Results tagged “ipod”

According to Newsday, "a robbery of cash and marijuana in Oceanside Friday developed into a melee involving four, police said, when the initial victim apparently tried to strike back by stealing an iPod." Seriously! Here's how it unraveled: Christopher Cagno, 20, allegedly demanded $160 cash and pot from Dylan Peitz, 18, on a street. Cagno managed to take the items and was fleeing in friend Christopher Haig's car—but the car was moving so slowly that "Peitz jumped partially through a window, grabbed Haig's iPod and tried to run." Naturally, Cagno and Haig chased Peitz and a fight broke out. Enter Peitz's girlfriend, Alyssa Reilly, 19, who introduced a knife and slashed at Cagno and Haig. All were arrested and charged with assault—Reilly faces additional charges of possession of a deadly weapon (the knife), Cagno has additional charges of robbery (the cash and pot) and drug possession (the pot) and Peitz has additional charges of petty larceny (the iPod theft) and possession of a deadly weapon (maybe the knife?). The four will be arraigned today in Hempstead.

What can't an iPod Nano get you these days? First the device was used barter-style for cab fare (albeit this was a forced barter), and now the BellTel Lofts in Brooklyn are using the $140 gadgets as bribes. The NY Times reports that Ilan Bracha of the Bracha Group at Prudential Douglas Elliman have set a goal to lure at least 300 top-producing Manhattan brokers over to the property with a "BellTel Lofts-branded iPod Nano in a custom-made and branded leather-bound portfolio containing video footage, images and updates” on the project. All they have to do to claim their prize made the trip over the bridge for a private tour of the building's units; so far there have been 180 takers, and 20 have been from Brooklyn. That's right, even in-borough brokers can take one home if "they bring in five groups of buyers" with to BellTel with them. If Apples aren't the new currency, they're certainly the new dangling carrots.

When word came out that an out-of-town girl was forced (allegedly by Port Authority officers) to pay for an airport cab fare with her iPod Nano, the NY Post began to wonder about bartering working in modern day NYC. They took an iPod of their own around town to see just what they could get for it, and it's not looking so good. The results: at a cart on 5th Avenue and 47th Street, it'll get you 100 hot dogs (score?), but the bartering ended there. Garrett Popcorn, jewelry shop Avianne & Co., and clothing retailer New York Look wouldn't take the iPod for their precious goods. One cashier at the latter shop told the paper, "that's just for taxis." However, while individuals should probably keep cash on hand, small businesses have been turning to bartering with funds being so tight.

Last week a story seemingly of the "friend of a friend" urban legend variety started circulating, and at the center of it was an out-of-town 20-year-old and her iPod. The woman claimed Port Authority officers forced her to give up her iPod when the cab's credit card machine malfunctioned and she was unable to pay with plastic. Now, the NY Post has picked up on the story, shedding some new light on the passenger's unfare experience...and guys, it was just a Nano!

Natalie Lenhart, of Sacramento, Calif., said the $140 music player, full of "oldies" by The Beatles and James Taylor, was valued at more than $90 more than the final cab fare, with tip, that she racked up last month. The driver, Mohammed Islam, said he still has the iPod and wants to give it back in the presence of a Taxi and Limousine Commission official. Islam said he called 911 after Lenhart swiped her credit card 20 times at Kennedy Airport, and Port Authority officers responded.

Ever since cabs introduced credit card machines it's been nothing but trouble. The latest horror story has an absurd spin, however. Allegedly a 20-year-old girl was visiting the Big Apple when a cabbie stole her iPod. The story goes like this, as told by the girl's mother:

After the driver took her to JFK airport to catch her flight home, she tried to pay using her credit card. She had been using her credit card to pay for all her taxi cab rides. This time the card was not approved. She knew that she had enough money on the card to pay for the ride, so she called up the bank to find out what was wrong. They agreed that she had enough to pay for it but the driver’s machine used for the credit cards was not working. All the numbers were not going over either due to an equipment malfunction or a bad signal near the airport.

Continue reading "Cabbie Takes iPod for Fare"

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained why there are more younger muggers these days: It's the iPhone!

Why go to one of the many Apple stores in New York for your iPod when you can go to...Macy's? Racked is reporting that the department store is installing Apple vending machines, holding everything from iPods to Canon digital cameras to various accessories. (Perhaps the Macy's Pirate was looking to score some iPod booty in the Apple treasure chest last weekend.)

The countdown is on, and even the pickiest of neighbors can't complain of noise at this evening's public rave. An "exchange student who only moved here from London a few months ago!" is behind the outdoor public and SILENT rave (yes, of course there's a Facebook page dedicated to it).

