Results tagged “asgothamist”

The sunny weather we've had for the past couple of days is about to give way to several days of rain. As Gothamist types up this post we see that the local radar shows showers overhead. There's no rain yet reaching the ground, which tells us that whatever rain is to fall this afternoon is likely to be on the light side.

The other night we found ourselves craving shwarma as we strolled the stretch of Flushing’s Main Street that’s home to kosher groceries and dairy restaurants. As Gothamist approached Pita Hot, with visions of rotating meat dancing wildly in our head, we noticed an orange storefront out of the corner of our eye. Next to the utilitarian space that’s home to some of the borough’s best shwarma was a joint with a day-glo orange sign that...

No orange Sharpies in these goodie bags, honest.

This may turn out to be the most boring weather week of the year. As Gothamist looks out our window we see a few fair weather cumulus over the Upper West Side. Those few clouds may be the most exciting weather we see all week. Clear skies and pleasant temperatures should prevail through Friday. Oh, some clouds may make an appearance on Wednesday, and again on Friday, but they won't be that much more extensive than this morning's lonely mass of suspended water droplets.

As much as teams crave perennial postseason success, they don't want to be repeat performers in the NIT. But South Carolina and Michigan have become familiar faces at Madison Square Garden in late March. The Gamecocks defeated Louisville and the Wolverines dispatched Old Dominion in Tuesday's semifinals. South Carolina can win its second straight title, and Michigan will play in its second final in three years. Both would have gladly traded a shot at the title for the berths in the NCAA tournament that eluded them.

The MTA rained on Transport Worker Union Roger Toussaint's plan to have the union revote on its contract by saying the matter should go to arbitration. The union claims that MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow was interested in revisiting the original contract, drawn up last December after the strike, but now it seems that the MTA wants to "punish" the strikers. And Kalikow is upset that the Public Employment Relations Board didn't immediately throw the negotiations to arbitration after the union rejected the contract. Maybe the PERB feels that rejection by 7 votes out of tens of thousands should be arbitrated! At any rate, Toussaint's naysayers are having a ball with this - things should get interesting when there's a new vote for TWU executive management.

Yesterday, a 65 year old Staten Island woman slashed her neighbor's throat, claiming the neighbor had stabbed her cat in the eye. The irate Stephanie Lindboe refused to drop her 12-inch knife, even lunging at a police officer, so the cop shot and killed her. Her victim, 59 year old Linda Padula, is at Staten Island University Hospital in critical condition with various stab wounds. During the attack, another neighbor tried to intervene and help Padula, but then Lindboe tried to stab him as well; the NY Times has a more detailed description of the attack and shooting, which the NYPD says seems to be within department guidelines, and AM New York references the 1984 shooting of a 66 year old woman brandishing a butcher's knife when police tried to evict her. Neighbors say Lindboe's behavior was erratic, and it's unclear how Lindboe's cat, Dickey, ended up stabbed in the eye (did she stab him herself?). Dickey had infuriated Padula, with the super saying, "The cat had a bad habit of coming in and pissing on the rug [in the hallway]."

The MTA is seeking binding arbitration for its contract with the Transport Workers Union, making the mess between the TWU's union members and the TWU executive management a Bermuda triangle of rhetoric but not too much action. Okay, we exaggerate, but we should have known it was too good to be true that the MTA and TWU agreed on a contract last month. The TWU's members, who rejected the contract that the executive management agreed to, says it won't strike again. Gothamist thinks the failure of the contract means the end of Roger Toussaint as the TWU President - he spent tons of money to get the contract passed and that failed miserably. The TWU doesn't want binding arbitration, so we'll see how fast their internal talks go.

As Gothamist brought the glass of Hermitage to our mouth we experienced what could only be described as the “Beggin’ Strips” moment. It was subtle but unmistakable – the aroma of bacon.

As Gothamist emerges from Fringe madness, there’s a bit of catching up to do. So today we bring you ideas about what shows to see next, and a review of one of them, Revolution Row, which aims to bring liberals’ bad dreams to life by showing what things might be like if religious conservatives get what they want.

