Results tagged “centralpark”

       

In August, a sudden summer storm downed hundreds of trees across city parks. Central Park suffered a great deal of damage between 90th and 100th Streets, with tree canopies "simply wiped away" and animals confused.

Here's some more bad news about the city's embattled carriage horse industry. The Post reveals that many carriage drivers are charging customers more than the city-sanctioned rates. This comes amidst a highly public fight over animal rights, the announcement that one of the city's few remaining stables will close, and a new proposal replace horse carriages with antique-looking cars.

Are aliens checking out Manhattan? One man says he filmed a "red craft" UFO for four nights straight this month, and has some footage to back up his claim. He says he filmed from The Great Hill in Central Park, saying, "When I started filming, it hovers about then suddenly I descends near the Reservoir. Slowly and vanishes. After about 30 min, when I got home, It popped up again for about 40 more minutes and morphed into a Plane... I know its sounds crazy... Its been out for about 4 nights so far... For some reason it knows I'm filming it."

A brazen gunpoint mugging in Central Park has the papers pondering whether or not it's safe to pass through the green-space at night. The discussion comes after three muggers held up two men who were walking near the intersection of East Drive and East 102nd Street on Sunday at around 12:30 am. According to the Daily News, one of the perps pulled out a gun while his accomplices snatched a wallet and an ATM card from the victims, aged 25 and 22. When a 46-year-old passerby happened upon the scene of the crime, the robbers held him up and stole his wallet. After the perps fled, the victims hailed down a passerby and called 911. Police canvassed the area and arrested 20-year-old suspect Ramelle Moore, whose arrest record includes busts for drug possession and trespassing. The other suspects remain at large.

A plan to shut down a 45th Street stable to make room for affordable housing could put 32 carriage horses on the street — and 17 carriage drivers out of work. Horses in the Shamrock Stables might lose their only place to hit the hay (sorry) by December, when the animals and their drivers are booted from their city-owned building so the Department of Housing Preservation and Development can construct 1,300 units of affordable housing and 10,000 feet of retail space.

Following the pedicab crash off the Williamsburg Bridge earlier this year, the city decided to try to get those pedicab laws in order. With less than a month left to pass an inspection to obtain a license, there are reportedly only 25 of around 1,000 pedicab operators who have done so as of earlier this month.

New York's Adam Platt files a twofer on twee West Village restaurant Joseph Leonard and Civetta, an Italian restaurant on Kenmare Street. Each gets a measly one star out of five; "Joseph Leonard’s very standard bistro menu isn’t inspired enough to add to this festive atmosphere, but neither is it so horrible that it detracts from the proceedings." At Civetta, "if you choose wisely, it’s possible to have a decent meal." Meanwhile, Jay Cheshes at Time Out finally gets around to reviewing Graydon Carter's Monkey Bar, giving it three out of five stars and noting that, "There are still some rich people in New York City, and they eat here."

After threatening to lay off some 400 employees during the lucrative holiday season, Tavern on the Green has been granted a reprieve. The city had ordered owners to vacate the premises on January 1st and turn over the lease, but owners insisted that deadline would have required them to close down in December, in order to conduct an onsite auction of their assets, which were valued by an appraiser at $8.171 million. Though Tavern's owners had wanted three months for the changeover, a US Bankruptcy Court judge in Manhattan said "two weeks to a month" in January would be "a reasonable transition period." But will the new occupant play along?

The 400 union employees at Tavern on the Green are facing the prospect of joblessness during the holiday season, because the restaurant's owners says they can't turn over the lease on January 1st without closing before December. So Tavern's operating company has asked for a temporary restraining order in US Bankruptcy Court that would permit them to delay the changeover for 90 days after January 1st, enabling the restaurant to operate during the lucrative month of December, and then conduct an onsite auction of their assets, which were valued by an appraiser at $8.171 million. But the new leaseholder isn't having it.

Today would have marked John Lennon's 69th birthday, and surely the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park is seeing a lot of action for the occasion. However, one reader says that while the mosaic "is typically covered in flowers, adorned with trinkets and messages, and surrounded by people gathering to sing songs and pay tribute to the late Beatle. Early this morning, I found a lone salutation and a small army of the NYPD preparing for the onslaught of fans and tourists alike."

With the wind blowing down trees out there today (seriously, watch out, one "city-owned tree" just hit a house in Queens), and the 600-year-old tree being torn down before it rots out and falls over, CityRoom asks where the oldest tree in the 5 boroughs is.

At a price of thirty dollars for half an hour, the Venetian Gondola Tour sounds like it has an easy victory over the horse carriage rides as the best valued date Central Park has to offer: You can be serenaded with opera, you're not trailed by the scent of manure and you don't have to worry about a throng of commenters on this blog questioning your integrity. But with that price comes a risk—your seemingly peaceful trip around the lake and interactions inside the boat might be judged by the seemingly sweet postgrad manning your boat...on his blog. And worse than that, now that blog's been taken to the next level—the Sunday Times!

