Results tagged “heat”

That was one hellacious storm that blasted through the city last night. The worst hit areas were the Upper West Side and Central Park. The rain gauge at Belvedere Castle was on the edge of the storm and recorded .64 inches of rain in just a few minutes. To our semi-trained eye it looked like at least double that amount fell on 116th Street in Harlem.

Yesterday was so hot and sticky the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory, which it does whenever the heat and humidity combine to make the temperature feel like 95 degrees or more. The high temperature was 92, and today's expected to get even grosser, with a high of 93 expected. Some combination of heat and mental illness may have driven 27-year-old Joshua Knee to dive into the East River at 72nd Street yesterday; Firefighter Justin McNally, who helped fish Knee out of the swift-moving soup, tells the Daily News, "I think he was just going for a swim." Knee was wearing swim trunks, and is now being held in the psychiatric ward at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell.

       

Since Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start to summer, here are some old LIFE magazine photos showing city-dwellers cooling off during past summer months. Maybe you can take some pointers from them this season (stoops, shorts, shade and swimsuits seem to help)! Or you can always spend the hot months indoors finally reading Infinite Jest. [Hat tip Ephemeral NY]

Last year City Councilwoman Gale Brewer proposed a bill that would fine establishments $200 per open door/window in air conditioned spaces (as well as heated spaces in the winter), the bill wasn't fully backed by the Bloomberg administration and never saw the light of day...until now! The NY Post reports that the environmentally friendly bill is now supported by Bloomberg and "is expected to win council approval tomorrow."

How has the summer been treating straphangers underground? Allegedly, the subway system's air conditioning is cooling everyone off...everyone except those taking the E train.

The Daily News has a cute story about a Flatbush church ordering a 240-pound fan to cool the congregation. Apparently it gets so stifling at Our Lady of Refuge Church during the summer that some parishioners stop going to church, therefore the church called upon Big Ass Fans of Kentucky to bring in a $7,500 fan. While the name is a bit secular, but the church administrator said in the current conditions, "You can't even sit and lean back because your clothes are going to stick to the pew." And Big Ass Fans says it's installed its products at many churches and thinks the congregations will say, "I'm glad they bought that big-ass fan." Fun fact: The fan's blades display the signatures of parishioners who donated to the fan (see the photo).

Moviegoers who tried to beat the heat by packing a matinee screening of The Dark Knight this weekend at the Park Slope Pavilion were sorely disappointed. Gowanus Lounge has some scuttlebutt from the Brooklynian message board, where a picture of oppressive, non-air conditioned hell has emerged: “It must have been 90 degrees in that hot box for the entire length of the movie. Everyone was sweating profusely and downing tons of water. Afterward a mob scene ensued with people loudly complaining – all to no avail. The best excuses from the ‘management’ – ‘I just work here’ and ‘there were too many people.’” Another person corroborates: "A staff member complained about not having any AC to ME — a customer."

A judge "modified" an order of protection that had banned 48-year-old Theodore Pressman from seeing his mother. Earlier this week, Pressman was charged with reckless endangerment after leaving his elderly parents in a hot car for hours while he went to work his shift as a bus driver in Peekskill. Both parents suffer from dementia, and while his mother was able to get out of the car, his father died, apparently from the sweltering heat. Pressman's mother is reportedly anorexic and will only eat when her son is present. Pressman has been described a loving, devoted son who was perhaps overwhelmed.

The artificial turf being used to replace natural grass in NYC parks has been pointed out as a source of unhealthful emissions, but it's also just plain hot. The Daily News dispatched reporters with thermometers to five City parks with artificial grass and found that urban athletes had more to fear than ill-fitting footwear when it comes to blistered feet.

Over two mildly warm days last month, The News took surface temperature readings at five synthetic fields across the city accompanied by NYC Park Advocates, a group that has been critical of the fake grass.

Continue reading "Smokin'-Hot Grass in City Parks Could Get You Burned"

The NYC Medical Examiner's office says six residents died from the heat wave which saw temperatures soar to record-breaking levels in high humidity. The victims all died of hyperthermia (aka heat stroke)-- 57-year-old man, 74-year-old woman, and 84-year-old man in Brooklyn; a 70-year-old woman, an 84-year-old woman, and an 89-year-old man in Queens--and five of them died on Tuesday, the hottest day, in their homes. (Back in 2006, there were 20-23 heat wave-related deaths.)

The heat is on all across the Eastern Seaboard, and temperatures in New York City reached 96 degrees yesterday (just missing a record)--and it felt like even more with its densely-packed buildings and people. There were scattered power outages: Outages for 1,400 customers were reported by Con Ed, 788 by Long Island Power Authority (which had thousands on Monday), and 75,700 by PSE&G in NJ's Essex County.

Today is supposed to be the hottest day of the this week's heat wave. Temperatures are expected to go over the 100-degree mark (though there are some predictions of of 97-degrees), and with the humidity, it may feel like it's 105 degrees.

