At approximately 11:57 a.m. a news alert came in saying there was a large crowd gathered at 620 8th Avenue and West 40th Street. "LEVEL 1 CALLED FOR CROWD CONTROL, AND A POSSIBLE PERSON ATTEMPTING TO JUMP DOWN FROM A BLDG." A reader wrote in minutes later saying, "Someone is climbing the exterior of the NY Times building."
There's trouble brewin' at everyones favorite chain coffee shop. WCBS is reporting that there has been a shooting at a midtown Starbucks. The BNN confirms with a location: 120 W 56th Street, and reports a possible robbery as well. The NYPD are currently still looking for the suspect.
Not all is well in the Slope this evening, Gridskipper is reporting on a "hostage situation" in a brownstone on 9th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
Neighbors heard gunshots and say that a man inside the home has taken hostages. The block has been roped off and the area is swarming with police personnel including a hostage negotiation team and a bomb squad robot.Yikes! Our news map shows it's a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person) at 466 9th Street. Shots have been fired at the police, and the situation is ongoing. We'll update as we find out more.
The New York Times recently dispatched no fewer than five reporters to the streets of the city in order to uncover the latest piece of breaking news: cab drivers can be rude and will attempt to take financial advantage of you if given the opportunity. The investigation uncovered a citywide fleet of yellow taxis in which just over half are compliant in installing credit card readers, and many that did have them falsely told passengers that using a credit card would result in additional charges.
Many cabbies, it seems, will use the card swipers only sullenly, and only after a resistance that can be as ingenious as it is misleading. Excuses range from, “There is a minimum cab fare for credit card use” to “The device doesn’t have to be activated until the new year” to “It’s too short a ride.” (Not true, not true, and not true, say city officials.)Many cab drivers went on strike in September, in objection to the installation of credit card swipers, GPS tracking systems, and noisy video displays that can cost thousands of dollars. When the first strike proved unpersuasive, drivers went on strike for a second time in October. Neither effort proved successful and all cabs must be outfitted with the mandated equipment by the end of January. Still, the Taxi & Limousine Commission says that it has received hundreds of complaints from riders about drivers who refuse to let fares use credit cards or insist on a bounty for doing so.
Spanish ibérico ham used to be banned in the United States because of USDA restrictions. However, as part of a newish approval process, the first shipments of the stuff arrived last week at New York stores Despaña and Dean & DeLuca. The former is selling free range sliced ibérico at $90-$99 a pound, and the latter has some of the fancier bellota ham at $75 a pound. More ibérico ham is on the way- in fact it’s already at the airport. “It has to clear customs first,” said Angélica Intriago, Despaña’s co-owner. “We’re at the top of the waiting list.”
The new J.J. Abrams movie which is still listed as Untitled, but is unofficially being referred to as Cloverfield, was filming on the Lower East Side yesterday and last night. Did anyone catch it? The monster movie is due out January 18th, 2008 - and this past week Abrams spoke of the somewhat mysterious project at Comic-Con.
Covering Coverage
EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate archives director of the AP."
The flurry of rumors that surrounded the Brooklyn Inn a few months ago have largely quieted. With no breaking news stories or insider tips, we decided to wander over there to see what had actually happened to one of the most cherished bars in Boerum Hill.
New York magazine has a great examination of the Greenpoint pollution problem lurking beneath the neighborhood's surface, and floating along the surface of Newtown Creek. It describes a ten million gallon reservoir of industrial pollution that includes, fuel oil, naptha, gasoline, parrafin wax and likely many more materials that were used along the industrial area of the waterway that separates Brooklyn and Queens.
All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing!
Hundreds of Virginia Tech alumni, NYU students and other New Yorkers gathered for a candlelight vigil in Washington Square Park last night. Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, who had traveled to Virginia Tech earlier in the week, brought back a candle from a vigil there and used it to light candles last night. And today, many people are also wearing orange and maroon, Virginia Tech's colors, for "Orange and Maroon Effect" day to show support for the school.
. The NBC Nightly News actually had "breaking news" about the decision, and here's the statement from NBC News president Steve Capus:
Effective immediately, MSNBC will no longer simulcast the "Imus in the Morning" radio program. This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees. What matters to us most is that the men and women of NBC Universal have confidence in the values we have set for this company. This is the only decision that makes that possible. Once again, we apologize to the women of the Rutgers basketball team and to our viewers. We deeply regret the pain this incident has caused.TVNewser has the internal memo to NBC staffers:
"Over the course of the last week many of you have reached out to me and expressed your strong viewpoints on the Don Imus situation. I've had countless conversations, e-mail exchanges and phone calls with people throughout this company. I've heard you loud and clear. Therefore, we are announcing tonight that MSNBC will no longer simulcast the Imus radio program...Continue reading "Breaking: MSNBC Boots Imus Off The Cable Air"
This past Sunday night at the 50th Annual New York Emmys, WNBC was the big winner with 13 awards. The big wins for the station were for its newscast which won three – Morning Newscast for Today in New York, Daytime Newscast for Live at Five, and Evening Newscast (under 35 minutes) for the 11p.m. newscast. WNBC’s Senior Vice President, News and Station Manager Dan Forman said about the wins, "We are particularly proud of the team awards....our local newscasts were judged best in the morning, early evening and 11 p.m. This is quite a feat."
