As reports come in about Zimbabwean voters being threatened "into voting for Robert Mugabe's" party today, the NY Times' Clyde Haberman remembers when the controversial leader was welcomed at City Hall back in 2002. City Councilman Charles Barron, who hosted Mugabe, doesn't regret the invite and tells Haberman, "Does he do things that I disagree with? Yes," but then adds, "You didn’t care about black Africans when whites were killing them in Rhodesia." [Here's the......

Ooof. Talk about insulting. In today's Times, Clyde Haberman goes so far as to compare the Dolan clan to the Mario Puzo's Corleone family from his Godfather series of books. That comparison to the Dolans is clearly a slap in the face to the Corleones. Haberman says that any "enormously rich and influential business family would do as a replacement" and casts Jim Dolan, Chairman of Madison Square Garden, as "the hapless Fredo Corleone."......

Mayor Bloomberg continued his whirlwind tour through Asia yesterday with a stop in Bali, Indonesia to talk to United Nations officials about the global effects of climate change. This is after a foray to China, that brought to mind Ed Koch's Beijing inspiration for bike paths in NYC to The New York Times' Clyde Haberman. Like NYC, Bali was the victim of a devastating terrorist attack that killed and injured hundreds of people. True......

Mayor Bloomberg will be speaking at a United Nations conference in Indonesia, but he made a stop in Beijing first. He said to the audience at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Some people believe that by mid-century, as [much] as 75 percent of China's population may be city dwellers. Even an occasional visitor to China, like me, is struck by this rapid urbanization. It is one of the largest internal migrations by people in......

The second taxi strike ended this morning at 5AM and most of the reaction was either that it didn't even seem like there was a strike, what with all the cabs on the road, or that it was a rip-off. Thanks to the zoned-pricing contingency plan the city put into place, drivers were allowed to charge a lot more and pick up more fares. One person told WCBS 2 it was really a "taxi......

Yesterday, MTA CEO and executive director Lee Sander took the case for subway and bus fare hikes to the people by standing at the Grand Central shuttle platform yesterday morning. The MTA has argued that with looming billion-dollar deficits, fare hikes, as well as agency cuts, are the only way for the MTA to stay afloat without trimming service. According to the NY Times, very few people stopped to talk to Sander who was handing......

Yesterday afternoon, Governor Eliot Spitzer spoke to the people of New York State during his inaugural address and claimed, "Like Rip Van Winkle, New York has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by." That's some ouchie for outgoing governor George Pataki! Or is that a rebuke on State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, under federal investigation for dealings with a business partner, who said, "I......

- The NY Times reports that the Democratic party will decide on where the 2008 convention will be held either tomorrow or Monday. New York and Denver are the finalist cities; while Denver is attractive for its swing-state quality, NYC can guarantee better "financing, hotel rooms, entertainment space, logistical support and labor union cooperation." - The Politicker has the U.S. Attorney's flow chart detailing how NY Senator Efrain Gonzalez allegedly stole money from federal funds......

Brooklyn Ramblings pointed us to this great elevation map (PDF file) of the marathon route on the official marathon website. We all know that the Verrazzano Bridge is the highest point of the race, but that's early in the course. The bumps at 8 (around Fort Green where the courses combine), 16 (the Queensboro Bridge), and 24 (Central Park) are probably harder to summit. The Daily News looks at the crazy costumes worn during......

Earlier this week, Transportation Alternatives released a study that finds relationships between people's behavior and the neighborhoods they live in. For instance, someone who lives on a high traffic street is less likely to go outside and enjoy the neighborhood or let the children play while someone on a quieter street would get to do those things. Plus:The study finds that New Yorkers on high traffic streets harbor more negative perceptions of their block, are......

Oh, no! For the love of wacky sitcom fathers - Jerry Stiller got his head cracked by a cab door when the cab started to drive off! Stiller was exiting a taxi, and a new fare was climbing in through the other door at Madison and East 64th Street. It seems the driver thought Stiller was out and started to take off, not realizing Stiller was still trying to get a bag from the taxi.......

- A building facade collapse in the Lower East Side caused the MTA to reroute the F and V trains; Curbed reports that it was the LoSide diner ...and on the political bent...: - Brian Lehrer's show had lots of good stuff today, with City Councilman John Liu talking about co-op secrecy and John Ravitz from the Board of Elections talking about the voting machines - The Politicker will have telephone exit poll information tonight......

The NY Times has a detailed article about the dilemma of some of the city's Democrats who are Bloomberg Democrats (because, if you will remember, the Mayor was originally a Democrat before he switched parties so he could actually run and win - he's a Democrat in Republican's clothing some say): What do they do on September 13, Primary Day? Do they vote for a candidate to sandbag Fernando Ferrer into a run-off? Do......

