Results tagged “riversidedrive”

     

Last night's storm tore through the Upper West Side and Central Park, tearing trees out of the ground and throwing them across streets and onto cars. Our weather guru Joe Schumacher said, "Within the larger area of rain there was a smaller, intense area that crossed the Hudson and Upper West Side and then went up through Central Park and Harlem before heading into the Bronx."

A two-alarm fire broke out at a 6-floor apartment building on West 148th Street and Riverside Drive around 8:40 p.m., and a man and a 5- or 6-year-old boy died after jumping from the sixth floor. The man, believed to be the boy's godfather, was pronounced dead at the scene while the boy apparently went into cardiac arrest and died at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief John Scudnik said they couldn't get to the fire escape, "The conditions were probably so unbearable that he probably chose to get out on the window ledge and fell."

Staten Island: Clove Lakes Park, Martling and Slosson Avenues

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Woodward Ave. and Cornelia St. in Queens, a burn victim on West 52nd St. in Manhattan, and a carjacking on 141st St. and Riverside Drive in Manhattan.
• Chaka Khan joins the cast of the Broadway musical The Color Purple. I feel for you, ticket holders.
• Tomorrow is your last chance to register for voting in New York's February 5th primary.

“I don’t think we should rush to give Columbia University a Christmas present,” city councilman Charles Barron said before voting against Columbia University’s 17-acre, $7 billion dollar expansion plan. But though many council members dissented or declined to vote, the plan was approved yesterday by the city council, who voted a month earlier than expected. The stage is now set for what could be a fierce eminent domain battle between the university and some commercial hold-outs in Harlem’s Manhattanville neighborhood, which was rezoned by the council from light manufacturing to mixed use.

Last year WNBC got up close and personal with the Civic Fame statue atop the Municipal Building, and this week The NY Times looks at the woman who modeled for that statue, and many others -- Audrey Munson, "a long-forgotten New York celebrity whose face and figure continue to grace the contours of statues all around Manhattan."It was Ms. Munson’s eyes that stared stoically from the marble forms of the Firemen’s Memorial on Riverside Drive,...

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing on 168th St. and Hillside Ave. in Queens, a sexual assault at Stanton and Attorney Sts. in Manhattan, and a missing child on Himrod St. in Brooklyn. Artist Eve Mosher is outlining in chalk the high water lines that floods will reach every four years by 2080 if global warming continues unabated. The project can be seen at her site highwaterline. Six-year-old Natalie Shea is now a...

A Manhattan dog walker was charged with stealing more than $50,000 from the 84-year-old mother of a client. According to the NY Sun, the Manhattan DA's office says that Daniel Natale, who runs Luna Dog Service, "allegedly used a checkbook, credit cards, and a debit card to steal cash."

The 2007 FISA Rowing Tour USA makes a stop in New York City today by rowing around the isle of Manhattan. The last leg of the week-long rowing tour is a "Row Around New York" where participants will row 30 miles around the island. The boats began at 6 am today at Pier 40 (Houston St. and the Hudson River) and should finish there at around 5 pm. Participating rowers, there are 70 of them, hail from 17 different countries with ano additional 50 rowers from the New York area.

As of last night Jerry Hadley, known as a top tenor at opera houses worldwide, was on life support after shooting himself. This morning it's being reported that he isn't expected to survive. Last year the 55-year old was arrested on Riverside Drive in Manhattan for driving while intoxicated, and even though the case was dropped - he had other problems to deal with. More recently, despite his success, Hadley had been filing for bankruptcy, was concerned about his career and was being treated for depression.

Another wet April day. Friday is off to a rainy start. So much so that the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for the city and much of northeastern and central New Jersey. The warning is in effect until 11:00 a.m. as a large area of moderate to heavy rainfall passes over already saturated ground. Taking a cue from Jesse Jackson the Weather Service reminds us "when encountering flooded roads make the wise choice… turn around… don't drown." If the warning's not enough a flood watch, a flood statement and a special weather statement have also been issued.

Opponents say, “You’re building towers in the park.” It’s not quite a fabrication, but it’s an exaggeration. They are building some towers in a currently industrial area at the edge of what will become a fine park. The same way they built Riverside Park and Riverside Drive—a whole swath of real estate was developed along their edges.For more info about the city's park plans, check out this informative PDF from NYC 2030 site.

Kuma Flowers, by Will at Untitled Name

Conspiracy Theory, by Paul A. Roid.

Today, the NY Post takes advantage of the built-in outrage of taxi fares by looking at how the new fares stack up. The fare increase, which went into effect yesterday, doubles the amount charged for waiting time from 20 cents per minute to 40 cents. So the Post made a couple trips:

[A] ride from Penn Station to the Metropolitan Museum of Art came to $18.50. The 5-mile, 29-minute midday trip would have cost $3 less the day before - an increase of nearly 20 percent.

Continue reading "Taxi Fare Hike: Fair or Not?"

Erich Fuchs and his neighbors are angry with their landlord. They think that he's been gussying up the building in which they live, 230 Riverside Drive, so as to raise the rents. That's an understandable issue to have, but then Fuchs went and took it to a gross new level. He poured a bucket of urine onto a construction worker from his 10th-floor balcony. Think about that. He poured a bucket of urine from his balcony onto a construction worker. A bucket. Of urine. So now his landlord wants him out. Reasonable, no?

COMEDY: If you missed Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari at Summerstage last night - you can catch them all together tonight as Human Giant takes over UCB tonight. What to expect?: "Each week they present a collection of sketches, short films, and presentations that have all been pre-approved by the other "human giant" - Michael Clarke Duncan. In addition, if anyone leaves the show unsatisfied, Mr. Duncan has agreed to go to the homes of Mr. Ansari, Mr. Huebel, and Mr. Scheer and personally beat the #!*$ out of their family."

