Results tagged “article”

This week's NY Times Dining section has a long profile about Jamaica, Queens native Rocco DiSpirito, who many in the dining biz have criticized for focusing on TV shows and cookbooks when he could be running a restaurant. Some, like cookbook author Michael Rhulman, believe "he’s almost gotten to the point where people in the food world feel sorry for him and want him back." Others, like former NY Mag critic Gael Greene, opine, "I do believe that ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is kind of the last stop. I don’t understand—has he totally lost that passion to cook?" In his defense, DiSpirito paints himself as a populist who loves "advocating" for the "general public." But Ed Levine at Serious Eats scoffs at that, slamming DiSpirito and the Times in a fun blog post: "What DiSpirito really loves to do is bring attention to himself Paris Hilton-style and try to cash in on it. Only she can't cook."

The Times concludes its epic, four-part think piece on the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission today. Yesterday, Robin Pogrebin's series looked into why many churches eschew landmark status (cheaper to demolish), Friday was about how sneaky developers send in the demolition crews mere days before the LPC holds their hearing, and last Wednesday's piece noted the fun fact that LPC chairman Robert Tierney has no background in architecture, planning or historic preservation. Today's coda considers the "delicate dance" between preservationists and developers. DUMBO developer Jed Walentas derides landmarking as "one of the best tools that anti-development people have." But his feisty dance partner, Andrew S. Dolkart at Columbia University, argues, "A relatively tiny proportion of New York land is landmarked. It’s hardly an obstacle to economic growth in the city."

This weekend Times reporters rode the MTA's weekend express bus lines and came back with a total downer of a story about how the elimination of the routes would leave lower income commuters particularly screwed. For instance, 69-year-old Myrtis Williams lives in the Marcy Houses in Brooklyn and is completely dependent on the potentially doomed B57; the subway isn't an option for her because her peripheral artery disease and diabetes make taking the stairs painful. But one strange ray of hope in the article comes from bus driver Mitchell Verley; despite his two decades working for the MTA, this man's faith in city bureaucracy is still miraculously intact: "I think somehow the government or something will come up with the money to keep it going," he tells the Times.

An ongoing dispute over surveillance warrants between the F.B.I.’s New York office and the NYPD "has brought the relationship to a new low," according to the Times, which is reporting on "a highly unusual exchange of letters" between commissioner Ray Kelly and attorney general Michael Mukasey. The acrimony stems from the feds' reluctance to press the FISA court to issue broad warrants for the NYPD, which wants to eavesdrop on "numerous communications facilities," including subway pay phones. Each side is now blaming the other for mishandling terrorism investigations. Responding to a letter from Kelly in which he accused the FBI of making "the city less safe," Mukasey wrote: "Not only would your approach violate the law, it would also in short order make New York City and the rest of the country less safe." Mukasey added that he was "unable to have a meaningful conversation" on the phone because "you were not versed on the facts." Next: Mukasey will get upset with Kelly for staggering home drunk with lipstick on his collar.

Today the Times takes a look at the obsessive lifestyles of Yelp nerds, making some of them famous in the process, like local secretary Nina Cheung, 30, who's been "Yelp Elite" for three years. It doesn't just happen, people. Her advice to aspiring Yelpers: "You have to be there to review, not just to hook up." All Cheung's friends are Yelpers, and, as one user puts it, "It’s kind of like a cult, except instead of Kool-Aid we drink alcohol." And Megan Cress, who says she "networks for a living," became one of the site's biggest stars by reviewing the plastic surgeon who enlarged her breasts and posting a picture of her torso in a bikini: "If your wife, mom, sister, or girlfriend are looking for a nice new rackjob or some reconstructive surgery, and they want to avoid hacks and frauds, this doctor is the real deal. He is amazing!" Thank you Yelp—for once Mom won't be getting the same old boring soap basket for Christmas.

