Results tagged “iloveny”

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.

The Autumn Equinox, marking the beginning of Autumn, is on September 23rd. What better time to check out the changing foliage throughout the state? I Love NY Autumn tells you when and what region you should visit for best foliage color. Depending on where you are in the state, the leaves will change anywhere from the last half of September to the first week of November. There are 23 types of leaves that you can find throughout NY State including Bitternut Hickory, Sassafras and Quaking Aspen. While you are checking out the leaves, you can also explore farms and wineries throughout the state. The site lets you browse for farms by region and product, as well as provides driving itinieraries.

The news is grim for many gay rights supporters after the NY State Court of Appeals upheld the gay marriage ban - ceding a decision to the NY State Legislature (one of the most dysfunctional in the country!). The NY Times' news analysis calls this a "key setback" as other states deciding on gay marriage will look at this ruling:

For now, at least, so-called marriage equality is the fight that both sides want to wage, and opponents are predicting that New York will be remembered as the beginning of the end of gay marriage.

Continue reading "Fallout Expected After NY State's Gay Marriage Rejection"

When we first saw this snowglobe, we thought it was cute and kitschy-- a throwback to the classic imported Chinese snowglobes of the late-1990s. Then we realized that it had a little plastic bag floating around with the snow! Genius:

According to this handy foliage map provided by I Love NY, the city is at the very pinnacle of autumnal color. What are you still doing inside? [For those of you too lazy to go, here's Central Park's official Autumn photogallery. And for those of you who do go to the park, here's a handy database of all the different tree types in the park. We expect to see a lot of autumn leaves on Flickr come Monday morning. Or take a look at these leaves that we grabbed on Thompson Street.

It's less than 20 hours until the 2012 Olympics city is selected - 7:30PM in Singapore, which means 7:30AM tomorrow morning for us. And the NYC 2012 team has been doing its thing all over the world, having Mayor Bloomberg stump one last time, along with athletes like Muhammed Ali, Nadia Comaneci and Ian Thorpe, helping out. Gothamist loves the idea of Mayor Bloomberg giving "I Love NY" t-shirts to anyone and everyone he meets. The NY Times has had a series of articles looking at the Mayor and Olympic bid team's continued efforts to woo the International Olympics Commitee, including one from today that shows the importance of power tables at restaurants. And, today, Senator Hillary Clinton arrived in Singapore to lend the offensive her support. Gothamist was amused by the media's attempt to make this bipartisan trip controversial:

Clinton, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, deflected questions at a news conference about possible political ramifications of the senator's role in the bid campaign.

Continue reading "Waning Moments of NYC's 2012 Olympics Bid"

As part of the centennial celebration of NYC subways, the MTA brought back the Ms. Subways competition, which had been Miss Subways and dormant since 1976, and crowned Caroline Sanchez-Bernat, an actress from Morningside Heights, the new Ms. Subways. The Post says Sanchez-Bernat takes the C train, and part of her duties will include riding the special centennial train at City Hall Station with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki tomorrow as well as being on MTA posters, which Gothamist expects New Yorkers to lovingly deface. The new Ms. Subways contest was sponsored by the NY Post, and the finalists are very NY, representing the multi-culti fabric of our city. Entrants had to answer the questions "Why are you proud to be a New Yorker?", "Why do you think that you deserve to be Ms. Subway 2004?", and "Why is the subway important to you?" Gothamist read Sanchez-Bernat's mini-essays and we liked why the subway was important to her:

...I can rely on it to get me safely to work in the morning and home at night. It's also my favorite place to people watch. Where else can you see fifteen different ethnicities represented on one subway car? The more I ride the subway the more I learn about what it is to be a New Yorker...

To celebrate the advertising agencies that pump much cash into the city, this week is Advertising Week NYC. There are many events, such as panels about politics and advertising, cities and brand (the city's partnership with Snapple will be mentioned, and that panel is at the Bloomberg headquarters!), and the legends of advertising, exhibits of famous campaigns and icons at Grand Central Terminal and various agencies, and a festival of commercials. About forty years ago, you could expect Madison Avenue ad execs to be having three-martini lunches, expensing everything. It's unclear whether that will be celebrated.

AdAge was at the event and reported (registration required, but it's free):

Many icons were no-shows, including Ronald McDonald and the Jolly Green Giant. A rumor quickly circulated that the Energizer Bunny did not make an appearance because the marketer felt that it would be "off-message" for the drum-thumping rabbit to be seen in public being "wanded" at City Hall's security checkpoint.

Luo's article points out that some subway stations are already branded: The 116th station is associated with Columbia University, 47-50 Street is Rockefeller Center, and Times Square is really named after the Times. Some other stations are branded, though not officially: Bedford is Hipster City; Seventh Avenue in Park Slope is MacLaren Baby Stroller Row; and on some game nights, the 7 is the Mets Express. The NY Times also speaks with people about the possibility of sponsored subway stations: "That's insane."

- And someone stole a list of email addresses from prospective volunteers to the convention. The volunteers received an email purporting to be from the volunteer committee and telling them to visit various Internet hate sites. That's real classy. We can't imagine why someone who is protesting the Republican Convention would do something as assy as that, so Gothamist assumes it's some random idiot, versus a partisan one, though you never know.

Yesterday, the city announced that it was investigating ways to create, trademark and license an official New York City logo in order to generate more revenue for the city. This move also involved hiring the city's first chief marketing officer, Joseph Perello. The city is also looking into ideas for the Fire Department and other areas. Gothamist is glad that the city is thinking its marketing more seriously, but also finds the marketing rhetoric being thrown about amusing. "You've got to create a special logo, 'NYC,' or some little doohickey," said City Corporation Counsel Michael Cordozo. "The letters 'NYC' can't be trademarked but when you put them together with a distinctive trademark you can sue to enforce it." Yeah, doohickey. Gothamist is pretty confident now.