Results tagged “thelike”

Whether you call them variety meats, off cuts, or simply offal, hearts, tripe, tendons and the like aren’t the first things that spring to mind as fit for a gourmet feast.

Earlier this year the law started cracking down on illegal bootleggers of all kinds, so those looking for more inexpensive gifts like Prada bags or not-yet-released DVDs on the city sidewalks may be barking up the wrong Christmas tree. The NY Post reports that cops are paying extra-special attention to the counterfeiters this year, leading to a big decline in sales for the sidewalk entrepreneurs and aiming the consumers to (gasp!) legit storefronts.That's great news...

If you’ve got time-pressed guests from out of town who can’t decide between seeing a show or taking a tour, Accomplice: New York is a great solution. Described as “an adventure in organized crime”, the show is part mystery/scavenger hunt and part walking tour through downtown Manhattan, orchestrated by a gang of seasoned improv actors. It is never exactly clear who’s part of the production and who’s just part of the woodwork, which makes the whole mystery more intriguing. The production has been so successful that a second version, Accomplice: The Village now runs year round in the West Village. Gothamist recently shook some answers out of Tom Salamon, the wise guy behind the operation.

Michael Dory is expanding the definition of graffiti, with his non-visual sonic street art (presented last month at Conflux). His inconspicuous concrete crickets (pictured) recently got some NPR and Boing Boing love, and his own site explains:

Graffiti is one of the most powerful and most personal displays in the urban experience, and can be used to make statements, tag territory, spread messages — urban markup language in practice. However, the output is nearly always visual in nature, making this experience one-dimensional. Furthermore, rarely does the work have a brain of its own, and is usually incapable of reacting to anybody observing it.

Continue reading "Concrete Crickets Are Amongst Us"

Not too long ago Ronen Givony started the Wordless Music Series, which is pretty much just what it sounds like it would be. Sonic worlds collide and fuse classical with indie, jazz with electronic and listeners with instrumental-only music. In the next week audiences will enjoy the sounds of Do Make Say Think and Beirut from an intimate setting for just such an experience.

- Don't be a MetrotardAnd yeah, a lot of these are similar to advice you'd give tourists. But in some cases, these students are four-year tourists.

Has Andy Warhol's estate been dominating the market for the artist's work? One owner of a silkscreen by Warhol says that it has, and yesterday filed a $20 million lawsuit in the U.S. District Court.

Like an elementary school kid who sees his teacher at a movie theater or in the grocery store, and is shocked that he or she doesn't sleep in the school's gym at night and requires food to survive, the media occasionally will note that librarians are not uniformly dour spinsters intent on shushing you and collecting late fines. The New York Sun ran an article Thursday regarding the growing number of librarians who live and socialize in Williamsburg. A group called the Desk Set––made up of librarians, archivists, publishers, illustrators, and the like––was formed by area residents in an attempt to improve the image of librarians beyond the typical stereotypes. They hosted a dance party on Memorial Day weekend, where young professionals gathered and drank cocktails with Dewey Decimal designations that alluded to their identities.

Yesterday, City Council member Simcha Felder held a press conference to announce legislation to ban menus, fliers and circulars from being distributed to homes and buildings. Introduction 427 would "make it illegal to distribute any unsolicited materials to households and buildings that display a sign indicating that they do not wish to receive them." Felder's statement said:

It doesn't matter what borough or what type of building you live in, if you live in New York City, you have been inundated with mounds of unwanted circulars and fliers. It's a waste, it's mess, and it's a threat to our quality of life. To top it off, these unwanted materials often result in Sanitation violations for home and building owners.

While filing out of the Laura Pels Theatre after Patrick Marber’s Howard Katz, a woman of a certain age was heard exclaiming, “A tour de force!” Having brandished that over-ripe phrase myself on probably too many occasions, I was amazed to hear it applied to the play we’d just sat through. Had I been misusing it all this time? Was the expression actually French for “a total waste of time”?

Graffiti at 72 St. B/C downtown subway platform, NYC, 11 Jan 2007, by Carynsolly.

