Urbanite

Muted campaigning ahead of Tuesday's runoff for citywide posts

Monday September 28, 2009 6:18 PM By Heather Haddon

City Councilman David Yassky, left, and Queens City Councilman John Liu, shake hands prior to their debate last week. (AP Photo)

Anemic turnout among Democrats today is expected to settle the races for comptroller and public advocate.

Polls for the runoff elections are open until 9 p.m., but turnout is likely to be even lighter than the primary.

City Councilman John Liu of Queens faces Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn for the Democratic nomination for comptroller. For public advocate, Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn is running against Mark Green, who is trying to regain his old job. 

Candidates were hamstrung from serious campaigning yesterday by Yom Kippur.

“It's been a light schedule out of respect,” said Sharon Lee, a Liu spokeswoman.

Yassky spent the day at his Brooklyn Heights synagogue and started campaigning after sundown, his spokesman said. Green also refrained from daytime politicking.

Liu hit senior centers, along with subways stops in Brooklyn and Harlem, during seven campaign events yesterday.

De Blasio attended a union rally of retirees and met with voters in Staten Island and Chinatown.

 The Working Families Party endorsed de Blasio and Liu. A poll last week found Liu ahead of Yassky by six points, and Green and de Blasio tied. During the primaries, Liu and de Blasio had slight leads.

For more information, call 866-VOTE-NYC.

Terror suspect allegedly bought bomb-making supplies at beauty store

Thursday September 24, 2009 8:39 PM By Jason Fink

Najibullah Zazi is hauled away by the FBI in Aurora, Colo., last Saturday. (Photo: AP/The Denver Post)

A terror suspect accused of plotting an attack in the U.S. bought bomb materials from beauty supply stores and urgently sought advice on homemade explosives days before he drove to New York from Colorado this month, according to court documents released Thursday.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, of Aurora, Colo., also researched home improvement stores in Flushing where he could buy a component in the same type of bombs used in the 2005 London subway attacks, federal authorities said.

Zazi was charged Thursday with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and is expected to be brought back to New York from Denver — where he was held on charges of lying to investigators — as early as Friday.

Law enforcement sources told The Associated Press that Zazi and others may have been planning to detonate bombs on trains in New York City.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the threat has been diffused but told the public to remain “vigilant.”

Federal prosecutors in New York said in papers filed Thursday that Zazi, a former resident of Flushing, traveled last year to Pakistan, where he received training in manufacturing bombs. Counterterrorism officials found handwritten bomb-making instructions scanned onto a laptop Zazi had with him when he traveled to New York by car on Sept. 9.

Just days before that trip, Zazi tried to communicate with someone seeking the “correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives,” according to documents filed by the feds seeking to deny Zazi bail. “Each communication [was] more urgent in tone than the last.”

Recently, Zazi and associates bought “unusually large quantities of hydrogen peroxide and acetone products” from beauty supply stores in Aurora, components that can be used to make explosives, court papers said.

Karan Hoss, president of the California-based Beauty Supply Warehouse, said the firm turned over store security video of a man matching Zazi’s description to the FBI. “We have pretty good angles of him coming in,” she said.

Just before he left for New York, Zazi checked into a Colorado hotel with associates; FBI agents later found residue in the room consistent with heating acetone, court documents said.

Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, and Queens Imam Ahmad Wais Afzali appeared in court Thursday on charges of lying to investigators in connection with the plot.

Mohammed Zazi was ordered in Denver to be freed under court supervision until an Oct. 9 hearing. Afzali was released in New York on $1.5 million bond.

All the men have denied involvement in any terror plots.

(With AP)

jason.fink@am-ny.com

The art of living together, apart

Thursday September 17, 2009 9:08 PM By Emily Ngo

Ramon Lopez, 27, lives in Cranford, N.J., while his girlfriend of more than six years, Kimberly Kaye, 26, lives in Brooklyn. They prefer it to live together, apart. (Photos: Katya Pronin)

Judith Newman shares 15 years of marriage and twin sons with the love of her life.

Sharing a home with him, however, isn’t part of the grand plan.

“We’re too different in ways that involve living together to live together,” said Newman, a writer and self-professed slob living in the Village. Her husband, John, fastidious by contrast, lives on the Upper West Side. “It has nothing to do with faith or trust or loving a person.”

The trend of committed couples living apart has become so notable that sociologists have a name for it — LAT, short for “living apart together.” About 3 percent of married couples in the U.S. are in LAT unions, according to a recent UCLA study.

These pairs are usually well educated with big incomes, said study co-author Charles Strom, acknowledging that maintaining two residences in New York City is no cheap feat.

An independent streak is also characteristic of such couples. “LAT relationships may be the perfect trick for New Yorkers who want to balance their desire for an intimate relationship with the autonomy to pursue their work or educational goals,” Strom said in an e-mail interview.

Work is among the reasons newlywed communication consultant Gisela Keller stays in Brooklyn, while her husband lives in Vermont. Both need to be close to their jobs, but flexible schedules and an easy five-hour Amtrak trek help them remain connected.

Of course, these couplings are hardly traditional. They put up with all sorts of questions from friends and family. Among them: Don’t you get lonely? Or jealous? Is your marriage actually in trouble?

Keller acknowledges her situation is not the “regular usual. People find that difficult to understand. They say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s just a transitional period,’” Keller said. “But sometimes just to be by yourself, it’s not that bad.”

That’s the sentiment of celebrities Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, who have the luxury of owning neighboring London houses connected by a corridor. “If you’ve got some money, and you can afford it, why not have your own space?” Bonham Carter said in London’s The Observer. “You never have to compromise emotionally or feel invaded.”

And it worked — and then famously failed — for Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, who once kept separate homes on either side of Central Park.

Kimberly Kaye and her boyfriend of six years have chosen to put the Hudson River between them.

“It’s hard to do the couples thing is you’re career-orientated,” said Kaye, 26, a Bushwick-based journalist whose boyfriend, Ray, lives in Cranston, N.J. They spend most weekends together but likely will continue to live apart after they’re married, Kaye said.

Surviving in the New York job market has required tenacity and long hours in which Kaye might otherwise feel guilty indulging, she said. “We live independent lives and are part of each other’s independent lives.”

Newman, who joked that her husband keeps little more than a toothbrush at her apartment, said the couple’s 7-year-old twins enjoy having an “uptown home” and “downtown home.”

“I can’t imagine a situation where I would be more in sync with someone than I am with my husband, but our tastes are radically different,” Newman said. “We are very lucky that we have this situation. We have plenty of things to argue about already.”

emily.ngo@am-ny.com

Report: Area venture capitalists invest 90 percent of money outside New York City

Wednesday September 2, 2009 8:11 PM By Garett Sloane

The region’s venture capitalists are big spenders, but they’re not spending so big in the city.

Venture capital firms in the tri-state area shower only 10 percent of their money on city startups, according to a new report that tracked the flow of investment dollars from January to July.

The report, released by ChubbyBrain, a startup research company, analyzed the investments of 47 area firms and found they doled out more than $2 billion in the first half of the year, which represented 20 percent of all venture funding. Still, only $200 million went to city startups.

“New York is trying very actively to build up its entrepreneurial sector,” said Maria Gotsch, CEO of the civic-minded New York City Investment Fund. “So it shows we have a lot of work to do.”

The city has traditionally lagged behind Silicon Valley and Boston in startup activity, where the ecosystems are more fully developed. ChubbyBrain’s research is just another example of the disparity, but investors and entrepreneurs here said they detect a shift for the better.

Gotsch points to the creation of the East River Science Park, which should help jumpstart the city’s bio-tech sector. Bio-tech demands heavy investment dollars: “When you start a biotech company you can’t do it at a Starbucks,” she said.

FirstMark Capital is one of the larger investment funds in the city and about half of its deals are done close to home, said Rick Heitzman, a partner at the firm. It’s not the amount of money you give locally, but the amount of deals you foster, he said. For example, a firm could invest $60 million in China to one company and spread a fraction of that money to a handful of companies locally.

Still, the number of local deals that area firms are funding is low. Only 18.5 percent of the deals were in the city, according to ChubbyBrain.

Heitzman said he expects that number to change as the city’s entrepreneurial sector booms with startups breeding more startups.

“I’m seeing a lot of great seed type investments,” he said.

One statistic ChubbyBrain’s report didn’t track was the amount of outside venture capital coming to the city. There are signs that New York City is more attractive than Boston in some areas, said Charlie O’Donnel, founder of the startup Path101.com.

He pointed to First Growth Venture Network: It’s a “bunch of Boston VCs doing a program for NYC,” he said. “Why are they coming down here? It’s because it’s where the opportunity is.”

Some New York City homeowners can't wait out recession to sell

Thursday August 20, 2009 5:45 PM By By Jessica Troiano

It’s not a good time to sell your home in the city, but some people must move even if it means accepting a lower offer than they might get if they waited out the slumping market. Here are a few sellers motivated by changing life circumstances that wait for no recession:

Upper West Side, 2-BR
316 W. 83rd St.
Asking price: $745,000
Purchase price: $425,000 (in 2003)
The Hapgood family has grown too big for its home. They were looking to sell a few years ago, but when a deal fell through they went with $50,000 in renovations instead. They put in hardwood floors and a patio in the backyard. “We have two children and they are sharing a bedroom right now,” said Siobhan Hapgood. They almost sold at the height of the market, but instead poured money into the home and now are looking to bale at a low point. “We know we’re going to sell down, but we’re also going to buy down,” Hapgood said.

Gramercy Park, 1-BR
200 E. 24th St.
Asking price: $489,000
Purchase price: $195,000 (in 2002)
Seven years ago, Gregory Hruska found a 600-square-foot apartment, which was fine for one person, but it started to feel cramped when his partner moved in two years ago. The couple decided to move to a bigger place. Then the economy tanked. “At first, we thought we should wait a while,” said Hruska. “But then we decided we can’t put our lives on hold indefinitely. And we said, ‘Let’s just do it.’” The couple wants to move to the burbs and expects a deal in neighborhoods they were once priced out of. “The houses in South Orange [N.J.] were out of my price range,” Hruska said. “Now they’ve fallen at an even faster rate than New York.”

Inwood, 1-BR
579 W. 215th St.
Asking price: $325,000
Purchase price: $190,000 (in 1994)
Fred Valle owns an apartment that he bought for his daughter but now rents out. He said the taxes and tenant hassles motivated him to sell. “Everyone has told me I’ve made a bad choice in selling it now because of the market,” Valle said. “But I just don’t want to deal with tenants.” It’s been on the market for a year, and the asking price has dropped twice. “I’m not lowering it any more,” he said.

Retail chains show strength with growth in the city

Tuesday August 18, 2009 8:39 PM By By Garett Sloane

There are more Starbucks in the city than there were a year ago — despite a handful of highly publicized closings last year — while other chain retailers, Circuit City among them, have been wiped off the map.

Center for an Urban Future released its second annual report yesterday on the state of chain stores in the city. Despite the recession — or perhaps because of it — a number of national retailers expanded, the report found.

“There’s been such a discussion of whether there are too many chain stores or too many mom-and-pops being forced out, and I think it’s a mixed picture,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the think-tank. This year the report breaks down the number of chains by ZIP code.

“There are more neighborhoods under-retailed in the city than are saturated with retail chains,” Bowles said.

