Photograph of Hillary Clinton by HansPennink/AP, photograph of Michael Bloomberg by Tim Roske/AP If it's St. Patrick's Day, it's time for politicians to break out green accessories! At Governor Paterson's swearing-in, Senator Hillary Clinton wore a green shamrock scarf while Mayor Michael Bloomberg wore a green striped tie. It's unclear what kind of socks the Mayor was wearing, but he usually coordinates for March 17 by wearing green socks. But it was a mixed......

Lieutenant Governor David Paterson spent the weekend working on the speech he will give after his swearing-in as Governor. According to the NY Times, he had been "rehearsing it and committing it to memory," and since he is blind and cannot rely on a teleprompter, "his remarks will be partly memorized and partly improvised." The speech is also be "conciliatory," versus his predecessor's aggressive approach (Spitzer implied Governor Pataki turned NY State into Rip Van......

Photographs of the USS New York (above) and christening (below) by Bill Haber/AP Yesterday, a christening ceremony was held in a Louisiana for the latest naval ship bearing the name USS New York. While there have been five other ships with the same name, this "amphibious transport dock ship" was named to honor the state after September 11. In 2002, Governor Pataki asked then Secretary of the Navy (now Deputy Secretary of Defense) Gordon......

Would a bridge by any other name, bring you to JFK Airport just as smoothly as the Triborough? In all likelihood, yes, but the big question here is should it be renamed after JFK's younger brother, former New York senator Robert F. Kennedy. The NY Sun reports the Governor will address this during his State of the State address today, making him the latest governor to consider it. Governor Carey planned to rename it after......

Governor Spitzer may have been proud of not doing things the usual Albany way at the beginning of his term, but in the wake of Troopergate and other missteps, he's apparently desperate for support. So desperate that he's turned to lobbyists. According to the NY Times, there's been a distinct shift in how the Spitzer administration works with lobbyists. While the staff doesn't favor certain lobbyists (the way Governor Pataki's did), the administration seems to......

It's the not the first time the government has wasted lots of money and it won't be the last, but the Daily News special investigation into former Governor Pataki's never-built Museum of Women is great proof of how bureaucracy sucks. Originally conceived to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca, the museum would have been at the south end of Battery Park City. Various grants were directed to the commission (chaired......

As the city and state start to get to work on West Side redevelopment, the Mayor said that one entity won't be getting tax breaks if it moves. Mayor Bloomberg was asked if Madison Square Garden would continue to get $10.9 million in tax breaks if it moves West to the Farley Post Office building (that's what a map in the draft Environmental Impact Statement notes). Bloomberg decisively said, "Not if I'm mayor they won't.......

New York City was amply represented during last night's National Design Awards at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Landscape Design award went to PWP Landscape Architecture, the firm that won the World Trade Center Memorial design competition (with Michael Arad). PWP Principal Peter Walker thanked Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki and described the last four years as "difficult," presumably for the number of redesigns and challenges with moving the project forward, but he......

Were safety concerns about the Deutsche Bank's demolition ignored by aides to Governors Pataki and Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg? That's what the NY Post is reporting, as the investigation into the August fire that claimed two firefighters lives continues. Apparently Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center (the government agency overseeing the dismantling) head Charlie Maikish sent a memo to LMDC chairman Avi Schick on May 25, 2007, noting that the LMCC was not prepared to manage......

Tomorrow, the city and other organizations will mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Here's the official city commemoration:7AM: Families start to arrive at Zuccotti Park, where the ceremony will take place. 8:40AM: Mayor Bloomberg begins the program, which includes first responders reading victims' names and readings from NY Governor Spitzer, former NY Governor Pataki, NJ Governor Corzine and former NYC mayor Giuliani. Bagpipers and drummers lead......

Plans for a World Trade Center memorial continue to crawl along, and WNBC has a story today about the personal donations that are funding the effort and the memorial itself. $300 million has been raised to build a set of reflecting pools and a museum at Ground Zero, much of that money coming from a fundraising drive over the last six months. The story includes a list of top donors, and we found it interesting......

Governor Eliot Spitzer is cleaning house in Albany every which way. The latest thing to get the Steamroller Spruce Up? The state's I Love NY tourism campaign. Spitzer announced that advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi would work on the campaign - and that the "I Love NY" logo would not change. Spitzer wasted no time in blaming former Governor Pataki for "under-managing" the brand. From the Daily News:"I don't want to be critical of anybody,......

Governor Spitzer has proposed to expand NY State's DNA database by collecting samples from every convicted criminal, including those guilty of misdemeanors, like harassment or unauthorized use of a credit card. Spitzer also wants to streamline DNA collection in order for defendants to use it to clear their names. Currently, the state collects DNA from half of its convicted criminals. Governor Pataki had attempted to create a state DNA database - which Spitzer supported -......

It's fun with poll numbers time! Quinnipiac University released results of a poll that shows Senator Hillary Clinton besting former Mayor Rudy Giuliani 50-42 in New York State. Here are the match-ups Quinnipiac asked about:- Clinton beats Sen. John McCain 55-34 percent - Giuliani ties Illinois Sen. Barack Obama 44 - 44 percent - 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards tops Giuliani 47 - 43 percent; - Clinton over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 61......

