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Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which celebrates his accomplishments as a civil rights leader and as well as reminds us there is still work to be done in many areas, from racial equality to living a more peaceful, understanding existence. And, in a way, Tuesday is a testament to King's work, with Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. At the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington D.C., where the Obamas attended services today, children recited lines linked King and Obama: A child first said, "Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run," which was followed by others saying "Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly" and "Yes we can. Yes I can."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 109th Ave. and Merick Blvd. in Queens, a person under a train at Sutphin Blvd. in Queens, and a cyclist pinned beneath the wheels of a bus on 14th St. and 1st Ave. (looks like victim will survive) in Manhattan.
• The tech-savvy youth who got himself arrested for stealing a Sidekick mobile device and then allowing its owner to track him down via MySpace remains jailed on $20,000 bail.
• Welcome Abigail Fulop. The Leap Year Baby was born on Staten Island at 2:23 a.m. on the 29th. Her parents Dave and Michelle will be celebrating their daughter's birthday on March 1st three years out of four.
• A scholarship endowment fund has been established in the name of Ossie Davis to aid young actors who are not only pursuing performance arts, but embodying the activism of the late actor. Davis died in 2005, was the husband of actress Rubie Dee, and was a featured speaker at the funerals of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
• Hoboken, NJ police officers are now claiming that they were forced to go to a Hooters restaurant and hand over their automatic weapons to scantily clad waitresses while posing cheerfully for photos.
• Red Hook's new IKEA manager isn't from New York. The Brooklyn Swedish mega-furniture-mart boss is from North York, in Canada. Will the perfidy of our pleasant and polite northern neighbors ever cease?
• We find this harder to swallow than a cat fur-covered Milkbone: AIBO robot dogs are as effective at relieving lonely old persons' isolation as actual living dogs.
• Colson Whitehead is an established and successful author who lives in Brooklyn. If you're only 50% there, get over your zip code and give the attitude a rest. Apparently, Brooklyn writers are the new actor-waiters.

The Federal Reserve's interest rate cut helped the stave off a huge drop the stock market yesterday. Though the Dow Jones did fall 465 points at one point, it ended 128 points down. Another feature of the rate cut: Home loan applications jumped.

All over the city, events were held to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. One of the biggest events was the Reverend Al Sharpton's annual forum at his National Action Network in Harlem, which attracted Governor Spitzer, Senator Schumer, former Mayor Dinkins and Mayor Bloomberg.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Stuyvesant Ave. and Hart St. in Brooklyn, a multiple stabbing on West 49th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, and a car in the water on Beach St. and Rockaway Pt. Blvd. in Queens.
• After a 14% surge between 2005 and 2006, complaints about the NYPD from civilians dropped 1% last year.
• The lawyer defending the man on trial for killing his 7-year-old stepdaughter has been receiving phoned-in death threats. The defense attorney says that he doesn't bother reporting the threats anymore because cops don't seem very interested in investigating them, but is determined to defend his client to the best of his ability.

The U.S. financial markets may have been closed due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance, but stock markets around the world tumbled as worries over the U.S. economy took hold. Johan Stein, who manages about $14 billion at an asset management firm in Stockholm told Bloomberg, "It's the worst I've ever seen. The financial system is in terrible shape, and no one knows where this will end.''

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to celebrate his accomplishments as a civil rights leader and to remember there is still work to be done in many areas, from racial equality to living a more peaceful, understanding existence. King's birthday is actually January 15, 1929, but the federal holiday has been observed on the third Monday of January since 1986 (the first time all 50 states observed the holiday was in 2000).

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at Jamaica Ave. and 95th St. in Queens, a severed limb at Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, and a child struck at 39th St. and 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn.
• "Prepare to be swabbed citizen." New York takes steps forward to our Gattaca-like future.
• A man described as being 6'1" and 300 lbs. was spotted nude and running around Staten Island. The emotionally disturbed person was eventually corralled by EMTs and police, but died on the way to the hospital.

After the national debate about race turned into the national debate about how race discussed in the Democratic presidential campaign, Senators and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared a truce. The stir was caused by Clinton's remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.") and when Obama criticized Clinton for belittling King's achievements...which then lead to Clinton accusing Obama of making mountains of molehills.

Senator John McCain won the Republican primary in New Hampshire, with the race being called for him early on. Senator Hillary Clinton beat Senator Barack Obama by a few thousand votes in a very close race. Comebacks all around!

At 6:30AM yesterday morning, federal agents delivered "wake-up" subpoenas to the Reverend Al Shaprton and four of his employees at the National Action Network. The FBI and IRS are looking for financial and corporate records, some dating back to 2001, as part of an investigation into Sharpton's financing of his 2004 presidential campaign as well as allegations of tax fraud. Ten people in total were subpoenaed, including a former chief of staff who left in...

With the MTA's vote whether to raise subway and bus fares coming in less than three weeks, speculation is running high about what will happen. Even though Governor Spitzer said that the base subway and bus fare will remain $2, unlimited Metrocard fares - which 85% of riders use - will rise. The MTA has insisted the fare hikes are necessary, given projected deficits and upcoming capital construction, but many elected officials believe that the...

