Results tagged “whilegothamist”

The misty drizzle of this morning has given way to a bit of sunshine early this afternoon. It may get a couple degrees warmer this afternoon, with the thermometer topping out around 75 if we're lucky. That's about six degrees warmer than normal.

This isn't the first track, listen: Love Song No. 7.mp3

A woman is suing the posh John Barrett salon for $150,000 over "considerable hair damage." But ladies who lunch, don't worry - it wasn't John Barrett or any of his regular hairstylists who gave the woman a "fright wig" style hairdo. The customer, Maria Torres, who works for the Department of Housing, had a hair treatment with a training program three years ago. And three years later, it's still giving her a bad hair day! The John Barrett Salon says Torres signed a release and "knew it was a training program." While Gothamist can sympathize with someone who has a traumatizing hair cut (it does take about 24-48 hours to adjust), you are totally playing with fire when you go to those training nights.

If subway train cars can get wrapped in ads, why not the subway tunnels? At least, that's what the MTA is thinking, as the agency test moving advertisements along tunnel walls. The ads, whose technology the MTA says "is amazing," may be tested this summer, and one provider of the technology is Sub-Media, whose placements have been on the PATH (you PATH riders get all the new technology first!). ANIMAL new york had looked at the technology a couple years ago and has a good explanation (and links, like this video) of the technology, which uses light to illuminate a series of still photographs that seem animated from a moving train car (think of a zoetrope or even a flipbook). While Gothamist supports any idea that will give help the MTA not raise fares, we're curious how long service will be disrupted in order to install the technology. Hey, maybe that's why the train service is messed on the weekend!

- we think those kids are just into that text messaging business. But the screening procedures, which include checking open beverage containers, sound like a necessary pain. The protest became dramatic (at least on news footage) when a couple students were arrested, some for disorderly conduct and one for assaulting an officer, but the principal felt the protests were peaceable.

NBC; the different sites have the same video from this morning, where she looks very blown out and possibly chinless. Anyway, now, Couric won't be able to have her home redecorated or reorganized during spring cleaning segments, but Gothamist wonders if she'll take CBS viewers on trips to her GI doctor's office. NBC is reportedly close to signing Meredith Vieria to be the new Today show anchor (if you're gonna chose one person from The View, we guess she's the best choice, but we've grown pretty fond of Natalie Morales). Couric will also be working on 60 Minutes, which instantly makes the warhorse program more demographic friendly (younger and more women, probably).

The always parenthetical (real estate mogul, media tycoon, friend of Regis) Donald Trump is a father again! Trump's wife Melania Knauss Trump gave birth to a boy earlier today after eight hours of labor. Already, the newest Trump is on board to help ratings for the fifth season of "The Apprentice". It is only surprising that he waited a full twenty minutes before going to the press, but no word if the baby is yooge.

The annual march of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus elephants from Queens, through the Midtown Tunnel, and westward towards Madison Square Garden is set for 12:01AM on Tuesday, March 21 (that means it's 2 minutes after 11:59PM on Monday night - Gothamist is just spelling it out because we get confused about those thigns). The circus starts an almost four week stand at the Garden on Thursday, March 23, and tickets are on-sale now.

JC: ALL RIGHT! I just took extra Vitamin C - I'm waiting for some food delivery.

While Gothamist first had Ethiopian food several years ago at Meskerem, our most vivid memory of Ethiopian has to be Ben Stiller eating it in Along Came Polly (yeah, we rent every new release on Netflix no matter how bad). Over the weekend, we went to Ghenet with a bunch of other people, which is perfect if you're eating Ethiopian. We ordered plenty of food, which came with a couple of plates of injera.

Earlier in the week Gothamist was despairing that the weather had grown too boring. Not any more! The uncertain weekend forecast of light snow this weekend rapidly changed into a more certain forecast of a substantial snowstorm. The National Weather Service has issued a Blizzard Watch for tomorrow afternoon into Sunday morning. Conditions are set for a classic nor'easter to form off the coast during the day tomorrow. The counter-clockwise circulatioin of the storm will help pull Arctic air into the region. By doing so, the warm, moist air of the storm will ride up over the frigid air. If all goes well the city will see snow, snow, snow! Six to twelve inches are expected over the city and much of Long Island starting late Saturday afternoon. It will be windy as well. Expect lots of blowing and drifting snow.

Yesterday's Chinese New Year Parade brought out revelers of all colors - and species. As you can see from various photographs, dogs were celebrated, this being their year and all. While Gothamist loved seeing dogs wearing traditional Chinese dress (just $25.99!), we wonder if dogs really like to wear dresses and jackets like this. If any dog owners have put a qi pao on their dog, let us know, because it seems difficult.

