Urbanite

Mike ramblin' a few notches down the dial

Wednesday April 30, 2008 10:52 AM By Rolando Pujol

Now that New York talk radio veteran John Gambling has a new home on WOR 710 months after being let go by WABC 770, the mayor also has a new home for his weekly radio show.

Bloomberg, who appeared on Gambling' show every Friday since 2002, is following him to WOR. The announcement made Wednesday at Ben Benson's Steak House in midtown Manhattan.

"When John and I were last talking on the radio about eight weeks ago, Arthur from Manhattan called in and asked what I don't like about my job. I said 'not much,' but, ever since, there's one thing I haven't liked: not being able to have intelligent conversations on the radio with John Gambling about the issues that matter most," Bloomberg said. "John is a class act in the world's greatest city. And even when we don't agree, I've always told him that he's got every right to be wrong."

The show will resume on May 16 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Fridays, although the mayor will call in from Ireland on May 9.

-- Pete Catapano

Tags: wabc-am, wor, john gambling, manhattan, media, politics

'Baghdad High' breakout hit of Tribeca Film Festival

Wednesday April 30, 2008 10:14 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

'Baghdad High' is one of those films you know will be good as soon as you hear the concept: Two journalists gave four Baghdad teens video cameras to capture their senior year of high school.

But like most of the packed house Tuesday night at the Tribeca Film Festival, I had no idea the finished documentary--gleaned from more than 300 hours of footage--would be great.

After the film, the Q&A (everybody stayed), and four rounds of applause, I felt like calling and emailing and texting everyone in my life, telling them to Go See This Film! (Or, Wait For it To Air on HBO Later This Year!)

Hayder, Anmar, Ali, Mohammad... if fame were based on merit, these four extraordinary teens would become as well-known as Brandon, Dylan, Kelly and Donna.

They catch themselves and each other, up close and personal, rapping (badly) to Tupac, singing (hilariously) to Britney, stressing about exams, playing soccer, celebrating holidays.

Plus the mandatory teen preening and male bravado (Anmar at one point flexes for the camera, and with a grin says, "Look at my body--extraordinary, the champion.") Mixed with telling displays of how much they care for each other (like a shot of them all lying in the warm sun, piled on top of each other).

But there's also gunfire, driving through checkpoints, a bombing, electricity rationing, hiding in the dark, worries for a girlfriend, relatives forced to move in because of safety concerns.... They "feel like you're in prison," Hayder says at his lowest point.The guys come from middle-class Shi'ite, Christian, Kurdish and mixed families. And although due to bureaucratic fumblings the filmmakers--New Yorker Laura Winter and fellow Columbia J-School grad Ivan O'Mahoney--were only able to get cameras to males, a steady stream of mothers, sisters, aunts and nieces talk on camera, along with male family members and classmates at the all-boy high school.

You won't soon forget any of the teens; but the breakout star is Mohammad, a goofy and short only child raised by his single mom.

He runs his mouth constantly and films everything--his jiggling dancing, attempts to befriend a pigeon and then a mouse, eating with his family, teasing his precocious niece (she gives as good as she gets--on his 18th birthday she gleefully tells the camera, "God willing, for his next birthday Mohammad will be taller.")

He captures historic moments, too. We see his family reacting to the trial of Saddam Hussein, and then his execution (his fiery grandmother, for one, firmly believes in an eye for an eye).

And after Ali, who's his best friend, is forced to move away from Baghdad because of worries over safety, Mohammad whispers--almost therapeutically--to us in English as he lies in bed, speaking of his loneliness and own fears for his country.

It speaks to the intimacy Baghdad High creates that it was only when the teens tried out their English that I was reminded most of the film is in Arabic.

You forget you're reading subtitles; you're sucked in by the shaky, close-up shots and feel a part of their world. You want to talk to the teens, comfort and help them--and you feel like you could. When one of the teens kisses the camera good-bye, I reflexively wanted to hug him back.

It's an amazing aspect of the movie; it made a Western audience, hard-bitten New Yorkers all, not only tear up and lean forward to catch every word, but also feel viscerally connected to Iraqis. As our neighbors, our friends, our sons, ourselves.

