Results tagged “dandickinson”

Shake Shack – that object of obsession for so many burger lovers within a 10-mile radius of Madison Square Park – reopens today for their first winter season. Gothamist commenter MaiaW articulated the passion and excitement best when we first reported the year-round Shaction last month: “OMG, OMG. Now I have absolutely NO excuse not to eat there once a week (calories shmalories). Woo hooooo!!”

We're getting reports of a blackout on the Upper East Side, from the East 60s up to Harlem, on Third Avenue (mostly about transit blackouts) and York Avenue in the 80s. Subway service is affected - the 4/5/6 line is down. A reader whose friend was at Randalls Island says a Con Ed station exploded.

run in the travel section.

This could also be titled "Kalikow Doesn't Care As Much About Non-Hamptons People." After receiving a complaint about the Montauk LIRR station, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow took care of the matter immediately. Corcoran agent and Montauk resident Deanna Banks wrote a letter to Hamptons.com saying that after leaving a message with Kalikow's secretary, the secretary called to say, "Mr. Kalikow said he would make efforts to fix the parking lot." Potholes were filled nine day later, ugly railroad ties are being removed, and a new shelter is being built.

A dispatch from the field - the Ditmars Boulevard field, that is - from Dan Dickinson, who says that there is no N service into Manhattan from Queens. Why? A broken rail at Lexington! Now the MTA's service advisory is up, and it's a doozy:

Due to a rail condition at the Lexington Avenue-59th Street Station:

Continue reading "Never and Whenever Train Riders, Brace Yourself"

Towards the end of the year, it becomes sport to wonder who Time's Person of the Year will be. It's sort of like wondering who will be on the cover of Sports Illustrated or who People's Sexiest Man Alive is (both are also Time Inc. publications, as it were). Time tried to get its readers excited, asking them to vote online for who they thought should be the Person of the Year, with choices being George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Kim Jong Il, Al Gore, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Nancy Pelosi, and The YouTube Guys. Well, if you bothered to vote, you never had a chance - Time decided to make "You" the Person of the Year.

It's pork barrel time. Earlier this week, the State Legislature made its $170 million in pet projects public, only after Hearst, which publishes the Times-Union in Albany, sued them and a state judge ruled the Legislature had to disclose spending. The Legislature spends on these projects without public approval, so in the recent past, your politicians were doling out money to places unknown.

A helicopter has crashed into a building on East 72nd. It was thought to be a small plane, but now reports say it is a helicopter. The helicopter seems to have crashed into 524 East 72nd Street, a residential apartment building. CNN is saying there are no reports of terrorism or hijacking.

- The Cadman Plaza General Post Office looks great, but it's not that great inside (make haste with a conversion?)

Dan Dickinson let us know some interesting news from the world of anime. An upcoming Japanese anime series, RED GARDEN, will be set on Roosevelt Island. Apparently it's about kids who go to a high school on Roosevelt Island - and we guess hijinks will occur (we have a very poor understanding of Katakana - if someone who knows Japanese better wants to translate, we'd love that) - maybe they will involve stuck trams. As far as we knew, there is no real high school on Roosevelt Island - just PS/IS 217 which goes through the 8th grade (Roosevelt Island high schoolers go to Manhattan or Queens).

How many ways can we write that power has still not been restored in Queens? Cause it still hasn't. What else can we say? The papers are having a good time with this one, what journalist wouldn't love to write a story about a hair salon in Astoria that can't do a blowout? But good news stories doesn't bring the power back on, and neither, it seems, do all the mayor's horses and all the mayor's men.

Mayor Bloomberg finally made his way to Astoria yesterday to be briefed on the situation leaving thousands of Queens residents and business owners have been with little or no power. Yet he nor Con Ed could not explain why power had been out for four days. Mayor Bloomberg did say, “I cannot explain why we’re in this situation. It’s an intolerable situation.” And the Mayor and Con Ed don't know when power will be back on. What is known is that there were multiple manhole fires, cables just seem to be melting all around, and Rikers is using back-up generators!

Most of the city got to enjoy yesterday's cooler weather - except for Queens residents and business owners. For the second day in a row, homes and businesses had little or no power and subway service was limited, with many commutes that would take 30 minutes tops taking 90 minutes. The MTA blamed Con Ed, saying, "Because of the low-voltage problem, not enough power is available to power subway signals in the area." And Con Ed blamed Queens residents, essentially telling one of our readers when she asked what the ETA for power would be, "maybe if our neighbors actually listened to them, the load would go down and then we'd have power."

If you were any where in the Garment district yesterday evening, you may have noticed a huge line of non-New Yorker types outside of the bar, Stitch. And if you are any type of Amazing Race fan, you already know those people were lined up for TARCON 9 (The Amazing Race CONvention). Sponsored by Television Without Pity, the event gives TAR fans a place to reminisce over past seasons, bet on that night's finale, drink at an open bar, and meet some of the race participants along with host, Phil Keoghan... for a small fee, of course.

Ever since last week's many hour stoppage, Roosevelt Island tram officials have been trying to fix the machines. Only to find out that it's still not working, with the tram stalling twice during test runs. Con Ed emphasized that they had nothing to do with the stoppage - there were no power loads or surges found - and RI officials aren't sure when the investigation will be completed. Roosevelt Island residents are upset, saying that the tram is important for their daily lives because the F train gets too crowded (on the news, one person said that they have to wait for three or four trains before they can get on). But really, they are thinking, "Damn, the transit union still doesn't have a contract - if there's another strike and the tram is out of service, are we going to have to build rafts?"