Like many New Yorkers, Graydon Carter could care less about noise caused by new development, renovations, and all the like. But who knew he'd be up for throwing scaffolding down in extreme frustration while wearing shorts in 36 degree weather? Luckily, the Post has the "photo exclusive" that shows the Vanity Fair editor get up in a construction worker's business.

- Even though Mayor Bloomberg says he'll sign the City Council's 25% pay raise (an extra $22,500 to bring the total salary to $112,500), he criticizes the fact that many City Council members are able to have other jobs, since the City Charter says City Council positions are "part-time." He also blasted the "lulus" - aka stipends of thousands of dollars - the City Council members get for chairing committees and the like. Easy for Mayor Moneybags to say!

When going out to send your bills, postcards, thank you cards, and the like have you found your regular mailbox suddenly gone? It isn't your imagination. While the Post Office doesn't keep track of permanently removed mailboxes (uhm, why not?) they do admit that since the Republican National Convention a sizable number have been removed and taken out of service. For instance the 10003 ZIP code (which covers much of the East Village and Gramercy Park) has lost 18 of its 75 boxes between March 2002 and October 2004!

Love Shacks

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As we appreciate the fact that last week's heat wave was last week, the NY Times' Sewell Chan has an article about that the little-known fact that turned-off appliances that are still plugged-in still draw electricity. We mentioned the "standby mode" issue last week, noting that is why Con Ed asks people to actually unplug TVs, printers, computers, and the like when the power demand is high. (It probably isn't a bad idea to unplug them at other times, too.) Many people interviewed were surprised, saying they would have unplugged their various gadget chargers or shut down their computers, with one woman commenting, "The laptop is always connected to the source. I didn’t know that made a difference.” Well, it makes some difference - the Consumer Electronics Association spokesman says that gadgets don't compare to the electricity air-conditioining or lighting sucks out of the system. Which makes us wonder if you've changed your electrical consumption habits? Gothamist thinks we're going to be a little more cautious these days - we know that our little home might not represent much, but if other people unplug one more appliance or use a fan instead of AC during milder hot days, who knows what can happen?

These are scary times for our feet. Yesterday, there were two alarming articles which can only mean that podiatrists are raking it in. The Daily News had an article about the woes to toes from flip-flops - and we've been experiencing some first hand as flip-flops are definitely the easiest thing to wear on the weekends. People (usually ladies) slip, there's tendinitis, and grime from a day's walking - and it's apparently bad to have an open foot wound exposed (putting your wounded foot in a tight, constricting shoe is better, it seems). Doctors' main concern is that people are wearing flip-flops for long distances, as there's clearly no support for your feet, ankles, and legs. Mamma mia, what do the docs say about Crocs?

On Sundays Gothamist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in New York and reviews of recent books and performances. The judgments expressed below are entirely those of the author.

A new book claims that Al Qaeda was 45 days away from attacking the NYC subway system with cyanide gas, but then, for an unknown reason, decided not to. Um, phew? The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind is being excerpted in Time magazine this week, and yesterday, Time teased the excerpt with a "web exclusive" (Ali is an Al Qaeda operative/nformant to the U.S.; Ayeri is "Yusuf al Ayeri, "bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian peninsula"; Zawahiri is Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden's deputy):

Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."

"This is a simple cyanide thing, two chemicals mixed together, and it releases cyanide gas," he said. "They'd be lucky if they killed everybody on one car — you can do that with a 9-millimeter pistol." He added, "None of it has been confirmed in three years, who these guys were, whether they in fact had a weapon, or whether they were able to put together a weapon, whether that weapon has been defined and what it would cause or whether they were even in New York."

There's an interesting article in the Village Voice about downtown residents unhappy with all the Town Cars in the neighborhood. The cars wait for employees at investment banks and the like, and Community Board 1 passed a resolution forcing Goldman Sachs, which is building a new skyscraper on West Street, to "minimize the impact of black cars" to the area. An agreement was reached (GS will keep its cars in a garage until they are called for), though other firms don't necessarily keep their Town Cars from idling and blocking streets and causing pollution in the area, but this is what happens when you have big business and residential areas - you don't hear people complaining about town cars in Midtown, as they are part and parcel there, with law firms, publishing empires and ad agencies - as well as banks. But this makes us wonder if some competitor will introduce the unblack car - a fuel efficient hybrid, perhaps - to appeal to both firms and residents alike.