The basic premise is thousands of people turn up in a public place, plug in their own iPods, listen to their own music and dance and rave for hours!

A 24-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and robbed while waiting for a bus at busy Richmond Hill Road at 7:30PM. The bus stop, between Vassar and Merry Mount Streets, is, as the Staten Island Advances points out, just a "quarter-mile from both the Staten Island Mall and the 122nd Precinct satellite police station."

Forget going out to a restaurant -- the way to woo your sweetheart (or potential sweetheart) is by cooking. Before the fear courses through your veins, don't think that "cooking a romantic meal" needs to be overwhelming or complicated. The simple act of cooking a meal for someone, no matter what the menu, is romantic and special in and of itself. Perhaps the most romantic meal possible is breakfast in bed, and it doesn't have to be as elaborate as this delicious sounding menu from epicurious; if someone's cooking you breakfast, odds are they were there the night before, which is always (hopefully) a good thing.

THEATER: The salty, electric dynamo that is Elaine Stritch shows no sign of waning – about to turn 83-years-young, the show biz legend has kicked off 2008 with a reprise of her Tony-winning cabaret show. Backed by a six-piece band and performed in two acts for a dining audience at the newly restored Café Carlyle, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, co-written with the New Yorker’s John Lahr, is a hilarious, old-fashioned ride through star-studded post-war Broadway, bursting with stories from her roles in such legendary productions as Company, Bus Stop, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Times raves: “Every story in her arsenal of seamlessly stitched personal anecdotes is illustrated with body language that erupts like lightning out of words spoken in the gravelly voice of a tough old dame with a tender heart. Because she has the gift of gab, this loudmouthed life of the party could go on forever.” It’s an expensive night, but worth it. Dining reservations are almost booked through the end of the run on Jan 19th, but they do accept walk-ins for the bar seating. – John Del Signore

Remember how a few years ago a 19-year-old girl climbed down onto the subway tracks to get her phone and got killed by an oncoming V train? It seems the lesson still hasn’t been learned and commuters are still risking their lives to retrieve dropped objects: Tourist Bijan Rezvani recently explained his reasons for venturing down there to collect his precious iPhone.

It's the first time I've had a cool phone that does anything and also the first time I've gone around taking photos of things in my life, so the stuff I had captured was kind of important for me to keep.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Dr. in Queens, a shooting on Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, and a car in the water at Rockaway and Brookville Blvds. in Queens.
• If you think you're buying a super-cheap iPod at a Mom and Pop electronics store, you're probably buying a fake.
• Some Queens residents will be relieved to know that LIRR trains will no longer blast their horns for 15 to 20 seconds as they approach the crossing at the Little Neck Parkway. About 80 trains pass there every day.

Two years ago the famed Saturday Night Fever dance floor was sold at auction for $188,000 when the Brooklyn club where the movie was filmed, Odyssey 2001 (later called Spectrum), was closed. Just yesterday the legendary movie turned 30 and amNewYork got nostalgic looking back at the Bay Ridge kid, Tony Manero, who sought refuge on that dance floor.

Thirty years ago this weekend, a tough young kid from Bay Ridge strutted across America's movie screens and struck his finger in the air to announce a new moment in the country's culture. Disco had been bubbling in the underground for a few years before the film came out, opening the sub-culture to a mass audience.

Continue reading "Disco is Dead, But Saturday Night Fever is Stayin' Alive"

One of the first rules of using your iPod in the subway is to ditch the white headphones. Apple's tell-tale earbuds can have the negative effect of drawing attention to the fact that you are carrying a ~$400 device on you (we've known this since 2005, when iPod robberies were all the rage). Probably not something that needs to be advertised. When Gothamist first purchased our iPhone on launch day this fact weighed heavily...

Kevin Drew (myspace) is one of the founding members by the wildly successful Canadian art-rock collective Broken Social Scene. The daring, inventive band boasts a fluctuating roster of artists who shift in and out of the line-up depending on their various other musical pursuits; another BSS member, Leslie Feist, is currently absorbed with her suddenly massive solo career, which exploded into mainstream America after her song “1 2 3 4” became an iPod commercial. As...

An 81-year-old man who was getting into his parked car in Middle Village, Queens was struck by a vehicle yesterday at 11AM. The car did not stop and passersby chased the van, yelling for the driver to stop. Finally, the car was stopped by another vehicle and one of the men, Anthony Causi, told the Post, "I ran up to the door and yelled at her, 'Did you see what you just did?'" to which the driver, 29-year-old Diana Toro, yelled, "What? What? I didn't do anything." Causi added that it looked like she was on the phone or listening to an iPod.