This morning in Central Park the Oak Bridge (also known as the Bank Rock Bridge) was unveiled... for the second time. The bridge was originally constructed in 1860 and provided a decadent connection in Central Park from the path along the West Drive into the Ramble. The architecture firm that restored it notes that it was "constructed of carved white oak with panels of decorative cast iron set in the railings and a deck of yellow pine."

An update on Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, the father of two who was struck by a rotting 100-pound tree branch in Central Park in July. According to Daily News sources, he was moved from a Manhattan Hospital to the Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, NY earlier this month.

As the New York City Marathon approaches (November 1st), the NY Times looks back at the first one in 1970 through the eyes of Steve Pusztay, who says on that day he was “just trying not to die,” He told them, “After I finished. I swore I would never run another marathon again.” And then he went on to run 47 more (but never returned to the one in Central Park).

The Parks Department is about to impose heavy new regulations on the pedicab operators in Central Park, but the New York City Pedicab Owners Association is begging the city to backpedal. Under the new rules, pedicabs will be forbidden from areas where taxis and carriages make pick-ups; required to operate in the right lane of traffic, not the bike lane on the left; and, weirdly, prohibited from displaying advertisements at times when other motor vehicles are barred from the park.

     

Oprah filmed her show in Central Park today (it's not her first time going live from New York), getting visits from Mayor Bloomberg, Mariah Carey, Hugh Jackman, Regis & Kelly, and more. Plus, she was all decked out in her Mad Men-era clothing (side effect of having Don Draper and his missus appear on your show, we suppose). The episode from uptown airs today at 4 p.m. (but you're at work, right? So you'll have to catch the re-run at 1 a.m.); the Mad Men episode airs Monday. And for all you subway readers, she picked Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan as her next book club book, though it sounds a little too intense for a commute.

Noooo! When the old sheepfold occupied by Tavern on the Green is taken over by a new operator in January, the notoriously mediocre tourist trap will lose the one thing that justified its existence: immaculately maintained public restrooms. The alternative, for the uninitiated, is the gross public restroom in Sheep Meadow, but since the '70s Tavern's facilities have served as a idyllic alternative. A spokeswoman for Tavern tells the Times, "We’ve always had the position we’re on public land, so certainly the bathrooms are open to the public." The new leaseholder, Dean J. Poll, who runs the Central Park Boathouse, isn't such a populist, but he actually spins the upcoming privatization as a thoughtful gesture for the bathroom-starved rabble: "Going past the bride or groom or people dressed to go to dinner, maybe that’s not what someone wants to do, and feels uncomfortable about it." Also, he adds, "the people in the restaurant feel uncomfortable." Good Heavens, Thurston, hoi polloi are in the powder room wearing short pantaloons! As a sop to the masses, Poll promises to construct a food concession stand outside the building with public restrooms, but nothing will ever, ever replace the satisfaction of using Tavern for its toilets.

Just days after failing to win the right to continue running a mediocre overpriced tourist trap in a 19th century Central Park sheepfold, Tavern on the Green is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CEO Jennifer Oz LeRoy tells the Times it's "our only alternative given the current situation." In four months, Central Park Boathouse owner Dean Poll will take over the location, and in the meantime Tavern will attempt to burn appease some 20 creditors, such as the New York Hotel Trades Council, which is owed $1,778,764. Tavern also owes the Parks Department—which declined to renew its lease—$76,923, and one imagines LeRoy's gonna love shrugging off that one. Meanwhile, the dining industry paroxysm is even hammering celebs like Mario Batali—the Crocs-wearing chef was a partner in the far-out seafood restaurant The John Dory, which just went belly up after nine months. The landlord is now suing Batali for $75,000 back rent. Oh, and Café des Artistes, the Lincoln Square restaurant that just closed after 90-plus years, is also jumping on the bankruptcy bandwagon. Expected to be screwed in that filing are the restaurant's employees, who are owed $116,471 in benefits through their union.

Would you eat something growing in Central Park? One blogger recently took Wildman Steve Brill's foraging tour (check out our interview with him) and found plenty of edible plants in the area.

       

Opening "softly" tomorrow, A Voce Columbus is the new big sister location of the cozier A Voce in the Flatiron District. The original location made a big name for chef Andrew Carmellini, who is currently saving Robert De Niro's restaurant reputation at Locanda Verde in the Greenwich Hotel. Then came chef Missy Robbins, who joined A Voce after her tour as Executive Chef at the Obamas' favorite Chicago restaurant, Spiaggia.

