Results tagged “newyears”

As expected, CNN came out yesterday and ate crow for Kathy Griffin after a live New Year's Eve broadcast alongside Anderson Cooper featured the closest moment a major TV broadcast has come to hearing someone being told to eat a bag of dicks. A CNN spokesman told the press, "We recognize that the comment made by comedian Kathy Griffin during the live broadcast was inappropriate...She did not know she was on the air at the time and we removed [the comment] from the [West Coast] rebroadcast." That raises the question: do west coasters have to spend every new year's counting down to midnight alongside footage they all know was recorded three hours ago? In any case, CNN has little to worry about from the FCC since this all aired on cable and the network would not comment on whether Griffin was likely to be back next year. The Hollywood Reporter points out that earlier in the telecast, Griffin lampooned former CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck and asked for a pap smear given by medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Armed with Made in NY onesies, Mayor Bloomberg visited the first two NYC New Year's Babies. Grace Pak (6 pounds, 3 ounces) was born at 12:09 a.m. in New York Medical Center while Zenia Hussain (7 pounds, 13 ounces) was born at 12:10 a.m. at Flushing Hospital Center). Being full of New Year's cheer, Mayor Bloomberg had declared the first babies born in 2009, joking to reporters, “Some of the papers will find problems with the mayor abusing his authority by doing this. But, you know, that’s what leadership is all about. The City Council will hold hearings, I’m sure.” He also told both sets of proud parents their daughters could run for mayor, suggesting they could even run against each other. According to Politicker NY, Bloomberg mentioned how staffer Jason Post "saved" him by lending him earmuffs because Times Square was so frigid and that he and the Clintons went out for a drink after the ball drop, "We did not talk politics. We did not talk foreign policy. We talked about all the good things in life.”

Yesterday, just after midnight, the over 160 Department of Sanitation employees headed to Times Square to clean up after the New Year's revelers. According to 1010 WINS, that crew worked until 8 a.m., and then another shift came in at 11 a.m. to further "tidy" up the area. It's believed that over 41 tons of garbage were collected, but since there were 25 mph winds, it's hard to say exactly how much detritus they picked up. Sanitation Commission John Doherty said, "It takes a while. Last night was a windy night. There's probably confetti as far as the East River."

Kathy Griffin proved to be the co-host yet again for CNN's New Year's Eve countdown coverage when she yelled back at a Times Square heckler. The self-proclaimed D-List comedienne, co-hosting with Anderson Cooper, was so fed up with someone (we're not sure if it was a man or a woman, but we hope he/she emerges!) that she yelled—on air— "Screw you. Why don't you get a job, buddy? You know what? I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth."

The pair who invented those New Year's glasses with the year numerals say they are hanging up the shades after 2009. Richard Sclafani, half of the duo (and who was born in Brooklyn), said, "It doesn't look very good for 2010. You wind up with a '1' in front of one of your eyes." One reason is that it'll be costly to create a new mold—he says they only made a profit of $92,000 in their peak year, and business has fallen off since 2001. Plus, knock-offs sell for 79 cents, which is what Sclafani and Peter Cicero charge as the wholesale price of the glasses (Sclafani made 10,000 this year and only sold 2800). Still, they knew it was a great idea when they came up with it in 1990; Sclafani said, "I could picture the people in Times Square wearing them."

       

It's New Year's Eve and the "Crossroads of the World" (at least, that's what a subway conductor calls Times Square) is ready to celebrate the close of 2008 and to welcome 2009! The New Year's Eve Ball was tested yesterday—it seems to be working just fine—and workers were getting balloons ready for the revelry.

On Sunday afternoon, the fourth day of the Lunar Year, the streets and restaurants of Flushing's Chinatown were packed with families celebrating the Year of the Rat. In case you're wondering, that headline – like many of the Chinese people in Flushing – is Mandarin. It translates roughly to "Congratulations and best wishes for a prosperous New Year."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an aircraft fire at JFK terminal 4 in Queens, a robbery on Central Park West in Manhattan, and a missing child on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Surf cams (permanently installed cameras monitoring surf conditions) are a great way to notify surfers of conditions, until one realizes that surfers don't want conditions notified for fear of crowds.
• No matter what you've ever seen in the movies, crashing the guard rails on a bridge to land on the highway below will end with your fatality.

