man told them, "We saw two feet pressed against the glass in an apparent attempt to get better leverage. Our curiosity is piqued—but it hasn't yet been satisfied. We'll come back."
As if Mets fans needed more bad news: Ace pitcher Johan Santana will needs "minor arthroscopic surgery to clean up bone chips in his left elbow and will miss the remainder of the season," according to MLB.com. Apparently Santana has had some discomfort since spring training—"Though the Mets at one point scheduled an MRI on the elbow, they never proceeded with that test." The Mets expect him to be back in spring training next year; GM Omar Minaya said, "We would all love to see Johan Santana here in September. But I think it's a decision that's a wise decision. We want to see Johan Santana here for the long haul." In a blog post earlier today, before the Mets announced Santana was sitting out for the rest of the season, the Post's Joel Sherman questioned, "The Mets can't play dumb here. Jerry Manuel said that he knew Santana had not been throwing bullpen sessions between starts since sometime before the All-Star break... So, again, how do the Mets let Santana keep pitching in these meaningless games? Where is the logic? Where are the adults?"
After studying four intersections for 38 hours, Transportation Alternatives, the bicycling, walking and public transit advocacy group, has released a report with suggestions for the NYPD on reducing "the most dangerous driving behaviors." Some of the findings: "Traffic law violations occur three times every minute (157 times an hour) per intersection" and "On average, each intersection had 24 Failure to Yield violations per hour. Failure to Yield is the second most frequent human factor in causing motor vehicle crashes."
It's a story that Dick Wolf would approve of: A receptionist helped the cops catch a career criminal by setting aside a paper cup he used—all thanks to the armchair detective knowledge she acquired from watching crime dramas like Law & Order: SVU! Of course, the cops initially declined to take evidence—Detective Eliot Stabler would totally rage out about that.
Dispersing two winning lotto tickets in eight weeks is pretty good PR for your store. The NY Times reports that is exactly what has happened at Shiv Convenience Store in Jamaica, Queens. You may recall that one local won the $133 million jackpot there in July, and this past Sunday another man took home $66,053; both times the machine chose the numbers. Lottery HQ in Schenectady told the paper, "We have 16,000 retailers. When I saw the Shiv Convenience Store, I was like, ‘get out of here.’” In 2007 a similar streak happened at a store in Astoria (but three times in a row). Owner of Shiv, Bharat Patel, says he doesn't buy tickets at his own store because he doesn't want customers to think it's rigged, but he is very enthusiastic when a customer wins. When he discovered this week's winner, he lifted the man (a Popeye's employee who played frequently) off the floor, and screamed, "You won! You won!” Meanwhile, the Lotto is getting a makeover.
To pump her book's release today (!), Sheryl Weinstein dished about her alleged relationship with Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff on Good Morning, America. Weinstein, who claims she met Madoff while she was the CFO of the Hadassah organization, has packaged her "21-year" affair and related loss of savings (she invested all her family's money with him) into the tome Madoff's Other Secret. She told GMA's Chris Cuomo, "He really got into it more emotionally than he expected to. I think he loved me and was very afraid of that type of connection," adding, "I knew instantly that he was attracted to me."
Brand new Jet Mark Sanchez, on the #5 draft pick this year, started his first NFL game last night—a preseason game against the Ravens— and the first moments were ugly. As the NY Times put it, "Early on, Sanchez played at a panic-inducing level. His first pass, short and wobbly after linebacker Ray Lewis knocked him backward, landed in the hands of defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, who rumbled 25 yards into the end zone for a 7-0 lead." (Of course, that was the very defense that Jets coach Rex Ryan helped create as the Raven's former defensive coordinator.) Golden Boy Sanchez did improve as the night went on, but the Jets' other quarterback, Kellen Clemens, did well enough in the 24-23 loss for Ryan to say there was still no decision on who the starting QB would be—the Daily News's QB-meter appears to give a teeny advantage to Sanchez. Sanchez summed up the night, "A great experience. Not the best start on Monday night, but I learned quite a bit."
After Governor Paterson has accused the media of racism as it details his political problems, more and more people are telling Paterson to stop. First it was President Obama—of course Paterson didn't pay any heed to that, later saying, "Part of what I feel is that one very successful minority is permissible, but when you see too many success stories, then some people get nervous,"—and other politicians and commentators. Now it's former NYC mayor David Dinkins, who says, "Definitely he should get off the racist thing. Right or wrong, it’s a fight you sure can’t win."
