Results tagged “eastcoast”

The Rockrose Development Corporation, which owns EastCoast, a luxury residential complex on the waterfront in Long Island City, prides itself on cultivating a social life for their tenants, with dance classes, movie nights, a swank gym-and-pool complex, barbecue grills and party rooms. Last November, Sofia Estevez, a senior vice president of marketing for Rockrose, crowed to the Times that "it’s like the Lido Deck on the Love Boat!"

Snoop Dogg, in town shooting BET interviews last week, was caught green-handed with the drug he claimed to give up at age 30: pot. The rapper was busted outside of hotspot Lotus last Wednesday for marijuana possession, and was issued a desk appearance ticket. The Post reports that didn't stop Snoop from partying the very next night, with his 25-strong posse, at Serafina and the tapas lounge Lollipop (somewhere in between they ordered 15 pizzas, so we're guessing there may have been some weed around that night, too!). During one of the BET interviews, he claimed the accusation was "bogus".

So far February has been off to a rousingly warm start. The average temperature has been 10.64 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, including a record-setting, nay record-blasting, high of 68 degrees on Wednesday. The recent warm stretch, today is the 13th straight warmer-than-normal day, will continue only through tomorrow. Today will be sort of cloudy, sort of sunny with a high around 45. We may see a litttle snow early tomorrow and a little rain later in the day. The high tomorrow may sneak up to the upper 40s.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 173rd St. in Manhattan, a robbery/assault on 13th St. in Brooklyn, and an aircraft emergency at JFK airport in Queens.
• Barnard at Columbia has a new incoming president, snagged from Harvard Business School.
• Don't miss the Super Bowl sitting in your local precinct's drunk tank. Get your Super Brawling out of the way early the next time someone pipes up about the Patriots.

The Giants won the NFC Championship in overtime, beating the Green Bay Packers 23-20 in overtime and overcome the frigid, below-zero conditions. They are now headed to the Super Bowl where they will meet the New England Patriots, who beat the San Diego Chargers 21-12.

Are you ready to meet the Real Housewives of New York City? Bravo is spinning off their Orange County-based reality show with a look into the lives of some select East Coast ladies. The show will air March 4th, and The Daily News reports that the "stars" will be Bethenny Frankel, LuAnn de Lesseps (that's Countess, to you), Ramona Singer and Jill Zarin of the Upper East Side and Alex McCord of Cobble Hill. We're glad they branched out of the UES and threw a Brooklynite in there (though we wish it was a Park Slope mom); at 34 she's the youngest of them all.

As we previously mentioned, the late night heavyweights have been angling to make a return in early '08. Letterman has been leading the pack by working on a deal with the WGA through his own production company, WorldWide Pants Inc. Yesterday they reached an agreement which will allow his show to return to the air next week, writing staff and all.

Food bloggers from around the world are offering delicious prizes as part of Menu for Hope 4. Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised an incredible $62,925 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry. Want more details? Well, here’s the FAQ. From December 10-21, you can buy raffle tickets to bid on any on the food-related prizes being offered. Tickets cost...

It's a tie! Last month managed to tie 1947 as the warmest October in the 150+ years of Central Park weather observations. The last time the park had a record warm month was February 2002. The difference between sharing the record warm October with 1947 and breaking that old record was as small as could be. If the high or low temperature for any day last month been one degree higher October 2007 would have held the record outright.

Not making their way to the greenmarket this week are domestic matsutake, one of the most prized mushrooms in the world. Matsutake have a slight pine flavor and give off a wild, funky cinnamon aroma when cooked. This fragrance is said to do things to people, like instantly transport them to Xanadu or make choruses of ladybugs hail from the sky in intense, Busby Berkeley style formations. Hand foraged and scarce, matsutake are in fact like truffles, with whom they share a peak season and some frequent flyer miles: Just as a good number of Italian truffles are gussied up and shipped off the New York market each fall, most Pacific Northwest matsutake are flown overnight to Japan after collection, where the best ones are so expensive it’s not even funny. For the time being, and at least on the East Coast, matsutake are most likely to be found in restaurants.

• Green lifestyle education including fitness and health topicsIt looks like green is the new black, with eco-fashions becoming more in style. The fest will also show some innovative designs which will be for sale (here are some shots from last year's fashion show). Kids, parents, fashionistas, gearheads, health nuts, artists...will all be coming together in the name of green, join them!

Today's weather forecast features an exciting race between the remnants of surprising Hurricane Humberto and the Canadian Crusher, a massive, cool, dry air mass that has already captured the Great Plains and is quickly moving our way. Humberto, who reminded everyone that there's still a lot to learn about tropical storms, intensified from a tropical depression to a full-fledged hurricane in only 14 hours, is now just a big mess of moisture centered over northern Alabama.

