Results tagged “mayorkoch”

Former Mayor Ed Koch showed that recent heart surgery hasn't affected his personality. According to the Post, Koch showed his spark at a breakfast fundraiser for Manhattan DA hopeful Leslie Crocker Snyder: "Recounting his first trip to the supermarket after leaving office, Koch said dozens of average citizens went out of their way to thank him for his service. Except one, who snarled, 'You were a terrible mayor!' 'And I say to him: "F--- you!"' Koch told the crowd." The 84-year-old opined about Big Apple residents, "We walk faster, we talk faster, we think faster... I’m a New Yorker and Leslie’s a New Yorker." And the former Mayor is also back to reviewing films for The Villager—he liked Whatever Works and Lorna's Silence!

More and more NJ schools are adopting dress codes, according to the Star-Ledger. For instance, after a year of Newark elementary and middle school students wearing uniforms, the district has decided to bring uniforms to high schools—an official said, "It decreased peer pressure of wearing designer clothes, they instead wore the color scheme." And another school board head said, "It allows the principal to walk out in the hallway (and) if they see anything other than a sea of blue, they notice somebody in the hallway that isn't supposed to be there." But the ACLU in NJ argues, "Dress codes and uniforms often deny students the right to express themselves. Our position is that the Constitution protects students' rights, including what they wear, not just what they say and what they write." Only around two dozen of over 600 NJ school districts require uniforms; the NJ School Boards Association's Mike Yaple said, "Some educators swear by the school uniform... But there's been research that says it doesn't lead to better test scores and reduced violence." In 1988, NYC Mayor Ed Koch asked a manufacturer to donate uniforms for a pilot program, prompting the Times to ask for books before uniforms (Koch pointed out they were a donation).

Former mayor Ed Koch is nothing but prepared: The NY Times and NY Post report how the outgoing octogenarian has his tombstone ready and engraved. He already has a plot at Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights and the tombstone will read: "EDWARD I. KOCH Mayor of the City of New York 1978-1989," plus slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's words before he died, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish," a Jewish prayer ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One") and the epitaph he wrote—"He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York, and he fiercely loved its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II."

Ed Koch is in full crotchety, old man mode! After saying Palin scares him earlier this week, the former mayor was in fine form on CNN. The Observer recounts his exchange with anchor Carol Costello, who first said his comments that Palin was "plucky" and "perky" might be viewed as sexist. To which he replied, “Oh please. Wow. It’s ridiculous. I mean you can’t compliment someone by saying they’re perky anymore? Plucky is a compliment.” Then while arguing about the anecdote of Palin trying to fire a librarian who wouldn't ban books, Angelo said CNN found it was not true and he said, “It’s disputed. But The New York Times has not retracted it." Angelo insisted CNN found it wasn't true, leaving Koch to defend the Old Gray Lady, "Well you’re not better than The New York Times."

Director of the legendary hip-hop documentary Style Wars, Tony Silver, died last weekend after battling an irreversible brain condition for several years.

While no one is questioning the fiscal stability of New York City the way they were during the 1970s, municipal spending has nonetheless exploded during Mayor Bloomberg's five years in office, far in excess of anything his predecessors accomplished over the last three decades.

This is a pretty interesting clip from a documentary on hip hop called Beat This. In 1984 New York graffiti artist Brim talked about the Vandal Squad, Mayor Koch and New York's finest having a problem with things they can't control.

Moving onto a new job is always exciting - and it's always another opportunity to have a farewell party from your old one. But it seems that partying got the better of former deputy commissioner of the Community Assistance Unit Christopher Coffey. The Daily News reports that Coffey was pulled over in his car after the police got a call about a "rowdy drunk" - apparently Coffey had been "stumbling around and pounding on cars" after leaving a bar at the Maritime Hotel.

The Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation hauled Mayor Bloomberg to New York State Supreme Court today for failing to reappoint or replace eight of eleven commissioners to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The commissioners’ terms have expired, which, the Committee alleges, violates the Administrative Code and the City Charter.

- And former Mayor Koch met some advertising icons in Times Square today, all for Advertising Week... will Mayor Dinkins be meeting members of the Justice League next?

- Turns out Mayor Bloomberg and NJ Governor Corzine teamed up to convince Pataki to rework any sort of Ground Zero proposal to Larry Silverstein. And re: the NY Times' mention of past NY-NJ spats, we wish we remembered how Mayor Koch "once symbolically boarded up the entrance to the Holland Tunnel over the loss of jobs to New Jersey."

The New York Times reports that Fresh Direct is creating a new advertising campaign featuring some rather prominent New Yorkers, Mayor Koch, Bobby Flay, and Paulina Porizkova (did you know she lived here?), to contend with the newest challenger to the New York food world, Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's advertising strategy to get back at Fresh Direct? Nothing. Well, almost nothing -- they plan on using their general advertising strategy, designed to keep their costs low, which consists of sending quarterly mailings to residents in the neighborhoods where there stores are located.