Mayor Bloomberg, you really won some votes talking about bringing back the Brooklyn trolleys, but you'd really win over the city if you allowed public drinking in parks. The NY Post reports that he recently addressed the no-drinking policy, saying, "I never understood why we don't let you drink in the park." However, he didn't show any signs that he'd be changing the policy, only saying, "We don't let you drink in the park. I mean, you go to watch the Philharmonic, you can't have a bottle of wine." In the past he has suggested that a bottle of wine while watching something akin to the Philharmonic is okay—something that was called out for being a classist sentiment. Recently Marty Markowitz was also supporting a form of drinking in public, after he was spotted with a glass of white on a stoop in Brooklyn (but he wasn't fined, like the Brooklynite drinking a beer was).
Chrissie Brodigan, the subway rider whose confrontation with a police officer over her sick pug escalated into her arrest and various accusations (hers, witnesses), let us know that her case will be heard in criminal court next month. While two citations issued to her were ruled "invalid" a few weeks ago, there was were still some charges left. Brodigan tells us, "Today, the judge offered me an ACD, Adjourned in Contemplation. Basically, it's an offer that in 6 months the charges, which read 'loud and boisterous,' would be dismissed in 6 months if I would admit guilt." She declined to take the ACD, because then she "would not be allowed to sue the city for the wrongful arrest." The NYPD's Civilian Complaint Review Board is also investigating the matter.
Tonight, on ESPN's 7 p.m. E60 program, former Giants star Plaxico Burress talks publicly about his decision to take a plea deal after accidentally shooting himself in the leg with an unregistered gun at a Manhattan nightclub last November. The deal will send him to prison for two years. Burress says that the security at Midtown's Latin Quarter nightclub knew he was carrying a gun but waved in him in anyway, "It wasn't like I was trying to hide it." He also says, "Like I said, I got myself into a situation and, you know, I gotta deal with the consequences for it."
Yesterday around 4 p.m. word came in on the newswire that there was a "motorcycle down" on, or just before, the Williamsburg Bridge—towards the Manhattan side. Shortly after an update came in saying the accident was fatal. There aren't many details beyond those available yet, but eyewitnesses say the motorcycle was actually a Vespa, and it was hit (and totaled) by a black car. The Vespa driver is the one who died, and URB Magazine reports it was deejay Josh Link (friends are confirming on Twitter). Many witnessed the scene, which has been described as bloody, and one even posted their thoughts on Craigslist, noting that late last night there were burning candles where the crash happened. UPDATE: It has been confirmed that Josh Link was the victim in this sad accident, and services will be held on Long Island tomorrow.
The police arrested a 29-year-old man for the fatal Sunday shooting of Eric Pagan, a bouncer at East Village bar Forbidden City. Louis Rodriguez was arrested yesterday in Gramercy; According to the Daily News, "Police said the quarrel started when Rodriguez rolled up on the club in a white van and accidentally struck bar patron Salvador Moran, 31, as he stood outside with Pagan and Robert Calbo, 30. Moran and Rodriguez started arguing until Rodriguez ended the back-and-forth with gunfire, hitting Moran in the neck." Pagan, who wasn't on duty but would check into the bar even off-duty, was also shot, in the face; Moran and Calbo were injured. Witnesses and surveillance video led cops to Rodriguez, who has previously been in prison for assault. On Sunday night, East Village residents paid their respects to Pagan; EV Grieve has more. Photo: EV Grieve
Finally! After nearly a year and a half of speculation, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani is considering to run for Governor of New York. Now that the top ranks of the NY State Republican party are shuffling, the NY Times reports, "Mr. Giuliani has told associates that he will decide on a candidacy within 30 to 60 days, as he weighs whether he can be elected statewide and what impact another campaign would have on his business interests." Rudy's had talks with various Republicans in state, Democrat- turned-Republican- turned-independent Mayor Bloomberg and Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island)—King told the Times, "Several times, he said to me that he sees state government similar to where New York City was in 1993: out of control. So many people are saying the state can’t be governed, which is what everyone was saying about the city then. In Rudy’s mind, this is a challenge."
On Sunday, an Upper East Side father and daughter were swept up by a huge (some say 20-foot) wave along with other visitors to Acadia National Park in Maine. Clio Dahyun Axilrod, 7, drowned in the water and her body was found a few hours later by the U.S. Coast Guard. Her father Peter Axilrod and a girl from Maine were rescued while four others were able to swim back. Axilrod is in critical condition while his wife has a broken leg after being slammed to the ground by the wave.
