Results tagged “plannedparenthood”

Tyler Sargent plays bass in a little band called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which may have caught your eye back in 2005 when they played the Gothamist Movable Hype 3.0 show at the Knitting Factory. We don’t want to call ourselves kingmakers, but ever since that night the band’s become kind of a big deal, in part because they were one of the first bands to break wide through blog buzz and a self-released album that moved over 45,000 copies in six months, all distributed out of Sargent’s Park Slope apartment. Tomorrow night they play a benefit concert at Bowery Ballroom for Planned Parenthood NYC; it’s sold out, of course, but mark your calendar for February 15th, when Gothamist anoints a new crop of indie rock darlings at Movable Hype 12.0 (it's also Gothamist’s 5th birthday.) Anyway, at some point over the weekend Tyler Sargent sat down at his computer and processed pithy answers to our questions.

Aha! The Sun has some feedback from a number of organizations about the Manhattan Mini Storage billboard that proclaims "Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose" with a big hanger in the image. The ad, which on the storage company's West Side highway space, has been generating much controversy.

FUNDRAISER: It's the 3rd Annual Summer, Sex and Spirits cocktail and shopping extravaganza. Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC), in conjunction with Brooklyn Indie Market join forces for the fundraiser, "an evening of mixing and mingling with retail therapy!" There will be $4 drink specials, 1/2 price sangria pitchers, a deejay and a giveaway...we're also guessing everyone will walk away with at least one free condom.

The NYPD decided not to appeal a judge's decision that the NYPD should declassify its surveillance documents from the 2004 RNC, so it has set up a special NYPD RNC Documents website with the documents. Of course, you have to scroll down to the very bottom for a zip file of the 600 pages of documents. And what's above the documents is the NYPD's rather thorough explanation/ defense justifying why it did such extensive surveillance of disparate groups and people, listing various terror incidents between 2001 and the convention as well as other incidents of protest. Here is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's statement:

“I think a close examination of the documents is going to show that the New York City Police Department did an outstanding job in protecting the City during the Republican National Convention. People wanted to come here and shut down the City, to replicate what happened in Seattle, Montreal and Genoa. We simply didn't let that happen, and I think it'll just underscore the outstanding work of the men and women of the Department. In terms of gathering information, the vast majority of information that was gathered was open-source information. It was gathered from the Internet; these groups that were coming here were advertising what they were going to do — bragging about what they were going to do. It wasn't particularly difficult to get the vast majority of this information.”

Good to know that the NYPD is watching all of us, including MSNBC and the Sierra Club. The NY Times has all the documents plus highlights which people and/or groups were mentioned in the documents. Here are but a few:

ACT UP, Sierra Club, City Council members (Charles Barron, David Weprin, Bill Perkins), Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Johnny Cash Bloc, MSNBC, A31 Coalition, NYCLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Stuyvesant High School Students, Westboro Baptist Church, Indymedia, Democratic National Committee, Coalition of Fire and Police Unions, Grandmothers Against War, Falun Gong, Arab Muslim American Foundation, Time's Up, Billionaires For Bush, United for Peace and Justice, The Surveillance Camera Players, ACLU, Hip Hop Summit Action Network, The Federation of East Village Artists, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York

The NYCLU's executive director Donna Lieberman said, "These documents paint a picture of a surveillance program that was broad, clumsy, and often unlawful. The NYPD failed to differentiate between unlawful behavior and behavior that is not only lawful but should in fact be cherished and protected. Today the public can finally bear witness to that failure." The NYCLU also offers an index of the groups monitored as well as the documents released yesterday, plus others previously released.

And with that, he's trying to convince the conservative voters out there that he's a good choice. He gave this opinion at Houston Baptist university, where one poli sci major said, "Overall, I thought it was a great speech. I think it was a good political stance to take. He's sitting right in the middle," but then admitted he wouldn't vote for Giuliani because he's anti-abortion. Of course, given that Giuliani donated to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s, the conservatives are having a field day with him.

SCIENCE: It's Secret Science Club night again at Union Hall. This week Gerry Moore tells us of The Secret Botanical Life of NYC. From the press release: "Is this city nothing but steel and pavement? Nein! We’re gushing with biodiversity. Put a nosegay in your buttonhole, and prepare for FLOWER POWER!" Also: the aromatic cocktails of the night will be "the walloping Planter’s Punch and the deadly Black Dahlia”...smells like a pretty drunk science club!

SIGNING: Child Magazine honored Julie Andrews with a Lifetime Achievement Award at their 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Today you can meet her and other winning authors at a celebratory book signing.

Last Friday The Wrens headlined a benefit show for Planned Parenthood, celebrating the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. The band played their usual Meadowlands-heavy mix of old songs, and made an announcement that it would more than likely be their final show supporting their now nearly 4 year old album. They will be working on putting together something new this summer. It's always a treat to see the Wrens live, who for our money is one of the best straight-up rock acts around these days, but even more so in an intimate club such as the Knitting Factory. Speaking of which, perhaps nudged along by the Bowery Presents recent power play to control the live music scene in NYC, The Knit gave a serious makeover to their main room, significantly upgrading their sound system and adding a fancy new array of animated stage lights for the performers. As if it wasn't already one of our favorite local venues, (um, 2 years of Movable Hype?) it now has even further separated itself from the midsize club pack by creating an environment that has the bands looking and sounding that much better than ever before. The ball is now back in Bowery's court to see if any of their many new venues will step up to match this level of quality, or will they rest on their laurels as being the go-to venue empire. We'll have to wait and see. (More pics like the one above here.)

Queens Hospital to Help the Neediest

Ellen Friedrichs, Sex Educator

On Sundays, Gothamist prints opinion pieces related to life in New York. If you want to submit one, email us! The opinions expressed below belong to the author, not to our site.

The NYPD did issue protest permits to 14 other groups, including the Christian Defense Coalition, Planned Parenthood, Vietnam Veterans of America and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network. The NY Times has an interesting article about how the protest issue is affecting the Bloomberg administration: "Mr. Bloomberg cannot afford to create the impression that the city is stifling protest, nor does he want the considerable ire that many peaceful protesters feel toward President Bush to be turned onto him instead."