For the Giants, the opening of free agency saw them lose three players. Kawika Mitchell went to the Bills, Reggie Torbor to the Dolphins and Gibril Wilson to the Raiders. The loss of Wilson will hurt the most, but remember he was once a fifth-round pick. GM Jerry Reese proved last year that he is very good drafting players and won’t overpay in the free agent market, so don’t panic the Super Bowl champs will......

Photos: AP/David Guttenfelder The New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s historic concert in North Korea concluded hours ago, marking the first performance by an American orchestra in the impoverished, totalitarian nation. The event also marked a first for much of the press, who are routinely denied access to North Korea and, once inside, usually find their movements tightly controlled. The Times has a stunning slideshow of photos snapped en route from the airport to the center of......

The California based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company is recalling all its raw and frozen beef products distributed since Feb. 1, 2006 – a total of 143 million pounds of ground beef. The largest beef recall in history was announced after an undercover Humane Society video showed workers kicking sick cows, jabbing them in the eyes and using forklifts to force them to walk to slaughter. (See the video here.) Federal regulations require meat companies to keep......

Grand Central Terminal gets the full PBS American Experience treatment with this documentary from filmmaker Michael Epstein (Monday & Thursday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13). The one hour film traces the history of the terminal, its construction and its impact on New York and the rest of the world. Expect tales of robber barons, dead commuters, and of course fawning over an architectural treasure. Since we' ve seen many local productions about Grand Central, we......

Believe it or not, there was once a time when the subway was celebrated! Channel 13 just launched a video site hosting their visual vault of old shows. The below is from a program that originally aired in 1975, and in part shows the 1870 attempt at an underground transit system. The Beach Pneumatic Transit was a demonstration line secretly built by Scientific American editor Alfred Ely Beach. He constructed the 312-foot tunnel in 58......

Photo via Annulla's Flickr. Within the 843 acres of Central Park one will find 9,000 benches, and many of them tell a story (or at least a name). In 1986 the Central Park Conservancy began their Adopt-A-Bench program to raise money for upkeep. For $7,500 (way less than your yearly rent, and this is forever!) you will get an engraved plaque on one of the benches. There are also select locations with rustic handmade......

Photograph of cab driver in Times Square by nschaden on Flickr The Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that it and the NYPD will be embarking on an undercover program to crackdown on bad cabbie behavior. Cabbies are supposed to let passengers pay with credit cards, not to mention not be rude and chatting on a cell phone during the ride, but the TLC says they hear otherwise. The program is named "Operation Secret......

THEATER: Wolf Lane Productions presents Victims of the Zeitgeist (The Tragedy of Martin Luther King, Jr.), written & directed by Ellwoodson Williams. The production "offers an exciting and telling insight into just who Martin Luther King, Jr., was as leader and simply as a sensitive and intelligent human being who loved life and who had a sense of humor, a deep understanding of the human condition - its strengths and weaknesses - and a profound......

Last year we visited 1520 Sedgwick Avenue's past and uncertain future. The "Birthplace of Hip Hop" was, and still is, in danger of losing its lifeblood when the landlord (BSR Management) announced they wanted to abandon the Mitchell-Lama program. Essentially buying out of the program and leaving the doors open for a rent increase. Then things got worse when BSR made it clear they would be selling the building to a real estate mogul Mark......

Not everyone got an over-hyped "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" when it hit Whole Foods last year, so the powers that be had to step in and put an end to the bag's nemesis: The Plastic Bag! Yesterday, the City Council passed a bill, 44 to 2, requiring stores over 5,000 square-feet to offer recycling for plastic bags, as well as have bins where bags can be returned. And on the plastic bags stores give......

Not only will Governors Island be getting a makeover, it will also get the city's first bike sharing program. amNew York reported that Dutch firm West 8, hired to handle the Governors Island makeover, "will also build 3,000 wooden bicycles for free use by visitors to the island." The island is expected by be renovated by 2012, and the hope is that the bike sharing test will inspire the city to expand the program.......

While announcing that overall felony crime in 2007 is down 6% versus last year, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly proclaimed that the city is on pace "is on course to set a new record in crime reduction" - to have the fewest number of murders "since records have been kept." The city expects the murder rate will be below 500 (as of Wednesday 7:30AM, there have been 484 reported murders), which is the......

Have some extra cash to spend around the holiday season? Even the littlest bit can go a long way in the over 80 year old Operation Santa program. Every year letters pile up at the James A. Farley Post Office from (mostly needy) kids writing to Santa Claus (read one of them here). Their wish lists don't make it to the North Pole, but with New Yorkers pitching in every year, it's as if they......

Charles Mee is renowned for his distinctive approach to playwriting, which synthesizes disparate pre-existing texts into startlingly new theatrical creations bursting with music, dance, video and other inspired surprises. The superb Signature Theatre is now in the midst of their season devoted to his plays; the first production, Iphigenia 2.0, was a devastating depiction of America’s Iraq catastrophe as seen through the prism of classic Greek tragedy. The current show, Queens Boulevard, is a funny,......

Tim Russert has invited all the presidential candidates to appear on Meet the Press, and yesterday former Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared. We imagine many New Yorkers watching the program gnashed their teeth and/or swore at the TV (we happened to do both), as Giuliani tried to answer questions ranging from the straightforward (Giuliani's Iowa poll numbers, Russert asked, "Fifth place, is that a problem?") to the interesting (Russert on Giuliani's consulting business: "A Las......