After Abdel Baset al Megrahi, convicted for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released on "compassionate grounds" and received a "hero's welcome" in his native Libya, the Scottish government has been trying to defend itself from criticism, much of it American (most of the victims were from the U.S.). Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill now says they asked Libya to promise not to throw a big party for al Megrahi, "Assurances had been given by the Libyan government that any return would be dealt with in a low-key and sensitive fashion. It is a matter of great regret that Mr. al-Megrahi was received in such an inappropriate manner." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to make remarks about the release; he had discussed it with Moammer Gadhafi weeks ago. There's also been suggestion that Britain lobbied for al Megrahi's release in order to gain lucrative oil contracts with Libya—Senator Chuck Schumer said on Meet the Press, "Was there a quid pro quo here? I don't know if that's the truth, but if it is: shame, shame, shame on the British government."
President Obama will re-appoint Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Wall Street Journal reports, "opting for continuity in U.S. economic policy despite criticism in Congress of the low-key central banker's frantic efforts to rescue the financial system." White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, "The president thinks that Ben’s done a great job as Fed chairman, that he has helped the economy through one of the worst experiences since the Great Depression and that he has essentially been pulling the economy back from the brink of what would have been the second Great Depression."
The last column removed from the original World Trade Center building after the September 11, 2001 attacks returned to Ground Zero yesterday. The beam, and its graffiti messages and mementos, was raised up and put in place—it will be part of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. An ironworker told the Daily News, "For this to go up evokes emotion. It shows the rest of the world that even if you knock us down we'll get right back up."
Late last night, a man was shot outside the Delta-United terminal. WABC 7 reports that his body was "discovered" around 11:30 p.m. "near the central taxi hold area for yellow cabs, where several taxi drivers rushed to the man's aid. One called 911, while the shooting victim asked for a driver's cell phone." He was taken to Elmhurst Hospital for surgery and is expected to survive. MyFoxNY says that cops suspect "the victim may have been shot inside a vehicle or off airport property, and then dumped in front of the terminal"—a silver Pathfinder with three armed men reportedly fled the scene. And according to the Daily News, it was a "drug deal gone bad."
Good news for 1 line commuters: The MTA has restored service to Upper Manhattan stations except West 181st Street, where the station is still undergoing repairs after a ceiling collapse. The MTA had suspended service north of West 168th Street and inspected the West 168th Street station yesterday. And it's a good thing the West 168th Street station's ceiling was looked over: CityRoom reports, "The restoration of (nearly) full service comes after a frenzied repair period that revealed additional flaws in a nearby station at 168th Street. Bricks in the vaulted ceiling, which is architecturally similar to the one that collapsed, were labeled as 'areas of concern' by officials, who will close the station again next weekend to fix loose plaster, concrete and brick." Here's shuttle bus and other subway info for commuters who usually use the West 181st Street station.
Phillies 6, Mets 2: Well, at least watching the Mets lose to Philadelphia during the final six weeks of the season is a littleless painful this year with the team barely having any healthy legs to stand up on, let alone collapse onto. Ryan Howard smacked a three-run home run to left in the top of the first off of Bobby Parnell and the Phillies would never look back in this afternoon's finale of the four-game series at Citi Field. Today's loss puts the Mets 16 1/2 games behind the World Series champs and somehow the news just keeps getting worse. Johan Santana has been scratched from tomorrow's start in Florida with a sore elbow and might be shut down for the season. Billy Wagner made his second appearance today since returning from Tommy John surgery, pitching a scoreless 8th for the Mets. Word is that complications have arisen with the Red Sox' attempt to bring him to Boston off waivers—Wagner wants the Red Sox to agree that they will not pick up his option for next year nor offer him arbitration, leaving him the possibility to sign somewhere where he could end his career as a closer.
Today, the NY Post reported that Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff was "dying of cancer"—according to its sources. And now the federal Bureau of Prisons says the Post's sources are wrong, with a spokeswoman saying, "While the NY Post story is full of inaccuracies, and we can’t specifically address all of them, we can tell you that Bernie Madoff is not terminally ill, and has not been diagnosed with cancer.." However, the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog spoke with a source "familiar with the situation...who reiterated that Madoff does, in fact, have a 'serious' form of cancer, though the source could not confirm that it was life threatening." Of course, the WSJ and Post are both owned by News Corp., so who knows? And now we are left to wonder if the BOP's statement is also referring to Madoff befriending the Native American inmates and visiting the sweat lodge shirtless and hanging out with the "homosexual posse."