Special boon for the cross section of the population that are subway nerds and Citibank customers: Select Citibank customers in the NYC area will be chosen to try out the PayPass "contactless payment" system for some NYC subways! A few months after announcing that they would conduct a $44 million pilot test, the MTA revealed that the Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan, along with the Jay Street/Borough Hall A/C/F and 23rd Street Ely Avenue E/Vstops, will start seeing the PayPass for a six month trial. Some pitfalls: The keychain fobs won't let buses read transfers from subways and there will be no unlimited rides (though every sixth ride is free, on the $2 per ride fare system). What about Transitcheks?

Rejoice, freecyclers and freegans: this Google maps mashup is for you! Garbage Scout is sort of a Dodgeball for garbage-lovers. It's motto is "Can you believe someone was throwing this out?" In many cases, we can indeed imagine why someone would throw their crap out, but their loss is indeed your gain. Here's how it works:

Mom always said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That's why we're a little disappointed that the new, hip franchise Cereality has yet to open in the Big Apple. A cafe solely devoted to the love of Froot Loops, Cap'n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and the like, Cereality sounds like the perfect compliment to the diner, pushcart and coffee house options we New Yorkers currently enjoy.

people ruining America - Bush and Cheney! Heh! Anyway, right now, we're in a period when there is talk about the mob's demise and lack of power...time will tell if it rises again.

Over the weekend, the Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street had a fire break out on its 20th floor. Luckily, firefighters were able to control the fire (seven had minor injuries), and the FDNY is still investigating its cause - only maintenance workers were around on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We're glad that the Municipal Building is okay, because it is easily one of the most awesome buildings in the city. Designed by McKim, Mead and White (the firm's first skyscraper), the 34 floor building was completed in 1914 and now houses various city offices. For instance, the Marriage Bureau is there, so that's where the marriages are performed; the Borough President and Public Advocate also work out of there, along with 30,000 city employees. And at the top is the Adolph A. Weinman-designed Civic Fame, which is the tallest statue in the city after the Statue of Liberty. Gothamist's favorite view is from the west, when we walk on Chambers Street and see the building at end. The City Store, which is located in the Municipal Building, has a cool Municipal Building ornament.

There's a good question over at Apartment Therapy's "good questions" regular feature this week that stood out to us: "How do [NYers] incorporate nature or relaxation into their daily lives?"

Gothamist has a long list of things that fascinate us and one of the odder things on said list is the peek into the human psyche provided by security checkpoints (specifically the items they turn up). Luckily we're not the only ones. Sometimes it seems a week doesn't go by without a look at things turning up in airports or train stations showing up in one paper or another. But normally those stories focus on drugs or weapons, so it was with happy interest that we found this article in the Times today.

According to the latest U.S. Census data, Manhattan residents have the highest average income in the country - a sweet $73,000. But then when you realize the average is seriously skewed because of all the bankers, lawyers, celebrities, trust fund babies, and the like, and you start thinking, "Damn, when is my ship going to come in?" And then when you factor in the crazy Manhattan housing costs (see Curbed) and other cost of living expenditures (average for two cocktails at midscale bar: $15; movie ticket: $10-12; dinner out, without drink: $20; amount you're putting in your 401K: what's a 401K?; jaunt to a sample sale: $200 - but it would have been $800 retail!; cab ride home: $10; realization you've burned through your discretionary money for the month in a week: priceless), Gothamist realizes we must track down the median salary from this study. And think about panhandling the Wall Street types who have just gotten their bonuses.

In the wake of the London blasts, Mayor Bloomberg took the subway after arriving from Singapore, in an effort to show New Yorkers that mass transit was safe. Today, there is supposedly at least one police officer on each train (no word on whether they can pass between cars), as security overall has been stepped up all over the region and country. Helicopters are flying above, bomb-sniffing dogs are on patrol and machines guns are being toted around. The NYPD and MTA are reminding people to say something if they see something - suspicious packages and the like. How was your commute last night and this morning?