Results tagged “survey”

MTA surveys are so fun, because we pretty much just find out that everything is the worst, everywhere. But wherever you are, rest assured that it really could be worse. Unless you are in Ridgewood, Queens—then consider yourself gold star winners in the most dilapidated subway station contest!

The "who has the best pizza in town" debate could, and likely will, go on forever. It'll be the End of Days and we'll all be sitting around, like, "Grimaldi's!" "DiFara's!" "Totonno's!" "Patsy's in East Harlem!" Anyway, there's a new blogger in town with an insatiable hunger for pizza pies, and he declares his mission is to "eat a slice of pizza at every pizzeria in New York City. I'm going by neighborhood, starting in Manhattan, getting a plain slice at every place." And just to clarify, he is not interested in your shark fin truffle oil flatbread gourmet non-pizzas, he simply wants to sample "every single plain slice in New York City to scientifically determine which is the absolute best one." This sounds amazing, but it'll be so sad when he finally finishes up with his 5-borough survey only to find his winning pizzeria has since shut down, and 150 more have popped up. This blog, like the debate, has the potential to never end... but it already has us craving a slice from Frank Pepe (yeah we said it: the best slice might just be found in New Haven). [via Slice]

As the classic song goes, 911 is a joke—but calling police precincts is even more of a laugh, according a little survey conducted by the Daily News. Over the course of a month, reporters called all 76 neighborhood precinct stationhouses across the city at least seven times and found that many of them need to work on their telephone manners. The tabloid gave 40% of them a ranking of "unacceptable" because nobody picked up within 10 rings on at least five out of seven calls. At one Bronx stationhouse, a uniformed officer twice picked up the phone and immediately hung it up after a reporter called from the waiting area. At the 104th Precinct stationhouse in Ridgewood, Queens, when a reporter asked to be transferred to Community Affairs, the phone rang 175 times before the caller finally gave up. And on two occasions at the 66th Precinct, the stationhouse's phone rang at least 50 times—then went to a busy signal. One anonymous cop explains that officers simply dread answering the phone, because "if you pick up the phone you are stuck with whatever ... is coming out of the receiver." NYPD commissioner Paul Browne says New Yorkers should just call 911 during emergencies.

JFK is the third worst airport to try and catch some shut-eye in, according to a newly released survey of 6,200 travelers by travel website The Guide to Sleeping in Airports. The airport's ranking is blamed on coldness, frequent P.A. announcements, TV monitors blaring CNN, bright lights, and overabundance of seats with armrests. Here's one thwarted sleeper's rough experience: "Our flight left at 7 a.m. and since the subway had crazy transport times during non-peak times we decided to stay at JFK. We went upstairs to the red carpet area next to BWIA check in and this security guard 'Agapita' ... told us to move. Then we went downstairs and fell asleep lying on the cold floor. We awoke to this horrid clapping of Agapita saying, 'You cant sleep here! Move now before I throw you out!' It was horrible! She told us we couldn't be on the floor. My witty friend then asked if we could stand on the floor and she said 'NO' she was a pain to everyone there! Thanks Agapita!" According to the poll, the worst airport for sleeping is Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris; second worst is Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, where Agapitushka, the notorious Siberian security guard, keeps all her comrades alert.

A survey of all 62 state Senators shows that a pending same-sex marriage bill faces tough odds of passing if brought to the floor for a vote. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith says he won't do that unless he's certain it has the 32 votes needed for passage, and the survey, conducted by NY1, would seem to contradict the bill's primary sponsor, Thomas Duane, who has optimistically predicted "there are enough votes for it to pass and a cushion." Reverend Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms tells NY1, "We're very confident in the fact that this bill is quickly going to crash and burn."

Mayor Bloomberg may be enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls, but that $80 million he plans to drop on his re-election campaign isn't going to spend itself. As Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause, tells the Times, "If you have too much money in your campaign, you don’t use it productively. He’s hired so many consultants who are looking for something to do." Like annoy New Yorkers with a telephone survey spreading innuendo about likely Democratic rival Anthony Weiner! The practice, known as "push-polling," is described by one of Weiner's advisers as, "one of the most discredited and dishonorable forms of negative campaigning."