In his bid to be the next Public Advocate, Andrew Rasiej has created a website, We Fix NYC that will track and document potholes," to build a photographic map of where they are and how long it's taking the city to fix them." People can email photos of potholes (here's the address) and their locations (plus whether or not they've been fixed), which will then go up on a Google Map. As Gothamist loves potholes, you can be sure that we've been crossing streets too slowly as we try to capture them with our cameras (but we're being careful). There's even a page to document electrical hazards.

Every so often, Gothamist gets passionate emails from Christopher X. Brodeur, who is running for mayor, about Mayor Bloomberg being corrupt. And yesterday, Brodeur sent us something about how a flier that Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields put together had Asians Photoshopped into it. As Gothamist had trouble opening the attachment and needed to rest up for the bid anticlimax that was the 2012 Olympics announcement, we had to wait for today's Post story with Fields's chief consultant admitting the whole picture was doctored:

Fields' chief consultant Joseph Mercurio said that the photo in the handout — "Virginia Fields, Democrat, a Mayor for All New Yorkers" — is actually four separate pictures that were melded together into one. Mercurio said the fake photo was intended to represent Fields' "inclusiveness."

Continue reading "Photoshop Fun for Fields"

July 3-4: Prix Fixe Menue at Barmarché

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association says that police staffing had dropped 18% in recent years in the area where the Van Alst-21st Street G line stop is located, as the PBA tries to make the case that the subway platform rape could have been avoided. Police presence for the particular Long Island City transit district that serves this stop, plus its backup district, dropped from a total of 404 to 330 police officers on the beat. The issue of subway safety and police presence in the subways becomes a bigger issue as the L train will lose conductors on night and weekend rides, leaving only the engineer, in the coming weeks. The party line from NYC Transit, the division of the MTA that oversees subways and buses, is that customer safety is a primary focus for them. As Gothamist boarded a D train at Columbus Circle last night, the train car was completely empty except for a kind of crazy looking person - three mile stare and the whole nine yards... so when we hear about things like a fine for walking between subway cars or even locking subway cars, we get worried.

Chris and our production designer Howard and our cinematographer Stephen have all dedicated themselves to defying anyone to recognize that the entire film wasn't shot in NYC. We shall see, but from everything I've seen so far, I think they've done a great job. At any rate, the bottom line is that the East Village has changed so much from when Rent takes place that even when we did shoot there, Howard had to make adjustments to the buildings to make them look authentic to the time of the film.

As Gothamist passed a basket full of fresh black trumpet mushrooms at the market this week, we could almost smell their intoxicating, truffle-like aromas gently sauteing in a pan of just melted butter.

Even if the Yankees don’t beat Pedro Martinez, they seem to win whenever he pitches against them. Martinez could hardly be blamed in Sunday’s 5-3 Yankee victory. He pitched seven innings of one-run baseball, only to see his defense and bullpen blow the lead in the 8th. With better play in the field, the Mets could have swept the Yankees. Instead they dropped two out of three to the still-surging Yankees, who have won 12 of 14.

So, while Democratic mayoral hopeful Fernando Ferrer is criticizing the Mayor for letting token booths close and L trains lose conductors (though, as Newsday points out, the Mayor doesn't control the MTA), the big Ferrer news seems to be a tape of Ferrer pollster Jeffrey Pollack banging his head on a table during a NY1 roundtable segment for The Road to City Hall. See the clip here, which is kind of hilarious because it doesn't seem like it's a joke, it seems like a desperate cry, to bang your head on your arm with at least twenty people in studio and thousands of New Yorkers watching. As Gothamist learned during one painful freshman year incident, headbanging should be left to those regulars in the moshpit. [Via the Politicker]