With the Oscar nominations announced this week, you can expect much of the box office traffic to be people trying to cross films off of their list that they are just now realizing are "important." However, the new releases keep a coming and the New York repertory houses are programming away, so there's loads of good flicks to check out this weekend.

Soft serve lovers rejoice, a compromise on the the Mr. Softee jingle has been reached. The proposed reforms last year to the city's noise code by Mayor Bloomberg called for Mr. Softee to be muted. No more jingle at all hours, no more jingle at all. The compromise reached by the City Council only calls for the jingle to be stopped when the ice cream truck is stopped.

While Gothamist rarely ventures west of the Hudson (Hoboken excluded) the current bear hunt in Vernon, NJ caught our attention. In an attempt to thin out New Jersey's ursine overpopulation, a 6-day hunting season began today which brought out nearly 5,000 hunters to the state's northwest. As in 2003, animal rights groups attempted to block the event, to little success. Although we're not thrilled about the event, we're at least relieved that the hunters are required to rely on shotguns or more old fashioned rifles, and not more modern, laser-guided weapons that make the "sport" even less fair for the animals. Supporters claim the booming number of bears (now estimated to be 1,600 - 3,200) and limited land have forced them to venture into human territory, including local backyards and swimming pools. As of this afternoon, 54 bears had been killed. How do you feel about the event?

Oh, dear. While Gothamist admits to being bemused by rapper DMX's various run-ins with the law and antics at the Queens court house where he's facing charges of violating a previous sentence (when he crashed through a gate at JFK Airport), this is too much. He was almost three hours late for his latest sentencing hearing yesterday, so the judge issued an arrest warrant for him. When he finally showed up, he was asked to spend the night in jail. His lawyer says that DMX's asthma was the reason why he was so delayed (DMX and his wife had to go back home for his inhaler), but that's the shoddiest musician excuse since Ashlee SImpson blaming her lip syncing on acid reflux. If you have asthma, you carry an inhaler around with you!

After years of teasing, the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is finally moving forward. The NYTimes reports that Being John Malkovich's Spike Jonze (called “the strangest little bird” by author Maurice Sendak), is set to direct the “odd” screenplay he wrote with Dave Eggers for Tom Hanks’ production company. So far, the film will extend beyond the children’s classic simple plot to delve into Max’s journey home (semi-minor change: Max escapes with the "wild things" in hot pursuit instead of the island king's beastly subjects begging him to stay). While Gothamist usually cringes about childhood-favorites desecrated on the big screen, we remain quite hopeful with this film -- especially considering Sendak’s tight grip on the script/production, his love for Jonze, and his loathing of movies based on children's books as well as most children's books, which he describes as “all vulgar. It's all Madonna." Asked about the film versions of Cat in the Hat or How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Sendak replied: "What is the purpose of this debauchery? Money! Only a seriously sick or brainless person could like them." Indeed.

Wow, Apple puts U2 on an iPod and all of a sudden, U.S. politicans want a piece of the Irishmen! The New York Times says that the globally conscious band is "distancing" itself from campaign fundraising, as Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Rick Santorum are both planning fundraising events tied to U2 concerts. According to the article, in response to a report from NewsMax about Bono "teaming up" with Santorum, Bono's Debt AIDS Trade Africa group issued a statement saying U2 wasn't connected to any political fundraising events. Even if the fundraiser's husband is a fellow ubersexual? (For the record, Gothamist hates the term "ubersexual" - we're sticking with "a man's man.") While Gothamist understands that U2 would be attractive to politicians because Bono has become an eloquent spokesperson on behalf of many issues, but we wonder why there aren't any American bands that good enough? Surely, there must be an indie rock band with the right kind of convictions that the senators could try to associate themselves with!

There's a great article about the wonderful retail space, Emerge NYC, at 65 Bleecker Street, in the NY Times. While Gothamist has taken into wandering into Emerge NYC during our lunch hour, ooh-ing and aah-ing over hot messenger bags, delicate earrings and cool clothes from young designers. Started by Nicholas Petrou, who created The Market NYC, which is at 268 Mulberry Street and most people call "The Young Designers' Market," it allows new talent to have a retail presence, but without paying the crazy retail rents for space they may not need. The designers pay a $1500-2500 per month for open boutique spaces (26 spaces total, 50-150 square feet), with counter space going for $450-650 a month. There are three dressing rooms with mirrors inside, and the designers are really helpful (although Gothamist felt bad after we tried on three things and didn't buy any of them).