A recently-released survey found that while NYC residents admit they enjoy a drink or two to unwind, they may be in denial about their weight problems. According to the Post, a Siena Research Institute survey found that of the New Yorkers who say they drink alcohol, 45 percent estimate they have one or two drinks in a week. On the other end of the spectrum, 12 percent admit they knock back over 15 drinks every week. (Is that a lot?) And 41 percent of New Yorkers admit they're fat, but 2007 federal statistics tell a different story, estimating that 56 percent of NYC residents are overweight. Poll organizer Dr. Don Levy pins the discrepancy New Yorkers' refusal to face the truth about their disgusting fat-bodies: "It's one thing to lie to me. It's another thing to lie to yourself." As for the drinking habits, the survey says upstate New Yorkers actually drink more than city folk, which doesn't surprise snob on the street David Dutkanicz, who tells the Post, "I agree with those numbers. People have more to do here than drink. Whenever I'm in upstate New York, I see more drunken and sloppy behavior."

According to the temperance scolds over at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, you are a binge drinker if you consume more than five alcoholic beverages during one occasion. We always thought that just means you're a New Yorker, but apparently drinkers nationwide go on crazy, multi-drink "binges" just as much as we do here. A study released today finds that 15% of New Yorkers cop to "binging" at least once a month, compared to 16% nationwide.

Did you hear? The office party's been cut from the budget, according to a poll by FreshDirect & BizBash. This means that drunken coworker makeout, drunken coworker karaoke, and drunken telling your boss off will also be down to an all time low. Just how low? More than 65% of New York businesses are eliminating or scaling back on holiday parties this year, according to the survey of more than 200 event professionals in New York City. Of course, FreshDirect also has a solution to the problem: use their "At The Office" service to cut down on costs and party it up in your cubicles! Last month a catering company told ABC News that the drop-off in business is the worst it's been since post-9/11 2001. Oh well, take a break and watch a clip from The Office's season 3 Christmas special.

In a recent Zagat survey, 10,000 frequent fliers ranked LaGuardia the worst out of America's 27 biggest airports, the Daily News reports. JFK didn't fare much better either, coming in fourth from the bottom of the list. Zagat Buzz has more on the survey, which declared Tampa the best airport in the land. Speaking to the News on her way through LaGuardia, 40-year-old Jennifer Thayer of Colorado Springs griped that the airport "seems like it's out of the 1960s. There's not a whole lot of choices." Never mind how a place without choices resembles the swinging sixties; what bothers Thayer is that "they don't have those massage people." Not true! Tomorrow, Lather Spa is giving out free massages in Delta’s Crown Room Club. But too little, too late for Thayer; she's already back in Colorado, where they say the airports smell of sandalwood and ambrosia.

Forty of New York's "star chefs" anonymously shared their secrets in a survey for Time Out NY, dishing on a wide range of topics, from ingredients in their kitchens they'd never admit to using ("Chopped meat from SYSCO") to the dumbest Health Department rules ("The gloves thing. I use them all the time, but a fuckload of people don’t know how to use them correctly or change them enough. I’ve seen people do some fucked-up things with gloves on—wipe their ass, grab their goodies, touch raw chicken and then go back to cooking/salad-tossing with the same gloves on.") But enough talk of salad-tossing, let's get to the sex! 50% of these chefs insist they've "nailed a hostess," and 69% (ha?) of those claim the "nailing" occurred on the bar. But at least one chef was unamused: "First of all, this question presumes the person completing the survey is a man, and second, it insinuates that the hostess is some kind of bimbette that can be pounded. (I don’t see you asking if you’ve ever blown a busboy in the dish room.)"

How has the summer been treating straphangers underground? Allegedly, the subway system's air conditioning is cooling everyone off...everyone except those taking the E train.

An international survey of metropolitan residents around the world has found that less than 10% of New Yorkers are happy with the city’s services – a far lower number than in cities abroad like Singapore, where 61% insist they’re satisfied.

For three years straight, NYU has dominated the annual Princeton Review "College Hopes and Worries" survey, coming in as the #1 “dream school” for college-bound students. But now NYU’s reign of dreams has turned into a humiliating nightmare, as the 2008 survey shows the university plummeting to the #4 slot, bested by Harvard, Stanford and Princeton.

Between the 2002 and 2004, New York City residents gained 10 million pounds, becoming Rubenesque at a rate nearly three times that of other Americans, according to a survey by city health officials. Obesity and diabetes rates in the city soared 17% between 2002 and 2004, compared to a 6% rise in obesity rates nationwide, where there was no marked increase in the rate of diabetes.

By contrast, there were about 11,000 spaces in Lower Manhattan available for drivers with placards, including spots designated for authorized vehicles, loading zones, no-parking zones, and all the metered and unregulated spaces open to the public. Many placards allow free parking in metered spaces.Reducing the number of placards issued by the City has been a goal of Mayor Bloomberg's second term. The Mayor wants to reduce the number of placards issued to civil servants by 20%. Currently, there are more than 140,000 vehicles with free-parking placards, not including counterfeit and expired emblems.