Riders were stranded on the platform and in subway cars when a Brooklyn-bound L train stalled under the East River just after 8PM. Reader tokyohanna, who took this photograph of people waiting, wrote at the time, "There is a train stalled between first and Bedford. They stopped trains in both directions. A sea of people is on the platform and we can barely walk." amNew York reports that the train had a mechanical failure close......

After a video of a man being harassed and beaten by a group of teens was publicized by The Smoking Gun, some wonder if the tape is real. The main reason why most people suspect it could be staged is because the teen who filmed the incident is an aspiring filmmaker. Seventeen-year-old Kadejra Holmes told The Smoking Gun she didn't have anything to do with the attack and then took the video off YouTube. Her......

The New York City Transit Authority, the MTA division that oversees the subways and buses, will be now split up the management of the subway lines and instead assign a manager to deal with a line or a number of lines. The NY Times spoke to NYC Transit president Howard Roberts Jr.:The goal, Mr. Roberts said, is to have 24 subway lines operating in many ways as 24 self-contained railroads. (The number may vary,......

Operation Lucky Bag, the NYPD program that threatened to ensnare good Samaritans along with subway thieves, is making a comeback after being effectively shut down earlier this year. Initially, the program involved cops leaving bags of merchandise, wallets, or purses on subway benches. When someone picked them up and didn't immediately turn them over to the police or subway personnel, he or she was arrested. According to the police, Operation Lucky Bag netted 101 arrests......

In Charles Mee’s Queens Boulevard (the musical) the titular traffic artery is no longer the “boulevard of blood” notorious for hit-and-run collisions. In fact, there isn’t a drop of blood in Mee’s colorful fairytale, which takes as inspiration the centuries old dance-drama style of Hindu theater called kathakali, among other things. In Mee’s eyes, Queens Boulevard is the symbolic common thread connecting New York’s myriad ethnicities and cultures, with Queens as the proverbial melting pot......

Metro-North has announced a partnership with Enterprise that will likely appeal to anyone who's been gouged by New York City rental car companies. The New York Sun reports that Enterprise will soon have rental cars at 23 Metro North stations in five upstate counties: Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Dutchess, and Putnam. The program has the potential to encourage more budget-conscious New Yorkers to explore points north beyond the Metro North lines. It's not really much of......

“So which is the real Bernie Kerik? Is it the one who pleads not guilty before or is it the one who pleads guilty after he cuts a deal that he’s comfortable with?” - NY1 caller Dalton, from the Upper East Side, to "The Call" Those were the questions that cost NY1 reporter Gary Anthony Ramsay his job, after calling into his own station under a false name. The station deemed it an exceptionally poor......

If you've been paying for Wifi at coffee shops between 42nd Street and Central Park South and between 8th and 6th Avenues, you can start saving up for more grande mocha lattes. CBS will be creating a "CBS Mobile Zone" with free wifi in midtown. In turn, CBS will lead users to an ad-supported homepage. CenterNetworks says that Citi and Salesgenie.com have already signed up. CBS, which owns CBS Outdoor, will wire billbards, MTA displays......

While 30 Rock writers are on the picket line, Alec Baldwin is worried about his neighborhood.. And listening to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. This morning, during a segment where Brian was discussing the future of NYC's streetscape with Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and the Open Planning Project's Mark Gorton, the acclaimed actor and gossip target made his debut as a caller. After joking that he needed a job, here's a transcription......

If the ghosts of Timothy Leary and Nam June Paik collaborated with Kraftwerk and some dancers to make dinner theater aboard a spaceship to The Pleiades, it might feel something like OutMigration, the immersive dining/video/performance experience happening at Williamsburg’s Monkeytown through Sunday. $70 gets you an elaborate 12-course tasting menu, with wine pairings, prepared by chef Ryan Jaronik (formerly the executive chef at Boston’s beloved Masa). Before entering the intimate performance/dinner space, our group......

While hosting a live edition of "Real Time With Bill Maher," a number of 9/11 conspiracy theorists began to shout statements and questions at Bill Maher and guest Chris Matthews. When studio security was slow to respond, Maher left the set himself to remove the disruptive audience member. Other conspiracy theorists continued to interrupt the program by shouting from the audience. Maher yelled back, "This is not a debate. This is a debate between......

Mayor Bloomberg announced that due to a dramatic increase in funding, as many as 14,000 more city kids will be able to attend after-school programs this year. According to the New York Post, that would bring the total number of children participating in after-school activities to 80,000. The expansion is part of New York's Out-of-School Time (OST) initiative and Bloomberg introduced the addition of 112 new after-school programs at an annual conference of the Association......

Mayor Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten announced a new plan rewarding teachers whose schools improve student achievement. Two hundred high-needs schools will be eligible for the program, and if the schools improve, then the bonuses will be distributed through a committee to the teachers. Mayor Bloomberg called the agreement a "breakthrough." Weingarten has long opposed "individual merit pay," but she likes the new plan because a committee, made up of the......

ART: Secrets of Coney Island Creek opens at the Brooklyn Public Library tonight. The exhibit of photographs by photog/author/Coney Island native Charles Denson goes back to the 1960s "when the waterway was at a low point, surrounded by industry and suffering from neglect and pollution. Since then, portions of the creek have been reclaimed, drawing both wildlife and residents to its shores. The photographs in Secrets of Coney Island Creek document those early decades and......

Mayor Bloomberg spent yesterday in Paris and paid particular interest to the City of Light's bike-sharing program. The Parisian program started in July and has thousands of bikes secured around the city's streets. People who need a quick ride can rent the bike's by the half hour, with the first 30 minutes free and increasing fares for each additional half hour to discourage lengthy rentals. Bloomberg seemed curious about the program, but acknowledged that there......