Results tagged “summervacation”

The ice rink at Rockefeller Center opened yesterday, even though the weather was more 4th of July than 6th of October. The temperature reached 83 degrees in Central Park yesterday and we imagine it was even a few degrees hotter in midtown. Nonetheless, the seasonal mainstay that is up there with elaborate window displays in recognizability opened despite the heat. The Daily News features a cute article that visits both the rink and the beach at Coney Island on the same afternoon. Rink guard Manny Bedigan could have been a life guard, as he joked that he brought a swim suit to work with him just in case. 10-year-old Victoria Vortman was already nostalgic for summer vacation as she ran through the surf at Coney Island. "It feels like summer - I don't want to go to school."

New York City is in the middle of Fashion Week, and last night was Ralph Lauren's 40th anniversary as a designer. And, as Style.com reports, he "staged an extraordinarily lavish runway show and black-tie after-party in the Central Park Conservancy" last night. It was such a big deal that Mayor Bloomberg and his lady friend Diana Taylor stepped out! New York magazine's Show & Talk blog wrote this:

Ralph himself seemed blasé. Standing by an unruly, high-spurting fountain (it was spraying guests), he dismissed the idea that he picks special models as openers: His entire shows, he told us, are filled with “the most beautiful models in the world.” Would he be seeing any other shows this week? “No. No one invited me.” (Good thing he threw a party for himself.) But no one beat Matthew Broderick in the “oh-whatever” department: “I don’t know anything about this stuff,” he said, going on to say that even so, he saw the Valentino show in Italy during his summer vacation. How did it compare Mr. Lauren's event? Valentino “was by the Coliseum, which is pretty exciting. This is Central Park.” Touché.

Jermaine Jordan is the 26-year-old ice-cream man/alleged drug dealer who is now under arrest. Neighborhood parents were concerned that he was possibly selling drugs near a playground where hundreds of area children were spending time during summer vacation. I.S. 8 in Jamaica was hosting a day care summer camp across the street from the Mr. Softee truck.

The New York Times has an interesting and somewhat melancholy article on the decline of street sports played by New York's children. Whereas there was once a time when adults had to bypass certain blocks while walking in their neighborhood, so as to not interrupt multiple games in play, a number of factors have contributed to the downfall of pastimes like stickball. Larger and less crowded apartments, both parents working, video games, air conditioning, fear of crime, a focus on structuring children's free time to advance them socially and academically, less cohesive neighborhoods, and more traffic are all suggested as possible reasons for a drop in most parents' shared summer vacation plea: "Why don't you go out and play?"

A new noise code will go into effect tonight/tomorrow morning when the clock strikes midnight, and that clock better have muffled bells. It's the first comprehensive overhaul of noise ordinances in about 30 years and was proposed by Mayor Bloomberg three and a half years ago. It's mostly oriented towards bars and clubs, where a growing nightlife presence in neighborhoods like the Lower East Side has left many residents sleepless. The New York Times notes that noisy cars and motorcycles will be completely banned from the city, there will be a limit on how long dogs can bark continuously, garbage trucks will be required to stay at least 50 feet from residential buildings between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., construction noise must be mitigated (Adrienne Shelley was killed for complaining about construction noise), and ice cream trucks will have to go quiet when parked curbside. We wonder if this will have any effect on the creative siren-DJ stylings emanating from police cars. Either way, enforcement of the new code may be spotty because the Dept. of Environmental Protection only has 26 noise meters. The police have 80.

City schoolkids are woeful underperformers when it comes to taking a statewide history exam. Just over a quarter proved capable of passing an 8th grade exam that covered the U.S. Constitution, major wars the U.S. has fought in, and native cultures. The passing average for the rest of the state was 55%, which is hardly impressive, but twice as good as city kids' scores. We sympathize with the 2006 test takers, because we tried to take the test and quickly became incredibly bored around the time we reached question #7, which reduced an interesting subject to a stultifying two-tone diagram.

New York High Schoolers, here's your Gothamist Health back-to-school checklist!

-- Is it wrong to wear a puppy as a fanny-pack? Discuss.

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network.

Tonight // 8:30pm // Automotive High School [50 Bedford Ave. Williamsburg] // $8

...Also known as, "What I Tried To Do For My Summer Vacation."