But the movie isn't just notable because of how we, the audience, reacts to it. Ali and his parents were there for the screening; his father said afterwards he thought the film's importance was both that it "show the suffering of the people," and also because "people are expressing themselves."

And that's the root of the film. People--four Iraqi teens and their families in this case--got a chance to talk. In the midst of violence and chaos and fear, they spoke into the camera and talked of truth and love and hope.

All we have to do is listen.

* Remaining showtimes/ticket info for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday here

* MoreTribeca blog coverage here; see Celebrity photos here; Tribeca videos and trailers are here

*Ten Muslim New York teens share their lives, via stories/photos/videos

Tags: tribeca film festival, movies

Forget sex tape -- what about Jimi Hendrix's guitar!

Tuesday April 29, 2008 3:49 PM By Rolando Pujol

The white Gibson SG Custom electric guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix. (photo courtesy of DHL)

It was September 1969 when iconic rocker Jimi Hendrix made his second appearance on the esteemed "Dick Cavett Show" and on American national television.

Dressed in a turquoise flowered silk kimono, Hendrix, in a trance-like state, made his fingers move like magic as he sang “Izabella,” a song about a soldier calling home to his girl.

“Hey, Izabella, girl, I'm fightin' this war for the children and you,” he cried.

The white Gibson SG Custom electric guitar Hendrix played that day, one year before his death, was delivered this morning by DHL to New York City’s Hard Rock Café, where it will remain on display until the end of June. The guitar is accompanied by a plaque and a framed photo of Hendrix.

“It’s an honor to have such a piece of memorabilia in the New York cafe,” said David Miller, the director of operations for the restaurant. “I was 5 years old when he played that guitar, and it’s amazing that it’s now one of the 500 pieces of rock history that we have here.”Ian Blackman, the DHL driver who delivered the guitar, scanned the case and had Miller sign for the 160-pound package as a small crowd of tourists and photographers watched.

Made with a sculpted mahogany body and mother-of-pearl inlays, the guitar was flown in Friday night from Paris and transported from Orlando, to New York. It will be on display in the case under glass, surrounded by other pieces of rock memorabilia, including framed Beatles 45s, an autographed Frank Sinatra album cover, and a Bing Crosby original acetate record from 1936.

The New York Hard Rock Café received the guitar as a reward for being named “Top of the Rock,” an award presented by corporate to six franchise and six company-owned cafes each year based on financial performance, unique sales accomplishments and community contributions.

The guitar was acquired by the Hard Rock Café through a private estate auction in the early 1990s, said spokesperson Kristen Hauser. During the last three years, it has been displayed at various locations around the world for two months at a time as part of the “Top of the Rock” program.

Miller cites charity programs and new green initiatives, as well as customer service from the restaurant’s 327 employees, as the reasons for the award.

“We’ve known for one month that we were going to get this guitar and it’s a fantastic privilege for our hard work,” said Freddie Veldeman, a server at the restaurant and Hendrix fan. “We couldn’t wait to get it here.”

Some tourists and employees said they didn’t know much about Hendrix, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and named the “No. 1 Guitarist of All Time” by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.

Others, like Veldeman, hovered over the case with excitement.

“[Hendrix] is one in a billion and his guitar is the history of rock and roll,” said Veldeman, 33, pointing to the case. “This is what the Hard Rock Café stands for.”

-- Vidya Rao

Tags: jimi hendrix, manhattan, media, entertainment

Calorie counts on the menu...for now

Tuesday April 29, 2008 3:21 PM By Marlene Naanes

(via flickr.com's Penelope_CA)

Big chain restaurants must now start posting the number of calories in their dishes, an appeals court ruled yesterday, but their legal battle isn’t over yet.

The New York State Restaurant Association had asked the court to halt the regulation requiring restaurants with 15 outlets nationwide -- about 10 percent of city eateries -- to post calorie counts on their menus and menu boards. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled the city could move forward with the new regulation. Meanwhile, the judges will consider the merits of the restaurant association’s appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down the group’s lawsuit challenging the calorie counts.