In today's Times there's a bracing look at a day in the life of Dr. William Goldberg, the man calling the shots at the Bellevue Hospital E.R. on Mondays. "The E.R. is a window on society," said Dr. Goldberg. "Whatever troubles the city has, the underlying problems, we always see them here." By that measure, New York has some issues: "[His team] had a fairly average caseload for a Monday: a rectal bleed, a vaginal bleed, chest pains with anxiety and a forehead laceration...The chest pains case would refuse his medication. The rectal bleed would angrily demand that he be discharged...Three more stretchers would appear outside the door. Then the phone would ring: A head case was arriving. Seven minutes out. Dr. Goldberg would, at this point, permit himself a grin. 'O.K.,' he said — and the irony was deserved — 'at least it’s picking up.'"

The city's most expensive hotel room got the kind of publicity money can't buy today thanks to the Times, which has paired the voyeuristic article with an addictive, 360-degree photo panorama of the bathroom. We've been virtually spinning around in it for the last ten minutes like Julie Andrews on a Bavarian mountaintop in The Sound of Music. The immaculate bathroom in the 52nd story "Ty Warner Penthouse" has a laser in the bathtub to turn the water different colors, a “steam rain” shower with aromatherapy, a crystal sink lighted from within, and a computerized Toto Washlet “smart toilet" that "does everything on your behalf except wipe"—including warm the seat. The butler on hand confirms that the typical guests in the $30,000 a night room are "the anonymous rich who run the world." It's going to be so depressing taking a shower tonight.

Michael Wilson over at the Times wanders the boroughs to talk to working class types whose inability to afford gas or airplane tickets means they're stuck in town all summer. The article devotes over 1,400 to the phenomenon, which, as you no doubt know, is called a "staycation," in the parlance of our times. Wilson's crazy about the portmanteau, in a Seinfeldian sort of way: "...it’s a very fun word to say. Staycation. How was your staycation? My parents went on staycation, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Our son-in-law threw his back out on staycation." (Salsa, anyone?)

This week’s New York Magazine cover story drops over 5,500 words on the “slightly illicit-sounding” Brownstoner, a blog that for several years has chronicled the steamy vicissitudes of gentrifying Brooklyn. Or rather, the article looks at Brooklyn’s turbulence through the prism of the blog’s commenters – specifically a derisive doomsday prophet who calls himself The What. 5,500 words, one commenter. Up next, a sprawling New Yorker profile on Alex Balk’s Tumblr imitator.

Just in time for summer, the Times has brought the fear to the park, where an army of infectious organisms await anyone reckless enough to let the grass touch their bare feet. According to a number of very uptight dermatologists, taking off your shoes in the park is pretty much akin to soaking them in a bucket of bacteria.

Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg uses the word unconscionable so much that the Times poured 969 other words into analyzing the verbal tic. According to the article, Bloomberg’s U-bombing is definitely excessive; he drops the heavy pejorative in situations that don’t merit it, like when a reporter dared ask him if his trip to Israel was calculated to woo Jewish voters. (“That’s unconscionable. You should be ashamed to ask that question,” he reportedly snapped.)

A Wired reporter bemoaning the pizza backwater that is San Francisco rang up Mario Batali to find out why New York Pizza is so magnificent and got an intriguing theory out of the celebrity chef: New York’s old pizza ovens “capture the gestalt of beautifully cooked pizza.” A food development consultant believes Batali’s abstract ‘gestalt’ is, to scientists, vaporized ingredients that become “volatilized particles and attach themselves to the walls of the baking cavity. The next time you use the oven, these bits get caught up in the convection currents and deposited on the food, which adds flavor."

Sure, it’s not as sexy as last week’s 11 page George Clooney spread (what is?), but the article on elevators by Nick Paumgarten in the current New Yorker makes for a fresh read. It begins with the story of one Nicholas White, a former production manager at Business Week who got stuck in an elevator at Rockefeller Center while at work one Friday night in October, 1999. White’s distressing tale is teased out as a counterpoint to Paumgarten’s exhaustive look at the state of elevator art: only after 7,800-plus words does he reveal White’s fate.