Results tagged “losangeles”

The author of the new book Save the Deli has declared that LA has better Jewish delis than NYC, but he only says such hurtful things because he wants to see New York do better. We haven't read David Sax's heretical book, but the LA Times did, and of course they're gloating over there, because Sax says, "The [delis] that are most inspiring, the ones that people cling to, the ones that people enshrine for years and years are the traditional Jewish delis. And Los Angeles just happens to have more of them than any city I've been to." How can that be?!

Former NYC Police Chief William Bratton announced yesterday that he will step down from his current post running the LAPD and return to New York to work in the private sector. Bratton has been chief of police in Los Angeles since 2002 and spoke of his tenure with a sense of "mission accomplished" yesterday, telling reporters, "We succeeded in making this city one of the safest in America."

Zoe no! Today the Times talks to Zooey Deschanel, along with her 500 Days of Summer co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whom the paper says really "enjoy one another’s company." What do they share in common? A desire to shit on the Big Apple apparently! Zooey tells the paper, “I think there are so many films that romanticize New York in that way, but it’s not like a perfect city. It’s dirty, and if you blow your nose, there’s dirt coming out.” Apparently the smog sneezes are squeaky clean in Zooey's hometown of LA, where the film is set. Up next is Gordon-Levitt, who says, “I didn’t really start to appreciate what was beautiful or aesthetically pleasing about L.A. until I moved to New York when I was 19. I’d come back to visit, and I’d be like: ‘You know what? There’s something really nice about driving through the canyons and singing as loud as I want, alone in my car.’ ” Well who's stopping you, ya alien twerp? Back when Zooey talked to Gothamist, she told us, "I love New York. I've worked there a lot and I feel really comfortable there." Maybe reenacting famous local bloody death scenes has made someone a little Gotham germophobic.

It might not come as a surprise to anyone who's ever been stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel on a late Friday afternoon, but a new report from the Texas Transportation Institute shows New York drivers lost a staggering 380 million hours stuck in rush hour traffic in 2007, the second-highest rate in the nation. (Just think about the waste—that's enough time to build 11 full-size Great Pyramids or watch almost every episode of Law & Order!) No matter how bad that sounds, though, at least drivers idling on the Cross Bronx Expressway can be thankful they're not in Los Angeles. As Newsday reports, the TTI found the City of Angels had the nation's worst traffic congestion, costing its motorists more than 485 million hours and $10 billion in travel time and extra fuel. The other piece of good news from the report is that, while New York drivers themselves may not be improving, the traffic is. City congestion has fallen for two years now from its peak in 2005, a trend Kate Slevin of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign chalks up to a strong public transit system: "People want to be on transit. They like having options and transportation choices, and that's reflected in these numbers."

Singer Michael Jackson has died at 50 after going into cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon, according to several sources. The LA Times says that he arrived at UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles in a deep coma after suffering a heart attack. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department said, "The call came in because a person was not breathing. When the team arrived, they saw that CPR was already in progress by someone at the home. The person not breathing was transported to UCLA Medical Center and remains there."

Unless you were one of those people on Friendster who used to list "Kill Your Television" under Favorite Shows, you probably have heard that Conan O'Brien will be taking over later this evening. As New York officially lets go of its red-headed late night stepchild once and for all, Conan introduces himself to Los Angeles with an inaugural show that has a distinct '90s feel to it: his guests are Will Ferrell and Pearl Jam and the return of old sidekick Andy Richter as his new announcer. Will Pimpbot 5000 return as well? In an interview with today's Times, Conan said, "I can’t go anywhere without people saying, ‘Good luck in LA’ Or, ‘What’s it like in LA?’ Osama Bin Laden is in a cave somewhere saying, ‘I wonder how Conan will be in LA.’”

In a scene described as "total destruction," a rush hour commuter train in Los Angeles carrying 225 passengers collided head on with a Union Pacific freight train. As of the latest update, 15 people are confirmed dead and 135 injured (45 critically) as rescue teams worked into the night. "They are in there removing dead bodies that are lying on top of survivors," Fire Captain John Virant said. Currently there is no word on the circumstances that allowed the accident to occur. LAist has extensive ongoing coverage of the accident and its fallout, including photos from the scene.

At 11:42 a.m. PST, a "moderate" earthquake, measuring 5.4, struck Southern California in the Chino Hills area. Chino Hills is 29 miles southeast of downtown LA. There have been a number of aftershocks, and so far, some damage to homes near the epicenter, but no immediate damage within LA. The NYC Office of Emergency Management says earthquakes are "uncommon in NYC, [but] tremors occasionally occur." Here's a list of the biggest earthquakes in the NYC area--the most recent were 2.6 magnitude tremors felt on the UWS of Manhattan and in Queens.

A man and three women were arrested by the feds for overseeing an intercontinental prostitution ring catering to the upper crust of New York, Miami, LA, and Europe.

href="http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_snowbal.php">photographing a big, organized snowball fight.

As we mentioned yesterday, the writers' strike may be coming to an end. Michael Eisner leaked that we'd be hearing news of it this weekend, and the former Disney CEO was right. Today Variety reports that "the WGA has finalized its tentative agreement with the majors and will present details of the pact to members today in meetings in Los Angeles and New York."

Yesterday, the Daily News and Newsday offered editorials endorsing Hillary Clinton for Tuesday's NY State Democratic Primary. While the News calls both Clinton and Barack Obama are "compelling choices," disagrees with both candidates' strategies for ending the war in Iraq and finds Obama inspirational, the News ultimately finds Clinton to be the "stronger" of the two, because of her experience. There are concerns about Bill Clinton's recent involvement - and potential involvement if his wife is elected:

Based on her experience and her service on behalf of New York, The News backs Hillary Clinton in the full expectation that from here on out she and her husband will abide by standards of fairness - and, more important, that she intends to draw firm, clear lines should she make it to the White House.