Tomorrow morning, around 4:51AM, the moon will start to pass through the Earth's shadow for a lunar eclipse. However, with the full eclipse estimated at 5:52AM and sunrise estimated to start for the NY area at 6:19AM, WCBS 2 says some people also call it a "sunrise eclipse."

What's eBay good for if not finding a place to buy and sell things like...John Gotti's cufflinks?

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When Judge Michael Sauer sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in prison (which she may not even fully serve), Kathy Hilton asked, "May I have your autograph?" - insinuating he was seeking publicity.

The clouds are rolling in and the sky has a threatening look to it this afternoon, but looks can be deceiving. We're very likely to see light rain beginning around 4:00 p.m and lasting until midnight at the latest. Don't worry if you forgot to bring an umbrella to work. With little wind, the cheap umbrellas that magically appear for sale on the street on days like today should last throughout the evening.

Revere Demo by F.Trainer.

On the one-week anniversary of the noxious natural gas-with-mercaptan stink that took over Manhattan, eastern NJ and parts of other boroughs, we thought that new NY State homeland security chief Michael A. L. Balboni had an interesting idea. The NY Times reports he expressed frustration about the lack of an answer, “What if next time it smells like almonds and it turns out to be cyanide?” He also said he would "put people’s feet to the fire" to get to the truth.

It's raining! It's pouring! It's gassy! Finally, something other than warm weather to talk about. Most of the heaviest rain has already occurred, but there may be pockets of rain between now and early afternoon. The rain is happening in advance of an honest-to-goodness cold front. Once the front passes and the rain dissipates sharply cooler air will filter into town. Today's temperatures have probably already maxed out, and temperatures will be 15-20 degrees cooler by the time we head home this evening.

What's a polar bear to do when it is 72 in January? Well, if you're a member of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, you stage a silent protest. The Times reports eight members of the club cancelled their Saturday swim, because the water was too warm. Perhaps more interestingly, the News reports it was nine members of the club and the Post says ten! According to Polar Bear Club treasurer Tom McGann, yesterday was the first time in more than a century that the club has cancelled a swim. Meanwhile, the News also reports that the real polar bears in the Central Park Zoo were largely unaffected by the warm weather.

Joseph Barbera, one part of the famed cartoon duo Hanna-Barbera, has died at the age of 95. In his life, which started out in New York (Little Italy and then Flatbush), he created Tom and Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones and also worked on The Smurfs...all of your childhood favorites, over 100 cartoons in 4 decades.

A look at some noteworthy programs this week:

Stop by The Greene Grape and learn how to make this toasty winter warmer from the authors of DRINKOLOGY EATS: A Guide to Bar Food and Cocktail Party Fare. Using a recipe from their new book, James Waller and Ramona Ponce will share their expertise in making this festive drink, and they will be happy to sign a copy of any of their DRINKOLOGY books as well. Friday, December 1st from 5-7pm at 55 Liberty Street in Manhattan; Saturday, December 2nd from 4:30-6:30pm 765 Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Free.

"An eventual field of underwater turbines in NY's East River" sounds like a dream, but it turns out it may be a reality in a near future. Verdant Power, with the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority is working on the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project that would bring up to 10 Megawatts of energy from an East River turbine field. While the first turbines are supposedly being deploye this year, Verdant has been talking about this since 2004. From the Columbia News Service:

Verdant Power plans to install hundreds of what look like underwater windmills in the East River -- the misleading name for the tidal channel that separates Manhattan and Long Island.

Continue reading "Turbines in the East River"

Some would say that the middle of the summer is prime time to go pick your own fruits, and granted the prospect of a cheap bushel of self-picked berries has appeal. That being said, growing up in the NYC area, apple picking was the most accessible and popular pick your own activity – save for certain subsections of NJ where strawberries likely have a longstanding legacy. The Northeastern United States has a long and storied history of apple growing stretching back to the British arriving in the colonies and finding the only native apples here were crab apple. They promptly brought over seeds, established nurseries and began to propagate the growing of apples all up and down the East Coast, and with the help of people like Johnny Appleseed out to the Midwest.

I have a soft spot in my heart for novels that are deceptively simple or straight-forward, and for plots that take their sweet time unraveling their secrets. I appreciate the nuance, the seduction, of well-shaped characters and quiet implications. In certain keys, Nell Freudenberger’s new novel – the chaser to her 2003 short story collection, Lucky Girls – was a well-suited match.

If you can't bear the thought of eating hot food on a day like today and you've got a craving for oysters on the half shell, you might want to think twice. According to the New York Times, 74 New Yorkers have gotten sick eating raw oysters originating from the Pacific Northwest:

Both the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Food and Drug Administration have warned people not to eat the oysters, which are infected with naturally occurring bacteria that are most prevalent in the summer, when water temperature rises.

Continue reading "Beware the Oysters"