Results tagged “innewyork”

It’s that time of year again when New Yorkers debate how much to tip the – deep breath – doorman, super, handyman, locker room attendant, trainer, baby sitter, dog walker, beauty salon, cleaning person, day care center, garbage collector, mail carrier, paperboy and parking attendant(s). Sewell Chan, the Times’s Man on the Web, has tied himself to the tipping post with a 1,780 word monograph on the subject, largely sourced from Doorman, a book by Professor Peter Bearman, statistician and sociology professor at Columbia University.

Tomorrow, a new state task force will convene to talk about the threat of mold to the health of New Yorkers and what can be done about it. The New York State Toxic Mold Task Force was formed at the urging of health experts, who are concerned that there isn't enough being done to combat an organism that wrecks properties and endangers the lives of tenants and homeowners. According to state senator Liz Kreuger representing...

ArtCal calls him, "the most controversial and downright interesting graffiti artist at large in the UK today" and whether or not you agree -- Banksy is decorating our streets, galleries...and even Brangelina's household walls. In New York he has pranked his way into the Met, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. Recently it was announced that his images would be used to sell luxury condos in Williamsburg...and just yesterday...

Photograph the 2006 New York City Marathon finish line by CraigsPage on flickr Marathon fans, your time is here because this weekend, there are two 26.2 mile races in the city. In addition to the New York City Marathon on Sunday, Saturday is the USA Olympic Trials for the 2008 Olympic Men's Marathon. Saturday's Olympic Trials will feature the country's best long distance runners as they contend for the first spots on the 2008...

The 26-year-old Yale graduate who walked around Times Square naked on Thursday spoke to the NY Post, which made him its cover boy, about his experience. Josh Drimmer denied that it was a stunt and said - from his hospital bed at Bellevue - "It was an extreme panic attack brought on by days of not sleeping...I'm all right. Tell everyone I'm OK. I had a bad day."

Earlier this week, a Staten Island woman was arrested after she stabbed a 19-year-old suspected of stealing her son's iPod. A study released by the Urban Institute links a rise in violent crime between 2005 and 2006 to the proliferation of iPods. Though violent crime had been dropping up until 2004, iPod-envy started to spread.

The Smart car has arrived in the States, and measuring at 8 feet and 8 inches long and 5 feet wide, the miniscule vehicle got some big attention in the Big Apple this week.

One of the most well revered and talented chefs working in the city these days is Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park. Humm first learned his trade working at a few top rated restaurants in his native Switzerland, and credits Gérard Rabraey at the Michelin 3 star Le Pont De Brent as his mentor. Now in New York, the chef (who will turn 31 at the end of the month) continues to develop his particular style of cuisine at Eleven Madison Park, which received a 3 star rating from the New York Times in January. We sat down with Daniel Humm last week in the restaurant’s dining room to talk about influences, food television, and what happens when a bunch of chefs get together and Daniel Boulud decides to make scrambled eggs with truffles at 1 AM.

Earlier this month ASCAP was making headlines with their lawsuit against some of New York's (and the nation's) venues. To clear things up on how the company works, and why they do what they do, we asked the senior vice president of licensing and the director of general licensing some questions.

Anne Burrell has barely gotten any sleep in the last month. Almost all of her time has gone into the opening of the new West Village restaurant Centro Vinoteca. Its small, trench-style kitchen features a pass window that looks out onto the bar area; the dining room itself is spread out over two levels with about 75 seats total. 1960’s era Italian glass chandeliers hang over the tables (“They make me think of Lite-Brite,” says Burrell). A good amount of early press for the restaurant has been about its piccolini, or small plates menu, which features items like Fried Cauliflower Wedges with Parmigiano Crust and Agliata ($6), and Stir-Fried Marinated Olives ($3). Entrees range from $19 to $36.

As many people wonder about the state of the bridges in the New York City region, in the wake of I-35 collapsing in Minneapolis, the city's Department of Transportation is trying to reassure residents that our bridges are safe. Though many bridges meet the definition of "deficient" - 19% of bridges are in "fair" or "poor" condition, 15% meet the federal definition of "structurally deficient" - a DOT first deputy commissioner Lori Ardito says, "In New York, we do not have any bridges that are structurally deficient."

The folks at Lobstergram sent us one to try a while back. And what is a Lobstergram, you might ask? It's a package containing two live lobsters and all the basic acoutrements you'll need to cook and eat them -- you supply the pot (there's even an option to get the pot sent along as well). The box arrived one night when we got home from work, and we recruited a friend to help us with the process.

With brick and mortar sales declining, and the future of the music industry uncertain - at least live shows are always dependable. Sure, there are a lot of venues closing, but how about the ones thriving? The NY Times reports on some of the big players in the New York venue scene.

Maybe it was just the red carpet, but most of the people we spoke to seemed particularly excited about the new digs for the James Beard Foundation Awards, black-tie affair held last night at Avery Fisher Hall to honor some of the country's best chefs, restaurateurs, and culinary professionals. Susan Ungaro, the President of JBF, noted that originally, James Beard had moved to New York to become an opera singer, but had to earn a living until he hit the big time. He started a catering company and the rest, as they say, is history, but she noted that he would have been pretty excited to be up on that stage.