A surprise for Bowles was that of 167 retailers surveyed last year 53 expanded, 52 stayed level and 62 have fewer stores. The findings show that some big brands got bullish during the downturn.

Starbucks lopped off about a dozen stores in the city last year, but still managed to grow from 235 locations to 258.

Lower rents are enticing the healthier companies to expand, said Judah Sutton, president of JUD Leasing Corp.

He just negotiated a lease for Lot Less Closeouts, which took over the former Strand Bookstore location at 95 Fulton St.

“A lot of national retailers already in New York that are doing well or holding their own are aggressively looking to expand,” Sutton said.

“If they find the right location at the right price, they’re willing to pull the trigger.”

 

Study: Police lax on preventing drivers from parking in bus lanes

Sunday August 2, 2009 6:26 PM By Heather Haddon

Poor policing lets drivers score free parking in city bus lanes, according to a study released yesterday by the Manhattan borough president.

Researchers observing six busy midtown intersections found motorists blocked buses for up to 15 minutes in more than 350 different instances. Not one vehicle was ticketed during the 40 hours of spot checks.

“What’s the point of having these regulations if they are never enforced,” asked Borough President Scott Stringer.

At the worst intersection, East 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, motorists blocked a bus about every 90 seconds.

Taxi, livery cabs and limousines were the most frequent culprits, followed by private cars and delivery trucks.

Tickets for blocking bus lanes are $115.

The NYPD issued nearly 1,800 summonses in the first six months of this year to drivers blocking the bus lanes, and the agency continues to ticket motorists “as resources are available,” a police spokesman said.

In February, the city installed video cameras to ticket drivers blocking the bus lanes on 34th Street, which shuttles 31,000 passengers a day on 30 routes.

City officials have lobbied Albany to allow them to expand the program, but state officials haven’t given it the green light.

City buses carry 2.4 million commuters during weekdays, according to the most recent MTA statistics.

hhaddon@am-ny.com

MTA shakes up subway management across the system

Monday July 13, 2009 6:16 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The MTA is completing its overhaul of subway management this week, with managers now assigned to oversee every line in the system.

The 36 managers act as the CEOs of their lines, coordinating all departments, from platform cleaning to track maintenance. Six of the general managers oversee more than one line.

Officials must analyze train performance and respond to customer complaints, according to the job description. The managers take training before starting, and are to ride trains and visit stations along their lines.

Transit estimated it would save $7 million by cutting managerial jobs. The program is the first major managerial reorganization of the subways in more than 50 years.

“It’s a positive step to have an actual person to go to with complaints,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign.Officials predict the massive reorganization will also improve the cleanliness and timeliness of individual lines.

Advocates generally support the overhaul, but said performance will depend on the skill of individual managers and their ability to grasp a lot of terrain quickly. “The jury is still out,” said William Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

The line general managers debuted on the No. 7 and L in 2007 before moving to all the numbered lines last fall. This week the program is being extended to all the lettered lines.

Car cleanliness and overall performance improved on the No. 7 and the L lines after the program debuted. But those lines benefited from additional cleaners, which the expanded program won’t deliver.

Council takes pedicab rules for a spin

Monday June 29, 2009 5:08 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The city is getting closer to throwing the rulebook at freewheeling pedicabs.

The City Council began considering a bill Monday that would require rickshaws to undergo inspections, meet safety requirements and obtain city licenses and insurance. Drivers would need to be at least 18 and get a license.

“We're ready to go,” said Jonathan Mintz, commissioner of the city Department of Consumer Affairs, which would oversee pedicabs if the bill is passed “The department could move quite quickly on this.”The city passed legislation in 2007 to crack down on the more than 1,000 pedicabs trolling city streets, but litigation stalled its enforcement. The new bill is similar to the 2007 proposal, but doesn’t cap the number of pedicabs allowed on the street.

Earlier this month, a pedicab driver and one of his passengers were hospitalized after they collided with a taxi in Williamsburg.

Pedicab businesses largely support this version of the bill. But some bemoaned its ban on rickshaws from bike lines and bridges, saying it will force them to bring pedicabs into Manhattan on trucks.

“It adds unnecessary cost, complication and pollution,” said Rob Tipton, owner of Mr. Rickshaw, a midtown pedicab company.

The bill must go through a second council hearing before a vote. The hearing hasn't been scheduled, but the council considers the bill “a priority,” a spokesman said.

Pedicab driving no easy ride

Thursday June 18, 2009 6:43 PM By Heather Haddon

John Allen of Revolution Rickshaws picks up customers outside of Rockefeller Center in New York. (Photo by RJ Mickelson/amNY)

By Heather Haddon

It takes more than calf-muscles to pedal the city streets for hours a day.

Pedicab drivers need charm, hustle and a grasp on city lore to succeed in the increasingly competitive industry.

And soon, the city will likely require rickshaw businesses to take out insurance, pass inspections and beef up their safety protocol. Veteran drivers said they welcome the requirements as the number pedicabs pushes past 1,000.

“The industry is getting a bad rep,” said Julian Isaza of Revolution Rickshaws, one of the city's first pedicab companies. “We are an intimate and safe way to see the city.”

Pedicabs popped up on New York streets in the last decade. Typically, drivers rent their cabs from Manhattan companies with small fleets. Isaza said they train fledging drivers in negotiating the roads and obeying traffic regulations.

“I scare the s--- out of them,” Isaza said. “It's a reality check.”Pedalers hunt for tourists near Central Park during the day, or scope out the Theater District and busy taxi lines in the evening.

“If you're a tourist, you want to do drink in everything,” said John Allen, 55, a rail-thin driver from Hells Kitchen. “On the subway, you miss so much.”

Some drivers look to the industry for quick cash. Others say they like freedom to be outside and boast that their trade is eco-friendly.

And then there are the showboats.

“I want them to experience things they would otherwise miss,” said Madison Reyes, 24, who sings during his tours and drives a cab lined with fake flowers.

Central Park drivers pepper their trips with local history. Tours cost about $60, but Reyes said he gets about three takers a day.

“You see everything. It's comfortable. And there's no horse smells,” said Benny Lilipaly, 39, a tourist from Amsterdam who road with Reyes.

Out on city streets, pedicabs ride in traffic looking for passengers. It's here that pedestrians and cab drivers can get irked.

“They are dangerous,” said G. Slatin, 65, a retired Manhattan resident. “They don't abide by the traffic signals. I've see them driving on sidewalks to avoid traffic.”

In one high-profile incident, a pedicab driver and one of his three passengers were injured last week after they sped down the Williamsburg Bridge and slammed into a cab on the street.

Police issue tickets to pedicabs for traffic violations, but the city doesn’t track complaints about them because the industry is not yet officially regulated, according to the Department of Consumer Affairs. That will change if the city passes a pedicab licensing law proposed last week.

Trying to break out of the street hustle, some companies now offer cargo-messaging services. Revolution Rickshaws works with City Harvest in picking up restaurant leftovers for the needy, Isaza said. Pony Cab provides rickshaws for weddings and film shoots, including a Times Square scene filmed for “Gossip Girl,” said owner Tony Rojas.

Allen said he still enjoys his job after five years on the streets.

“It's like working out at the gym, but more fun,” he said.

Pedicabs by the numbers

1,000: Estimated number of pedicabs

$4,000: Cost to buy a new pedicab

$180: Weekly rate to rent a pedicab to peddle

$1: Average cost per block for a ride for each passenger

$60: Average price for an hour tour in Central Park

Should I become a pedicab driver?

Pros:

- Able to set your own hours

- No need for the gym and lots of fresh air

- Budding tour guides can test their skills on passengers visiting the city

- Hard workers can earn $400 a day

Cons:

- Increasing competition; must develop a sales shtick

- Constant rejection from weary tourists

- Rain and calf pain are your enemies

- Manhattan biking is stressful and chaotic

(HEATHER HADDON)

New York City consumers keep it simple

Wednesday June 17, 2009 6:28 PM By Garett Sloane

New York City consumers still spend, but their habits are changing. (Getty)

By Danielle Sonnenberg

Special to amNewYork

When New Yorkers spend money these days, it’s likely to be on the basics.

Nine months after the city entered the Big Bust, shell-shocked shoppers are still cautious, leaving some of the city’s largest stores to cope with a changed consumer landscape.

“I think consumers are looking for small luxuries. They are spending on things they won’t do without,” said Joseph Magnacca, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer of Duane Reade.Food and beverage sales are booming — up 20 percent, Magnacca said.

Shoppers are dipping into the frozen foods section to replace dinners out and buying hair-coloring products to avoid the salon, Magnacca said.

Generic brands are also big. Duane Reade noticed the demand and introduced its own bottled water.

“I try to buy products that are store brands, they are much cheaper,” said Janelle Reid, a Brooklyn teacher.

At D’Agostino Supermarkets, shoppers are retrenching.

“Consumers are sticking with what they know and having a back-to-the-basics type of mentality,” said Anderson Chung, director of marketing at D’Agostino.

The organic aisle isn’t seeing as much traffic, he said, but demand for seafood, chicken and ground beef is up about 15 percent. Sales of T-bones and filet mignons are down 15 percent.

A recently unemployed D’Agostino shopper, Bianca Berry, 26, of Manhattan, was sticking with the staples: pasta, bread, cheese and peanut better.

“I revert back to my college days,” Berry said.

Simple shopping habits are taking their toll on high-end stores.

At menswear retailer Mario Caldi in midtown, they can’t cut prices deep enough to satisfy haggling consumers.

“It got a little bit better, but customers are still looking for discounts,” said Karma Lama, a salesman.

Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, which monitors shopping behavior, says it is no wonder shoppers are buying comfort not luxury.

“We are focused on the standard … hierarchy of needs: shelter, food and warmth,” he said.

Smells, ads, employees fuel straphanger headaches

Sunday June 14, 2009 6:52 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Yes, straphangers loathe fare hikes and scrambled weekend service. But it's the little, daily headaches in city subways and buses that really drive New Yorkers batty.

“The musician who plays … at the Astor place uptown stop is horrendous,” wrote one straphanger. “Please tell me how I can spearhead his removal. He has to go.”

An amNewYork review of two years of complaints e-mailed to MTA headquarters found that kvetching about lewd advertising, smelly stations and other irritants trumped more serious concerns.

But even minor offenses were cause for exclamation points, caps and curse words.

“WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED? This is unacceptable,” wrote a train rider who didn't promptly receive a Web ticket.

In 2003, the MTA started accepting letters electronically through an online form at www.mta.info/faqs.htm. The MTA averages 800 messages a week from riders on a variety of topics, said spokesman Aaron Donovan. Few of the e-mails are happy ones.E-mails are forwarded to the appropriate division and answered within an average of two days, a MTA spokesman said.

The hurricane-strength rainstorm that crippled the system in August 2007 generated the largest number of e-mails, with the agency receiving nearly 120 messages in two days.

“God forbid we have another terrorist attack,” one rider wrote. “You are so NOT ready!!!!”

“The impression left is that the commuter is treated like livestock,” another straphanger declared.

The most frequent complaints included:

- Ads: Parents inflamed by a car-wide Hennessy Cognac campaign, racy School of Visual Arts images and visuals of zombies that “tormented” one Jamaica women's children. The “Why Islam” campaign sponsored by a Muslim advocacy group last year resulted in a barrage of letters about religious dogma.

- The MTA Web site: It's clunky, outdated and doesn't operate in real time, riders declared. “All service is NOT running normally,” wrote a passenger. “Your Web site should not lie. I'm stuck on a D train at this very moment.”