Ah, there's nothing like Clyde Haberman taking on cell phone service in the subways in his NY Times column:Say goodbye to some of the last refuges from the endless, witless yakking on cellphones that is epidemic in this city. The terrorists can thus claim a success. They will have made it easier than ever for New Yorkers to drive one another crazy. All too many of them, you may have noticed, are not noted for......

My office had a Super Bowl pool last week. Ten bucks got you a box on a grid and prizes were awarded based on the score at the end of each quarter, including the final score of the game. With the number of people in my office, the prize must have been over $500. I didn't participate because I figured gambling was illegal outside of sports books in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. I'm......

Eager to be rid of the zealous media attention, 927 Fifth Avenue co-op board is nearing an agreement to allow protected red-tail hawks Pale Male, Lola, and others roost at their building, if the Audubon Society designs a structure for them. However, the building's architect must agree to the design, and some hawk supporters are calling this a stall tactic to wait for the hawks to give up and find somewhere else to live. Many......

After a year of build up, the NYC Subway system officially turns 100 today. We love how the NY Times' Randy Kennedy starts his feature about the subway's 100th year (which has some nice interactive features as well):For a New Yorker just one day shy of turning 100 years old, the subway kept crazy hours yesterday. In other words, there were no hours it did not keep. As its neighbors around the world locked......

Today, the NY Times has two articles about the Senate race this fall, and Gothamist must admit, we forgot that Senator Charles Schumer, Park Slope resident, was up for reelection until we saw his current TV commercials. The NY Times reports that a Quinnipiac poll shows Schumer's Republican opponent, an Orange County Assemblyman named Howard Mills, trailing 13% to Schumer's 63%, reinforcing the "somnolent" in the article's headline, "First Schumer TV Ad Appears in a......

The plot thickens: The NY Times reports that the "high-ranking source" who gave the NY Post the faulty tip about Representative Dick Gephardt being John Kerry's running mate was Rupert Murdoch! Wow, Rupert must really be out of the loop with his contacts; we expect someone's legs to be broken shortly. Of course, the Post is denying that the tip came from Murdoch or that there were threats of reporters being fired if they discussed......

Clyde Haberman's Times column earlier this week looked at a few reality show ideas for NY, what with The Restaurant and tonight's premiere of The Apprentice. Some are very apt: "The Drug Store" would send contestants into Duane Reade outlets in a search for a clerk who is both pleasant and knowledgeable. "Death Wish": New Yorkers step off the curb with the light but without looking in both directions. Their goal is to cross the......

The jury for the WTC Site Memorial wants all 5,201 entries to be displayed before the 8 finalists are announced. The Times' David Dunlap notes the logistical challenge: Hung side by side, with no space between them, the 30-inch-wide competition panels would stretch nearly two and a half miles, roughly the distance from the trade center site to Union Square. Were the 40-inch-high panels set top to bottom (admittedly, not a conventional exhibition arrangement), they......

To a relatively brawl free Game 5. Don Zimmer wearing a combat helmet after being beaned in the head. Today, Clyde Haberman asks, of Mayor Bloomberg's strong words about Pedro Martinez, "Was Mr. Bloomberg calling it a crime for a young person, however dopey he may be, to defend himself against a 72-year-old — and a rather large 72-year-old at that — who comes storming his way at full tilt?" Yes, that's an important......

In today's Metro Section, Clyde Haberman, closet Gothamist, applauds the Belmont Stakes for changing their official song from "Sidewalks of New York" (which you might know from Ken Burns' documentary on the City, if no where else) to the slightly more up to date "New York, New York". Haberman feels however, that our fair Gotham is poorly represented by the whinings of a "self-involved parvenu who wants to be 'king of the hill, top of......

Newsday looks at Joseph Lelyveld's first day on the job as interim executive editor at the Times, which included rallying the troops. He told staffers, "So, let's go to work. Let's really go to work." Which echoes Clyde Haberman's claim that nothing was getting done in the midst of the management chaos. The Times gives an overview of the resignations of Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd. Gothamist on Jayson Blair's recent remarks.......

On yesterday's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz covered "The Crisis at the Times" - the fallout from the Jayson Blair fiasco. Among his guests were Times columnist Clyde Haberman, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker, and the NY Post's media reporter, Keith Kelly. Clyde Haberman felt it has been "the worst period" in his 26 years at the paper. He also added, "It is an extraordinary thing that this young fellow did, and in fact I'm even going......