Worrying about being hit by a car while walking is one thing, and worrying about being hit by a drunk driver is another. Diana Tafur was ejected from a minivan taxi when it was hit by drunk driver in a BMW. The BMW driver, Harzem Sendogan, ran a red light on East 84th Street at First Avenue, and Tafur was "ejected from her seat in the back of the van through a side window and onto the street," next to a parked car. After last week's hit and run on 14th and First Avenue, where a drunk driver killed a pedstrian, you'd think people would think twice about driving and drinking. Tafur was not wearing a seat belt, and is being treated for severe head injuries at Weill Cornell Medical. Sendogan was charged with driving while intoxicated and assault.

The second article is about longtime residents of 315 Riverside Drive, people who bought in when the building went co-op in the 1980s when the area (around 92nd Street) was dangerous but are now sitting on apartments worth three to twenty-two times what they paid for them, creating a disjointed world where they are asset-rich but not as cash-rich as, say, the TV producer who plunked down $2 million for an apartment in the building. Choice quote from Elizabeth Rudey, who says, "It's a jackpot if you're going to move to Iowa. I can't go to any fancy restaurants because I own a $1 million apartment. It doesn't change anything." This seems to be the case in many gentrified neighborhoods: The people who bought into Park Slope in the 1970s are sitting on multimillion dollar townhouses, but there's no way they'd be able to buy anything similar for that money.

It was a kinder and gentler time back when Donald Trump started to build Trump Place south of West 72nd Street and Riverside Drive. Sure, it was pure bombastic Trump, battling neighborhood groups and neighboring apartments to develop Trumpland, even if he was going to extend Riverside Park by 21 acres, but it was a time when we didn't know the phrase "You're fired" was just scary, not funny in a yooge way. Now, Trump, plus a group of investors who bailed him out during the mid-90s, has sold three buildings and 77 acres for $1.8 billion, in what is considered the biggest residential sale in the city's history. The buyers are Extell Development Corporation and the Carlyle Group; Extell is expected to build eight more apartment buildings (a total of 3,000 units), to ensure the real estate bubble remain bubblicious. Of course, Trump is keeping four condo buildings along the made-up street, Riverside Boulevard, so Kelly Perdew can keep his job. We think.

The city was able to clear two lanes of the Henry Hudson Parkway last night, which was strewn with dirt and debris after Thursday's retaining wall collapse that closed the immediate area, and the first car drove by at 10:18PM. Over 25,000 cubic yards of dirt and rubbles from the area were removed by city construction crews around the clock. However, what caused the accident (probably water), what could have been done to prevent the accident, and who will pay for the accident is still up in the air. So far, it seems like the development's board is saying that the board trusted the engineering firms hired to monitor the wall to make the right decisions; the engineering firm hasn't had any comment on the situation so far. In the meantime, the city construced huge concrete barriers between the remnants of the retaining wall and the road, and even though the roadways are open, the Mayor is cautioning commuters to add some extra time to their journeys just in case.

Yesterday afternoon, a 150 foot part of a 600 foot long retaining wall collapsed onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, sending city officials and nearby building residents into a frenzy. The City evacuated residents of 1380 Riverside Drive, the building just south of the wall, as they inspected the collapse, which poured tons of dirt, stone, and trees over a thankfully empty stretch of the highway and empty cars. It's unclear how long the northbound part of the Parkway, right near 181st Street, past the George Washington Bridge, will be closed, but the city will be working around the clock to survey the damage and get it removed. While a full investigation needs to be done, the early hypothesis is that water caused the wall's instability. It's been said before, but Gothamist is glad the weather looks clear - we can't even imagine what this would be like if it were raining.

A retaining wall near the George Washington Bridge collapsed, creating a landslide of dirt onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. Dirtslide, we guess, since it's not quite the California kind. The firefighters were called to the area below Riverside Drive and 181st Street to remove dirt, which has buried some cars. No word on injuries yet, so we hope no one was near the cars. So, if you're headed back home and take the West Side Highway, don't...and if you need to take the GWB, take tunnels instead.

Newsday looked at the security issues with food deliveries in a city of "cooking-challenged New Yorkers" with "overstuffed kitchen drawers bursting with takeout menus." Some security guards and doormen say delivery men sneak in to slip menus under doors. Gothamist had always thought that while it's no fun to have to go downstairs to the door to pick up food delivery, sometimes it's better that way, especially when we feel guilty about long walk-ups.

The Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals tries to deal with the stray and feral cat problem. And in other cat news, an ocicat named Moirai Wedjat won the Cat Show held at Madison Square Garden.

Please be careful when you're riding your bike. Yes, the weather is gorgeous, perfect for enjoying bike rides, but your safety is important. (Gothamist watched a father with a small child on the back of his bike get hit by a car yesterday morning on Riverside Drive - luckily no one was seriously hurt.) Even though you may the right of way, many drivers ignore that, so you need to be defensive. Wear your helmets and reflective jackets, as well as make sure your bikes have headlights and taillights if you ride during the dark.

This is like a plotline from Oz: A doorman on the Upper West Side, who while in prison, had fallen in love with another inmate. While out, he plotted to kill the inmate's girlfriend, who would have been his romantic rival. According to the Daily News, Norman Spencer Gary took an old tenant's credit card to pay for a hitman to kill the woman, who has a 5 year old with the 25 year old inmate. The hitman was actually an undercover officer. Authorities are investigating whether the inmate at Downstate Correctional was in on the plot.