In a matter of weeks, Kimya Dawson has gone from nice, unassuming local anti-folk artist to a bona fide national breakout star, thanks to the success of the movie Juno and her contributions to the soundtrack. This week the soundtrack hit #3 on the Billboard album chart, and Kimya's been busy basking in the much deserved success. Aside from speaking with us earlier this week, the former Moldy Peach played a handful of packed (overflowing, even) shows around Brooklyn, likely impressing her new fans at every stop. Those who couldn't make it, or couldn't get enough, be sure to catch her on The View with her idol, Whoopi, next Monday. (pic via thepiratehat's flickr)

After a turbulent couple of months at Gawker, the New York Times Style section is checking the media website’s pulse and wondering, with equal parts hope and desperation, if Gawker has finally jumped the “snark”. The Times’s uptick in Gawker stalking mirrors their aggressive game of catch-up with “teh internets” by increasingly emphasizing blogs on their website, and the article finds the Gray Lady digging a nice, cozy grave for Gawker owner and editor Nick Denton, pictured, to curl up and die down in, thereby releasing his zillions of page views to the cosmic trough.

New Jersey police have arrested a number of members of the Lucchese crime family. In the process of breaking up a multi-billion dollar betting organization, cops discovered that the old school mafia family had also teamed up with the more street-level gang the Bloods. The two groups were working together to smuggle things like iPods, cell phones, and drugs into the East Jersey State Prison. The betting ring was fairly sophisticated, utilizing Internet sites, an 800 phone line, and personal interaction to process more than $2 billion in wagers annually. The smuggling ring was facilitated by a corrections officer who worked at the prison.

Two bills are facing off in the City Council these days, pitting the rights of landlords against the rights of tenants. Both seek to end legal harassment of one group against the other. In one corner, we have the bill introduced by Council members Daniel Garodnick and Melissa Mark-Viverito. It seeks to curb harassment of tenants by landlords who withhold services (e.g. heat, disrepair) by allowing them to file restraining orders against their landlords. The current system requires tenants to head to housing court. In the other corner, we have a bill introduced by Council members Leroy Comrie and Thomas White Jr. that would protect landlords from legal harassment from tenants. They fear that frivolous lawsuits could bankrupt small-scale property owners.

Devils 6, Flyers 2: After three failed bids to get Martin Brodeur his 500th career win, the Devils finally provided him some margin of error. They played stingy defense and lit the lamp six times en route to an easy milestone win. Brodeur joins Patrick Roy as the only netminders with 500 wins. Dainius Zubrus got the party started and added an assist. As happy as the Devils are for Brodeur, they're probably happiest that...

Miami 75 Knicks 72: April 13th was the last time the Miami Heat won a game. From that date they lost their final two regular season games, got swept out of the playoffs, lost every exhibition game they played this preseason and opened the 2007-08 campaign 0-5. All it took to wipe out nearly seven months of losing was a game with the Knicks. Sure, New York didn’t have Zach Randolph, but they didn’t need...

was first published in 1974. This collection of Beard's favorite newspaper columns has been reissued to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the James Beard Foundation, the culinary haven and educational institution created in his honor.

Got a tidbit for us? Send it to the feedbag.

It would seem to be nothing less than dereliction of duty for an Italian-American food writer to have never been to the Italian food mecca that is Arthur Avenue, but it does on occasion happen. This oversight is even more glaring given that said food writer is half Calabrese and had never set foot in the Calabria Pork Store.

As a reader reported earlier, a tornado may have touched down in Bay Ridge. Funnel clouds were spotted early this morning and a tornado warning was posted for Brooklyn, Queens and parts of Nassau County. We won't know if the damage was caused by a tornado, microburst, or straight line winds until the National Weather Service sends out a forensics team to investigate.

Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 4pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm.

If the Weather Service forecast is right, today will be the hottest day of the year. There's been three days, including yesterday, where the high has reached 92 degrees. The NWS is forecasting a high of 94 in the city today. The Weather Channel and AccuWeather don't see us getting that warm. Then again, AccuWeather said yesterday's high would be 85.

The Knicks have a bad history of getting robbed when it comes to the Windy City and Eddy Curry (forget all their history with the Jordan-era Bulls). First, the Knicks traded for Eddy Curry in a deal that also gave the Bulls the 9th pick in the 2007 draft (they picked Joakim Noah) and early Saturday morning Curry was robbed at gunpoint in his suburban Chicago home. Three masked intruders tied up Curry, his wife and an employee with duct tape and robbed the home of jewelry and cash.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Central Park happened 71 years ago today. On July 9th, 1936 the thermometer maxed out at 106 degrees. That record is safe but it will be plenty hot today and tomorrow. There's a bit of uncertainty to today's high temperature. AccuWeather is calling for a max of 92 degrees, while the Weather Service and Weather Channel both say it'll be around 96 or 97. Gothamist is leaning toward believing AccuWeather on this one as the Weather Service has been slightly warm on their predictions the past few days. In either case it will still be plenty hot.

Here's a fascinating fact for impressing your friends this evening. At 8 p.m. the earth will be at its furthest distance from the sun for the year. The planet's revolution around the sun is slightly elliptical. Today we're about 94.5 million miles from the sun. Early next January we'll be only 91.5 million miles away (as demonstrated by this awesome graphic). The date of the aphelion has only a slight affect on seasonal temperatures, which are largely determined by the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth with respect to its orbital plane. The date of the aphelion changes slowly, it'll occur in the second week of July in 400 years, and in January in several thousand, and is one reason why the Ice Ages will appear again in 20,000 years or so.

As tankengine's picture above attests, today's air quality is not so good. Heat, humidity, stagnant air and lots of sun have combined to raise our ozone and particulate counts high enough to warrant an Air Quality Alert. The hot and humid air are going to fall just shy of the mark needed to declare a heat advisory, but it will still be plenty miserable outside. Gothamist mentioned tips to beat the heat yesterday.