Results tagged “franklynch”

Earlier this month we tried to look at the Triborough Bridge as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge when Governor Spitzer brought the name change up for consideration. While RFK supporters toss around the obvious "he built bridges" metaphor, The NY Times would like to point out that he also burned them. They suggest that the city stop looking for big names to attach to their structures and streets, and instead look at who built them. As such, they nominate Andrew Haswell Green, "a giant of 19th century urban planning who has been almost entirely forgotten." Since he's not in the running yet, it looks like we're left with a yay or nay vote, so what do you think?

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing child on Church Ave. in Brooklyn, a fatal person struck by a train at Jerome Ave. and East Fordham Rd. in the Bronx, and an escaped prisoner at Church and Albany Aves. in Brooklyn.
• The trailer for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert documentary "Shine a Light" has been released and can be seen here.
• Arts group ABC No Rio has abandoned plans for a gut renovation of its LES building that it acquired for $1. Architectural and budget constraints mean that the building will have to be rebuilt from the ground up.
• One million New Yorkers, or 17% of the adults in the city lack health insurance.
• Mayor Bloomberg's got game: golf game. Even Phil Mickelson said he was impressed with the mayor's game after they played recently.
• A man being questioned in a homicide investigation is on the loose this evening after jumping out of a third story window at the 103rd Precinct station house in Jamaica, Queens.
• Disabled transit riders lauded NYC Transit head Howard Roberts for recent improvements made to the subway system, like posting notices of elevator and escalator outages online in a timely manner.
• With plans in the works to examine rezoning Sunset Park, Brownstoner asks residents what they think of tall buildings in the nabe ("If you want high buildings, you can go to Manhattan.").

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: multiple auto fires at 51st Ave. and 11th St. in Queens, a fatal double shooting on Watkins St. in Brooklyn, and a fatality under a train at 47th St. and Queens Blvd. on the 7 line in Queens.
• A 12-year-old boy was arrested for throwing two plastic bottles filled with an unknown chemical at two women with toddlers at a Queens playground. The four victims were taken to hospitals for minor burn injuries.
• An 82-year-old woman died during a fire in her apartment, which firefighters said was in the "Collyers mansion" style, i.e., stacked floor to ceiling with clutter and junk.
• A short film that is ostensibly about a Coney Island boardwalk hustler, but the sights and sounds of Coney Island itself are the real focus.
• Five out of 12 restaurants visited by the NY Post were found to be using trans fat oil to cook their french fries, despite the recent ban. Only the Moonstruck Diner would fess up and admit it.
• NPR investigates the hidden bee hives of New York City.
• Tammy Faye Messner succumbed to cancer Friday night after a long battle with the disease. Her son now runs an unorthodox (in the non-ecclesiastical sense of the word) church in NYC.
• After fierce criticism the first time around, the Parks Dept. is showing its redesign plans for Washington Square a second time this Thursday (7/26) from 4 pm to 6 pm at City Hall.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue at Emmons Ave. and Knapp St. in Brooklyn, a serious assault on West 37th St. and 11th Ave. in Manhattan, and a bank robbery on Flatlands Ave. in Queens.
• The body of the Ecuadorian man who was killed in a bar fight earlier this week will be returned home at the expense of a businessman, also from Ecuador, who appreciated the man's abbreviated attempt to support his family from abroad.
• The woman thought to have been trying to throw herself from the Staten Island Ferry in a suicide attempt was actually just drunk.
• Showing up subway-riding Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff commutes to work on his bike. How is it again, with bike-riding DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, that NYC remains a bike-unfriendly city?
• Woody Allen is trying his hand at opera, from the safe distance of LA. He'll be staging one act of Puccini's three-part "Il Trittico" for the Los Angeles Opera company.
• A jury found that the author who published under the name JT Leroy did defraud a film company and she's been ordered to pay damages.
• The Snapple Theater Center has renamed the space currently hosting a revival of "The Fantasticks" The Jerry Orbach Theater.
• Politics reach a new level of childishness as Giuliani says of Bloomberg: He's copying me.

TONY blog has a report on the most endangered sites in the world. The World Monuments Fund released its 2008 list yesterday, which is packed with far off places.

New York may still be enjoying a 30-year low in crime but that doesn't mean that Mayor Bloomie 'n Commish Kelly see any reason to "rest on their laurels". Oh no, not when their are still less of New York's Finest now (~36,400) than there were in 2001 (40,710) and new counter-terrorism and other police efforts to man in a city that is expected to grow by another 200,000 people in the next five years (the "equivalent of adding the entire city of Pittsburgh to the five boroughs," according to the Bloom). To help deal, the city is putting up an additional $33.8 million to grow the NYPD payroll by 800 rookie police officers and 400 civilians desk workers.

It was a weekend of crazy shootings, but one that was particularly distressing is the death of pregnant Nicole Sutton, who died when she was caught in the middle of gunfire Sunday morning. Sutton had been sitting outside her apartment building in Boerum Hill, the Wyckoff Garden Houses, at 1AM when a stray bullet caught her neck. The NY Times reports that though many people fell to the ground when tthey heard gunfire, Sutton stood up; her boyfriend had stepped away moments before to buy her food. Doctors were able to save the one-and-a-half months premature baby, who has been upgraded from critical to fair condition; an off-duty EMT is being credited with helping stabilize Sutton long enough for the baby to be delivered. The police do not believe Sutton was a target and no arrests have been made.

One of the most striking buildings in Brooklyn, the Williamsburg Bank Building, be converted into condos to be on the market in 2006. The Post reports that the coveted-for-resale-potential building was "massively expensive," and that the building (actually in Fort Greene, as pointed out by reader Astrid) will offer more than 180 luxury residential units. With some of the most stunning views of the Manhattan available, Gothamist expects the units to break Brooklyn records, sort of the same way DUMBO's Clock Tower conversion stunned the area. NY magazine's neighborhood profiles for Fort Greene and Williamsburg.