Results tagged “cellphones”

After yesterday's announcement that the TLC will be cracking down on cellphone using cabbies, people on both sides of the plastic partition are not happy. Many drivers insist they use their cellphones responsibly and should not be punished. "My wife is home with cancer," one driver tells the New York Times, "If my cellphone rings, I’m going to pick it up." The new rules would forbid drivers from using any device capable of non-emergency phone calls, even if they were to pull over. One driver tells the Daily News "I understand that we can't talk on the phone while we're driving, but to say we can't pull over to take an emergency call...It's like a form of slavery."

Many parents of New York City schoolchildren are fed up wit the Department of Education's ban on cell phones inside schools. NYPD officers regularly show up at random schools with portable metal detectors and then confiscate phones along with other electronic devices. One parent said, "A knife is contraband. A gun is contraband. Drugs are contraband. To me, a phone should not be considered contraband." The ban goes back to 1987 and has been fought in recent years by a group of parents who unsuccessfully tried to sue to stop it. The DOE says that the policy is there because phones "inevitably disrupt the learning environment." Parents' next step may be taking the fight to City Council, in hopes of forcing the DOE to at least allow phones that could have a school-controlled sleep mode. Many say they still send their children to school with phones in case of an emergency, contraband or not. One parent told the SI Advance, "9/11 happened. People died. Why are they setting our kids up for something serious?"

Ray Kelly is telling Congress that the NYPD is looking for ways to interfere with cell phone service in the event of another terrorist attack. It's reported that while testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security today, Kelly will say that disrupting communications as a defense against terror is one of the biggest lessons taken from the Mumbai attacks this past November. Those coordinating the attacks in Mumbai had kept in touch with each other throughout the course of the events. The Post says that it is uncertain whether Kelly means finding a way to infiltrate a network used by terrorists or has something in mind of a grander scale, such as shutting down service for a large area of Manhattan during an attack. Another change in policy carried out by Kelly since a three-member NYPD counterterrorism team that visited Mumbai three days after the attack in India is the decision last month to train rookie officers in how to use machine guns.

Officials at Stuyvesant High School told parents that they want to install metal detectors, but not because of concern that students are bringing weapons to school. The prestigious public high school simply wants to catch students who are breaking the Department of Education's ban on cellphones and are using them to text each other test answers. Principal Stanley Teitel said that the scanners would hopefully be installed during finals week in January. In the past, students at high schools that have metal detectors installed to combat them from bringing weapons in have griped about having their cell phones taken away, while students magnet schools like Stuyvesant can sneak them in unchallenged.

Students were confined to classrooms until the end of the school day yesterday afternoon after a student was badly injured in a stabbing just after noon. Police swarmed through Paul Robeson High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, looking for a student suspected in the stabbing of 18-year-old Kyle Owens, who was wounded in the neck and the chest with an unidentified weapon. Teacher and basketball coach Todd Myles helped save Owens' life by coming to his immediate aid.

Last week a group of concerned Bay Ridge parents and local officials held a rally and picket line outside a neighborhood Verizon Wireless retailer. The group was demanding the company remove the cell phone receivers installed on a rooftop near P.S. 185; they say the receivers emit dangerously high radiofrequency (RF) emissions and should not be placed near schools. They are also calling for legislation limiting where the receivers can be installed.

A sonic device designed to drive off troublesome youths has been installed in one Queens building known for vandalism and drug use. It's called The Mosquito, and is produced by a British company, where more than 3,500 units of the equipment are in use. As humans age, they naturally lose some of their hearing, beginning at the higher end of the audible spectrum detectable to man.

Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council may not agree on the appropriateness of cell phones in public schools, but the DoE is now handing out cell phones to a select group of students. The privately funded pilot program will give cell phones to students and reward positive behavior, such as showing up to class, behaving and doing well.

The City Council may have passed an electronics recycling law recently, but Mayor Bloomberg says it's lame and illegal!

The fight over the right for school children to bear cell phones in schools moved to the Appellate Court, where lawyers for NYC and public school students' parents appeared before a five-judge panel. This comes after the City Council passed a bill allowing cell phones in schools, which the Mayor vetoed.

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking at the State of the City address by Mary Altaffer/AP

Twice a year the Department of Sanitation sets up an electronic recycling event in each borough; in Autumn ’06 they collected 191 tons of electronics and 1,245 pounds of cell phones.

At the stroke of midnight on January 1st, New York comedian Amy Borkowsky began her cellibacy project, a temporary resolution that she explains is "not about giving up sex. I’m giving up something much harder than that.” She's casting aside her cell phone, after questioning how much her dependency on it has affected her quality of life.

She also notes that the so-called communication device often keeps her from truly communicating, citing the familiar scenario of sitting at a restaurant table with her friend while they’re both on the phone the entire time. “Something’s wrong,” she insists, “when you answer your call waiting and hear, ‘Hi, Amy. Were you gonna finish those fries?”

We checked in with some folks recently for a little end of '07 "exit interview" before we enter a new year. It's safe to say that our first subject in this series had a pretty big year with his band Ghostland Observatory (let's just say they've certainly outgrown our Movable Hype shows). With a new album coming out in March, they're poised for world domination in the 2008.