Gothamist had the chance to sit down with veteran news anchor Rosanna Scotto of Fox 5. Scotto, a Brooklyn native, began her television career with WTBS in Atlanta in 1980 and returned home to work for WABC-TV in 1982. She moved to channel 5 in 1986 as a reporter and weekend anchor, moving up to the weekday anchor chair in 1994. We felt that since the Ten O’clock News on channel 5 will be celebrating its 40th anniversary on Tuesday, that it would be good to speak with someone there who has been there for a little over half that time.
- Going to provide "training specific to assessment of rodent infestation...to more than 100 DOHMH food service establishment inspectors within the next 8 weeks"Um, that last point? Why didn't the Health Department have that before? The Health Department also says it has "performed a series of rodent exterminations on the block of 6th Avenue in Manhattan where the restaurant is located," but we'll rely on people who live there to tell us if they worked.
Update: some late breaking news-- an LIRR train hit a pedestrian in Queens-- all service on the LIRR is shut down between Penn Station and Jamaica, but the subway is "cross-honoring" LIRR tickets.
+ The Landmarks Preservation Commission has been doing its job, but what about the buildings and districts behind the numbers? Meanwhile, 980 Madison developer Aby Rosen says Tom Wolfe “should stick to writing books.”
-- Speaking of bridges, the entire lower deck of the Manhattan Bridge is going to be closed for a year. That's not going to be good for traffic on Flatbush Avenue or Canal Street.
News that some sort of aircraft had crashed into an Upper East Side building sent everyone fleeing to TVs and computers to see what was going on. MSNBC broke the news first nationally, while most locals probably tuned into NY1 for coverage. We were most impressed by WNBC's coverage. They had a secret/not-so-secret weapon in Chuck Scarborough.
Note from the publisher: today we're announcing a new experimental feature in our Gothamist Labs section: the Gothamist News Map. In nearly real time, it's mapping all the police, fire, and breaking news alerts that we receive from the various wire services. Check it out-- you'd be amazed by all the shootings, suicides, fires, and crane-collapses that you're not hearing about on the 6pm news. Some of the data that comes in is unmappable using our location algorithms-- so we've placed that data in a box at the bottom of the screen-- don't forget to glance at that, because often some of the most interesting stuff is down there.
-- Some late breaking news: our sources at the Bronx Zoo are reporting a power outage. So if you're in the Bronx tonight, watch out-- bears get really ornery when they can't watch their evening television!
Ah, there's nothing like coming on a Saturday night and to be treated to a CNN Breaking News alert that Angelina Jolie had given birth to her child with Brad Pitt. (We'll wonder why no one called or text messaged us later.) Baby daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born in Namibia, and already, there's speculation about what Shiloh means ("personal appellation for Christ", "his gift" or "he who was sent", the Civil War town). Whatever - it's no Moxie Crimefighter or Pilot Inspektor. People.com has it's Baby Shiloh Arrives! site up and ready, although it's just packages of previous Angelina-n-Brad -n-Maddox -n-Zahara photos - which Gothamist cannot get enough of, we hate to admit. The next waiting game: To see which tabloid - and how much - was paid for the baby pictures - remember when New York magazine sorta punked people with their cover story about Brangelina baby pictures (just the bidding war)?
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today and the old Gray Lady takes three, but the Washington Post won four (criticism, beat reporting, explanatory writing, and investigative reporting). However, the real story might be the awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage, a public service award shared by the Sun-Herald in Biloxi and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, breaking news photography award for the Dallas Morning News and a breaking news reporting awards fro the Times-Picayune.
This is so unfair! Londonist tells us that there's a whale in the Thames! Is the Thames that much cleaner than the East River or Hudson? Hmm, nevermind. We have seen harbor seals in the city (in the Gowanus Canal, stranded in another part of Brooklyn, or just hanging around downtown), but never before murky images of a whale. We imagine a shoe or body would clog up the whale's blowhole or that the toxicity of the East River would immediately reject a whale...the Hudson, we're not so sure, but down here, it is an estuary. We could imagine one closer to the Statue of Liberty, though.
The strike mediator Richard Curreri is on television right now, saying that the parties have come back to the table and the union is commiting to do what it needs to do to end the strike. The TWU is taking it to the executive board; looks like they are thinking about going back to work.
It's unclear whether or not a woman is still under a northbound F train at East Broadway and Canal Street (it happened around 9AM), but F train service has been rerouted to the A as we await reports on her condition. Authorities still don't know if she jumped, fell, or was pushed. As it happens, earlier this week, the Post reported that a drunk man fell into the Chambers Street southbound A tracks and escaped relatively unhurt when you think about a subway car running over you. The man managed to fall into the well between the tracks, and the Post added this graphic to explain how this would be possible. Here's hoping the woman is all right.
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