Results tagged “ucla”

The NY Times' Styles section describes the lonely existence of new residents of the Plaza Hotel condos. Why lonely? Well, if you can afford the pricey digs ($6,400 per square foot!; an owner interviewed paid $5.8 million for a two bedroom), your neighbors are also rich people who probably have other residences and don't live there very often.

A poignant week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part photo essay, one, two). That wasn't the only photo essay either: Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy friends and Star Trek actors all joined in at the Writers Strike and KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas brought two nights of amazing bands that included Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park (Part I), Modest Mouse, Muse, Spoon and The Killers (Part II). Not only is L.A. a great music town, it has just been named the best city for bookish types. For those who are looking for something a little more active, American Gladiators are back (yes!) and if that's not enough, how about a Christmas gift of action and adventure?

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week.

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed.

Local teams may have been shut out of the NCAA tournament's Final Four, but New York is not without representation in Atlanta. Florida phenom Joakim Noah calls NYC home, as does Georgetown's Jesse Sapp. Neither played high school basketball in New York: Noah played for The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and Sapp attended National Christian Academy in Maryland. Ohio State and UCLA are sadly New York City-free teams.

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend...

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own,

Twenty-nine workers died in construction accidents in New York during the 12 months ending September 30, marking a 61% increase over the previous year and a 5-year high, according to OSHA and the NYC Dept. of Buildings. Over half of the victims fell to their death, while falling material was the second most fatal cause.

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa...

Bronx High School of Science, one of the city's top magnet schools, is suddently in a pickle (or is that kimchee?) with Korean parents. The NY Sun reports that parents have raised more than $100,000 to start a promisd Korean language program at the school, but the school has only offered an elective since. There are lots of questions, like why did the school accept checks from parents while the Department of Education denies any knowledge of them and why did parents fundraise when donated money cannot pay for teachers. The school did give back $70,000 in donations from Jwin Electronics, but the DOE can't seem to account for thousands of dollars from other organizations, like the Korean Embassy and LG Electronics. And then there's this:

Interest in the matter has even extended to the West Coast. A professor at UCLA, Ailee Moon, is the president of the Foundation for Korean Language and Culture, which contributed $5,000 and flew to New York to review the program with the principal in February of this year. Ms Moon was concerned that only the one course was offered.

Continue reading "Bronx Science Brouhaha with Korean Parents"

Gothamist knew this Final Four had the potential to be a dud following the first two weeks leading up to the tournament. That said, we didn't think it would be this bad. Florida romped through UCLA 73-57 in Monday's championship game, giving the Gators their first national title and preventing the Bruins from collecting their twelfth. Florida played like a well-coached, athletic team that made a normally stingy UCLA team look lost on defense and out of rhythm on offense.

). To make it up to you, we've added two new stats for us to track each week: The total number of previous weddings that ended in death and divorce.

The Coney Island Development Corp. is the city organization charged with the new plan. Here's a UCLA site about the old Coney Island. And our recent post on some current Coney tenants being quietly edged out.

I was born during the Kennedy administration, in Milwaukee Wisconsin, so people can date me within a thousand days. I went to Tufts University in Boston, which is where I started making short films. In fact, my first project was with my next-door neighbor, Gary Winick, who directed Tadpole and is off doing Charlotte’s Web right now. I had an idea to do a short film on super 8, I asked Gary if he would act in it, which he agreed. So, he had to take of his Fiorucci’s. He was from New York, so that’s what they were wearing at the time.

With the bowl picture set, how did your team do? Do you think they got robbed by the BCS? Are lucky to be in anything at all, or are just right where they are. Better yet, are you making the trip to watch your team in points south or west?

Well, we didn't get alot right, but at least we called Sebastian Telfair to the Blazers at 13. Gothamist spent the last week looking up florists in Portland, Orgeon so we could send Blazers GM John Nash a big bouquet of flowers. Because Telfair went early, high school stud Al Jefferson fell to Boston at 15, providing the Celtics with the bruising PF they so desperately needed.

The off-campus death of Chien, UCLA transfer and daughter of a senior VP at TiVo, did make the death feel "removed" (versus the deaths at the Bobst Library), but students are still upset, one telling the Times, "People are sort of angry and bitter. They don't understand why this keeps happening." The Times also notes that police cannot confirm the Post's report, based on police sources, that Chien had argued with her boyfriend earlier in the day. While Gothamist knows suicides and deaths during college year are, sadly, a part of what happens, we also think that the unusual number of recent deaths, coupled with the fact that NY has a number of big media outlets, makes the situation more publicized.

Read UCLA's topline of the World Internet Report. And an earlier study that reported people who use the Internet a lot are krazy.

University of Florida researchers say that high internet use may be harmful to your health and emotional state, as well as may be an indicator of mental problems. Tell Gothamist something we don't already know. "Web surfing, e-mailing, instant messaging, gaming, shopping, downloading music and visiting chat rooms become troublesome when they interfere with someone's job or social life" according to the CNN article that we'll be forwarding to our friends and colleagues as Exhibit 2953 in "The Cafe For Gothamist's Insanity." Also, high Internet use might not just be dysfunctional - it could be a "byproduct" of something like manic depression. No joke - that study had a sample size of 37.

I was reading this article on China in the Times, and I started thinking about how many cities there are in China. According to this list that I found at UCLA, there are over 99 cities in China with populations of more that a million people. Most of these cities I've never heard of- Tianjin, Qingdao, Shenyang, and Guangzhou all have more than three million people. According to this table at Travelgis, there are only 22 cities in the world with populations of more than five million people- surpringly the largest one is Seoul, with about 10.8 million residents.