This week marked the fifth anniversary of the 2003 Blackout. Ten years ago the Yankees were dominating their way through summer en route to one of their best seasons in the franchise's history. But this summer, newsmakers seem to be scratching their heads when trying to figure out just what could be the New York story of the summer of 2008. The NY Times goes through some of the definitive stories of summers past from......

Twelve city council members are calling on Manhattan District Attorney Robert M Morgenthau to drop the charges against Christopher Long, the cyclist who was seen being bodyslammed to the curb by a rookie cop in a videotape of a Critical Mass ride on July 25th. The council members – who include Rosie Mendez, Letitia James, and Alan Gerson but not mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn – are also demanding that Morgenthau open a wider investigation into......

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters yesterday that in a “relatively short period of time” people will be able to send “video and text straight to 911 to increase the flow of information.” Kelly didn’t go into details about how the technology would work, but he did say that “generally speaking, it’s helpful when people record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation.” The commissioner’s statement would seem to include recent “events”......

Environmental group Times Up! is taking advantage of all the publicity generated by the video of a cop shoving a cyclist off his bike by reminding everyone that this is hardly the first such incident, nor the only one caught on video. The group points out that in 2007 one Richard Vazquez was taken down by a cop in Times Square during a Critical Mass ride, and in 2006 Adrienne Wheeler, a Critical Mass legal......

That video depicting a rookie cop bodyslamming a cyclist to the curb in Times Square? Just routine policework, according to the president of the police union. Apparently 22-year-old rookie Patrick Pogan was simply acting "under direct orders” when he spotted cyclist Christopher Long “creating a hazardous condition for the public and took action," union head Patrick Lynch told reporters yesterday. See, the video actually proves Pogan was just doing his job:Instead of slowing down or......

The cyclist who was videotaped being body slammed off his bike in an apparently unprovoked attack by an NYPD officer during Friday night’s Critical Mass ride has been identified as Christopher Long, a 29-year-old resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey who works at the Union Square Greenmarket. His boss tells the Daily News that Long is an Army veteran and "mild-mannered environmental activist." Craig Radhuber, 54, was riding behind Long Friday night and describes incident:......

Another Critical Mass ride, another stunning display of police brutality. Watch as one of New York's finest violently shoves a cyclist off his bicycle, launching him through the air to the curb at 46th street and Seventh Avenue during Friday night's monthly Critical Mass ride. digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/NYPD_Knocks_Cyclist_to_Curb_Unbelievable'; Although a judge ruled in 2006 that the monthly Critical Mass bicycle rides could proceed without a permit, the NYPD's stance remains somewhat adversarial. Though the city......

Just a day after Al Sharpton joined with Critical Mass in Union Square to protest police harassment of cycling protesters, he was leading a march in Harlem decrying youth violence. The march was instigated by the Memorial Day shooting of 7 young people following a holiday basketball tournament. Stemming from an ongoing dispute between two groups of kids, gunshots rang out along Lenox Ave. over a stretch of 10 blocks. Just two days earlier, a......

Last night, the Reverend Al Sharpton participated in the monthly Critical Mass rally and bike ride. In his introduction of Sharpton, civil rights lawyer Wylie Stecklow noted Sharpton's relentless fight for civil rights and against unfair police practices. Stecklow also pointed out the Sharpton-led May 7 civil disobedience event was much more peaceful and was actually civil, compared to what many Critical Mass riders have experienced (the police didn't use orange fences to contain......

As previously mentioned, the Reverend Al Sharpton joined last night's Critical Mass rally to highlight, per Times-Up!, a "common pattern of NYPD harassment experienced by diverse groups of law-abiding citizens." Bicyclists were joined by Sharpton, Sean Bell's father William Bell, his fiancee Nicole Paultre Bell and others protesting the fatal police shooting that left a 23-year-old man dead on the day of his wedding. Sharpton was expected to be in a pedicab alongside bicyclists,......

Al Sharpton: Politician. Gadfly. Cyclist? Tonight’s monthly Critical Mass bike ride and rally will have some additional cachet thanks to the outspoken activist, as he joins the cyclists to highlight a “common pattern of NYPD harassment experienced by diverse groups of law-abiding citizens,” according to the press release from the Time’s Up! group. You’ll recall that before the Republican convention came to town in 2004, the NYPD tended to cooperate with the Critical Mass rides......

Hallelujah! Yesterday the judge presiding over the Reverend Billy case dropped the charges that claimed he harassed public officials. The Rev was arrested in June while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass ride which coincided with the protest of the proposed MOFTB rules. Turns out the prosecutors didn't meet their deadline to file papers explaining the arrest and its justification. The Reverend's (whose real name is Bill Talen) lawyer, Earl......

People may be talking the 2008 Presidential election, but when it comes to NYC, the aftermath of the 2004 Republican National Convention is still being felt. It was right before the convention when the NYPD arrested over 200 bicyclists during the August 2004 Critical Mass ride, starting more heated of NYPD vs. Critical Mass clashes. Yesterday, a number of bicyclists sued the city over their arrests during the October 2004 Critical Mass ride. The......