New Jersey police have arrested a number of members of the Lucchese crime family. In the process of breaking up a multi-billion dollar betting organization, cops discovered that the old school mafia family had also teamed up with the more street-level gang the Bloods. The two groups were working together to smuggle things like iPods, cell phones, and drugs into the East Jersey State Prison. The betting ring was fairly sophisticated, utilizing Internet sites, an 800 phone line, and personal interaction to process more than $2 billion in wagers annually. The smuggling ring was facilitated by a corrections officer who worked at the prison.

More and more cases of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), more commonly referred to as a staph infection, are being reported in New York State - four more were reported on Long Island yesterday. Senator Schumer is asking the President not to veto $5 million in emergency legislation to help stop the staph superbug and local health departments are urging people to exercise better hygiene habits.

The hilarity never ends when talking about cell phone service in the subways. The City Council spoke to the MTA about the agency's upcoming cell phone service plans, and apparently some members suggested that there should be "quiet cars" on the subway. We cannot stop laughing!

A former lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, who was accused of leading a double life of upstate family man and Manhattan pervert, pleaded guilty yesterday to statutory rape and patronizing a prostitute. James Colliton spent his weekends at his home in Poughkeepsie, NY with his wife and five children. During the week, he stayed at a residence on 56th St. and Park Ave. where he now admits that he had sex with two teenage sisters over a long period of time. Colliton paid their mother so he could have the young girls at his beck and call, but supposedly had one of the two live with him for a time. The girls' mother pleaded guilty in 2006 to offering her daughters to Colliton in exchange for money, cell phones, and clothes, and received a 90 day sentence for child endangerment.

Last month women were being attacked in Williamsburg, and now it's being reported the number of muggings have gone up significantly in the area as well (though muggings are not uncommon in the area).

Students of all ages are headed back to classes this morning. The NYC public school system is opening its doors this morning all over the city. Insideschools reminds us there are 1.1 million students and 150,000 educators in the system - and that quite a few charter schools have been open since last week!

Dipping your toes into a city fountain could mean a $50 fine, the Parks Department wants to remind us. Although cascading waters are tempting, the city says that the fountains' water is recirculated and treated with chlorine, which can make it a breeding ground for bacteria. Mmm, bacteria. Plus, there may be broken glass or other objects that you can't see.

Brooke Astor's funeral was held yesterday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, at Saint Thomas Church on 5th Ave. and 53rd St. The lineage and personal generosity of Mrs. Astor and the array of famous attendees at her funeral made it a widely covered news event. The New York Times reported that officiants at the funeral requested that all cell phones be turned off at the beginning of the service, although a Gawker correspondent pointed out that this did not stop the woman sitting next to him from allegedly loudly typing away on her BlackBerry throughout the service.

First bars, now cars - will banning smoking in people's home be next? City Council member James Gennaro will be proposing legislation that will prohibit smoking in cars carrying minors. The Sun reminds us "if enacted, smoking in cars with riders under the age of 18 would join a growing list of activities barred by the city, including making too much noise at night, serving trans fats in restaurants, and allowing students to carry cell phones in school."

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week.

The City Council voted, 46-2, to allow NYC public school students to bring cell phones to and from school - though not to use them during the day. The bill was meant to address concerns of parents and students who believe cell phones are critical to students' safety (see these tales of cell phone-less horror). City Councilman Lew Fidler who sponsored the bill said his 17-year-old son walks eight blocks for a bus and "We wouldn't dream of sending him to school without a cellphone. If he's going to be late, we want to know why."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual sexual assault on Broadway in Brooklyn, an unstable building on Sutphin Blvd. in Queens, and a shooting on West 142nd St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan.
• Central Park's Sheep Meadow was the first park location to upgrade its wifi Internet connection to high speed. The new 15-megabits-per-second service is five times faster than the previous connection.
• Madame Tussauds wax museum in Times Square wasted no time in dressing its likeness of Lindsay Lohan in prison stripes, after the young star was arrested for drunk driving and drug posession shortly after leaving rehab.
• Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason is in talks to fill the morning time slot on WFAN left vacant by the abrupt departure of Don Imus.
• Williamsburg! The Musical will premiere August 11th as part of the 11th Annual Fringe Festival.
• Gridskipper has a guide to NYC record stores for vinyl enthusiasts.
• Turning Long Island City into a giant sundial, with the Citibank tower as the shadow-casting spire.
• The City Council is thinking of revising its cell phones-in-schools policy, to allow kids to bring them to school, but not use them there. Schools would be required to set up cell phone storage facilities to secure the devices during the day.

State Senator Carl Marcellino of Oyster Bay and Assemblyman Felix Ortiz of Brooklyn are co-sponsoring a bill to stop drivers from text messaging while driving. Last month, an SUV driven by a 17-year-old girl crashed into a tractor trailer upstate in Ontario County. The SUV's driver, Bailey Goodman, and the four friends in the car all died on impact (the tractor trailer's driver was uninjured).

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week.

THEATER: Gertrude Stein is regarded as an avant-garde intellectual whose adventurous prose has long overshadowed her plays – despite her Broadway hit Four Saints in Three Acts. (Who could forget?) A crack team of downtown experimental theater types are now hoisting six of Stein’s one-acts out of obscurity with a production in the East Village. The evening, irresistibly dubbed Steinese Takeout, boldly embraces Stein’s radicalism and runs with it. How radical are these plays? “How about no plot, no setting, and no pre-defined characters. Cryptic? Definitely. Absurd? Perhaps. Balderdash? Not at all.” – John Del Signore