As Gothamist reads more and more about the NYU senior, Hakan Yalincak, and his scamming ways, the more we think we're reading a David Mamet play. The NY Post says that Yalincak and his mom rented an office "furnishing it with mahogany desks and plush, silk-upholstered chairs," "ordered thousands of dollars in computer equipment, hired temporary workers to monitor the Bloomberg stock tickers and shuttled investors in and out of the conference room." The man they rented the space from, Paul Ardaji, says that while the Yalincaks claimed they were started a hedge fund, they had their meetings all in one day and never showed up again - the computers weren't even online either. Even Bloomberg LLP has the FBI trying to help recover money they never got for the computers! The mother and son (and possibly father) are being sued by people who want their money back, and it seems that the Yalincaks bought a Porsche and Tiffany jewelry with the money. The mother, Ayferafet Yalincak, had actually served two years in an Indiana prison for practicing medicine without a license. Are you kidding? The Daily News says that perhaps the son was trying to "help his mom recover from an earlier scam," which sounds not only like The Grifters, but something two steps ahead of the Sante and Kenneth Kimes scandal. And now the question is whether or not the $21 million gift to NYU has real money behind it.

As Gothamist can never get enough of Greek food and drink, and as it had been awhile since our last new Greek-food venture, we decided it was time to try Pylos in the East Village. We had heard good things about Pylos from friends (and from a commenter on our Molyvos review) and were ready to give it a try.

Deciding that an article full of euphemisms would be too much, the NY Times decides to skirt their inability to print cuss words by having "[bull]," instead of "bullshit," in an article about Princeton Professor Harry G. Frankfurt's new book titled, On Bullshit. As Gothamist read the description of On Bullshit ("...We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us..."), we suddenly missed our college philosophy classes very much and realized that the NY Times desperately wants to be able to curse. Anyway, Professor Frankfurt (who was born in Brooklyn and still feels betrayed by the Dodgers leaving) is trying show that bullshitters, who seem to be "cuddly and warm" next to liars, are dangerous, to which we must tip our hat. But Gothamist would still buy an automatic bullshit detector, if it were on the market.

As Gothamist has been working with the NY Knicks on this Sunday's Singles Night promotion, we had the opportunity to talk to some more people who are integral to any Knicks home game: The Knicks City Dancers. We asked Kimberlee Garris (whose nickname is "Harvard"), Erika Hamilton (a pizzaholic - alert Slice!) and team captain Michelle Marella a few questions about life in and out of Madison Square Garden.

The NY Times Metro section tackles the world of mis-spelled signs, mostly by immigrants, even titling the article, "The Grate American Dreem." The article dips into the sociological waters of the American immigrant experience, namely the New York one, with pockets of so many different cultures, but all of them prone to some funny misspellings. As Gothamist has trouble with the English language ourselves, we found the story charming, because our experiences are certainly informed by the signs we see on a daily basis. Like knowing that the pizza place that serves "lazange" when we need it.

Porcupine's Mushroom and Chestnut Crepes

As Gothamist looks into our crystal ball we see nothing but blue skies through next Sunday. After a week in which Hurricane Ivan killed 52 people in the U.S., Hurricane Jeanne killed at least 90 in Haiti, flooding upstate and in New Jersey, and a fried West 4th St station on Saturday, we are grateful for the blue skies.

As Gothamist Leslita mentioned, New Orleans is especially at risk from tropical storms because it is surrounded by water and is below sea level. As the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer image of New Orleans (whitish area to the left) and the Mississippi Delta above graphically shows, there's not much difference between land and water along the Gulf Coast (story and high res image covering a larger area on NASA's Earth Observatory). Mobile is particularly vulnerable because it sits at the head of a small bay where the storm surge may get concentrated.

It's one of our favorite advertising slogans courtesy Time Out NY... 'Welcome to New York. Now get out." The NY Times answered a question from a reader yesterday about coastal evacuation signs that are posted high on lamposts in Astoria wondering what sort of impending doom prompted those. If a hurricane hits our low-lying city, the biggest risk comes not from the winds (although, they could be bad yes), but from the storm surge, the mass of water driven by winds and the low barometric pressure of the hurricane. You thought the subway drainage problem was bad? So how many of you have any clue if you should evacuate or how to evacuate if the situation arises?

For kicks, the White House has the President's Record of Achievement: . Additionally, the NY Times on the president's message tonight and the full text.

Here's the RPA's executive summary as well as the full paper.