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.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a fall victim on Davoe Terrace in the Bronx, a bank robbery on 2nd Ave. in Manhattan between 62nd and 63rd Sts., and a missing person on 180th St. and Clinton Ave. in the Bronx.
• Jay-Z is a significant partner interested in moving the Nets to Brooklyn, but the rapper apparently is also interested in the naming rights to the team's current Meadowland arena.
• Insurance broker Noel Lauria pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment in a deal that will have him avoid jail time for errantly letting arrows fly from his compound bow on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
• Angelina Jolie looks incredible leaving the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Manhattan, but she was crying as she related the story of two Syrian refugees.
• A Staten Island mother slapped the sunglasses off the young man who allegedly stole her son's iPod, and then stabbed the portable player purloiner with a shard of glass from his shades.
• A Manhattan mover pleaded guilty to pinching two Picassos from the apartment of an elderly man when he died intestate.
• This NYC skyline should be of some interest to graphics and image tweakers.
• This isn't New York's subway, but we still enjoyed this performance by a group of subterranean, beatbox-performing a capella artists.

What is the lawsuit about, Kenneth?

Tonight they play Music Hall of Williamsburg, and tomorrow Bowery Ballroom (and in October, Randall's island with Arcade Fire).

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.

All the papers are asking where Spider-Man was when Mary Jane Watson Kirstin Dunst's belongings were burgled on August 9th. The actress, who was in town filming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, was staying at the SoHo Grand Hotel and had just left her suite with some others before the crime took place. What was in her room was a $13,000 handbag, $2500 in cash, ID and credit cards, two digital cameras, a cell phone and an iPod.

MOVIE: Bryant Park ends their summer of big screen fun with the classic horror flick Psycho - the movie that made many afraid to shower (and probably scared to check-in to hotels). Bring your best scream...and a blanket.

Timex, famous for its Ironman line of watches, announced its first product aimed at the iPod/iPhone audience. The Timex iControl (retails for $125) communicates with an iPod (1st & 2nd gen nano, iPod 5th gen and iPhone) by a wireless transmitter. With dedicated buttons on the face of the device you can Play/Pause, switch forward or back in tracks, and control volume.

Davey “Dance” Fishel has danced his way around the world, and landed back in his hometown of New York. Armed only with an iPod, a famous landmark, a Canon PowerShot, and the gift of improvised dance...he's moved his feet just about everywhere. Now he's got some amazing footage to show the grandkids one day, and of course to share with the rest of us now. Here's a dance number filmed at Coney Island, and below from the Brooklyn Bridge (complete with back-up dancers and disaffected passerby):

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Edwards Ave. in the Bronx, a disorderly crowd at Bay St. and Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, and a bank robbery near Bowling Green (that's why the 4/5 is passing Bowling Green).
• The New York Sun thinks the Live Earth concerts over the weekend were pompous, middle-aged and lame.
• Real estate group Pinnacle is accused of racketeering for siccing lawyers with eviction notices on thousands of tenants.
• Toys 'R' Us is being sued for $400 million by two women who were asked to show their sales receipts before leaving one of the chain's stores. They allege it is because they are black.
• Tenants sue their landlord for racketeering and corporate slumlording!
• The new bike racks at North 7th and Bedford have been installed by the Department of Transportation...
• ...and bike lanes on Tillary and Henry Sts. in Brooklyn have been painted green by the Dept. of Transportation in an effort to increase driver awareness.
• Getting struck by lightning is bad, but is even worse when one is struck by lightning while listening to an iPod.

The Observer has an interesting piece on The New Victorians, who are apparently bringing monogomy and early adulthood back. To get a mental image, think: Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger in Boerum Hill, Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss in Park Slope and Liv Tyler and Royston Langdon in the West Village. A new breed of 20-somethings in the big city, and apparently this new regime is more into nesting than late nights.

WCBS is offing Jack FM, the station format it abrubtly switched to two years ago, and turning back the clock to its former oldies format. The 2005 switch upset a lot of listeners, who were outraged both at the loss of a long-beloved source of classics and the abruptness of the change, which occurred with only an hour's notice. It also led to the immediate dismissal of well-liked on air personalities like Cousin Brucie, Don Ingram, Bob Shannon, and Harry Harrison, who were replaced with a pre-recorded voiceover that nattered slogans and one-liners.

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing?