It's hard to believe that another year is coming to a close (we're going to be three next February!) and Gothamist can barely remember what happened last week, let alone 11 months ago. But we've come up with a list of some things that do rise to the top:
- Crimes made for the media: Everyone knows that a crime can sell papers as well as scare and outrage people...this year, they included the murder of Nicole duFresne (bad timing meets the crossroads of race and class), iPod-related crime (haves vs. the have-nots), and the Peter Braunstein case (what the media hath wrought)
- Brooklyn as battlefield for the future: Between Bruce Ratner's dreams, rezoning Greenpoint and Williamsburg and a revamped Coney Island, not to mention a New Yorker cover questioning its status relative to Manhattan, Brooklyn certainly is the buzz borough
- Public art in the city: The Gates as the temporary, and the Alamo as the enduring (subcategory for debate: Graffiti - is it art, advertising - see Time, Sony - or a menace)
- West Side Stadium: Setting the stage for upcoming showdowns between Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Mayor Bloomberg - and questioning what the MTA can do with its money
- Ground Zero stasis: The big projects seem to be stalling (Redesigning Freedom Tower, lack of progress with other projects), but at least the PATH terminal will be constructed, albeit with a mall
- NYC 2012...or not: The best failed attempt for the Olympics in NYC for 2012 ever!
- The Democratic primary: More exciting than the actual election, as well as almost more depressing
- And the lifeblood (and sometimes bane) of our existence, the MTA, NYC Transit, and subway system: From subway bag searches to terror scares, from subway outages to possible automation, from Closing token booths to perverts pleasuring themselves, ending the year with a transit strike for the new millennium, we'd call mass transit our "Thing of the Year"
What do you think are the big stories of the year?