A 22-year old Manhattan deli clerk that took the late shift on New Year's Eve lucked out when he bought himself a winning scratch-off ticket. While everyone else was welcoming 2008 with friends and family, the Yemen native's wife and baby were still living a world away, so Waleed Alsaidi bought himself a little present at his family's deli in Harlem to pass time on the lonely shift.

Have you made a resolution for 2008 to eat better and healthier this year?

As Gothamist recently noted, New Year's and the following week or so are a particularly festive occasion for the Japanese. Which is no doubt why Haru decided to celebrate the grand opening of its newest location on Wall Street last Wednesday. Hordes of sushi-crazed suits crowded the restaurant located in the historic Beaver Building for the gala event, which was also a benefit for the Downtown Alliance.

With many people trying to keep up that perennial New Year's resolution to lose weight/work out/get in shape, they're hitting their computers (or CDs!) to create the perfect soundtracks for their workouts. The other day, the NY Times chatted with a number of experts - physicians, life coaches, workout music producers - to figure out what makes a good work out song.

A week and a half ago, hundreds of headstones at the Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick, NJ were toppled over, raising concerns that the Jewish cemetery had been targeted in a possible hate crime. Yesterday, when four teens, a 15-year-old, two 16-year-olds, and a 17-year-old, were arrested, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said that the investigation so far did not suggest this "was an attempt to intimidate, target or harm the Jewish community."

After Page Six alluded to The Gansevoort Hotel staff as being just a tad anti-semitic, the hotel retorted saying that the incident on New Year's Eve that led to the allegation was a misunderstanding. Their side of the story includes having to kick out a yarmulke-less (and apparently racist) "ill-behaved boyfriend of a member of Kid ['I love Jewish people'] Rock's PR team." Today Grub Street asked "which member of Kid Rock’s PR team brought in this ruffian," saying they were "not at all surprised that it involves Kid Rock."

Thank goodness WCBS 880 updated its story about a stray cat who was seen in NJ with a bottle stuck on its head. Raritan Township Animal Control and ASPCA helped save the cat!

Just a month after a Columbia grad student was hassled by the NYPD for photographing subways for a school project, another young man armed with camera has been taken down by the long arm of the law.

Page Six has reports of some nasty antisemitism that went down at the Hotel Gansevoort’s regrettably named G-Spa lounge. A witness tells the Post that a Jewish guest – who had paid for a ticket to the festivities – was insulted by the club’s staff for wearing a yarmulke.

New Year's resolutions probably started out as some sort of gym propaganda to up membership. Every new year, fitness centers worldwide bulk up their ad campaigns, promote "deals" and promise a better body in just months. With so many options, how does one choose a suitable establishment in which to "get physical"?

The Time Warner on-screen guide simply said "Tila Tequila" on MTV when the clock struck midnight last Monday, leading a casual observer to assume they were blowing through a marathon of her depressing reality show. But oh no! The oddly shaped, elfish face of the network apparently gets sole, top billing over the biggest night of the year as the host of MTV's annual New Years Eve party. She was mostly responsible for stumbling through some lines on her way to introducing the lineup of bands on tap, including the likes of Good Charlotte, Kid Rock and a somehow still relevant Wyclef. While those in attendance seemed to be having a fine time, it may pain music fans to see the network has no sign of changing their tune in the new year, rolling out the same rehashed schlock they've been shoveling for most of the decade. Cobra Starship summed it up best in their post-balldrop interview: "A lot of bands are trying to be credible...we wanna be in-credible in '08!" No word yet what role Gabe Saporta will play in "Shot of Love, Season 2." (pic via MTV)

