Results tagged “lines”

Answer: Some of them don't! Matthew Broderick's difficulty remembering lines during performances of Kenneth Lonergan's new play The Starry Messenger has, ahem, prompted a long article in the Times on the history and ethics of learning lines. The takeaway is that some actors, including the great Angela Lansbury, use earpieces to stay on cue.

The DOT has been repainting many of the parking spaces on wide Queens streets so they're angled in the opposite direction of traffic, forcing drivers pull past them and back in. DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow tells the Daily News the new angles are being implemented because, "It's safer to back into an empty parking space than back out of one into oncoming traffic." But the change is apparently too disorienting for some Queens drivers, like Steve Goodman of Forest Hills, who tells 1010WINS, "They painted the lines in backwards. Why are they backwards like this? This is crazy!" And 61-year-old contractor David Graber complains, "I find it very confusing. The last time I was here, it was easy. You just pulled right in. They should've used someone less educated to make this decision." See, this mess wouldn't have happened if the State Senate was in charge of parking! Thankfully, the DOT is going to install large signs in Forest Hills instructing drivers how to back into the parking spots—in the meantime, it's chaos!

If you were one of the 150,000 New Yorkers who tried and failed to nab one of the golden tickets to the Obama Inauguration distributed by Senator Chuck Schumer, consider yourself lucky. Schumer is now calling for an investigation into last Tuesday's utterly predictable clusterfuck, which left thousands languishing in lines far from the area where President Obama took his mangled oath of office. (Some were reduced to calling family at home and listening to Obama's address on TV via cell phone!) The Daily News obtained an e-mail sent to Schumer from one bitter ticket winner named Cathy Shannon, who writes, "I'm sorry I was a winner, as now I am a big loser. After waiting on line for 3-1/2 hours... I actually got to miss the event. It was disgraceful... The most disorganized event I ever attended in my life. Schumer says he "feels terrible" and promises he'll make it up to everyone in 2012!

So that Red Hook IKEA seems to be doing quite well, thank you. McBrooklyn has an amusing account of check-out lines lasting well over an hour at the Swedish retailer this weekend: "We were so far back there was no way to even tell if we were in a cash only line or a credit and debit only line. People were getting pretty grumpy, let me tell you. A woman jumped ahead of us in line. When we pointed this out, she moved behind us, only to be challenged by the customer back there. She moved behind that customer, only to be berated by the next one. And so she worked her back to the back of the line, irate customer by irate customer." And don't get Lost City started on how B61 drivers have taken to hanging out at the IKEA parking lot, instead of driving their route during rush hour.

Subscribers to the Metropolitan Opera are up in arms over changes to the ticket exchange policy that contributed to massive lines at the box office yesterday. The Times reports that because of ongoing construction, many subscribers were forced to queue up in the bowels of the Lincoln Center and wait as long as five hours to switch their tickets, which they used to be able to do over the phone. Chairs were brought out for the elderly and infirm, but opera fanatics like Wanda Flickinger of Bronxville, N.Y. -- a subscriber for over 40 years -- were not placated: "This is an insult, what we are being put through today." Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, shrugged off the long lines on the Met's surge in popularity, telling the Times, "It’s kind of a growing pain that we are experiencing."

Yesterday’s notice about the long-overdue return of the Red Hook ball field food vendors elicited comments from disgruntled eaters who were disappointed by the new carts, which limit the vendors’ cooking space and caused massive, hour-plus lines. Commenter sofabait seems to reflect a growing consensus that the new Health Department oversight has changed things for the worse: “The exhaust fumes from their constantly idling trucks totally killed my appetite. Not sure if that is better for our health. The city sure knows how to fuck a good thing up.”

In one of life's crueler ironies, it's usually either extreme heat or extreme rain that forces people to stand sweltering on a subway platform or out into the drenching elements. Today it's the former: subway service is still a disaster on several of the city's lines.