- She has "almost no relationship with the New York press corpsHarris' first weekend problems (snowstorm, subway track issues) and press conference should be interesting!

With the MTA and the transit workers union still in contract negotiations, every day without an agreement is another day for the media to help us freak out about the possibility of a strike. The NY Times details what is at stake for both parties. Basically, the MTA wants "flexibility in work assignments, tighter sick leave rules and less substantial health care and pension benefits for future employees". Flexibility as in being able to combine the jobs of train operator and conductor into one (hello, OPTO!) and the former token booth workers to "answer questions - to dust and wipe down the booths, empty trash cans and do other 'cleaning functions' around MetroCard vending machines; tighter sick leave as in halving sick days to six per year; less health care and pension benefits as in new employees paying new premiums and only getting benefits at 62 (versus the current 55). The transit union's main concern seems to be getting higher wages that will offset inflation - and not accepting the MTA's new demands. There seems to be some unhappiness with the president of the Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, Roger Touissant, over the last contract negotation in 2002 (wage freeze the first year of the three year contract), so if he concedes too much this time around, he may be out in the next union election.

• The search for Peter Braunstein continues, now into Brooklyn. Cobble Hill residents, be on the lookout!
• Bernie Kerik is either an idiot or took a huge discount on construction in his apartment, possibly both as renovations for his Riverdale pad were nearly $200k. 
• The MTA is adding intercoms to some stations. We're thinking the intercoms will sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.

While many people, in and out of the political arena, can find bad stuff to say about Mayor Bloomberg, there seems to be a problem with finding anything to say about the Democratic candidates who want to run against him. At least, anything to say that will stick with voters, and many Democratic leaders are worried about that. The NY Times quotes Reverend Al Sharpton's political director as saying, "People are saying, why should we get rid of Bloomberg? The Democrats are not giving any solid reasons why Bloomberg should not be in office. I don't think any of the candidates have come forward with lucid arguments as to why Bloomberg has been ineffective and why he should be fired from his job as mayor." Gothamist has to agree: The candidates aren't really proposing anything constructive or feasible (Jets Stadium in Queens? The Jets aren't putting their $800 million in Queens.) that has legs yet. We hope that messages and tactics will take further shape in the next month before the debates start. The primaries are on September 13; the run-off, if needed, will be held on September 27. If you're not a NYC voter and want to be, register here. And here's the New York City Voter Assistance Commission site; you can find your representative here.

Newsday has an interesting look at the parking-meters-during-church issue, aka "pay to pray," and how it's affecting Mayor Bloomberg. To remind everyone, Ferrer said that churchgoers should not be expected to pay parking meters on Sundays, because it's a day of worship, while the Mayor pointed out that Sunday revenue has been critical...needless to say, this has galvanized churchgoers. Mayor Bloomberg has conceded that they'll look into 2-hour meters in some areas, but, of course, opponents are pulling for more. Democratic political consultant Howard Wolfson says, "Look, it does not rise to the level of citywide importance as education or the stadium. That being said, it is clearly important to many churchgoing New Yorkers...It becomes just another proof point that he's an out-of-touch billionaire." Mayor Koch says the Mayor needs to drive home the issue more (it's true, the Mayor does seem to have danced around it, while Ferrer and church leaders are sounding off to the press), and even some other politicians agree that the parking meter revenue has helped.

- And the GOP and Democrats are trying to use NYC symbolism to their advantage for the election this fall. Brother, Gothamist would rather they deal with our terror funding now and stop using NYC as a pawn. When NYC gets used, we want to have a little fun, at least.

AdAge was at the event and reported (registration required, but it's free):

Many icons were no-shows, including Ronald McDonald and the Jolly Green Giant. A rumor quickly circulated that the Energizer Bunny did not make an appearance because the marketer felt that it would be "off-message" for the drum-thumping rabbit to be seen in public being "wanded" at City Hall's security checkpoint.

The weather is a mixed bag this weekend as we stick around the city this weekend (we're glad we won't need to follow Gawker's rules of conduct for getting to the Hamptons - we've seen people getting on and off the Jitney and it looks worse than the school bus we had to take). We've been trying to think of what we want to do, and have come up with some ideas that we'd like to share:

Juliana Nash, Co-owner of Pete's Candy Store

Hmm. Gothamist certainly supports a notion of community, being a part of a New York we can be proud of, and volunteer work. But no way are we volunteering for the convention - we still have beef with the GOP for the whole cruise ship thing. Full page ads for NYC2004 are running in the city's newspapers (click the image above to see the full ad), and there will be outdoor ads as well. Gothamist does think this picture of an elephant trying to eat Ed Koch is pretty sweet. [Slightly related: Gothamist on Ed Koch's movie reviews.] The NY Times's Michael Slackman writes about the effort, "Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican who has been cautious about appearing too close to President Bush, and Mr. Koch, a Democrat who has endorsed Mr. Bush for re-election, sounded as if they were trying to persuade New Yorkers to behave when the Republicans come to town."