- And some numbers about the Oscars from Dan Dickinson

'cause a strike would be damn gritty.

Yesterday morning, a four-alarm fire broke out in Astoria, damaging a few stores on Ditmars Boulevard and 31st Street and suspending subway service temporarily. Dan Dickinson has some photos showing that among the damaged stores is the restaurant Thirty One (here's NY Magazine's mention of its opening). The Daily News says that Twin Donut employees noticed smoke coming from Thirty One. As it happens, City Councilman Peter Vallone has an office across the street; Vallone said that while the damage was upsetting, at least no one was seriously hurt. Here, here.

A month after they were proposed, the MTA is adopting a new set of rules of conduct that will see fines being handed out for things like drinking (non-alcoholic beverages) in a subway car, putting your feet on a seat, and riding between subway cars. And you can't ride your bicycle, wear you Rollerblades or be atop a skateboard, either. The MTA says that police officers, who we have been seeing in droves at subway stations lately, will be "reasonable" when asking people why they are changing subway cars; the NY Times has this quote that proves why moving between cars is important:

Mark Page, the city's budget director, who represents Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on the board, observed: "It is, from time to time, convenient to absent oneself from a car or from a particular group of people."

Continue reading "New Subway Rules of Conduct Adopted"

Gothamist hears there's some fun to be had during mid-day and night at Rockefeller Center today and tomorrow: Between 11AM-2:30PM and 6-9PM, Rockefeller Center's Plaza is hosting a "lawn party," with food, music and games. For instance, Nintendo will be letting people try out new games and Brookstone will be giving Segway rides (yeah, we know it's very 2003, but still, it's something to do at lunch). And at night, there will be a happy hour with drinks served on the plaza with live music playing. Gothamist's only hope is that there will be a huge Pikachu wandering around, because a Rockefeller Center lawn party is only complete with a Japanese animated character with super powers.

The police and other law officials are still investigating yesterday's mysterious explosion at the British Consulate. The explosion, which occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning, seems to have come from two devices, one in a concrete planter and one on the sidewalk outside 850 Third Avenue, or they were both possibly planted in the planter. The grenades themselves are being described as "crude" and "clumsy," but still powerful, so many are feeling lucky that no one was hurt. Third Avenue was closed until 11AM yesterday, amid a phalanx of investigators, local media, and even a, as the NY Times put it, "possibly inebriated Dutch employee of the United Nations" who was questioned when he wouldn't leave the crime scene (Newsday says he was released and issued a desk appearance ticket). The problem with the investigation is that there are few clues - speculation about motives ranges from it being a message sent to Britain (the IRA?) or to the Caterpillar company, which has supplied Israel with equipment - a board member has offices in the building. Police Commissioner Kelly expressed the NYPD's hopes that someone, such as the female jogger, a bicyclist and a taxicab seen in surveillance tapes, might be able to help: "This is New York. It's 3:30 in the morning, yet there are still people out in the street."

On 845 Third Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Streets, two small explosions went off at the nondescript Midtown building that houses the British Consulate. The explosions went off around 3:30AM (which is when Britain was voting, though there was no voting at British consulates overseas). The AP reports that the building was slightly damaged, but various officials say no one was injured; more details:

After piecing together the shrapnel, police determined the devices were toy grenades that had been filled with gunpowder. Officers estimated that one was the size of a pineapple; the other the size of a lemon.

Continue reading "Explosions at British Consulate in Midtown"

- WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN' IDIOTS!" and run the risk of having the "Worst Day of Their Lives!"Gothamist wonders if the children of the various legislative members lobbied their parents to put this bill into action. Anyway, Napoleon Dynamite is on DVD. Jon Heder, aka Napoleon (unrecognizable in real life with his fashionably shaggy haircut), was Punk'd - can no one stop Ashton? And while Idaho is great, NYC was voted the best city for indie filmmaking.

Improv Everywhere struck Union Square with an elaborate and stirring performance/mission in the windows of Designer Shoe Warehouse, Filene's Basement, and Forever 21 to the south of Union Square. It seems like you need 61 undercover agents, plus copious notes on what to do in the assigned windows. All of them danced, did jumping jacks, some held up letters to read "Look Up More," causing a stir in Union Square Park and encouraging people to look up more and wonder if they could get their acts together to do something like this, and then they dispersed. If the future of flash mobs is organized improv performances, how can the world be a bad place? We recommend you read the Improv Everywhere account, which includes clues as to how store employees felt ("You know, I may be white. But white people are crazy.").

Gothamist was pretty wary about NBC's version of The Office, but the commercials and previews have make it look very watchable. And we love shows that touch upon how insanely soul-crushing the office life can be. The American cast even looks pretty schlubby - a rarity this side of dumb-oaf-male leads on some sitcoms (you know, the ones where you're wondering "How did he land Leah Remini?") - which must have been an answered prayer to all those people labeled "character actors." We'll be tuning in tonight at 9:30PM, after the other office comedy, The Apprentice.

Plus, it had Wendie Malick as the defense attorney. The debate about celebrity chefs makes Gothamist think about the talk at the Museum of Radio & Television with cookbook authors and TV personalities Jeff Steingarten, Mario Batali, Alton Brown and Giada DeLaurentiis. Dan Dickinson reports that the talk got ugly, with Steingarten complaining that the TV personalities had an unfair advantage because they had TV shows. We wish we had seen it.