In keeping with the earlier report this week, the planned conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office into a new transit center, the Moynihan Station, moved a step closer to reality. Yesterday, the Public Authorities Control Board voted to approve spending $230 million to buy the post office. While the PACB has approved this and politicians are patting themselves on the back, we doubt the drama will be over. Last October, Assembly Speaker Sheldon......

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A......

As the architect Rafael Viñoly sees it, the Freedom Tower is utterly superfluous. This was the concluding thought of his public presentation on January 18, this year's first Third Thursday lecture sponsored by the Downtown Alliance. Rounding out his half-stoic, half-bitter account of the past five years' WTC design proceedings, he plugged the new book, Think New York: A Ground Zero Diary, which chronicles these affairs from the point of view of the novel......

At midnight, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was sworn in as the 54th Governor of New York. The NY Times reports that during the private ceremony (the public inauguration will be today at 1PM, pushed back an hour because of the weather) that federal judge Robert W. Sweet swore in his former clerk, that guests cheered, "Go get 'em, Eliot!" after he took the oath, and that a 12-liter bottle of Veuve-Clicquot was very difficult......

The Public Authorities Control Board votred to approve the Atlantic Yards project. This means the last minute effort to convince Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to vote yes on the project worked, and Governor Pataki can leave office knowing that the project passed during his term. However, expect lawsuits to delay the project from going forward. The Brooklyn project will span 22 acres in downtown Brooklyn and will cost $4 billion. Here's the Atlantic Yards......

Dun dun DUN! It turns out about NY1 reported that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver might try to delay a Public Authorities Control Board vote on the Atlantic Yards project, planners from the Empire State Development Corporation went to his office to plead their case! Now it looks like the vote will happen today and that Silver may, in fact, okay the massive $4 billion project as long as Governor Pataki "doesn't tie it to other......

Today, the first steel beams for Freedom Tower were installed at the World Trade Center site. Governor Pataki said, "Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of American can be proud." The first steel beam placed had the words "Freedom Tower" on it. We're surprised it didn't say, "America, F--- Yeah!". The second beam installed was the one......

NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon has done it again: NY1 reports that Silver has delayed ruling on the Atlantic Yards project because "he still has financial questions." The NY Sun had a story today about growing pressure for Silver to delay the vote, given outcry from not just civic groups like the Municipal Art Society, Regional Plan Association, Citizen's Union, and National Resources Defense Council, but other politicians as well. Brooklyn Papers also adds that......

The federal government has approved $2.6 billion in funding for the East Side Access project. The project would link the LIRR and Grand Central, in an effort to relieve congestion at Penn Station as well as cross-town congestion. NY1 reports that the "deal is being called the single largest transit investment in American history." Governor Pataki and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters signed the "Full Funding Grant Agreement" at Grand Central. Pataki said,......

Yesterday, people headed to to Battery Park City to sign one of the steel beams bound for Freedom Tower. Dina LaFond, whose daughter died on September 11, told NY1, "This is going to be part of the structure that's supporting the building. So those names are going to be forever inscribed in the way the building's actually holding up. It's not just the physics and steel that's holding the building up but people's ideas......

Even though Governor Pataki may have agreed to not to fill all seats at state agencies, there are many things for the Democrats to be upset about. For instance, the Empire State Development Corporation, headed by Pataki flunky Charles Gargano, selling 185,000 square feet at 633 Third Avenue - aka Governor Pataki's NYC offices - for $100 million without letting other state officials know. Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky tells the Daily News that the $100......

Yesterday, Governor Pataki took a few former governors on a tour of the World Trade Center, because if there's any place that needs more politicians, it's Ground Zero. The ex-governors included Massachusetts' Bill Weld, Tennesse's Don Sundquist, South Carolina's David Beasley and Iowa's Terry Brandstand. Well, that doesn't smell like a "before I leave office, let's invite potential allies in a presidential run" stunt at all! Pataki's spokesman said that the group would be......

Thousands of residents near Banker Steel in Lynchburg, VA convened at the steel factory where beams for Freedom Tower are being prepared. Governor Pataki and steelworkers were the first to write messages on and sign three beams that were painted white - then the beams were made available to the public yesterday. The AP reports that one woman, Diane Hall, who came with her grandson, said, "If anybody can do anything to let those......

Mayor Bloomberg announced the city's second federal lawsuit against out-of-state gun dealers who have sold many illegal guns involved in NYC crimes This is how the gun dealers violated law:The investigators, in teams of two, entered gun stores and followed a scenario commonly known as “straw purchasing” – where one individual makes all of the inquiries into purchasing the gun, and then the other individual, completely uninvolved in the sale process, fills out the required......

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. The Legislature did release the data, not that it made it easy.......

Ever since the Saturday police shooting outside a Queens club that killed one man and injured two others, there has been talk of a fourth man in the group. Police have claimed that the undercover officers shot at them because they feared the men were armed, but no weapons were found on the men or in their car. The officers on the scene have insisted a fourth man in a beige jacket was near......