- Agency employees: Riders were ticked off by unhelpful token clerks and rude bus drivers, including one who told a diabetic elderly woman not to eat even though “she had the pizza IN THE BAG.” MTA officials were ruthlessly called “scumbags” and “morons.”

- Unpleasantries: Urine smells, vomit, icy air conditioning, passengers not giving seats to pregnant women and subway bars positioned too high up for “we short people,” all set passengers off.

Angry outtakes

Some New Yorkers get irritated by the strangest things, and decide to blame the MTA for them:

- A car from Pennsylvania parked in the same Bronx spot for four years

- Weekend disruptions on the F line interfered with a Park Slope woman's surprise party

- Workers leaving an MTA facility in the early morning “laugh and act as if they are all stumbling out of a bar”

- Translations used on MetroCard machines “insult the multicultural public's intelligence”

(HEATHER HADDON)

Commuting on the subway gives New Yorkers a lot of time to get cranky — with their fellow commuters.

“People are stepping on your shoes, they pass gas, they stare at you for a long time,” said Antonio Jackson, 27, a Q train rider. “It's rudeness.”

A survey of a dozen straphangers resulted in a laundry list of irritants with their commutes, many centered on the lousy code of conduct of other New Yorkers. The target of gripes included:

- People who smear their unsanitary hands all over the poles. “They're not sanitized enough so I have to hold on to my boyfriend, who then holds on to the pole,” said Ana Barbu, 21, a student and No. 1 rider

- Tone-deaf musicians and pushy panhandlers. “I give money just to get them away,” said Martha Adamas, 30, a Manhattan lawyer.

- IPods turned up so loud that the entire car has to suffer through the latest dance jam. “\[The headphones\] are small for a reason,” said Dion Millington, 25, a clerical associate from Brooklyn. “If I want that kind of music, I'll go to a club and dance, but not at 6 o'clock in the morning.”

As for the MTA, riders were sick of the random bag searches, criticized the agency's Web site and asked for more personnel on the trains.

(ANASTASIA ECONOMIDES AND HEATHER HADDON)

City annouces it will crack down on pedicabs

Sunday June 14, 2009 6:29 PM By Heather Haddon

The city intends to require that pedicabs get licenses and undergo regular inspections.

(Photograph by Kathy Willens/AP)

By Heather Haddon

No more free-wheeling rides for pedicabs.

City leaders announced yesterday that they will require owners to apply for licenses and take out insurance, while installing seatbelts, posting prices and undergoing safety inspections. The proposal would also bar pedicabs from driving on city bridges or tunnels.

The proposed changes come a week after a pedicab driver and one of his passengers suffered serious injuries as they sped down the Williamsburg Bridge and rammed into a taxi in Brooklyn.

“This legislation will address outstanding concerns and ensure that pedicab passengers get a safe ride,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The city scrapped an idea to cap the number of pedicabs at 325, and instead would require all drivers to obtain a license in the 60 days after the law takes effect.Bloomberg said he will sign the proposal into law once it gets through the City Council.

The city would charge $110 for businesses to license one cab for 18 months, and $60 for each additional vehicle. In addition, each driver would be required to obtain a $35 license. Insurance costs about $1,000 a year.

Chad Marlow, a lawyer representing the New York Pedicab Owners Association, said his drivers would not pass the costs onto passengers, who currently pay about a buck for a block of travel. But it could prompt drivers without insurance to drop out of the business, he said.

“We are 100 percent on board with the entire bill,” he said.

The industry has boomed in the last two years, with the number of pedicabs growing from 600 to 1,000. Fly-by-night drivers without insurance have fueled the increase, Marlow said.

“It’s the wild west out there,” he said.

Jason Fink contributed to this story.

Autopilot causes L trains to bypass platforms

Tuesday June 9, 2009 6:56 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Running the L line on autopilot at night is causing trains to shoot past platforms, forcing straphangers to miss their stops, motormen and union officials said.

Because of the software fluke, drivers have to travel to the next station to let passengers off, according to the officials.

One Brooklyn mailroom worker, who didn’t want to be identified, said he was late for work repeatedly for several weeks after the L train missed his stop in Bushwick.

“It’s not perfected yet. It’s not working. And it’s definitely not cost-effective,” Keith Harrington, union vice chairman for train operators, said of the $326 million system.

Charles Seaton, a NYC Transit spokesman, said the glitch causing the trains to bypass stations by only a few feet is being addressed and does not impair passenger safety. It was unclear when the snafu would be fixed.

The system “maintains speeds within safe limits and ensures that train doors are opened safely,” Seaton said.In February, NYC Transit started running L trains on autopilot from 12:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. The hours were recently extended to 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., union officials said, and the MTA hopes to begin expanding it to some Queens lines over the next five years.

When trains are running on autopilot, computers cue the acceleration and breaking while transit officials monitor the traffic flow offsite. Drivers, who are always manning the train from the front, can switch into manual when problems arise.

MTA officials say the system allows them to run trains faster by monitoring cars in real time and bypassing the subway’s antiquated signal system.

But motormen say the computers tend to underestimate how sharply to apply the brakes, causing the trains to shoot past the stations by as much as two cars. Because they can’t go in reverse, the trains have to advance to the next station.

“I don’t like it at all,” said straphanger Andrew DeJesus, 30, an ironworker from Brooklyn. “If someone gets hurt, what’s going to happen?”

Last month, the MTA’s independent engineers found that shortfalls in the autopilot software caused an “uncomfortable jerk” at station stops on the L train. The system also threw on the emergency brakes by error when the trains drove too fast, according to a report by the engineer firms.

A NYC Transit spokesman said those problems would also be fixed.

Antastasia Ecomindes contributed this story.

Surprise: Fame and fortunes don't make you happy

Tuesday June 2, 2009 7:26 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friends, nor does money really make the world go around.

So says a study coming out later this month in the “Journal of Research in Personality,” which found that the pursuit of money, beauty and fame actually make people less happy.

“It’s like a deadly trap,” said Diana Kirschner, a Manhattan psychologist and author who was not involved with the study but agreed with its results. “Some of the richest people I’ve seen have been the most unhappy with their lives.”

Researchers followed 150 graduates from the University of Rochester and Knox College in Illinois for two years and assessed their satisfaction with life, self-esteem and relationships. Participants also rated their levels of anxiety, stress and physical ailments like headaches.Graduates hungry for wealth, glamour or fame — and achieved those goals — were the most anxious and unhappy, researchers found. On the flip side, those who developed strong relationships and a sense of community felt less stressed and more self-assure.

“Rich people may have everything they want, but then it’s like, ‘Now what,’” said Ismael Mendozo, a 21-year-old waiter from Kew Gardens, who agreed with the researchers’ analysis. “Better to be happy with yourself first.”

Similarly, Darryl Hassell, 46, a maintenance worker at Citi Field, said it is his personal relationships that he finds fulfilling.

“I’m happy to take care of my family and work,” said Hassell, of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The findings counter a long-standing psychological theory that people are happy once they achieve riches and stardom, particularly since they often suffer to get there, said Edward Deci, a Rochester psychology professor who co-authored the study.

“It’s very easy to fall … onto this treadmill of looking for more and more,” Deci said. “It’s really important to stop from time to time and look honestly at what are the things that are really meaningful.”

In a fast-paced, success-driven city like Gotham, however, fame and wealth make many New Yorkers tick.

“I don’t think being rich is a recipe for happiness, but it’s in the right direction,” said Kim Page, 46, a Manhattan marketing executive. “I know poor unattractive people who are unhappy as well.”

Still, New York psychologists say that the economic meltdown has forced some of their clients to shed the rat race for more meaningful pursuits.

“That’s the silver lining,” Kirschner said.”

Anastasia Economides contributed to this story.

State will get private firms to repair city bridges

Monday June 1, 2009 7:26 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Gov. David Paterson wants to entice private companies to partner with the state to rebuild the Kosciuszko Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Queens and to repair the Gowanus Expressway.

Under the plan unveiled yesterday, Paterson said the state can consolidate the many public works projects across the state under one or a few companies.

The private firms would earn money through ongoing state payments, while the public would pass along the burden of building and maintaining the projects.

“They are not always a panacea,” said Carol Kellermann of the Citizen Budget Commission. “But the contractors have more of a stake to make sure the projects are built to last.”

So far, the state has identified 27 projects it hopes to farm out to private firms.

Besides the Kosciuszko Bridge and the Gowanus Expressway, there are plans to build wind farms off the shores of Long Island and provide affordable Internet service across the state through the partnerships.It was not immediately clear whether the proposal would result in a loss of public sector jobs.

A new state board made of nine unpaid appointments will establish the partnerships.

The individual projects would still go through a bidding process and could be subject to additional oversight by state lawmakers, officials explained.

(With AP)

Pre-fare hike MetroCards won't expire until August

Sunday May 31, 2009 1:34 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Straphangers will get some breathing room when the MTA fare increase kicks in.

Riders who buy an unlimited MetroCard before the June 28 fare hike and swipe it by July 6 can continue to use it, NYC Transit officials said.

Grace periods for unlimited MetroCards are as follows:

• Monthly MetroCards will last until Aug. 4

• 14-Day cards will be valid through July 19

• Weekly cards will last until July 12

• Single-day unlimited cards will be valid through July 6

Riders who activate their unlimited MetroCards by July 6 but don’t use them can mail them to the MTA for a refund after Aug. 4, officials said.With the fare hike, base subway and bus fares will rise by a quarter, to $2.25. The cost of monthly MetroCards will increase from $81 to $89. A 14-day card will rise to $51.50, a weekly card will cost $27 and a one-day pass will increase to $8.25.

The MTA is raising fares by an average of 10 percent to help plug a $1.8 billion budget deficit.

Pointers on how the new cab sharing program will work

Thursday May 28, 2009 5:56 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The Taxi and Limousine Commission on Thursday approved proposals that would allow New Yorkers to reduce the cost of their cab rides by carpooling with strangers.

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the shared ride programs, slated to start this fall:

How will the programs work?

Up to four riders will be able to share cars from six midtown “group ride” locations to six designated Manhattan dropoff spots. The fixed fares will average about $4 per person.

Separately, “multi-fare meter” taxis can be hailed on the street. In this incidence, passengers should expect to share the ride with another passenger traveling along the same route. An LED panel on the taxi’s roof will display the destination neighborhood, and only one other rider can be picked up. Passengers will be charged a higher rate once the second rider is picked up, but the amount racked up during the shared portion will be split 50-50 between the two people in the cab. Each passenger also will be responsible for additional surcharges, such as for riding at night.

Who will save money?

Strangers who travel together along popular Manhattan routes are most likely to benefit. Friends traveling together are better off just splitting a regular cab because they will be considered separate fares in a taxi designated for two-passenger carpools.What if you don’t want to share a car?

Riders who board one of the 1,000 multi-fare cabs must agree to travel with a stranger. The taxis cannot veer from the primary route to scoop up another passenger, the TLC said.

What’s next?

The group ride program will roll out first in the fall. The multi-fare program will take the longest to implement, as meter technology is still being developed and it must be approved by the state.

Big-eyes babies born on city bridges

Thursday May 28, 2009 12:53 PM By Heather Haddon

A baby falcon poses inside his nest at the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge.

(Photo courtesy MTA Bridges and Tunnels)

By Heather Haddon

Amid the rumbling and honking, New York City’s bridges are singing lullabies to fluffy, feathery babies.

Three pairs of falcons have given birth to chicks on top of the Verrazano-Narrows, Throgs Neck and Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial bridges this spring, according to MTA Bridges and Tunnels.

Three boys and a girl were born in the last month, with the oldest now bearing talons the size of a human hand. The nests are perched on bridge posts as high as 693-feet above the water.“We’re like absentee landlords,” said Ray Higgins, maintenance superintendent of the Throgs Neck bridge. “We set them up with a nice place to live and then try not to bother them.”

The peregrine falcons, which are on the state endangered species list, dig bridges. The birds also nest on church steeples and high-rise buildings here to peer down on pigeons and other prey.

The falcons have taken to city bridges for decades. On the Marine Parkway bridge, the birds cozy up in an old gun turret installed during World War II.

Names for the babies were not immediately available.

MTA moves to reduce "eyes and ears" of system

Wednesday May 27, 2009 6:09 PM By Heather Haddon

MTA station agents will likely be reduced to help the agency cut $200 million in expenses. (Photo by Andrew Hinderaker)

By Heather Haddon

The MTA voted Wednesday to phase out its subway station agents jobs, despite the concerns of rider advocates that fewer eyes underground will make the system less safe.

The MTA plans to eliminate 150 station agents through attrition this year and 120 more in 2010, according to agency documents. At an average loss of 10 agents a month, the red vested subway reps will vanish from city platforms within the next seven years, a NYC Transit spokesman said.

“While it makes sense to look for imaginative ways to save money, this is not a smart way to do it,” said city Comptroller William Thompson.

MTA officials pledged to man all 468 stations with at least one full-time token clerk 24 hours a day.

The agency moved forward with the $3 million cut yesterday along with 105 other cost-cutting measures to help close a $200 million budgetary hole remaining after a state bailout, officials said. In total, the MTA expects to eliminate more than 1,200 jobs next year across its divisions.“We have to have a balanced budget and the economy is slipping away from us,” said MTA board chair Dale Hemmerdinger, while discussing the cuts last week.

Transit started the station agent program in 2005 as MetroCard machines made token clerks more obsolete. The agents assist passengers with directions, opening security gates and radioing in security hazards.

“I’m worried about it,” Valentina Nezaj, 19, of Brooklyn, said of the agent cuts. “They say in the posters, if you need to report something, tell the station agent.”

Norman Pou, a current station agent who has worked in the subways for 18 years, said he calls for help at least four times a day to report accidents, lost children and unruly passengers.

“Many stations are desolate,” Pou said. “If there’s no one there, there’s no one to help.”

Nightmare MTA cuts live on in street map

Tuesday May 26, 2009 7:07 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The doomsday service cuts have hit Manhattan — at least on paper.

The most recent edition of the STREETWISE Manhattan map reflects the cuts to bus and subway lines approved by the MTA in March but reversed earlier this month after the state delivered new funding.

The 2009 edition of the ubiquitous laminated street maps show the M line truncating at Broad Street instead of continuing on to Brooklyn during rush hour. Meanwhile, the W and Z lines have simply vanished, as the MTA originally proposed.

“These doomsday maps show how close New York came to subway apocalypse,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign.The M6, M8, M10 and M30 bus routes also have disappeared on the flip side of the pocket map, since the MTA was on the brink of eliminating two dozen local bus routes.

A spokeswoman for STREETWISE Maps Inc. said the Sarasota-based company scraped the lines on an early 2009 print run. With Albany unable to agree on funding, the printers didn’t want to advertise service that could vanish. The company would not say how many of their accordion-folded, $6.95 maps were printed with the service cuts.

“This wasn’t an easy decision to make,” spokeswoman Andrika Brown said.

The subway and bus routes will be returned to subsequent editions of the map. Brown did not indicate when this would occur, but said the map is printed frequently because of its popularity.

The MTA declined to comment.

Graduates march into tough job market

Tuesday May 19, 2009 8:08 PM By Garett Sloane

New York University graduation was held last week at Yankee Stadium. (Jefferson Siegel)

By Garett Sloane

Facing a brutal job market, many of the city’s college grads are dreading the real world.

Some have already felt its sting and others are avoiding it altogether — they’re putting the job search on hold, according to a number of students and advisers.

“Every city college is grappling with the downturn in the economy,” said Sophia Demetriou, the director of City College’s career center. “We have seen significant drops in [job] offers from last year.”Lawrence Almanzar, an NYU grad, is among those students — he doesn’t have a full-time job lined up and said most of his friends are in the same boat.

“A bachelor’s is a step, but nowadays you need more than that,” he said.

Indeed, the numbers look bleak in the face of the Big Bust economy. Nationally, 20 percent of college grads who have looked for a job already have one, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That’s down dramatically from two years ago, when 51 percent had jobs by graduation.

This year’s class is facing unique challenges. Not only are fresh-faced former students going up against the growing ranks of the hardened unemployed, they are facing a bottleneck created from last year’s grads who have yet to find jobs. In New York, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book — a snapshot of the economy in different regions published eight times a year — noted the backlog as a significant challenge to the region’s employment problem.

Career advisers are meeting an already weary class of 2009.

“They hear how tight the job market is,” said Patricia McManus, director of career services at St. John’s University. “They see any type of rejection as something bigger than it is.”

At NYU’s graduation, Dalton Lai, 21, who earned a bachelor’s degree in film, said there’s “a lot of dread.”

He doesn’t have a post-graduation plan, and said he could wind up in Shanghai, sensing opportunity in the Far East.

Instead of rushing into the job market, many students had similar short-term aspirations to travel and ride out the recession.

Other graduates said the world they are entering is broken, and they see a chance to fix it.

“The recession, ironically enough, encourages our class to take action rather than succumb to it,” said NYU grad Thomas Miller.

Broadway car ban starts Sunday

Tuesday May 19, 2009 5:25 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The curtains open Sunday night on one of the biggest revamps to the city grid in recent memory.

Cars will be banned from Broadway at Herald and Times squares under a city pilot program intended to curb traffic and make room for Midtown’s pedestrian throngs.

And to sweeten the controversial plan, the city yesterday announced a lineup of performances along Broadway this summer. Events include lunchtime concerts by buskers in Times Square and a simulcast of the Tony Awards in Broadway Plaza.

Under the proposal, Broadway traffic will be rerouted to Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets and to Sixth Avenue between 33rd and 35th streets. In its place, the city is building pedestrian plazas in three acres of space.

“I am sure there will be some bumps in the road,” Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, said at a news conference yesterday. But no one is “well served by the congested streets and spaces we have now.”

Shutting the diagonally-running street and increasing green light timing will cut waits by 17 percent at Times Square and 66 percent at Herald Square, according to city Department of Transportation.The MTA voted to eliminate the M6 bus on Broadway and reroute seven other lines down Seventh Avenue to accommodate the overhaul.

Thousands of fliers about the street closures have been distributed to area businesses and taxi drivers, DOT said.

The city will evaluate the $1.5 million program by the end of the year.

(Photo courtesy DOT)

Campaign launches to calm unruly bikers

Tuesday May 19, 2009 2:26 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

Bicyclists—behave!

Transit advocates launched a campaign Tuesday to keep bikers from becoming street menaces as their numbers swell. The main theme is to respect pedestrians—do not hit them!

“Here's a simple proposition for NYC cyclists: always yield to pedestrians,” states “Biking Rules,” a Web site launched by Transportation Alternatives for the campaign. “As our potential to cause harm increases on the street, so does our responsibility to others.”

An estimated 185,000 New Yorkers commute by bike daily. TA handed out 5,000 guides to better riding last week, and hundreds of volunteers will keep up the effort this year, the group stated.

The guides instruct bikers to:

- Back up behind the crosswalk to keep it free for pedestrians- Ride on the street, not the sidewalk

- Pedal with traffic

- Don’t run red lights

For more information, see www.bikingrules.org.

Burn baby, burn - by biking

Thursday May 14, 2009 10:58 AM By Heather Haddon

Transportation Alternatives will help New Yorkers get geared up for biking to work during free events Friday

(Photo courtesy Nick Goddard)

By Heather Haddon

If miles of new bike lanes weren’t enough, city transit officials think vanity might encourage more New Yorkers to commute by two wheels.

The average roundtrip bike commute burns 440 calories, according to city figures released in tandem with Bike Month.

The Department of Transportation and transit groups have organized more than 200 rides and events to celebrate biking in May. On Friday, Transportation Alternatives will give away breakfast and free biking advice to celebrate “National Bike to Work Day.”

“Bike Month is a great occasion for New Yorkers … to hop on a bike, and see just how fun and welcoming the streets, bridges and parks have become," said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

In other city biking news:

* The average bike commute takes 30 minutes, as compared to the average overall commute of 45 minutes for New Yorkers* The average cost of owning a car in New York City is $5,569, as compared to about $260 for a bike (with insurance).

* There are 185,000 cycling commuters in the city, up from 75,000 daily riders in 1992

* New York City currently has more than 620 lane miles of bicycle paths, lanes and car-free greenways

For more information about events, see www.bikemonthnyc.org.

Broker helps businesses lower their rents

Tuesday May 12, 2009 8:16 PM By Garett Sloane

Michael Jackowitz co-founded ReduceYourRent.com (RJ Mickelson/amNY)

Garett Sloane

A new real estate service in the city, born of the recession, hopes to help businesses keep their doors open by renegotiating leases for them.

ReduceYourRent.com, which launched here six weeks ago, is a brokerage firm “just not in the traditional sense,” said Michael Jackowitz, the company’s co-founder. The firm re-strikes deals for tenants who can’t afford their rent.

“Retail tenants are in the most dire need,” he said. “They are suffering from above-market rents and a tremendous drop in revenue.”Jackowitz said he has renegotiated three leases so far and is in renegotiations on about eight more. Last month, he helped Center Stage NY, a nonprofit theater in Chelsea, get a deal to cut the rent by $2,000 from about $9,000.

Jill DeArmon, the director of the theater, said Jackowitz was a “friend of a friend” and helped her pro bono. She said lowering her rent helped save the company.

“A friend who saw that I was in trouble said, ‘I know somebody who can maybe get your lease down,’ and I said, ‘I’ll try anything at this point,’” DeArmon said.

The deal was structured so that she would pay back a portion of the discount over the remainder of the lease. In other cases Jackowitz said he negotiates flat-out rent decreases. He is paid only if he succeeds, in which case he takes 10 percent.

Jackowitz realizes there is some tension in the New York City real estate world.

“It’s a bit of a battle between landlords and tenants,” he said, but the service is meant to be win-win: Landlords keep cash flowing while tenants stay open.

Google unveils interactive city maps of yore

Monday May 4, 2009 4:45 PM By Heather Haddon

By HEATHER HADDON

Google Maps, meet faded city blueprints.

The media giant launched a series of interactive maps Monday that allow New Yorkers to get a glimpse of how old Manhattan mashes up with the modern city grid. The site is housed by Henry Hudson 400, a nonprofit commemorating the anniversary of the seafarer’s city landing in 1609.

The highlight for city history buffs is a 1731 survey that users to can view in comparison to a Google map of lower Manhattan. Crown Street once ran, now stands Liberty Street. Fair Street is now Fulton, and a swamp covered the land where Pace University sits.

The site also includes rare maps from the National Archives of the Netherlands, and a feature that allows New Yorkers to trace their DNA to the earliest settlers.

Snapple to buy New Yorkers two slices and a drink

Wednesday April 29, 2009 7:55 PM By Garett Sloane

Wow, it’s just like 1994: Two slices and a Snapple, please.

Snapple, on the comeback trail with its new look and high-fructose-free iced tea, thinks it has found the way into New Yorkers’ hearts: Free pizza at some of the city’s best pizzerias.

Snapple has developed a promotion that is likely to draw lines around the block next week. Every weekday next week, the company will give away two slices and a Snapple to 500 customers at different locations. The company also said that throughout next week it will give away 150,000 Snapples at locations throughout the city.

Here is the pizza schedule that includes a date at Famous Joe’s on Carmine:

Monday, 10:30 a.m., Spinelli Pizza at 425 Seventh Ave., between 33rd and 34th streets

Tuesday, 10:30 a.m., Famous Joe's Pizza at 7 Carmine Street, between Bleecker Street and Sixth Avenue

Wednesday, 10:30 a.m., Silver Spoon Diner at 58-21 Junction Blvd. in Queens

May 7, 10:30 a.m., My Little Pizza at 114 Court St., between Atlantic Avenue and State Street in Brooklyn

May 8, 10:30 a.m., Mezza Lunna Pizza at 98 Eighth Ave., corner of 15th Street

The first 500 customers get the deal.

Straphangers face more pain as MTA drowns in debt

Monday April 27, 2009 6:32 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The fast-approaching fare hike and service cuts won't come close to keeping the MTA in the black, meaning straphangers could get hammered again.

Plummeting ridership and tax revenues have led to another $621 million in losses this year. That's on top of the $1.2 billion deficit that MTA will begin filling next month with a fare increase of up to 30 percent and dozens of service cuts.

Next year, meanwhile, brings a new problem for the MTA and straphangers as the agency predicts it will have a $1 billion deficit, triple what it originally thought.

It's unclear whether that will mean a new round of fare hikes and service cuts, but the board is expected to discuss the new deficit at the meeting Wednesday.

After years of record increases, MTA officials expect ridership to decline by more than 7 percent this year because of the fare increase and the number of people of out work.

“The state of our finances is dire,” said MTA chief Elliot Sander, during the agency's board meeting. “We need Albany to come to the rescue.”But funding plans under consideration by the state won't fully cover the MTA's $1.8 billion deficit for this year. Both versions of the plan in the Assembly and Senate leave a hole of about $200 million, according to the latest projections. The agency could absorb a deficit of that size in the short term, but the Senate's proposal — relying payroll taxes, an 8 percent fare increase and $1 surcharge on taxi rides — would fall too short in coming years, said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

Meanwhile, up in Albany:

• The Senate Transportation Committee advanced its $1.76 million rescue plan for the MTA along party lines. Democrats hope to pass the bill next Wednesday, but support for the proposal has crumbled.

• A growing chorus of leaders, including Gov. David Paterson, blasted the $1 surcharge on taxi rides included in the Senate's proposal, as half of it goes to funding transportation projects outside the city.

Even if Albany acts, it's fast becoming too late to reverse the fare increase. Local stations will begin to receive the new fare table next week in preparation for the May 31 hike, Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said.

“Million of New Yorkers are scratching their heads and getting very, very angry,” said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign.

The agency's board will begin to discuss options to plug this year's during its meeting Wednesday. MTA officials could not say yesterday if it would need to enact additional cost saving measures this year.

Fun facts about the MTA’s trash

Thursday April 23, 2009 9:36 AM By Heather Haddon

(Seth Wenig/Associated Press)

By Heather Haddon

In honor of the ongoing hoopla about Earth Day, New York City Transit issued an extensive list of what it recycles each year:

- Nearly 8,500 tons of refuse, or about half of the trash collected from the system’s 468 subway stations

- More than 69,000 tons of metal, glass, plastic and paper amassed at train yards and other NYC Transit facilities

- Nearly 1,790 old subway cars have been sunk off the coasts of six states along the Atlantic seaboard to form habitats for marine life

- The amount of recycled refuse was 71 percent last year, compared to 54 percent in 2003

MTA deficit flirts with $2B as prospect grows for even more fare hikes and service cuts

Wednesday April 22, 2009 3:45 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The MTA is in an even deeper hole than everyone feared.

The agency's deficit has ballooned by as much as $700 million this year,

possibly pushing the total to $1.9 billion, sources close to the MTA said.

So even if an Albany bailout comes through, straphangers could still be

dealt painful service cuts and even another fare hike beside the increased

already planned.

"Things are going to get worse, because the economy is worse," said Gene Russianoff, of the Straphangers Campaign.

Straphangers recoiled at the news.

"It sucks," said Courtney Gordinier, 27, of the Meatpacking District, when

asked about the upcoming hike and the prospects of another. "I'd rather

take the bus to work, but I'm going to bust out my bike."The agency is putting through a fare increase of up to 30 percent and dozens

of service cuts, assuming Albany doesn't come up with new cash. Those

measures, however, were sketched out to fill a smaller budget gap of $1.2

billion.

Aaron Donovan, an MTA spokesman, declined to confirm the amount on the

deficit, but said officials will discuss ways to fill the additional hole

during its full board meeting next Wednesday.

But an internal memo sent by agency chief Elliot Sander Tuesday alluded to

the MTA's grim financial outlook

"We expect to forecast our revenues and preliminary indications are

certainly not encouraging," Sander wrote to agency heads and board members.

The fare increase, that will push the cost of a monthly MetroCard to $103,

is slated to roll out May 31.

"Of course it's going to impact me," said Sasha Rodriguez, 21, of Washington

Heights. "We don't get paid enough to raise the buses or trains."

Workers are making "progress" toward reprogramming fare boxes, MetroCard

machines and turnstiles, New York City Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges

said.

Meanwhile, Albany's efforts to rescue the MTA continued to meander yesterday

as the Senate hunted for 32 votes for its proposal. The latest plan would

generate $1.76 billion through an 8 percent fare increase, $1 taxi surcharge

and three new motor vehicle fees.

"The transit system is on the precipice," said Neysa Pranger, spokeswoman for

the Regional Plan Association, an advocacy group. "If Albany can't act,

we're looking at a shrunken transit system [and] ever rising fares."

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) gave the plan his blessing yesterday,

according to a published report. But even it clears the Senate, money earned

from the proposal wouldn¹t cover the new deficit.

"In the state with the most transit users, it's an abomination that that we

should be going through this," said Andrew Albert, a nonvoting MTA board

member.

The MTA will officially announce the deficit during the board's finance

committee meeting Monday. Officials had previously said that the MTA is $323

million behind in state and real estate taxes this year.

"The finance committee will not be pretty," Russianoff said.

In his memo, Sander directed agency chiefs to impose a "hard freeze" on

spending, including no new hiring or overtime. Purchases and contractors

must also be sharply curtailed, Sanders wrote.

Years later, city installs school-bus tracking system

Wednesday April 22, 2009 3:34 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The city Department of Education is launching a pilot program to outfit school buses with GPS devices — about four years after the City Council called for the measure to safeguard children.

Fifty buses are being outfitted, Spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said Wednesday. They will be tied into the city’s information grid that now tracks emergency vehicles.

The City Council will hold a hearing Thursday on a bill that would require the city to install GPS units in all 6,000 school buses. The program would cost about $600,000, said Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), a bill sponsor.

“It costs too much not to do this,” Liu said. “On the second day of school, a five-year-old child was missing for five hours on a bus.”The Council sponsored similar legislation in 2005, but shelved it because the DOE testified that a GPS tracking system would be running in the buses by 2006, Liu said.

Feinberg said city officials will testify about the bill Thursday.

Marvel Comics shocker: Bloomberg out, Spider-Man's nemesis in as city's new mayor

Tuesday April 14, 2009 10:01 PM By Scott A. Rosenberg

On the last page of "The Amazing Spider-Man" No. 591, J. Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man's long-time nemesis, is elected mayor of New York City.

By Scott A. Rosenberg

Forget that quest for a third term: At least in the comic book universe, Michael Bloomberg mysteriously disappears and is out as mayor of New York City.

And the new man in City Hall does not bode well for our web-slinging superhero Spider-Man.

J. Jonah Jameson, the hardheaded, cigar-chomping, Spider-Man-hating editor of The Daily Bugle, is elected mayor of New York City in the latest issue of Marvel Comics’ “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which hits stores this morning.

Dan Slott, who wrote the latest issue, No. 591, said Spider-Man can’t get a break. “He can’t get a date; he can’t pay the rent. Everything is always stacked against him. So part of the fun of writing ‘Spider-Man’ is [deciding] what you can do to really screw Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson: mayor. That’s it. You’re hosed. Good luck.”

The cover to "The Amazing Spider-Man" No. 591

Jameson has been a thorn in Spider-Man’s side since March 1963, when he made his debut in the first issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” written by the legendary Marvel Comics writer and editor Stan Lee. He’s also been the penny-pinching boss of Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego. Lee says that the character was based on himself.

“I thought to myself, how would I be if I were a newspaper publisher?” Lee said. “I’d probably be bossy and irritable and loudmouthed.” But, he conceded, Jameson’s a hard worker and really cares about the newspaper. He’s “all bluster and he’s not a very likable guy.”

That doesn’t mean he’ll be a bad mayor. Writer Mark Waid said the plan at first was to make Jameson the most hated mayor of all time. And then the real-life economy collapsed.

“We kind of changed courses on Jonah and decided that being a man who could pinch a nickel until it bleeds is actually maybe not the worst thing for New York right now,” Waid said.

It’s hard to compare the over-the-top fictitious character to a real person, but both Slott and Waid said that Jameson shares traits with past mayors. Waid said he has the chutzpah of Ed Koch and Slott says he has the strong hand of Rudolph Giuliani.

But what happened to Mayor Mike?

Tom Brevoort, executive editor at Marvel, was somewhat nebulous about Bloomberg’s whereabouts. For one, Bloomberg does not even run against Jameson, who defeats two other candidates. Brevoort suggests Bloomberg’s fate is tied to Marvel’s last big event, Secret Invasion, an infiltration by aliens called the Skrulls who appeared in plotlines throughout the comic books.

“What happened to Mayor Bloomberg in the Marvel Universe?” he asks rhetorically. “I don’t know, crushed by a rock, killed during the Skrull invasion? Could’ve been anything.”

As for Jameson, the thing neither writer would reveal is his political orientation. Waid said they chose to skirt around the issue, so as not to alienate some of the fans. Slott, however, channeled the character himself for his answer, turning his voice gritty and angry.

“I think J. Jonah Jameson would say, ‘J. Jonah Jameson can’t be tied to any one party. J. Jonah Jameson is a man of the people,’” Slott barked. He paused, leaned in and then continued in character, “‘Dag blast it!’”

While Jameson might not be a favorite of Peter Parker, he is loved by some of the people who write him.

“Oh, Jameson is probably my favorite supporting character in comics,” Waid said. “He has a terrible sense of humor, but he’s a riot to be around, listening to him scream, and rant and bully. Deep down, there is a heart of gold there, but I think you would need a drill press and an electron microscope to find it.”

Slott is endeared to the character as well.

“Stan Lee created a … great, larger-than-life character that when it’s time to get behind the keys of the keyboard, you just channel him,” Slott said. “He’s very verbose. He’s very much a blowhard. He’s very sure of himself. And every now and then, he gets some really great strings of alliteration. He’s fun to write.”

And while Jameson has a lot of negative qualities — especially his hatred of Spider-Man — both writers said he’s not evil.

“I think Jonah doesn’t think he’s evil,” Slott said. “He’s wonderfully rounded out. He’s a proud American; he’s very proud of his son the astronaut; he’s very petty; he very much likes being in the spotlight. He can’t stand that Spider-Man — Parker — kind of gets on his nerves, too. There’s all these different aspects of his personality. How do you explain Jonah? He’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a newspaper.”

Following the reveal of Jameson as mayor in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” the book begins its new arc, “24/7,” written by Waid and drawn by Mike McKone, which deals with the repercussions of the new mayor on Parker’s life.

“[Parker] tries a few things to figure out how to cope with this,” Waid said. “Ultimately he decides, well, if being Spider-Man eight hours a day makes Jonah miserable, then I will be Spider-Man 24 hours a day and make his head explode.”

So, to sum it up, Spider-Man will be acting out of spite, which is not out of character for the wisecracking superhero. But Waid said that there is more to his motivations. Read the book to find out.

While Spider-Man is swinging around in a fictitious New York City, there are many real-world topics, which very well might be dealt with in the story. And one of Bloomberg’s issues right now is term limits. Readers, as well as Spider-Man, may very well be wondering if there are term limits in the Marvel Universe.

“Yes, there are,” Waid said. “The term limit is when the readers get fed up with this, we move on.”

Spider-Man’s New York

Spider-Man has spun his web across the city. Here are some hot spots in Spidey’s life.

• Forest Hills, Queens – This is where Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, grew up.

• Empire State University – Parker’s fictional lower Manhattan school is in the same area as New York University.

• The Daily Bugle – Located on the East Side, Parker’s newspaper is not far from the former home of the Daily News on East 42nd Street.

• The Baxter Building - Spider-Man’s allies The Fantastic Four live at this fictional building near Grand Central Terminal.

• Hell’s Kitchen – Another Spidey ally, Daredevil lives, appropriately enough, in Hell’s Kitchen.

Months of delays will snarl commutes on E, F and V lines

Tuesday April 14, 2009 3:02 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The daily grind has gotten even worse for more than a million Manhattan and Queens straphangers, and it may not get better for months to come.

Since last month, the E, F and V lines have been running with delays of five to 10 minutes throughout the week because of track work. Additionally, the MTA is sending two fewer trains down the lines during the morning and evening rush hours.

“It’s heartless,” said Elisheva Laurie, 54, a teacher from Woodhaven. “People need the trains to get to work and get home.”

The MTA is replacing an 800-feet stretch of track between Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue and Forest Hills-71st Avenue stations as part of ongoing subway maintenance, said NYC Transit spokeswoman Deirdre Parker.The work is being done on the weekends, but trains must constantly travel at slower speeds because they are running over temporary track, she explained.

Signs in stations tell straphangers to plan on delays through the end of the year. Parker, however, said the work should wrap up by the end of the summer.

The E and F express trains are two of the busiest subway lines in the system. The F, which runs from Queens into Manhattan and further on to Brooklyn, averages 550,000 riders during the week. The E, operating between Queens and Manhattan, averages 450,000 straphangers, transit officials estimated. Meanwhile, the V, which travels through Queens and Manhattan, has 125,000 riders.

Melinda Hsia contributed to this story

Economy gives couples the wedding bell blues

Sunday April 12, 2009 1:18 PM By Heather Haddon

Brenda Turnage, 22, of Spring City, PA tries on a dress at Kleinfeld, 110 W 20 St, for her wedding next April. Asked if she was cutting costs because of the recession, she replied, "I was already going to be on a budget." (Photo by Andrew Hinderaker)

By Heather Haddon

Here comes the bride, all dressed in — catering bills, cake fees, credit card charges.

The economy has cast a long shadow on the start of the wedding season, with nervous couples cutting guest lists, haggling for discounted gowns or postponing the date until fortunes brighten.

“They are more timid about everything,” said Mark Ingram, owner of a couture bridal store in Turtle Bay, which slashed prices by 80 percent last month to move stale merchandise. “It's no surprise. The economy is in the toilet.”

Corporate layoffs have especially fueled a downturn in the wedding industry in New York. JoAnn Gregoli, a Park Avenue bridal consultant, said clients are cutting the price of their lavish weddings in half from $200,000.

“The wedding industry is deeply affected by Wall Street,” Gregoli said. “I have three weddings that are literally on hold.”Spending on weddings nationally remained flat between 2007 and 2008, averaging nearly $24,000, according to a survey by the Knot, a media company tracking marriage. But New Yorkers cut their budgets by $3,000 last year.

Jeremy Berger, a Brooklyn commercial producer, spent months planning a $25,000 wedding for 150, but he and his fiancé got nervous about paying a $300 cake-cutting fee and $50 for an hour of drinks per guest.

“We were cutting every single corner we could,” said Berger, 32. “But the bar situation was killing us.”

With heavy hearts, the couple decided to bag the big bash for a gathering of 50 at a favorite French restaurant. They slashed 80 percent off their budget by christening an iPod as the DJ, making their own boutonnieres and serving cupcakes instead of three-tiered confectionery.

The number of New York couples holding formal or black-tie weddings was down slightly last year, the Knot survey found. Nationally, couples also stayed engaged for months longer in 2008, the survey found.

“(Couples) are pushing their wedding dates back further and further,” Gregoli said.

As budgets tighten, New York couples have increasingly looked to renegotiate their contracts and hunt for bargains.

“Everybody is shopping, more so than ever before,” said B. Allan Kurtz, managing director of Gotham Hall in midtown. “I can bend, but I can't break.”

Since the slowdown, one high-end New Jersey bridal store went bankrupt, leaving a handful of city brides stranded without their dresses. And some New York City seamstresses and sales people have joined the unemployment lines.

“It's affecting us all,” said Angelika Moiodk, 32, a Greenpoint tailor who recently lost her work fitting mother-of-the-bride dresses.

Still, marriage isn't dead, and established wedding merchants are surviving by peddling package deals - like a “wedding in a box” offered by one Manhattan florist. Modest affairs imbued with meaning have gained vogue.

Berger said that downsizing his big day allowed him to make it more personal.

“I'd rather feed 10 people caviar than 100 people pizza,” he said.

Ideas to trim your wedding costs:

- Limit the hours of the open bar

- Opt for local, seasonal flowers, or share the arrangements with other couples getting married at the same venue

- Look for a smaller band, switch to a DJ, or ask friends to load up their iPods

- Bag the buffet for a set meal

- Book the photographer for an hourly rate and assemble your own album

(HEATHER HADDON)

Study: Married couples with kids less happy

Thursday April 9, 2009 2:53 PM By Heather Haddon

A woman and four children make their way across Greenwich Ave in Tribeca on Thursday. (Photo by RJ Mickelson/amNY)

By Heather Haddon

Marital bliss isn’t child’s play.

Couples are less likely to find happiness ever after if they have children, especially right after tying the knot, according to a new study.

The eight-year survey of 218 couples found that children brought on a sudden case of the relationship blues, with about 90 percent of mothers and fathers feeling dissatisfied with their partner after the birth of a child, according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“The first three or four months are like baby boot camp,” said Anna Grossman, a married mother with two young children living in lower Manhattan. “There's no doubt it does change the dynamic of a marriage.”

Psychologists say that the combination of sleeplessness and new parental responsibilities tend to suck the energy out of maintaining a healthy relationship. Couples often stop communicating or regularly acting affectionate.“Sex almost ceases to exist,” said Diana Kirschner, a therapist from Manhattan. “All their attention goes to the child.”

The couples who remained childless during the eight-year period experienced a gradual decline in their marital satisfaction, the study found. But couples who did have children saw a spike in problems such as poor communication and a crisis of faith in the marriage.

Many New York parents disagreed that kids had killed their marriage.

“It puts a stress on your life and marriage, but it’s a good stress,” said Lisa Karic, 41, of Staten Island.

Dissatisfaction was more pronounced among spouses who had a child soon after their marriage, along with parents with girl children. Female babies tend to make fathers more distant, according to researchers.

Still, babies aren't always a downer. Spouses with higher-incomes or those who had been married longer tended to find children strengthened their relationship.

“It's a blessing,” said Bettina McCall, 47, a Chelsea mother of two who was married for years before having children. “Once we had kids, it was like heaven.”

Family stress tends to ease up among couples who began their marriage with a solid foundation, psychologists say.

“Those who have a good relationship to begin with will find a way to negotiate [parenthood],” said Arthur Kovacs, a family psychologist from Los Angeles.

Psychologists advise new parents to take time out as a pair, even if it means forking over money for a babysitter. Grossman, who helped found a parenting group in lower Manhattan, said forming relationships with other new mothers took strain off her marriage.

“We all go through this,” said Grossman, whose group has 1,100 members. “To know you're not alone is helpful.”

Jason Fink and Casey Feldman contributed to this report

****

Babies weigh on married bliss

A study of 132 couples who had children within eight years of their marriage found:

- 100 percent of couples did not communicate well with their spouse

- 91 percent of women had trouble managing conflict with their husband

- 82 percent of men noticed they were less dedicated to their marriage

- 67 percent of women experienced less confidence in the future of their marriage

Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

New York City billboards are signs of the times

Sunday March 15, 2009 7:54 PM By Garett Sloane

Three billboards stare blankly down on 48th Street and Seventh Avenue

in Times Square. (Andrew Hinderaker)

By Danielle Sonnenberg

and Garett Sloane

Suddenly the city doesn’t seem so loud.

Billboards, the ever-present pitchmen, aren’t as full as they used to be. Like all real estate in the city, the spaces for outdoor ads — on billboards, buses and the sides of buildings — are not selling as well as they used to. Most noticeable at 48th Street and Seventh Avenue where three boards stare down blankly at the crossroads of the world.

“It’s certainly striking; simply because Times Square is a place that shouts at you and this clearly is a moment of silence amid the cacophony,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, noting that at one time it was rare for a billboard to be vacant for more than a day there.

Those three boards have been blank for about a month, according to Ben Martish, a sales representative at Lamar, the largest outdoor advertising company in the country. “It’s one of the best available boards in Times Square right now. It’s going to be booking within a few weeks I would imagine,” he said.

The asking rate for the cluster of signs is $100,000 for four weeks, Martish said, but Lamar, like other companies, has been willing to negotiate. Rates in the industry are down 10 to 25 percent from last year, he said.Skip Jones, founder of Media Lease, an out-of-home media company, said the market is so soft advertisers can basically coddle any deal they want. “During time periods when consumers are not spending the media isn’t attractive to corporate America,” he said.

He pointed to a billboard on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel that CBS Outdoor is expected to rent for about $8,000 a month; it used to go for between $20,000 and $40,000, he said.

“Outdoor advertising is not immune from the dramatically shrinking advertising environment. … Both occupancy and rates are under pressure,” said Laura Martin, senior media analyst at the New York-based Soleil Securities.

One in five outdoor advertisers are not renewing leases, an unusually high figure, she said.

“Everything is negotiable in this economy," said Scott Alessandro, an account executive from Van Wagner, another top outdoor-ad company.

Industry observers cited several Manhattan spots where billboard space is moving slowly: Houston Street, Midtown West and the Meatpacking District.