Governor Paterson does not appear to be backing down from his comments about racial bias that have brought quite a bit of fire his way since making them Friday. Paterson told the blog The Borrero Report, “I have been quiet for seventeen months on this issue. I played by the rules...Part of what I feel is that one very successful minority is permissible, but when you see too many success stories, then some people get nervous." Paterson once again brought up how much he hates being called "the accidental governor," did not back down on calling out NY1's Dominic Carter for his coverage of the governor's late night out at a Manhattan night club recently and also said that "it seems that I have to work twice as hard as others." And while it was reported over the weekend that an Obama official placed a call to the governor's office asking not to be dragged into Paterson's problems, a spokesman for the president made that explicit today. Obama's spokesman said, "Whether or not race plays into (media coverage of the president), I don't think it is the case. The President doesn't think it is the case."
So about that locked vault that holds controversial books at the Brooklyn Library... the Daily News published a piece by the New York Civil Rights Coalition's executive director, Michael Meyers, chastising the practice of locking up our nation's history—no matter how ugly it can be. The book at the centerpiece is Tintin au Congo, and Meyers says, "we don't need librarians protecting us or our children's wonderment and discovery from 'bad' images and messages in books. Where would such paternalism in the forms of censorship and banishment begin and end? We shouldn't try to hide unpleasant truths from our children. It is historical fact that white racialists colonized Africa, and that explorers and even missionaries thought of black Africans as primitive savages in need of civilizing." Indeed, this history happened and it's not an "Out, out damned spot" sort of scenario where a lock and key will make it disappear.
Last Tuesday, a sudden storm which downed hundreds of trees in city parks, creating what the Parks Department called the worst damage in 30 years. Our own Joe Schumacher visited Central Park and said the devastation was "heartbreaking" and took note of a raccoon who was confused: "The raccoon was disoriented. It went up and down the tree, looking around. It seemed like it didn't know what to do."
The head of the NY State GOP, Joseph Mondello, is stepping down, raising questions about Rudy Giuliani and a possible Rudy run for governor. The pair had a meeting last week and there has been a recent "Draft Rudy" movement. CityRoom reports, "Mr. Mondello’s decision, and Mr. Giuliani’s involvement in it, comes as the latest evidence that the former mayor is seriously considering a run for governor in 2010. Many party officials believe there is little rationale for Mr. Giuliani to get in the weeds of the state party’s political apparatus unless he is serious about running." Ed Cox, son-in-law of Richard Nixon and friend of John McCain, and Niagara County chair Henry Wojtaszek are vying to be the new state GOP head.
The Post says that "two distressed luxury condo buildings -- one in Harlem and another in Downtown Brooklyn -- are in talks with the city to unload their unsold units at fire-sale prices as affordable housing." Hey, if luxury condos can become homeless shelters, why not? While it's unclear which condos are being eyed, apparently the city is negotiating with the banks that foreclosed on the properties. And the city's housing commissioner Rafael Cesetro said the condo developers/banks "would have to take significant losses"—a $500,000 condo could be purchased by the city for $300,000 (plus the developer/bank would get a $50,000 subsidy). Cesetro added that developers were only thinking about the bubble, "Some of the sales assumptions seemed like a stretch in any kind of market. In Downtown Brooklyn, and not on the water, they had buildings underwritten to sell for $800 to $900 a square foot." Will more luxury condos be turned over to the city?
Brooklyn Heights construction worker Robert Keller appeared to be as dead when an out-of-control, drugged-up driver came heading straight for him at 60 mph while at his Far Rockaway work site last Friday. But his life was saved by Ossining's Michael Hudson, the flagman on his crew, who shoved Keller, took the blow of the speeding vehicle along with him and ended up losing a leg in the process. Hudson still has internal bleeding and has just been released from intensive care. Keller tells the Daily News his co-worker was his "guardian angel." Hudson's girlfriend said, "He looked awful, and I didn't know if he was going to make it. I didn't know if he would live to hear me say 'I love you' one last time." As for the woman who admitted to cops that she had smoked crack and was arguing with her passenger before plowing into the construction site near JFK, she is in jail with bail set at $250,000. Yolanda Silvera of Long Island has been charged with second-degree assault, second-degree vehicular assault, second degree reckless endangerment, DWI and other violations.
The Standard is casting more than just a shadow over the High Line, its guests are giving park-goers a full-on peep show. The NY Post reports that many go beyond showing off their naughty bits to passerby—they also have sex, masturbate and even film professional pornos. Heavens to Murgatroyd! Who will save the children? Not hotel management.