New York City faced some stiff competition in the Forbes Top 10 “Misery Measure”, but ultimately moped away with a respectable fourth place, losing only to such perennial dystopias as Detroit (#1, forever); Flint, Michigan (#3) and… Stockton, California, in the #2 slot? Apparently, the Bay Area satellite has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country and a swelling population.

A study to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety proves that George Costanza’s cavalier method of double dipping his chip is, in fact, “like putting your whole mouth right in the dip.” For those who may have missed the Seinfeld episode or somehow not seen it reenacted at every party serving dip since it aired in 1993, we’ve posted the scene below. Suffice it to say that Costanza’s preferred dipping style involves dipping his chip in dip, taking a bite, and then going back for more dip with the half-eaten chip.

We know that Giants co-owner and movie producer Steve Tisch has been trying to ramp up the star power for the Giants sidelines. After Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz were seen at a game last fall, Tisch told the NY Times, he brings "the spices, the taste, the flavor" to the Giants (if the Giants experience were a soup; the other co-owners, the Maras, would bring the meat and potatoes).

After intense speculation about why the masseuse who discovered Heath Ledger's body last Tuesday called actress Mary-Kate Olsen multiple times, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly spoke to reporters yesterday to clear the air. Kelly said, "We believe that of the three phone calls by the masseuse to Mary-Kate Olsen, only one got through. That call was 99 seconds long."

Last night, the G'Day USA Australia Ball was held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, concluding Australia Week festivities. But the week held sadness, after Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his Soho apartment on Tuesday. At the ball, Australian Counsel-General John Olsen read an unexpected letter from Ledger's father Kim:

"Heath is, and always will be, an Australian.

Continue reading "Father Remembers Heath Ledger "With His Skateboard, a Canvas Bag and His Beanie""

Yesterday, over a hundred people - made up of "fans, reporters and photographers" - waited outside the Frank E. Campbell funeral home, where the body of actor Heath Ledger had been kept since ME's autopsy. Ledger had been found dead in a SoHo apartment by his masseuse and housekeeper on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of death is inconclusive, but he had a number of prescription drugs in the apartment, many of them to aid sleeping (he had been described as looking tired recently and even told interviewers he had trouble sleeping after filming The Dark Knight).

Geez, the weather this winter has been uneventful. There's no letup of dull weather in sight, at least in New York. We took a gander at LAist this morning only to see that Los Angeles has more snow than Gotham City. The massive west coast storm has dropped up to eighteen inches of snow at higher elevations in Los Angeles County.

Today the alternative weekly New York Press announced the resignation of their new sex columnist, Claudia Lonow, after her debut column – and the cover story, no less – was found to have used some questions from old Dan Savage advice columns. The answers were her own, but, as Jezebel discovered, not questions like the one seeking advice about [paraphrasing] ‘what to do when you walk in on your girlfriend canoodling with her noticeably erect brother?’

It's Mike and Arnie, together again! The Time magazine co-cover pols, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, made a Los Angeles appearance with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to announce the creation of a "nonpartisan organization that will advocate for more, and smarter, federal spending on infrastructure." The Mayor and maybe presidential candidate slammed the government, referenced the New Deal and more. Some of his statements:

In politics, winning elections and protecting a party majority is more important than solving problems and so short-term pork invariably wins over long-term investing and special interests win over the rest of us...

Continue reading "Infrastructure is Sexy to Mayor Bloomberg"

The day after giving his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg headed out of town and to capital of the Lone Star State. Sure, Bloomberg did have a press conference with Lance Armstrong and former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, but more interesting was his meeting with Ross Perot's former campaign manager!

Johnny Podres died last night in a hospital in upstate New York at the age of 75. He'd been suffering from serious medical problems for some time. In 1955, Podres ensured himself a place in Brooklyn and baseball history as a young left-hander who pitched the Dodgers to their only World Series Championship while in Brooklyn, and he did it against the hated Yankees.

To plug the giant hole in the network’s schedule this Sunday, caused by the WGA not giving a waiver to Dick Clark Productions for the Golden Globe Awards, NBC has handed the whole thing over to its news division.

Photo Credit: Malingering

• 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.

The NY Post has another story in the ongoing ogling at Theresa Duncan's death. The East Village artist apparently "fell into suicidal depression after telling friends that oddball rocker Beck backed out of her movie project." So now we have yet another baffling peek into the paranoid mindset Duncan and her long time boyfriend Jeremy Blake were in when they committed suicide, just one week apart from each other. In the January issue of Vanity...

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Franklin Ave. and 169th St. in the Bronx, a missing child on West 54th St. in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Fulton St. and Red Hook Lane in Brooklyn.
• Walter O'Malley was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame recently. The former owner of the Dodgers, he infamously moved the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles because the city wouldn't build him a new stadium.
• Times Square subway station music store Record Mart is back in business.
• The director of personnel at the NYC Board of Elections wants to travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to help soldiers vote in the next election.
• David Lemus, who spent 13 years in prison for the 1990 murder of a bouncer at the Palladium, was declared not guilty in a retrial after the real killer confessed.
• Childhood flashback: a piece of geometric animation scored to music by Phillip Glass that appeared on Sesame Street.
• The ACLU filed a suit against the NYPD seeking to get them to cease stopping and questioning photographers they see taking pictures of city landmarks.
• A Queens mother was arrested after her 3-year-old son brought 14 bags of pot to daycare with him to show his friends. The incident went unnoticed until the kid screamed "Give me my stuff back!"