It's about time: The MTA will reportedly text and email customers about unexpected service problems starting this fall. Last August, wild weather brought the subway system--and the MTA's website--to a halt and left customers clueless, which prompted the MTA to look for text messaging and email alert providers. The MTA tells the Daily News riders will be able to choose which routes they want alerts for. Currently riders can subscribe to weekly service advisory notifications,......

A 24-year-old former library assistant at the fancy Riverdale Country School in the Bronx is suing the city and several police officers over a case of mistaken email identity that landed him in jail for 30 hours and left him publicly disgraced. The trouble started last year after William Hallowell sent a resignation email to Robin Bernsen, the head librarian at the school. She replied sympathetically, according to the Times, and Hallowell moved on with......

Albany county attorney general P. David Soares is taking another stab at the Troopergate scandal by issuing subpoenas for Gov. Spitzer's e-mails to and from his aides, as well as e-mails between aides. Troopergate centered around accusations that Spitzer and/or his top aides used state police to essentially spy on Spitzer's primary foe in Albany--state senate leader Joseph Bruno. The first Troopergate investigation resulted in the resignation of Spitzer's communications director Darren Dopp. The broad......

"Sleight of hand," "litany of needless fights," "ugly racial polarization" - just some of the phrases in this week's New York magazine's cover story about Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor turned presidential candidate. Chris Smith's article serves as both refresher to New Yorkers about Giuliani's reign as mayor with some fun tidbits (did you realize that then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik commissioned 30 miniature busts of himself?) as well as a cautionary tale to non-New Yorkers.......

We hope all of you, whether you have stayed in the city or have traveled to spend the holiday with loved ones, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. While, for many people, Thanksgiving is about the bounty of food, football games, or the start of the holiday shopping season, it's also a good opportunity to appreciate your life. The History Channel has an extensive website about the history of Thanksgiving (with video). Scholastic's school-children-targeted......

In a case of gilding a withered lily, the MTA is improving service to New York City transit riders by more effectively informing them when routes will be obstructed, interrupted, and otherwise delayed. It's almost become a cliche that subway service becomes interrupted when the weather turns bad, or if any technological problem crops up. Now the MTA is offering to ameliorate its shortcomings by informing riders of service interruptions with text and email updates.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a scaffolding collapse on Vernon Blvd. and 51st Ave. in Queens, an unstable building on East 102nd St. in Manhattan, and a homicide on Tompkins Ave. in Brooklyn. Probably one of the worst group of employees one should try to steal IDs from for bogus credit cards is cops. A civilian employee of the NYPD was arrested for doing just that at her second job as a clerk at......

More Rescue Me for Next Season Cable network FX has picked up the Denis Leary FDNY dramedy Rescue Me for a fifth season. The show which films in the city and all over the tri-state area will not be getting the standard cable 13 episode season as it has for the past four seasons, but instead will be getting a 22 episode run split into two runs. Bolaris is Officially Heading South After months of......

Democratic presidential frontrunner and New York Senator Hillary Clinton is feeling bruised from the Tuesday night debate, where the big moment was when Clinton gave meandering support of Governor Eliot Spitzer's controversial driver's license plan for illegal immigrants. Spitzer's most recent iteration of the plan involves a three tiered system that neither state Democrats, Republicans or illegal immigrants' rights advocates seem to like very much. Anyway, here's what Clinton said during the debate when questioned......

Oh, Catholic League - it isn't even Halloween and you're getting ready for Christmas already! The Sun reports that the Catholic League sent a letter to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein questioning why nativity scenes cannot be displayed in schools. Christmas trees are allowed, as are menorahs and symbols for Ramadan. But the Department of Education does not allow actual images of "religious figures or deities." The DOE e-mail to the Sun read, "Our holiday policy......

We recently visited Fox News Channel’s morning show Fox & Friends. Unlike most of the other morning shows it is a freewheeling kind of crazy romp that definitely has “Fox attitude”. We don’t know if that “Fox attitude” is what gives a different on-set vibe compared to other news sets, but it did seem like less of a precision military operation than their competition at the Today Show. It could be that the show......

Brides hate being disappointed, especially on their wedding day! And Elana Glatt is no different, as she, her new husband and mother-in-law are suing their wedding florist for a number of floral mistakes. The couple booked Posy Floral Design Studio to outfit the Cipriani space on 42nd Street with flora, including centerpieces of antique/rust hydrangeas, for $27,000. The special hydrangeas are green with maroon tips, which were chosen to fit the wedding colors. Except that......

Who can blame the staff at Palisades Medical Center for being excited when George Clooney and his girlfriend were admitted, after the couple got into a motorcycle accident in Weehawken, NJ? But it seems that twenty-seven staffers were so excited that they accessed Clooney's personal and confidential information and may have leaked it to the media. WCBS 2 reported that at least 40 employees (doctors, nurses, etc.) were investigated and 27 were suspended, some for......

After almost 15 years on the air, consumer reporter Asa Aarons was let go Friday by WNBC in the latest of the NBC 2.0 cuts. In an e-mail to TV Spy, Aarons said the parting was “amicable” and that he was told that "with NBC 2.0 budget cuts there is no longer room for a full time consumer reporter." Aarons told the Daily News, "It struck me as simply a numbers game." He also mentioned......