If the billboards aren’t blank, in some cases they seem stuck in time. In Midtown West one still touts the movie “Despereaux,” a Christmastime animated tale. Another sign promotes the CBS show “Worst Week,” which debuted last fall and already is off the air.

“I wouldn't be surprised if a number of billboards are stale or leftover so it wouldn’t look like there was a void while they are looking to find another customer,” said James Goss, a media and entertainment analyst with Barrington Research.

Many ads in the subways also seem stuck in the past. In Union Square, the station remains festooned in promos for the movie “Notorious,” which debuted in January. And ads for “Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular” were seen months past the season.

CBS Outdoor, which handles ad space for the MTA, did not return calls for comment. An MTA spokesman touted the growth in ad revenue over the years, from $37 million in 1997 to $125 million last year, but couldn’t say how subway ads are faring these days.

According to numbers recently released by CBS Outdoor, overall revenue was down 15.5 percent last quarter. Clear Channel Outdoor, which was down about the same, said it’s getting creative in working with advertisers to strike deals.

“We are doing packaging that takes the less competitive inventory in other cities and plugging them in to add value to the client,” said Mitch Schwartz, vice president of government and public affairs at Clear Channel Outdoor.

“Clear Channel and CBS are lowering rates to move inventory,” said Andrew Hampp a reporter for Advertising Age, a trade publication. “One buyer was even talking about lowering rates in Times Square, a seemingly immune area.”

With space available and rates coming down, Tompkins said he sees opportunity. “Here’s a chance to put up a message, and get your message out at the crossroads of the world,” he said.

Banks still branch out in New York City

Wednesday March 4, 2009 4:19 PM By Garett Sloane

By Rebecca Wolfson

Special to amNewYork

The financial industry is battered, but that doesn’t mean New York’s landscape of bank branches is withering.

TD Bank in particular has an aggressive growth strategy. The Canadian bank that took over Commerce in 2007 has plans for five to nine new city branches this year, said spokeswoman Rebecca Acevedo.

Faith Hope Consolo, the head of retail leasing at Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that banks have not become the retail sore spot that many were predicting.“Private banking will become more important because people are going to want to go somewhere they can talk about their money personally,” she said.

New banks are still opening; they’re just in smaller spaces and at rents that are 25 percent lower than they were last year, Consolo said.

“Bank of America still sees a tremendous opportunity in New York,” said spokeswoman Anne Pace. “We have no plans to close any banking centers in 2009.”

The company plans to open a Bryant Park branch this year.

However, Citigroup is retrenching and JPMorgan Chase is closing branches after its merger with Washington Mutual, Consolo noted. Chase will close 32 branches by late summer. Some will be the two-story mega-bank variety, Consolo said.

The cutbacks, however, still leave 500 Chase branches for New Yorkers, hardly a shortage.

“Chase and WaMu customers will have many more branches to bank at,” said Mike Fusco, a spokesman for Chase.

Mayor Bloomberg unveils plan to retool Wall Street

Wednesday February 18, 2009 3:28 PM By Garett Sloane

By Garett Sloane

During these down times, the mayor sees an opportunity for businesses to start up right here in the city.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled yesterday the city’s response to the collapse of the financial sector — a rescue plan five months in the making — and it includes fostering new businesses, retraining Wall Street refugees, luring foreign companies and retaining the title of “Financial Capital of the World.”

"It is going to be tough times. We are going to downsize. But so is everybody else," Bloomberg said at a news conference alongside city officials and business leaders. "Our objective has to be, in a relative sense, making sure that we stay No. 1."One of the biggest initiatives announced yesterday was to try to transform the city into an entrepreneurial hotbed, where new companies can start up and venture capital flows.

The city will offer workstations to new businesses for $200 a month. There will be about 1,000 desks available at a few sites around the city, including the incubator unveiled yesterday at 160 Varick St.

The New York City Economic Development Corp. helped devise the 11-point initiative to retool the financial sector, which the city has relied on for one-third of private-sector income.

The sector will shed about 65,000 jobs, and officials hope the new initiatives will create 12,000 jobs in five years and 25,000 in 10, according to Seth Pinsky, executive director of the city’s Economic Development Corp.

The city’s biggest players have deliberated on this rescue plan since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, when crisis mode set in, Pinsky said.

“We wanted to study the problem so that whatever solution we came up with addressed the actual problem, and not just what we thought the problem was,” he said.

What they came up with was an approach to keep New York the financial heart of America and the world despite having lost its storied investment banks.

They identified three threats: the corroded financial eco-system here, the implosion of the capital markets and the brain drain of Wall Street workers.

The new plan tries to address these issues by reforesting the financial sector with new markets such as exchanges to trade carbon credits and other creative instruments; encouraging entrepreneurship; and retraining laid-off Wall Streeters so that they stay here rather than relocate.

One of the initiatives is to encourage more venture capital and angel investors to spread wealth in the city. The city's development corporation will start the spending by offering $3 million to start-ups and hopes the private sector contributes double that.

In all, the mayor's plan will spend more than $50 million — $30 million in federal money and the rest from the city and private sector.

“There is a big opportunity here to create a bit of a hub of entrepreneurial activity here in Manhattan,” said Barry Silbert, the CEO of SecondMarket, a firm that in many ways embodies what the new initiative represents. Silbert attended the mayor’s news conference.

SecondMarket, a marketplace for illiquid assets, was both a start-up and an innovator in the financial sector.

Silbert and others noted that with the city in a rut the cost of living is coming down, that’s actually what helped the city find the office space for the incubators, and new companies may find it more affordable to set up shop.

“There is no reason why in this environment the city can’t be successful,” Silbert said.

New Yorkers turn homes into movie sets

Tuesday February 3, 2009 3:55 PM By Garett Sloane

"Adam," a film that won high praise at this year's Sundance Film Festival,

was filmed on location at an Upper West Side church in 2007.

By Rebecca Wolfson

Special to amNewYork

Some New Yorkers get paid to mingle with movie stars.

With a vibrant film production industry in the city, crews are always scouting for homes, stores or restaurants to shoot in. For the owners of these locations it can mean a big payday.

“You’ll have a big crew come into your apartment for the day and transform your home, and leave you at the end of the day and it looks like it did before, and you’re holding a check in your hand,” said John Hutchinson, a location manager in the city.Ravi Derossi, owner of the Bourgeois Pig and Death & Co., earns $3,000 to $10,000 a day when he rents his two East Village bars for shoots. Crews from MTV, Vogue magazine and Hennessy have found inspiration at his bars.

The city doesn’t track how many times film are shot at private locations, but the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting said they probably trend the same as public shoots. Last year, the city logged 27,251 location shooting days, which was down from a peak of 34,718 in 2006 but still well above the low of 14,848 in 2002.

Leslie Urdang, a film producer, shoots heavily in New York City. She recently produced “Adam,” a Sundance Film Festival favorite, and it was filmed at the Church of Saint Paul and Saint Andrew on the Upper West Side.

The film crew worked at the church for about two weeks and the producers paid to relocate some of the residents to hotels. Urdang did not say how much or if the church was paid, but said, in general, pay ranges from $500 a day for small productions to tens of thousands of dollars for bigger ones.

She said locations can be found through realtors or through the mayor’s film office, but they are also discovered randomly.

“Sometimes it’s about knocking on the doors of total strangers and asking if they’d like to have their home, store, restaurant, corner deli in the movie,” she said.

For some people, hosting film crews is worth the hassle while others — in typical New York fashion — would rather not be bothered, Hutchinson said.

“Some people love it,” he said. “Their kids get a kick out of it, eat at the catering truck with the crew, take pictures with stars and see how a film is made, other people see it as an invasion.”

Laura Wagner, the director of film locations at Sotheby’s International Realty, specializes in matching film crews with locations.

“New York is a special city, there is no other city like New York,” it offers a range of places to film from lofts to bistros, uptown, downtown and outlying boroughs, she said.

Sotheby’s deals with luxury locales, but less-polished New York spaces are in demand, too, Hutchinson said.

“There’s a need for every kind of location eventually,” Hutchinson said. “Sometimes they need something really big, or small, or elegant, or really drab. Sometimes they want a place that looks like a grandmother has lived there for 6o years and hasn’t changed.”

Municipal bonds pay off

Monday January 26, 2009 3:39 PM By Garett Sloane

By Garett Sloane

The city has been a hit with individual investors looking to stow money away from the volatile market.

Late last year investors snapped up $300 million in city-issued bonds to pay for building construction, and their voracious appetite prompted the city to sell another $650 million earlier this month.

Here is a look at the “muni” market and how it works:What are “muni” bonds?

State and local governments sell municipal bonds to raise money for major public projects from roads to sewers. “Each bond is, in effect, an IOU,” the city comptroller’s office explained.

Why are they desirable investments?

Municipal bonds are relatively safe, the interest earned is tax-free and they offer higher yields than similar investments. “If you were to go out and buy long-term municipal bonds you’d probably be able to pick up a bond for 5 percent or more. A 30-year treasury bond right now has a yield of 3.39 percent,” said Joseph T. Darcy, a senior portfolio manager at Dreyfus Corp.

How important is the credit rating for a bond?

Investors need to take a close look at the credit rating of the bond issuer, Darcy said. For example, Standard & Poor’s rates New York City General Obligation bonds at “AA.” That’s a good rating compared “BBB-” by Standard & Poor’s for Yankees debt to build their new stadium. (Yankee debt bonds go to auction today). There are some concerns that municipalities — not just New York but elsewhere — will lose credit standing as budget deficits mount.

Is the city a well-respected issuer of bonds?

The city is highly recognized by investors in the bond market. It is known to issue bonds frequently and it attracts a fair share of the $2.6 trillion “muni” bond market, Darcy said.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless plan new stores in New York City

Tuesday January 13, 2009 2:15 PM By Garett Sloane

Verizon Wireless and AT&T plan to open at least seven new storefronts in the city in 2009. (RJ Mickelson)

By Annie Lok

Special to amNewYork

Benefiting from cheaper rents and growing demand for trendy smartphones, wireless providers AT&T and Verizon plan to expand their city retail presence in 2009.

As banks stop grabbing up retail space and other businesses close, landlords are eager to strike deals with large national companies that have reliable credit, said Robert Gibson, executive director of retail at real estate company Cushman & Wakefield.

“Wireless carriers are logical players to come in,” he said.

AT&T said it plans to open seven company-owned stores this year, in addition to the 55 it already has. Verizon also said it will grow its roster of about 25 shops by at least seven.T-Mobile said it plans to open stores here, but did not provide a number. Sprint said it did not plan new stores for 2009.

AT&T has set its sights on prime locations such as midtown, the Lower East Side and the Upper East Side, and last month it opened a store on the Upper West Side.

Verizon’s strategy relies on what the company called “under-penetrated” areas, such as Washington Heights and Staten Island.

Wireless carriers should benefit from the current rental market, as rates drop and activity slows.

“Landlords are taking a hard look at deals,” said Joseph Isa, a broker at Winick Realty Group.

AT&T and Verizon plan new storefronts in an effort to pinch customers from eachother and weaker competitors, such as T-Mobile and Sprint, according to Ken Hyers, an analyst at Technology Business Research, a group that tracks the telecom industry. They also want to tap relatively affluent New Yorkers.

“The decision to open additional stores in New York is a strategic one to spend their marketing dollars in the areas where they’re most likely to get the best-quality customers,” Hyers wrote in an e-mail.

