Results tagged “award”

This morning the NYC Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives held their big awards show for the worst exemplars of poor bus service. The "top" prize is called the Pokey award; it's a golden snail on a pedestal, and it went to the poor sad crosstown M42, which had the slowest bus speed at 3.7 miles per hour, as clocked at 12 noon on a weekday. According to the award presenters, the M42 would lose a race with a five-year-old riding a motorized tricycle with a speed of 5 mph (as advertised by X-Treme Scooters). But the M42 wasn't the only bus to crawl away with a prize!

   

Congratulations to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for housing not one, but two champion trees. 1010 Wins reports that "The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has named two trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden state champions — meaning they are the largest of their species on record in the state." The Kansas hawthorn is 31' tall, and the Carolina holly is a whopping 35' tall. Together they are the first two trees in New York City to receive the honor, and they were presented their awards today.

Pro tip for all you artists out there: make your work look exactly like a photograph and you will win cash prizes! The NY Times reports that 50-year-old Brooklyn painter Ran Ortner was awarded the grand prize of $250,000 last night at ArtPrize, a public competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Anticipation has reached a fever pitch for next Saturday's Fifth Annual Vendy Awards, the Oscars/Golden Globes/MTV Music Award/Olympics of street food, and now organizers have sprayed lighter fluid on the flames of our excitement by announcing the finalists in a completely new category: Rookie Vendor of the Year. The four contenders are NYC Cravings (Taiwanese), Schnitzel & Things (Austrian), Picnick Smoked ("Good for You BBQ"), and fabulous frontrunner Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (self-explanatory). But Big Gay is also nominated for the best dessert truck category, so voters could surprise the food world by honoring truck owner Doug Quint (right) in that category, like that time Kate Winslet won for The Reader, not for her devastating work in the superior Revolutionary Road. The nominees were selected by elite members of the food blog mafia, and the awards, which serve as a fundraiser for the Street Vendor Project, will be held on the 26th at the Queens Museum of Art. The tax-deductible tickets, which are almost sold out, get you food from the vendors and an open bar. Here's a look back at last year's Vendy's, which was a big win for Calexico.

Looks like everyone's coming clean. Yesterday the WWF admitted that the controversial 9/11-themed ad was probably cleared by someone at the organization, and now AdAge is reporting that "after initially lying about it, DDB Brasil now admits it created a video version of the Brazilian print ad 'Tsunami,' and entered both ads in the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in June."

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has granted 25 more geniuses a cool half million dollars through their fellows program. The foundation's website states, "They include a neurobiologist, a saxophonist, a critical care physician, an urban farmer, an optical physicist, a sculptor, a geriatrician, a historian of medicine, and an inventor of musical instruments. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future. Each received a phone call from the MacArthur Foundation with news of $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years."

Playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America) has been named the first recipient of the "Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award," which is to be awarded biennially to an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theater. The prize comes with a cool $200,000, which Kushner says will "buy me time to work on plays," after he finishes up a screenplay about Abraham Lincoln for Steven Spielberg and another film script about Eugene O'Neill. The Distinguished Playwright Award will be given out in alternate years with another award of $50,000 for early-career playwrights "whose professional work shows great promise." In accepting the prize, Kushner noted that "playwriting is in a lot of trouble now,” because even successful writers have to split their time with Hollywood to support their lifestyles.

The 62nd Annual Tony Awards were presented last night at Radio City Musical Hall; the biggest winners were a musical first staged in 1949 and a Pulitzer Prize winning pot boiler from Chicago. The acclaimed Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific won the most awards, besting Sunday in the Park with George and Gypsy for best revival of a musical and nabbing six other Tonys. And the overrated Hollywood-bound melodrama August: Osage County won five awards, including best play, surprising no one.

The Tony Awards are happening Sunday night, people! Who’s excited? Pretty much nobody, right? No surprise there, especially considering that a phenomenal show like Passing Strange has been playing to half-full houses. But what’s really ridiculous is that even the people who are tasked with voting for the Tony winners can’t be bothered to sit through these shows!

       

Last night the fashion world gathered behind the New York Public Library for the 26th annual CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) Awards, which honors the top designers. The Daily News reports back, saying the night also gave the group a chance to celebrate the life of one of their own, Yves Saint Laurent, who died this past Sunday at the age of 71. Diane von Furstenberg held back tears as she announced that "the world of fashion is mourning. Yves is an artist...a magician who changed the way women dressed forever."

The League of American Bicyclists has awarded New York City a bronze medal for bicycle friendliness. League representatives met with Mayor Bloomberg and DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who sometimes cycles to work, at City Hall yesterday to present the award. Though bronze is the lowest rung on the friendliness ladder, New York City is the only community in the region to be designated a Bike Friendly Community (BFC).