Results tagged “tribune”

The Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and Baltimore Sun, as well as the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, has filed for bankruptcy, which Dealbook calls, "the latest — and biggest — sign of duress for the newspaper industry yet." A year ago, real estate developer Sam Zell bought the Tribune Co., but the Wall Street Journal says the Tribune "stayed ahead of its $12 billion in borrowings with the help of asset sales... The company's cash flow may not be enough to cover nearly $1 billion in interest payments due this year, and Tribune owes a $512 million debt payment in June." Tribune sold off Newsday to Cablevision earlier this year, but still owns WPIX/Channel 11.

Newsday reports that Cablevision is near a deal with Tribune to buy...Newsday! The Bethpage-based company had bid $650 million, $70 million more than bids from both News Corp. and the Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman.

Slice took the photo here and wondered what the story was behind this sign, which is part of a series of alternating signs in the window of a Union Street home in Park slope. Well, our buddy at the NSA owed us a favor, and we tracked down the man behind the cryptic signage.

Geez, the weather this winter has been uneventful. There's no letup of dull weather in sight, at least in New York. We took a gander at LAist this morning only to see that Los Angeles has more snow than Gotham City. The massive west coast storm has dropped up to eighteen inches of snow at higher elevations in Los Angeles County.

The family and friend of the Minnesota tourist who took a fatal plunge from a Midtown hotel this past weekend are saying her death is not a suicide. Twenty-one-year-old Jennifer Olson fell 60 feet from a fire escape at the Night Hotel and earlier reports suggested she jumped, but her friend, Timothy O'Neill, told the Daily News, "I don't believe it was suicide. I believe it was accidental. After drinking six or seven hours, people aren't thinking clearly."

Ten years ago today, Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan left their rent-stabilized loft in downtown Manhattan, went for a jog, rented a video and were never seen again. Today, the Daily News revisits the mystery and speaks to Sylvia's mother. Laurie Sylvia says, "I want to know what happened. Each year that goes by I think, maybe this year. I never imagined I would be doing that for 10 years."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA/Fall Victim at 1 Hogan Place in Manhattan (that's the Manhattan DA's office), a double stabbing on East 171st St. in the Bronx, and an overturned ambulance at Broadway and Delafield Ave. on Staten Island.
• Opening day sales for tickets to The Metropolitan Opera set a record this Sunday after increasing 25% year over year, to $2.08 million. Online sales to performances were 50% higher than 2006's opening.
• New York apple growers are concerned despite what is shaping up to be an excellent harvest this year. Recent moves to crack down on illegal immigration means that orchard owners may not be able to fill the demand for seasonal agricultural workers to pick all of the apples.
• Cops arrested the surgical scrubs-wearing bank robber who darted into a hospital where he blended with facility personnel to evade capture. 50-year-old Robert Britt actually works at the VA hospital near the bank he robbed and already served seven years in prison during the 1980s for another bank robbery.
• An unauthorized biography of Katie Couric paints an unflattering portrait of the CBS News anchor, including allegations that the only reason she didn't file for divorce from her cancer-stricken husband was a fear of bad publicity.
• Bobby's Happy House, a Harlem music store opened in 1946, is being asked to leave its present location by new building owners, and 90-year-old owner Bobby Robinson is unsure if he will be able to find a new space to open.
• Curbed looks at the mysterious "Pine Tree Building" on 2nd Place between Hoyt and Boyd Sts. in Carroll Gardens.
• A class action suit has been filed on behalf of the approximately 100 men and women who hand out copies of AMNewYork newspapers in front of subway stations. The suit against the Tribune Co. alleges that the $20 a day workers are paid to distribute the papers is below New York's minimum wage when one takes into account how long employees work.

George Steinbrenner's poor health isn't new news, but a September Conde Nast Portfolio article paints a picture as to how The Boss is really doing. Franz Lidz and former Tampa Tribune sports editor Tom McEwen, an old friend of Steinbrenner's, paid a visit to the Yankees principal owner at his home in Tampa. Once at the Steinbrenner residence, the two have what seems to be a rather quick conversation with Steinbrenner at the door.

The Moondance Diner shut its doors at the end of June at which time it was rumored that it would live out its years at a museum in Pennsylvania. The free-standing diner has changed its path, however, and now it's headed to the small town of La Barge, Wyoming.

The Knicks have a bad history of getting robbed when it comes to the Windy City and Eddy Curry (forget all their history with the Jordan-era Bulls). First, the Knicks traded for Eddy Curry in a deal that also gave the Bulls the 9th pick in the 2007 draft (they picked Joakim Noah) and early Saturday morning Curry was robbed at gunpoint in his suburban Chicago home. Three masked intruders tied up Curry, his wife and an employee with duct tape and robbed the home of jewelry and cash.

There was a suspicious package in Times Square this afternoon. The NYPD shut down Times Square briefly as they investigated the object at 42nd and 7th Avenue. And the package turned out to be a red backpack forgotten by its Brooklyn owner. D'oh!

President Bush is taking his No Child Left Behind Act education platform to Harlem today, with an afternoon visit to the Harlem Village Academies charter school on West 144th Street today. Yes, that's what all the traffic and security is for- as well as the lack of garbage cans. The school and Department of Education are proud that Harlem Village Academy was selected; founder Deborah Kenny tells the Sun, "We take in kids that are really struggling, but they just get better and better, and stronger and stronger."

As the Virginia Tech story broke last Monday, cable news, as always, took the lead with their normal oversaturated speculative coverage transferring the energy and resources normally reserved for non-story stories like the Anna Nicole Smith saga into covering a real story.