New York City sets sights on Bollywood

Monday January 5, 2009 2:41 PM By Garett Sloane

Mumbai's Bollywood is a fast-growing industry and New York City hopes to capitalize on some of that success. (Getty)

By Rebecca Wolfson

Special to amNewYork

New York is on a blitz for Bollywood bucks, but faces plenty of competition from neighboring cities also looking to woo the booming Indian film market.

In October, Katherine Oliver, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, was in Mumbai to meet with Bollywood leaders, a trip that coincided with the opening of a city tourism bureau there.

“We thought it would be good to learn more about this growing market and bring their projects to our city,” Oliver said. Unfortunately for Oliver, Philadelphia’s film office is also on a mission to attract Indian films, as are a number of cities worldwide.In 2008, eight Bollywood film productions came to New York. None are yet scheduled to film here this year, but crews apply for permits within weeks of filming so that should change, according to the city’s film office.

The Bollywood box office brings in about $3 billion a year — a fraction of Hollywood — but the Indian industry is growing at almost 25 percent a year, according to Anadil Hosein, who has produced several Bollywood films shot in the city during the past five years.

In a sign of the tough competition, Philadelphia recently recruited a Bollywood movie that is all about New York — and named for it. “New York” is set to be released this month, and is about three Muslim friends caught up in the aftermath of 9/11. The trailer of the movie draws on the imagery of the Twin Towers and some sequences were shot at familiar New York locales. However, a lot of the scenes were also filmed in Philly.

“[The producers] were looking for alternative places to film,” said Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office. “What they like about Philadelphia is that it is a real urban metropolis with skyscrapers, and could easily double for New York.”

Bollywood audiences, however, don’t identify with Philadelphia like they do with New York, according to Hosein.

“It’s sort of the pinnacle of every Bollywood director’s dream — to make a quintessential New York film,” she said.

Whether or not they’ll actually film here, however, depends on the city’s efforts. Television, film and commercial production in the city is a $5 billion industry that supports 4,000 ancillary businesses and employs 100,000 New Yorkers, Oliver said. The film office works to attract filmmakers by offering free permits, free police assistance, tax incentives and discounts at local businesses.

New York is in a good position to attract more Indian filmmakers, Hosein said.

One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Shah Rukh Kahn, spends a lot of time here, Hosein said. The city’s film office likes to tout the fact that the movies “Kal Ho Naa Ho” and “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna,” both filmed here, are among the 25 highest grossing productions in India during the last decade.

“Bollywood is already very much a part of the New York film language,” she said. “It’s become a second home to many Bollywood stars and personalities.”

Marisa Tomei wrestles with 'exotic' role

Monday December 15, 2008 2:34 PM By Pete Catapano

By Robert Levin

Special to amNewYork

Marisa Tomei will always be loved around these parts for her pitch-perfect, Oscar-winning performance as Brooklyn girl Mona Lisa Vito in “My Cousin Vinny.”

She’s a native of the borough and a fixture in theater, so it comes as a surprise to learn that though she still has an NYC apartment, she’s called Los Angeles home for the past four years.“People get so outraged [at my move]. I have a right to sunshine and peace and quiet,” Tomei says, laughing.

She spoke at the recent press day for “The Wrestler,” a New Jersey-set drama from director Darren Aronofsky that opens tomorrow.

The film follows aging wrestling legend Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke) as he tries to get his life in order and come to terms with the fact that his body can no longer serve him as it once did.

Tomei plays Cassidy, an exotic dancer struggling with her affection for Randy, a client of hers. She credits her intimate rapport with Rourke in large part to the pared down production.

“Everything was handheld and it was such a small crew,” she says. “Everything was on location. All those things add to intimacy and reality.”

“The Wrestler” is the second film in just over a year, the other being “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” to require significant nude scenes from the actress. Tomei says she found them more of a burden the first time around.

“Once you cross a certain line in your life then you’re kind of like, 'I don’t mind it really,' you’re just over that line, whatever it is," she says. “I had already crossed that line in 'Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,' so it was bigger then.”

WTC survivor staircase moves again at ground zero

Thursday December 11, 2008 8:30 AM By Admin

The staircase that served as an escape route for

people fleeing the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 is now in a

museum.

The museum to commemorate the 2001 terrorist attacks hasn’t been

built yet, but the 57-ton survivors’ staircase was moved by crane

Thursday across ground zero to its future entrance.

The staircase stood for years as the last remaining above-ground

remnant of the original trade center complex.

Preservationists — and survivors who used it to get quickly from

the outdoor trade center complex to the street below on Sept. 11 —

hoped it would stay in the same place, but it stood in the

footprint of one of five planned office towers.

In 2006, state officials announced they would demolish all but

one or two slabs of the staircase to make way for the new tower,

undeterred by a group that named the steps one of the nation’s most

endangered historic places. The staircase weighed 175 tons at the

time, too heavy to drive across bridges into storage; officials

couldn’t find space for it in a nearby park.

But planners changed their mind a year later, finding a spot for

the 37 stairs at the entrance pavilion to the below-ground memorial

museum.

The stairs were moved for the first time in March — after

construction crews chipped away at the concrete foundation and

replaced it with metal supports — and again in July from one end of

the site to the other.

On Thursday, a crane moved the staircase about 150 feet north

from the trade center footprint to the street-level entrance.

Visitors won’t be able to use the stairs but will see them as they

descend a parallel stairway from street level into the museum.

The memorial and museum are both expected to be open in 2012.

(The Associated Press0

Spooky sustenance

Tuesday October 28, 2008 3:11 PM By Perrie Samotin

Grab a cold beer at Blind Tiger, off the parade route. (Phil S. Kropoth)

By Emily Ranager

Special to amNewYork

Carousing with ghosts and goblins at the 35th annual Village Halloween Parade on Friday can make even the most spirited revelers seek some refreshments. Here are a few restaurants and bars on or near the parade route.Obivia’s Parade

Midnight Bash

201 Lafayette St.

212-226-4904

Buy a cocktail to spin the wheel of prizes and win $25 gift certificates, free drinks or adult treats. From 12 to 4 a.m., specials include $5 “Smashing Pumpkin” beer and $3 “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” chili burgers.

Porky’s NYC

55 W. 21st St.

212-675-8007

Porky’s invites partiers to come “chug a beer and dance like an idiot” at their annual Nightmare on 21st Street parade after-party. Enjoy an open bar from 9 to 11 p.m. and compete in a $1,000 costume contest. $15 admission.

Blind Tiger Ale House

281 Bleecker St.

212-462-4682

Swing by this Village favorite and refuel with more than 50 bottled beers and 28 on tap, as well as grilled cheese, quesadillas and Murray’s cheese plates until 2 a.m.

Town Tavern

134 W. Third St.

212-253-6955

Wait for the parade to start here and enjoy a $10 open bar from 4 to 6 p.m., followed by $4 “creepy crawler” Jell-O shots and “after dark” drafts. Come in costume and compete to win $500 in cash and prizes.

The Half Pint

76 W. Third St.

212-260-1088

It’ll get spooky at this ale house, where you can gulp $4 pumpkin ales and spooky shots, or pony up $20 for a “dead guy” growler — a half-gallon jug of beer. The best costumes will take home prizes.

Vintage Irving

118A E. 15th St.

212-677-6300

If you prefer your Halloween a bit tamer, try the $40 Ode to the Pumpkin tasting dinner. Enjoy pumpkin-seed-crusted fried green tomatoes and pumpkin soufflé paired with three harvest beers. Seatings at 6 and 8:30 p.m.

vintageirvingny.com.

Sushi Samba 7

87 Seventh Ave. South

212-691-7885

The kabuki-themed revelry will include a costumed staff and a Dracula dessert with vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry foam. Come in costume for a chance to win a weekend in Las Vegas and dinner at the restaurant’s recently opened branch on the Strip.

Otto Enoteca Pizzeria

1 Fifth Ave.

212-995-9559

This Mario Batali joint is serving its regular menu, including pizza ($7 to $14), pasta ($9) and gelato ($7). Otto gets busy on Halloween, so reservations are strongly recommended.

Chat ‘n’ Chew

10 E. 16th St.

212-243-1616

Warm up with down-home staples such as mac and cheese, meatloaf and sweet pumpkin cheesecake. Arrive by 7 p.m. for happy hour drink specials.

PARADE ESSENTIALS:

Route: The parade runs along Sixth Ave., from Spring St. to 21st St.

Time: Friday, 7 to 10 p.m., though participants are encouraged to line up at 6 p.m. on Sixth Ave. between Spring and Broome sts.

Trains: 1, 2,3 to 14th St., A, B, C, D, E, F, Q to West 4th St.

At home: The parade will be telecast live on NY1 from 8 - 9:30 p.m.

Haunt your own house

Tuesday October 28, 2008 2:05 PM By Perrie Samotin

An Upper East Side residence decorated for Halloween. (Photo: Phil S. Kropoth)

By Amanda Magnus

Special to amNewYork

New Yorkers may be feeling the fear of the economic pinch, but that hasn’t stopped some from decking their homes with ghouls, goblins and everything in between this Halloween season.

“We really embrace the horror,” said T.J. O’Shea, an assistant to Manhattanite Richard Medly, who owns a gruesomely decorated townhouse on 63rd Street between Park and Madison avenues.The Medlys — whose house is covered in such seasonal emphemera as skulls, vultures, a barbecue roasting (faux) human flesh and a gutted pig — compete every year with friends a few blocks north. “We definitely won this year,” O’Shea said.

The family and its neighbors are hardly alone in the impulse to decorate, as total Halloween spending is expected to reach about $5.77 billion nationwide this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer survey. That means the average person will spend $66.54 — up from $64.82 last year.

William Freeman, an attorney, said he enjoys the scary sights.

“I’d love to see more places like this,” he said, in reference to a decorated Upper East Side home.

But not every haunted house gets that kind of love.

In Greenpoint, Barbara Galeotafiore’s neighbors have complained about her home’s get-up, and recently the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation told her to remove the lights she’d strung through her trees to illuminate flying ghouls. Galeotafiore said the agency told her the lights dry up the leaves and officials threatened her with a summons if she didn’t eighty-six them.

In addition to the ghouls, Galeotafiore’s decorations include a glowing organ, gravestones, illuminated pumpkins and spooks inside her front gate.

“We used to have music, but the neighbors complained about that, too,” she said.

Her decorations are part of a 40-year family tradition — flamboyant decorating for all major holidays. Though neighbors and the city aren’t shy about making their objections known, Galeotafiore said she gets the seal of approval from an audience for whom the display is intended: children.

“I usually get about a hundred kids who stop by,” she said.

Try three scarily simple tips:

1. Brown paper bags can be creepy luminaria.

Draw pumpkins, witches or ghosts on the bags, weigh them down with sand and insert votive candles in glass holders. Use the bags to line stoops and counters, or to throw a little light on tabletops.

2. Black pumpkins are scarier than orange ones.

Fully scoop out a pumpkin, spray it with black paint, then carve a Jack-o-lantern. Add candles to up the fright factor.

3. Themed candles set a mood.

Pottery Barn (117 E. 59th St.) carries a selection of skull-shaped candles and votives decorated with a skull and crossbones. Pier 1 (71 Fifth Ave.) has black pumpkin candles. And at Crate and Barrel (611 Broadway), pick up a few spider-shaped tea candles.