The NY Times has a Section A, Page 1 article about a woman whose identity since the WTC attacks has been defined as a September 11 survivor but her September 11 story doesn't quite add up. Tania Head said she had been on the 78th floor of the north tower, still bearing some burns, and gave tours at the Tribute 9/11 Visitor Center. She also acted as president of the Survivors’ Network and said her......

Governor Spitzer's communications director Darren Dopp has come full circle. The aide, criticized for trying to dig up dirt on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by way of the State Police's records on Bruno's travel, had originally said he'd comply with the investigation and offer up his e-mail correspondence. But, after being served with a subpoena from the Ethics Commission, Dopp's lawyer Terrence Kindlon said his client would fight it. Now, Kindlon tells the press,......

Choice Royce found this timely wheatpaste on Wall Street - check out Bernie Kerik's cable knit sweater! Today, the former mayor attended the September 11 commemoration ceremonies at Ground Zero. As it happens, a USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that 51% believe that Rudy Giuliani's September 11 leadership make him better qualified to handle terrorism (48% do not think he's better prepared). A NY Times/CBS News poll finds that even though people identify Giuliani with......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 1st Ave. and 92nd St. in Manhattan, a car vs. building on Liberty Ave. and Elton St. in Brooklyn, and a body found on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx. Looking to avoid damaging snail- and e-mail trails or records of phone conversations, aides to Gov. Spitzer who are being investigated in the State Police scandal investigation are allegedly conversing only in person while driving around......

Back to the Newsroom Again Since WABC went back to broadcasting Eyewitness News from their newsroom last Friday, there has been much speculation on various television message boards that the station had another problem with the current set or was getting a new set. You might recall that they broadcast from the newsroom after a studio fire in May and given the odd choice of moving on a Friday, it must have made some fear......

As the name implies, Terraza Cafe Art is a rather Bohemian hang complete with an eclectic decor we like to call Colombian folkloric hippie. Handmade baskets line the top of the bar; a Buddhist icon adorns one wall; and numerous Christian religious statues are scattered about. Add a soundtrack with everything from the Doors and Joe Cocker to Kid Rock, The Cure and Colombian music and a video projector that plays everything from Droopy Dawg......

New York, we're disappointed. This fine city isn't number one - or even number two - in its addiction to e-mail. Actually, that's probably a good thing. A study by AOL found that New York is only the third most e-mail addicted city in the country, ranking below Washington D.C. and Atlanta. With the increased of e-mail capable phones like the BlackBerry, the iPhone, or even with people using their laptops at dinner, it's not......

After Attorney General Cuomo found that Governor Spitzer's staffers were using state police records to attack rival Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, everyone agrees on one thing: It's very bad for Governor Spitzer. In a nutshell, Spitzer's aides, including communications director Darren Dopp, leaked information about possible misuse of state aircraft by Bruno to the Albany paper, the Times Union. Spitzers' aides later claimed that they were investigating Bruno's use of state aircraft because......

NJ Governor Jon Corzine told reporters that he will not use his e-mail anymore as NJ Republicans have filed a lawsuit demanding that Corzine's e-mails with ex-girlfriend and NJ union leader Carla Katz be made public. Corzine said, "We’ll go back to the 1920s, and have direct conversations with people." We'll guess his staff is also getting him books on Morse Code, smoke signals, and sending messages in bottles. Now that Corzine's getting healthy after......

Talk about timing! Governor Eliot Spitzer visited an Albany child care center and got a photo op with some kids, which could only help take the attention off his bitter feud with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. But we wonder if these tots have been paying attention to the news: The Post reports that when Spitzer told them to call him "Eliot," one kid declined and said, "I want to call you 'clown,'" a......

It appears that the iPhone day incident between a television news producer and a charity mascot seems to be more than that it appears. The mascot, from a group that calls itself Hungrr was involved in a verbal altercation with the producer and was then asked to move along by the police. Watch the video for yourself, here. Here is what we know: WNBC released a statement yesterday afternoon saying: "We looked into this serious......

Just when you thought the Union Pool drama was lost in the archives...today we received an email that was forwarded on to us by a reader. It was a public email from Union Pool to, apparently, their mailing list. We were not included on the email, and when we asked for a statement earlier this week - after emailing with one of the managers there - we weren't given one. Instead we were asked to......

The NY Sun has a report on the city's largest music festival in history. We mentioned Make Music New York back in April when it was all still being pulled together. This Thursday, it begins. Aaron Friedman has been at the center of it all, coordinating with city officials to put on over 560 performances in one day, in both real and makeshift venues throughout New York neighborhoods. See musicians on the Brooklyn Bridge, in......

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:- “I was flashed all the time—that’s......

THEATER: A revival of Patrick Hamilton’s thriller Gaslight has just begun at Irish Rep; some may remember the award-winning 1944 film version starring Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury. The chilling study in domestic domination to the max concerns a diabolical husband who, not satisfied in exploiting his wife’s savings to buy their house, plots her murder. But while he’s out the police inspector comes in to warn the poor bride that her husband is suspected......

Can't a guy change his website without people suddenly asking questions about it? Well, if you're the billionaire mayor of the country's largest city who may or may not have presidential/gubernatorial leanings, then no. And not when he announces to to the press, either. Mayor Bloomberg's mikebloomberg.com website, which had most recently been his mayoral election and re-election site, underwent a makeover that emphasizes all of his initiatives. The mayor told the press, "This......