On-air personalities (especially those of the "shock jock" genre) are really raising the bar in crossing the line this month. While there's been some high-profile stupid DJ behavior in the past - Hot 97's Tsunami Song, Opie & Anthony broadcasting a couple having sex at St. Patrick's, DJ Star asking listeners for information where a radio rival's young daughter goes to school so he could ejaculate and pee on her - the last week has been a doozy.

At the Sundance Film Festival, the film Waitress will premiere this afternoon. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. Last November, Shelly had been waiting to hear whether her film was going to be accepted by the Sundance Film Festival when she was found dead in a the Greenwich Village apartment building she had an office in. Initially, police suspected Shelly killed herself, since her body was found hanging from shower rod, but her family and friends couldn't believe she would commit suicide with so much happening in her life. It turned out she had been killed and her body was staged to look like suicide; the suspect, a construction worker who admitted he got into a fight with Shelly when she complained about the noise he was making.

Oooh, Itsu Sushi has opened downtown! What's the big deal about Itsu? For starters, it's the from the same chain as the one where former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko had lunch on the day he was fatally poisoned with polonium!

May the television gods hear our and others' pleas! Last month, the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan broke the news that Tim Gunn was not signed for a fourth season of Project Runway:

Will he be back? Ever the modest one, he would only say he "makes no assumptions," but he would come back "in a heartbeat" if asked. There's no official word, by the way, that there will be a fourth season, but it seems more likely than a supersize season finale of "Grey's."

Continue reading "Project Runway Cannot Carry On Without Tim Gunn"

- Grub Street reports that the Frying Pan rumors are true -- it will, in fact, be closing, at least at its current location. Their lease at Pier 63 has expired, but accoring to the owner's wife, there's no need for despair quite yet. "Pending recently commenced negotiations, the John J. Harvey fireboat, the Frying Pan, the kayak storage shed, and the recently opened Cafe du Soleil will tie up at Pier 66A, an old float bridge, and the Pan will serve food at another newly installed section of the park as early as next spring."

What the heck? The Crain's reports that Rudy Giuliani and a team of other investors may make a bid to buy the Chicago Cubs. Hall of Fame Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks ("Let's Play Two!") is interested in buying the team, though current owner, the Tribune Co. claims the team is not for sale (in spite of other scuttlebutt that Mark Cuban may be interested in the Cubs as well). And Banks says Giuliani Partners and LA-based Comstock Capital approached him about the deal, but neither firm would confirm that much.

Jeez-- just what the Village needs-- another Duane Reade! Kim's Video used to live in the basement of this building on the corner of Bleecker and Laguardia-- it was a dank, fetid, dark little hole, but it was the only place within ten blocks where you could rent a video or DVD, and the clerks knew what they were talking about. The facade of the building was decorated with strange plexiglass sculptures-- it's too bad that we can't find a picture of them online.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today and the old Gray Lady takes three, but the Washington Post won four (criticism, beat reporting, explanatory writing, and investigative reporting). However, the real story might be the awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage, a public service award shared by the Sun-Herald in Biloxi and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, breaking news photography award for the Dallas Morning News and a breaking news reporting awards fro the Times-Picayune.

Another really short Weddings and Celebrations this week, so enough with the pleasantries and let's just jump in:

Whoa-- the New York State Liquor Authority has issued a fatwa against a bunch of bars on West Broadway in Tribeca. Their crime? Apparently they are located a little too close to a low-profile mosque located in one of the nearby buildings (the Sufi Masjid al-Farah at 245 West Broadway.). The SLA has issued summons to The Bubble Lounge, Cercle Rouge, and the Tribeca Tavern. Another bar, The Liquor Store, has already been denied a liquor license, preventing it from reopening after an ownership change last year. The Tribeca Tribune broke the story:

Also entering its fifth year, Stereogum.com has been named Best Music Blog by Spin, Teen People and Forbes. Even Newsweek thinks it's hot. The site examines music through the prism of popular culture, and with over 500,000 unique visitors a month, it's safe to say it's the place for "indie yuppies" to discover the latest buzz bands. Site founder Scott Lapatine was recently ranked USAToday.com's 76th Top Person of 2005. Scott will be joined on the decks by co-bloggers Jim Jazwiecki and Jed Teres.

A week after Curbed (and the Tribeca Tribune) covered the future 10,000 square foot Tribeca house that's supposed to be very a humble little family that couldn't resist a good deal (a good deal with you gots millions), the NY Post takes up the story. Which makes Gothamist wonder if the Schnall family and their architect are trying to win over the court of public opinion, if not the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in trying to add a huge structure to the buliding where No Moore once was. But this trend towards 10,000 square foot family homes is nothing new: An East Village building is trying to evict its tenants to make a crazy mansion!

Rachel Sklar, co-editor and writer of FishbowlNY

'Tis the season for presidential endorsements. The city's paper of record, The New York Times, bestowed an endorsement of Senator John Kerry for President yesterday, describing him as a man with a "strong moral core" and "not just a modest improvement on the incumbent," closing with:

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Continue reading "Endorsements Come 14 Days Before The Election"

The Post liked pointing out that Getter had a copy of the Post in his protective vest, which broke off the knife's handle; in the Post's words, Getter used "a copy of the New York Post to help save his own life." Malayaev had managed to crawl away from the Park, across the street to a Duane Reade, where others helped him. Malayaev and de Jesus are both in serious condition.

And by way of New Yorkish, two-twenty has the exclusive on how am New York paper promoters are dealing with the Metro promoters.