Ever since we read about osechi-ryori in the Times last week we’ve become a tad obsessed with this traditional cuisine that the Japanese whip up for the New Year. Stacked jubako, a more elegant take on the bento box, are filled with delicacies deriving from an age-old taboo forbidding women from cooking during the first three days of the New Year. In addition to sweet potato and burdock root and bits of grilled meat or fish, the boxes often include kamabako, or fish cake, whose red and white color are synonymous with festivals in Japan and kuro-mame or black soybeans. Mame means "health," symbolizing a wish for health in the New Year. Although Julia Moskin’s piece included several recipes, Gothamist decided to purchase a premade jubako or go to a restaurant for this festive fare. We quickly ruled out Kai, the elegant Upper East Side kaiseki spot, which was offering a 30-item jubako for $350. Also out of the running was Hakubai's $80 brunch.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 20th Ave. and 37th St. in Queens, a hate crime on East 9th St. and Ave. H in Brooklyn, and a missing child on Decatur Ave. in the Bronx.
• Hyperactive performer Robin Williams is David Letterman's guest tonight, in his first new show in weeks. Letterman, as well as Craig Ferguson, have worked out pacts with the Writers Guild of America, allowing writers to come back. Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien are crossing picket lines to come back. Riffing on Robin Williams' routines are not as funny when hard to distinguish from KKK impersonations in the deep south.
• A Port Authority policeman in the department's K-9 unit was involved in an auto accident that killed the woman driving the other vehicle. The officer was hospitalized and his partner was taken to a veterinarian for treatment.
• A man with a hunting knife was arrested after entering and then exiting Hillary Clinton's Iowa campaign headquarters. There was no overt violent action, but local police described him as a local unpredictable character.

When it came to New Year's Eve countdown broadcasts, we were traditional and stuck with Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. Which means we missed out on $275-million man Alex Rodriguez counting down with Carson Daly on Daly's New Year's Eve program.

For New Year's Eve this year, we served a multi-course meal, full of complex and labor-intensive dishes. What had our guests raving and demanding seconds and thirds, though? These simple little flans, which we threw together on a whim the day before.

New Year's Eve wasn't all confetti, LED-lit crystal balls and...diapers; despite the impression Dick Clark gives to the world at large, there's always just as much excess, overcrowding and diminished expectations to be found outside of Times Square on Amateur Night.

And then there were three. The “Couch Potato” publicity stunt going on over at ESPN Zone – the favorite restaurant of Yo La Tengo’s James McNew – took a dramatic turn when one of the four contestants abruptly dropped out of the butt-numbing competition. The quitter was Rutgers student Lindsay Wagenblast, the only female participant, who had “emerged as the favorite” in the contest, which started New Year's Day and involves sitting in a recliner in front of twelve 42-inch high-definition plasma televisions and a couple of 14-foot HD projection TVs broadcasting sports nonstop.

With news that Mayor Bloomberg is planning to attend a meeting about a possible third party bid for the White House, the mayor's possible presidential aspirations finally enter 2008. If he does plan on running, he's lucky he has his billions to get the hundreds of thousands of petition signatures to get onto ballots across the country.

This is a bad trend: Days after an 11-year-old boy was shot in the chest after opening the door of his Queens home and a 3-year-old girl, in a car, was hit by a stray bullet in the Bronx, an 11-year-old girl's head was grazed by a bullet in the Bronx yesterday.

For some people, celebrating New Year's didn't mean drinking champagne and wearing whimsical hats: It meant trying to deliver a baby! New York City's first 2008 newborns are from Queens: Kamiyah Alina Barrow was born at midnight at New York Hospital Medical Center in Queens while Isabella Sophia Sears was born about a minute later at Elmhurst Hospital Center.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan.
• Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it to remind readers what the county was like at the time.
• Queens Crap hands out its annual overdevelopment award. Crappy New Year Councilman John Liu!

Was your New Year's Eve a recipe for a hangover? Luckily there are a few recipes to cure what ails you, too. Last year we found some facts about hangovers, but learning isn't going to make that first headache of '08 go away.