The Critical Mass Halloween Ride is tonight! If you go, get some good pictures! THEATER: Sam Marks’s new play The Joke peels back the thin gauze separating comedy from an open wound. Set in the last throws of the Catskills comedy circuit circa 1965, the story concerns the disintegrating comedy duo of Steady Eddie and Doug the Mug. Doug has let his envy of Eddie get the better of him and begins adding more of......

Performance artist and activist Bill Talen, AKA Reverend Billy, has been raising hell in New York City for so long now it’s hard to imagine this town without him. Since first seizing his sidewalk pulpit in the late 90s to combat the Disneyfication of Times Square, the reverend has been consistently down with a host of local and international progressive causes. With the help of his raucous Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, he also puts on......

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King, and appreciated their beautiful skyline. Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out and......

You may recall that Reverend Billy Talen was arrested in June for reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass night protesting the proposed photography laws. We posted video of the arrest at the time, and Talen spent 20 hours in the Tombs charged with two counts of second-degree harassment. Yesterday the Rev faced the judge and The NY Times reports that in court "the prosecutor told Judge Tanya Kennedy that Mr.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building on Jewlett Avenue in Staten Island, a jumper down in Brooklyn and a double bank robbery (Commerce and Bank of NY) at 80 Broadway in Manhattan. Four winning MegaMillions tickets were sold, but in NJ, Maryland, Texas and Virginia. The numbers were 8-18-22-40-44 (with MegaBall 11), and a lump sum payment would be about $48 million. The fugitive businessman who donated thousands to politicians, including Senator......

Critical Mass, which came to New York around 1993, hasn't always been a cause for concern amongst the city's police. After 2004's Republican National Convention coincided with that month's Critical Mass in Manhattan, things changed. The ride has taken a more political tone and there's often an air of protest circling it. The ever-changing leaderless group has been in and out of the court with arrests being called in to question. Do the police have......

Last night, Picture New York held a First Amendment rally in Union Square to protest some wacky new rules the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcast. For instance, permits would be needed for a group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour as well as any group of five or more people who would be using a tripod......

Last month Reverend Billy was locked up for reciting the First Amendment in Union Square. Tonight he returns with a troupe of others to speak out against the outrageous new law that would limit public photography and filming in New York. Currently there are 2,285,188 photos tagged "New York" on Flickr, and that's just one photo sharing site, imagine if the number stopped there and we lost future images of the city. A new group......

Saturday we posted about Reverend Billy getting arrested during Friday night's Critical Mass as he recited the First Amendment. The above is a video of how it went down. Each police officer involved is identified by the cameraman, and at the end you'll see Lt Daniel Albano, "one of the main architects of the recent NYPD crackdown on civil rights." That night Reverend Billy was in jail for 20 hours, and charged with harassment......

Reverend Billy was arrested and detained last night while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square. The police claimed his preaching it at this month's Critical Mass constituted "Harassment of a Public Official". The NYPD has a history of some controversial arrests at the Critical Mass events, and at last night's the number of police practically outnumbered the riders. From the press release we received: "...even unaffiliated riders were ticketed as they approached the park.......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at Whitney Ave. and 43rd St. in Queens, shots fired at Jefferson Ave. and Broadway in Brooklyn, and an overturned vehicle on the southbound Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx. Wearing your Red Sox gear outside of Yankee Stadium on a gameday is a hazardous proposition. Wielding a video camera to elicit Yankees fans' responses is a whole new ballgame (see video clip to the......

The New York Times examines the world of fixed-gear cyclists––riders whose bikes don't have multiple gears or often, not even brakes. There are no fenders of course, not on a bike that requires a skid to stop. And there's definitely no coasting, which fixed gears don't allow and seems antithetical to a subculture rooted in bike messengering. The attached audio slide show has some statements that are refreshingly honest by Gina Marie Scardino, a......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making......

To tape or not to tape? That is the question before a Federal district court this week. The issue at hand is whether the police may videotape political protestors, and whether a judge would reconsider his decision that answered that question: "No." Gail Donoghue, special counsel for the city’s Law Department, began the hearing by telling Judge Haight that he overstepped his judicial powers in February when he essentially made his own court the......

The NY Times reported that the city settled with a protester who was kicked in the head back by a high-ranking police officer in 2003. Apparently the city wanted to avoid trial, because activist Cynthia Greenberg had "planned to offer as evidence a videotape of the encounter." If you watch the video, via I-Witness Video, you can definitely see someone's knee hit Greenberg's head. The police officer who Greenberg says kicked/kneed her is recently retired......

Last Friday's Critical Mass with the NYPD's new parade rules (groups of 50 or more must apply for permits) certainly got many of you commenting. For those of you who didn't participate in the ride or see it unfold, our videographer Kelly Loudenberg filed this video. She was even riding in the pedicab with City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez! MySpace Polls - Take Our Poll More coverage from indymedia and the Village Voice.......