A few things to think about on a warm Saturday night:

Gothamist has a pretty standard taxi routine: get in the cab, say our destination, repeat our destination, repeat our destination a third time (we sometimes speakabitquickly), roll down the windows because the AC is off or sucks, wait, pay and tip the driver, get out. Occasionally we'll get into a conversation with the driver of the standard "where are you from" or "how's traffic" variety but most often we get too absorbed in looking out the window. Which is to say we haven't ever really had any problems with our cabbies, though admittedly we don't taxi that often. But many people have had problems, and now one company is trying to do something about it. Yellow Cab SLSJet, which has 700 cabbies in its employ, is starting to institute a charm school for its drivers. Over the next few months drivers will learn "cabby etiquette" (i.e. stay calm, don't talk politics, smile) and "grooming" (i.e. not so much cologne, stay clean, smile). Cabbies will also be told to lay off the cellphones and to tone down their cultural music.

As summer starts to laze its way to a close (can you believe that some kids are already going back to school?) Gothamist finds that our thoughts, and the A train, keep taking us back to Rockaway. But wouldn't it be nice if going to the beach didn't automatically require an hour-long train trip? What if you could just hop onto a boat to get there (á la the Staten Island Ferry)?

While Gothamist has some reservations about single-sex education, mostly in regards to the all-boys model, we are totally interested to find out how New York City's first public all-girls school works out. Opening its doors in September within P.S. 15 (on E. Fourth) Girls Prep is one of the 16 new charter schools starting up this year and is still accepting applications for a limited number of spots. Not only will the lucky girls who go to this school be getting a social and educational experience generally only found in private and parochial schools but they will also be getting more school than the average NYC student (classes will be from 8-3 and there will be 200 days of classes instead of the usual 180). Going to an all-girls school was one of the best things that ever happened to some of our best friends, so this should be an interesting experiment. And in case you were wondering, yes, uniforms will be required.

While Gothamist understands that Sheffield wants to be a Yankee, we also wonder if he's thought about the team. Gary, we're not sure if you've looked recently, but your team is old and you don't have a no-trade clause in your contract. Concessions or not, your team needs to get younger and this year, unlike years past, the Yankees might be the team to dump players and not add them. Did you think that they might need to trade you to get better? No, of course not, because it was your first choice to come here. Then again, we wouldn't want to play in Shea Stadium either.

Mayor Bloomberg is lucky that New York City has a ton of sports teams in the area, because now the Mets are part of the city's plan to win the 2012 Olympics, with a new Shea Stadium as the centerpiece of the plan. And Mets fans and Queens residents, don't worry: The Mayor is still lukewarm about your team and borough, saying, "This was not our first choice. But when you don't get your first choice, you find what you do have and fight harder to win with that one." Nice one, Bloomby, especially since you have to convince Queens residents and Mets fans to vote for you this fall. Anyway, the details: The Mets will pay for a new 45,000 seat Shea Stadium to be built for the 2009 baseball season, about $600 million, and the city and state will kick in $180 million in infrastructure support; if NYC wins the Olympics, the stadium will be temporarily expanded to be an Olympic stadium serving 80,000 people, with $250 million added to the pot (and old Shea will be an "auxillary" stadium, torn down after the games); and the Mets would play at the new Yankee Stadium if the Olympics come to town in 2012. And Sheldon Silver actually likes this plan. Wow, it's amazing that the Mayor and his aides didn't think of this before. Actually, even though Mike Lupica's panties are in a bunch, Gothamist can understand why Queens was not the first choice: Think tourism, hotels, and just the ability to get to Queens. Still, the Mayor said this was a great thing to happen to Queens and that "New Yorkers are not quitters." No indeed, especially the Mets. To be the underdogs next to the Yankees, to only get this deal after the Jets bow out, oy!

For those that still want to listen to those greatest hits, Infinity says they can listen to the Internet version of the old station, without the radio personalities, we surmise. Jack FM says they will play what they want and blast away the traditional rules of radio. And it's just going to be like your iPod on shuffle. Strange, we feel like we were just mugged of our old iPod.

While Gothamist greatly enjoyed Michael Slackman's NY Times article about fringe NYC politics, because it shed some light on the emerging power of independents and the fascinating background of co-founder Dr. Fred Newman, we decided we loved it most for the 1990 photograph by Angel Franco where you can see a very fat Reverend Al Sharpton. Earlier this year, the NY Times talked to the Reverend Al about his diet and even had photos of him exercising on a Swiss ball, but we didn't realize how much weight he's actually lost. What a way to motivate Gothamist at the beginning of the swimsuit season!