The NYC Parks Department selected a new operator for that touristy chestnut, Tavern on Green. By picking Dean Poll, who already runs the Central Park Boathouse, the Parks Department is kicking out the restaurant's current operator Jennifer LeRoy. The Post says Poll's bid (apparently offering to spend $25 million to restore the space) was better than LeRoy's and adds, "Although it had revenues of $36 million in 2008, Tavern paid just 3.5 percent of that amount in rent to the city following a generous contract originally signed by LeRoy's well-known dad, Warner, during the depths of a fiscal crisis in 1973." (Poll pays 16.5% to the Parks Dept. at the Boathouse.) Poll's lease is for 20 years and the NY Times reports that besides updating the plumbing and kitchen facilities, his "proposal calls for an outdoor cafe and bike racks. The Crystal Room, often used for weddings, will be reconceived as a conservatory-style dining space." Plus, there will be two entrances—one for banquet dining and the other for the restaurant and a new bar—in an effort to make it more welcoming to casual dining. Poll also said he wants to keep the union employees.

Um, sorry guys, we forgot to give you a heads about the whole "National Go-Topless Day" event in Central Park yesterday. The Daily News called it the "breast day ever" (har har), reporting back that "dozens of semi-nude women gave the city a Double-D eyeful when they bared their boobs in Central Park and then marched through the streets" as Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" blasted from speakers. One onlooker told the paper, "This is unbelievable—and super. I'm going to tell my wife to join in." The prudes guarded their eyes, and spewed terms like "extreme liberalism," while others hooted and hollered in solidarity. Currently New York is the only state where women can go topless legally (since a 1992 ruling), so really, Go-Topless Day can be every day. Here are plenty of photos from last year's march.

       

Last Tuesday, a sudden storm which downed hundreds of trees in city parks, creating what the Parks Department called the worst damage in 30 years. Our own Joe Schumacher visited Central Park and said the devastation was "heartbreaking" and took note of a raccoon who was confused: "The raccoon was disoriented. It went up and down the tree, looking around. It seemed like it didn't know what to do."

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is heading to New York City next month, as he's scheduled to speak at the United Nations on September 23. And he'll also be spending some time in NJ: Because the Libyan Mission to the U.N. owns property in Englewood, NJ, that's where Gadhafi will be setting up his "large air-conditioned tent."

The toll for trees lost in Tuesday's sudden thunderstorm now stands at 500, at least. The NY Times watched the Parks Department's "arboreal trauma team [fan] out through the hardest-hit sections of Central Park and Riverside Park, mapping the devastation for hard decisions ahead"—as in, whether trees will have to be taken down. Several hundred trees were downed in Central Park; "Riverside Park lost 65, Randalls Island lost 35, Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem, 3." Trees planted decades ago—Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said two buckeyes, damaged from the store, were probably from the 1920s or 1930s, "but we won’t know until the ring count"—are lost and are being mulched. The Parks Department replace them soon and Benepe said, "Our grandchildren will get to see them."

Tuesday's night sudden storm damaged numerous trees, from the Upper West Side to Central Park and into Harlem and the Bronx. The devastation was especially stark in Central Park, where Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe lamented to the NY Times, "It created more damage than I’ve seen in 30 years of working in the parks."

     

Last night's storm tore through the Upper West Side and Central Park, tearing trees out of the ground and throwing them across streets and onto cars. Our weather guru Joe Schumacher said, "Within the larger area of rain there was a smaller, intense area that crossed the Hudson and Upper West Side and then went up through Central Park and Harlem before heading into the Bronx."

Don Broderick, a one-time New York Post reporter and current Fox News staffer, won't face charges related to his June 1st altercation with Central Park cyclist Brian Dooda. Dooda's accusations are pretty sensational; he says that after he pulled in front of Broderick at a red light to admonish him for cutting him off, Broderick gunned his SUV into him, knocking him down. Then, when Dooda tried to block the SUV so Broderick couldn't leave the scene, he allegedly rammed Dooda onto the hood and drove some 200 feet with Dooda clinging to the vehicle, pleading for him to stop. Now the Manhattan DA tells Gawker they've dropped the case because they could not prove Dooda suffered any injuries in the incident. (Dooda insists he did sustain minor injuries from the death ride, including a scrape on his elbow.) Broderick, who was once forced to take anger management classes after he threatened to tear a subordinate's head off, says, "The DA's action speaks for itself. There's nothing further to say." Dooda couldn't be reached for comment, and the DA's spokesperson declined to comment on why they didn't file lesser charges against Broderick based on damage to Dooda's bike.

Can you believe it's the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz? New York will get a little taste of Kansas Emerald City this September 24th, when the Tavern on the Green is transformed into the magical land. Here's the full press release, which explains the Emerald Gala, which will take place at Manhattan's historic Tavern on the Green, and will be hosted by its owner and CEO Jennifer Oz LeRoy, granddaughter of The Wizard of Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy. "The entire restaurant and surrounding grounds will transform for a night into the Emerald City, replete with a winding Yellow Brick Road. The Emerald Gala will feature a musical performance by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and actress Ashanti, who recently made her theatrical debut as Dorothy in the City Center Encores! production of The Wiz. In addition, Lorna Luft, the daughter of Judy Garland will honor her mother's legacy with a special musical tribute." Here's our favorite scene from the film.