In its fall preview, New York magazine has assembled five different people—professors, economists, etc.—to give their thoughts on the future of NYC's economy—and it's helpfully arranged like a weather forecast, from "Those Clouds Still Look Ominous" to "Do I See Some Sun?" Here's a little from "The Storm’s Not Over Yet" prognosis (aka, glass is more half empty) from Independent Budget Office director Ronnie Lowenstein, "We’re expecting the city to lose a total of 250,000 jobs, and we’ve lost about half of that at this point. We are anticipating that we will continue to shed jobs through the second quarter of 2010... The financial sector is continuing to lose jobs, and because that remains the main driver for the local economy, that means nearly all of the other sectors of the local economy are shedding jobs as well. Credit remains very tight, and there’s a huge glut of unsold apartments, and that’s causing construction employment to plummet." Okay, let's just think about how the weather is nicer.
If Governor Paterson wasn't happy with the media's depiction of his job performance before a radio interview Friday connecting it to an "orchestrated" attack from the press related to race, he certainly can't be thrilled that he ended up inviting a whole new round of onslaught from voices throughout the state questioning his competence.
A cold front passed through the region last night and slowly tagging along behind it is some drier air. The dew point temperature has dropped by ten degrees, making venturing outside a whole lot more bearable. The dry air means sun mixed with clouds and a slight chance of late-afternoon showers as the sunlight heats things up to the mid 80s.
City Councilman John Liu is running for Comptroller and, in a TV ad, he says he's worked in a sweat shop with his parents. However, a Daily News reporter wrote yesterday that he never did, based on what Liu's mother told her: Jamy Liu says she never worked in factory, though she did bring home fabric; her sons helped her with and were "paid 25 cents for every ball he spun on a yarn-spinning tool," money that Liu's father Joseph said was "allowance." Liu fired back, with a statement on his website, calling the News piece "gotcha" journalism, "My mom was very reluctant and embarrassed to talk about her experience working in the garment industry," and noted that many sweatshops "including the one my mother worked in - combined factory hours with home-based piece work to maximize the exploitation and squeeze the most out of workers: even after leaving the factory, the work never ends." Today, the News stands firm and wonders why Liu "initially said his mother worked in a sweatshop while her children were 'latchkey' kids. Now he claims she worked at home during the school year, but brought her boys to the factory during the summer." Related: Liu fires shots at Councilman David Yassky when asked by the News to discuss his rivals for the position.
Yesterday, the shooting outside East Village bar Forbidden City, on Avenue A near 13th Street, that left its bouncer dead and two other men injured was apparently spurred from a fight, which bouncer Eric Pagan, 42, had been trying to break up. Pagan actually had the night off but Forbidden City's manager Ron Ancheta said he usually checked in. Ancheta told the Times that when he heard the gunfire around 4:25 a.m., he rushed out, "[Pagan] was laying right in the middle of the street, face up. There were so many witnesses, probably around 10 to 15 people surrounding his body."
Last week, 8-year-old Destiny Antonio survived a seven-story fall from her family's Bronx apartment window at the Castle Hill Houses. Though her window had a guard, her mother Robin Antonio believed the top part of the window might have been faulty, an issue she allegedly complained about to the NYC Housing Authority on a previous occasion. Now the Post reports that the Administration for Children's Service "served Antonio with a court order to produce for interviews the four other children and two grandchildren who live with her. An ACS spokesman said the move is routine procedure whenever there's been a serious accident involving a child." However, Antonio says, "They should be looking at the Housing Authority and their negligence." And little Destiny is still in the hospital in serious condition—she has a broken pelvis, hip and leg.
Hurricane Bill washed out one of the last weekends of the summer for most beachgoers after state parks officials closed down most beaches due to the dangerous conditions brought on by effects of the storm. But when surfers got wind of the fact that sea was foaming like a bottle of beer, they simply told the State Parks Department, "The waves are comin', but we ain't got no fear." Officials said that 2,000 surfers, some from as far as California, showed up at Montauk—the most ever counted out there. And one Long Beach manager told Newsday, "You're supposed to have a pass. The surfers refuse to come out of the water when they're waved in to check their beach passes."
Yesterday morning, a fire broke out in an apartment building in the Fordham section of the Bronx, and when the firefighters responded, there was a car—with an "official NYPD placard issued to cops"— blocking the hydrant. The Post reports "frustrated firefighters had to rely on handheld fire extinguishers to put out the kitchen blaze." Four young children were treated for smoke inhalation at a local hospital—and a cat was given oxygen on the scene! While the FDNY said it wasn't clear whether the hydrant-blocking car was a cop's car, "another fire official at the scene told The Post it was an unmarked police vehicle." Still, a Post photographer who tried to snap a picture of the placard itself "was forced to move away by cops." The car was towed and moved to the 52nd Precinct, probably to keep from the angry neighbors egging it—they told the Post, "Why would you leave your car where people need to get water in case of an emergency?" and "If it was an off-duty cop, he should have known better."
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