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs.

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visited New York City yesterday. While the showiest part of their night may have been the presentation of a Global Environmental Citizen Award to the Prince from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, we bet the most fun was had during the couple's visit the the Harlem Children's Zone. The Harlem Children's Zone, which includes the Promise Academy and other services and programs for the community, welcomed the royals with demonstration of an after-school investment program for kids, rehearsal of a scene from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and a basketball scrimmage.

Children living in many city buildings, hankering for a midday snack and sticking their little fingers in between loose floor boards may find a tasty treat: lead paint chips! The Daily News reports today that about 900 of the buildings used to house homeless people, through Bloomberg's Housing Stability Plus program, have been found to violate lead paint regulations. About 700 buildings tested positive for lead paint while another 200 or so were highly suspected of housing the poison. The Department of Housing Services has specifically identified the violating buildings but does not go so far as to point out which particular apartments in those buildings are afflicted.

Did you realize that yesterday's methampetamine lab busts in the city and Suffolk County happened on National Meth Awareness Day? The things you learn!

Even without the sleep-busting noise and window-covering grime that come from the passing traffic, living near a highway comes with other hazards. The Times reports today about a recent NYU study that found that children who live in the Bronx suffer from higher asthma rates thanks to the number of busy roads that tread so close to where they work and play. The study, which involved asthma-stricken schoolchildren wearing detectors that analyzed the air around them, concluded that the kiddies were definitely exposed to high levels of pollutants and children in the South Bronx were twice as likely to go school near a highway when compared to students in other parts of the city. The students wheeled the backpacks around with them daily, reported to researchers twice a day, and kept diaries of their symptoms. The main culprit is felt to be small particles arising from diesel fuel, which are tiny enough to embed themselves in the tot's lungs. And Bronx County is one of ten New York State Counties that exceed the current federal air quality standards for fine particles.

Despite the fact that New York spends nearly $13,000 per public school student per year, the highest in the nation along with Jersey, those same students are consistently ranking in the bottom five for all fifty states. "In New York, it seems, the money isn't making its way to the teachers. In the last decade, teachers in the state saw average salary decrease 5 percent when adjusted for inflation, according to the National Education Association."

Bridezillas are bad, but this wanna-be groom takes the cake. Recent Police Academy recruit Kabeer Din tried to hire a hit man to kill his girlfriend. Din, who transferred to NYC after recently graduating from Baltimore's police academy, wanted to get married sooner while the girlfriend wanted to wait. The scheme was revealed when Din asked for help in finding a killer - the man he asked to help set him up with a hit man told the police. So the NYPD worked with the Suffolk County DA's office - Din lives on Long Island - on a sting: A Suffolk County detective posed as a hit man while Din made a deposit of $200 (any more than that would look suspcious) and a credit card on the $3,000 hit.

- This weekend the Central Park Zoo, which just got a new curator, had its 15 millionth visitor!

He has been called “overrated,” “phony” and “not clutch” yet he is the best player to wear a Yankee uniform since Mickey Mantle retired. Will Alex Rodriguez ever be appreciated in this town? Yesterday, A-Rod delivered the game-winning single in the 10th inning to propel the Yankees to a 4-2 victory over Tampa Bay.

Hundreds of thousands of people rallied across the country for immigration rights, from Los Angeles to Indiana, Atlanta to Madison. In New York, the crowd seemed to swell around 70,000, though some organizers believed there were 125,000. Nonetheless, streets - and the Brooklyn Bridge - downtown were filled with immigrants from around the world and supporters alike, making their way to City Hall for the rally, which included Senators Schumer and Clinton. There were no reports of any violence, though there were some anti-immigration folks along the way, but there was a heavy police presence to ensure things. It'll be intriguing to see what happens in DC once Congress gets back from their break - it's an issue that very complicated for many people.

So this photo came onto Contribute and it reminds us of something we've been wondering. Other than Gob, and the owner of this bugger apparently, does anybody actually, regularly, use a Segway? In New York City? Because for the life of use we don't understand why.

This week at the movies, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the new releases are seriously scrapping the bottom of the quality bucket. How many weeks now has it been that we've had this complaint? The good news is that, as per usual, there's load of other fascinating movie related events In New York to sink your teeth into with relish.

With apartment prices in New York quickly sailing north of $1500/sqft, if you're looking to buy a place, it might be time to start getting creative. For more than a year we've been thinking about the pre-fab housing revolution that's taking place around the United States. No longer are pre-fabs the ugly, cheaply built units you might remember from your youth. These houses are something else entirely: modern, airy, and modular, so they're easy to configure. In New York, of course, the challenge is to find a spot to put your pre-fab house-- short of dropping one in Central Park, there isn't much open land around here. Unless you consider the roof!

The Crooners, Old-Timey Musicians