MOVIE: This week's Bryant Park movie is All the Kings Men.... The movie follows the rise of politician Willie Stark from the rural country to the big city spotlight. "Along the way, he loses his initial innocence, and becomes just as corrupt as those who he assaulted before for this characteristic." Romance, women, intrigue, power...it's all there.

READING: It's New York Murder Mystery Night with novelists Jed Rubenfeld, Joel Rose, and historian Ben Feldman. The trio will be discussing New York’s famous 19th-century murders, including the bizarre events behind Butchery on Bond Street.

A NY Times reporter spent yesterday observing and experiencing the Reverend Al Sharpton's action rally at his National Action Network headquarters.

On most Saturdays, the so-called House of Justice on West 145th Street can feel as casual as the International House of Pancakes 10 blocks south. Anyone can walk in and take a seat. The words etched onto the large tinted window at the entrance, facing 145th Street, read not House of Justice or National Action Network but Diamond Gym, the storefront’s former occupant, which explains why the walls are lined with mirrors.

Continue reading "Reverend Al Sharpton's Saturday Routine"

A six-foot tall chocolate sculpture of Jesus which will be displayed at a Midtown hotel next week is stirring up controversy. Catholics are calling Cosimo Cavallaro's "My Sweet Lord" an "all-out war on Christianity."

Harry Houdini's funeral was held on November 4, 1926, in New York, with over two thousand mourners in attendance. He was buried at the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens where the crest of the Society of American Magicians is inscribed on his grave site. To this day, that Society holds their "Broken Wand" ceremony at the grave site on the anniversary of his death. With a new biography called “The Secret Life of Houdini” that came out late last year, and which in part questions the real reason for Harry Houdini's death, some people are calling for the body to be exhumed. Others are calling this a publicity stunt.

For politicians, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was busy as they made the rounds at a number of city events. Governor Spitzer, Lieutenant Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Representative Charles Rangel all appeared at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network's House Justice and also the Brooklyn Academy of Music's celebration.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. City offices, post offices and other government buildings are closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Public schools are closed, as well.

R.W. Apple, whose byline could be seen on articles about politics and hot dogs and had been the NY Times bureau chief in seven cities, died this morning in Washington, DC. His NY Times obituary (written by Todd Purdum) shows the amazing sprawl of his life and career:

Drama, and a lot of dash, followed Mr. Apple as night follows day. He was the pool reporter sent to the deck of the U.S.S. Forrestal in 1967 when a fiery accident nearly killed one of the ship’s pilots, Lieut. Commander John S. McCain 3d. From that incident he formed a lifelong friendship with the pilot, who went on to become a United States Senator.

Continue reading "Legendary Times Figure R.W. "Johnny" Apple Dies at 71"

Tonight head over to BAM to celebrate a life in Come Share the Dream: the 20th Annual Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

Newsday has an article detailing the difficulties some churches have with King's anti-war stance. For more information about Martin Luther King, visit The King Center and take a look at this Wikipedia entry on him.

Joel Klein should be thanking his lucky stars that Martin Luther King Jr. is dead-- because if he wasn't, MLK would be breaking out a huge can of whoop-ass on the Board of Education right now. Why? Check out this Post article: New York schools are amongst the most segregated in the entire country. We were curious, so we surfed over to Harvard and downloaded the original academic report, entitled "Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation." It's about 40 pages long, and a very interesting read if you are curious about the state of segregation in our nation's various school systems. If you care just about NYC, though, we've pulled out two relevant charts. The first shows how few students in NYC go to multiracial schools:

Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus and ignited the civil rights movement, has died at age 92 in Detroit. She had suffered from dementia since 2002, but Parks' legacy has reached far and wide for the past half century. After being tired of years of poor treatment on buses (she had had a run-in with the December 1, 1955 bus driver back in 1943), her decision to stay in her seat stirred the imaginations of many Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr. Her life and the events surrounding her arrest in 1955 are recounted with great detail in various obituaries from the New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, and Birmingham News.

For more about MLK, go to The King Center, with an essay about the holiday from Coretta Scott King (she also did a rare recent public appearance last week). And InfloPlease has links to many MLK-related events.

company, and guess what? We don't have Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off! I'm kind of ticked at this, not just because I want a 3 day weekend, but I don't like how it's treated as a 2nd-tier holiday. Do most people have to work on Monday? How are you commemorating the holiday?

Word from the Times that Lincoln Center is rethinking 65th Street comes as a relief. I'm always walking on West 65th to get to the Walter Reade Theater, and it's just this barren, boring, scary-at-night type of street. A void. While there are businesses in the area, there's a lot of opportunity to spruce up the street. I wonder if earlier hesitation has been because of Martin Luther King Jr. High School at the corner of Amsterdam and West 65th. One of the more notorious high schools in the city, it has many problems, and there was a shooting last year. Hopefully reinvigorating West 65th will have a halo effect - the school has a 42% graduation rate.