“With today's decision, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, and the other big chains that haven't yet listed calories as required by the Health Code have run out of stalling tactics,” said Thomas Frieden, city health department commissioner.

The health department said yesterday it will not seek fines until July 19 for restaurants in violation. An attorney for the restaurant association said the appeal would be decided before any fines would be levied against restaurants, noting some restaurants like Starbucks have already posted calorie counts.It is unclear if other restaurants will post the information before the appeal is heard.

“They just have to decide on their own,” said attorney Kent Yalowitz of the restaurant association.

Also yesterday, the appeals court said it wants the Food and Drug Administration to weigh in on whether its rules permit cities to force restaurants to display calorie counts, the Associated Press reported.

The city Board of Health passed the regulation in January, saying it could aid in decreasing obesity and diabetes cases by helping New Yorkers make informed decisions.

The restaurant association filed a lawsuit, arguing that many chain restaurants already post information voluntarily on tray liners and in other forms and forcing them to post caloric information on menu boards violated the First Amendment.

Tags: food

Hell's Kitchen block: A big pool no longer

Tuesday April 29, 2008 12:31 PM By Rolando Pujol

The Hell's Kitchen site is now buzzing with construction. Below, a photo from Community Board 4's Web site of a former building on the site, which housed the Kraft Restaurant.

The sounds of construction have finally broken the silence of stalled development on a Hell’s Kitchen block.

For more than two years, the site at West 42nd Street between Dyer and 10th avenues has been little more than a running joke to neighbors, who could only laugh at the stagnating pond that formed after the developer, The Related Cos., razed the buildings and development plans were put on hold after community opposition.

“They left a big hole in the ground that started collecting a lot of rain,” she said. “We went nuts here. The neighborhood started calling it Lake Related. Some tenants even joked that they now had waterfront property,” said Maris Rendanty, 53, president of the Manhattan Plaza Tenants Association, which represents residents of a complex across the street from the construction site.

Now the final blueprints fit what the community had been seeking: A mixed space that allows for a 58-story high-rise and restores two theaters to the site. The complex is set to be completed some time in 2010, according to the developer.

Related bought the block in 2004 and faced a battle over the developer’s plan to build a site for Cirque Du Soleil. After Related tore down the Houseman and Fairbanks theaters in 2005, the community wanted off-Broadway venues more in spirit with the area, something the new plan provides.“They [Related] told us that they would come up with a plan that would meet the requirements of the theater bonus regulations of the Department of City Planning,” said Anna Levin, Land Use chairwoman for Community Board 4.

The theater bonus program was created in 2005 as part of the rezoning of Hudson Yards, according to Levin. The program offers incentives for developers to include a nonprofit performing arts space or a “legitimate” live theater with a maximum of 299 seats as part of any development plans.

Now with plans for two smaller theaters, Related is applying for the theater bonus incentives.

“As long-standing supporters of the arts, we are working with the City and the community to help bring cultural facilities to an area steeped in a historical connection to the arts,” Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for Related, wrote in an e-mail.

Rendanty, the head of the tenants group across the street, said communication has improved between the community and developer, and the construction site is in better shape: “They secured the perimeter with lights, swept, cleaned and drained the property of excess water.”

And neighbors are seeing big changes.

“This whole area is under development,” said Carlos Bauza, 33, manager of the CVS at West 42nd Street and 10th Avenue. “Some people are calling it the Hell’s Kitchen revival.”

-- Gene Roman

Tags: hell's kitchen, the related cos., development, theater, real estate, manhattan, gentrification

Interview with Tribeca director Tracey Hecht

Tuesday April 29, 2008 11:44 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

We caught up with writer-director Tracey Hecht, who lives in New York City, to talk about her new film "Life in Flight," starring Patrick Wilson ("Little Children") and Amy Smart ("Varsity Blues"), which had its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday.

The film should strike chords with this workaholic city of strivers, Hecht says. It takes place in New York City and follows the main character -- an architect -- as he struggles toward success, and then make choices to define it on his own terms. See the interview for more:

* For photos of celebrities and filmmakers at Tribeca, click here

* For more director interviews and our round-up of must-see films at Tribeca so far, click here

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: tribeca film festival, today's check it out, stuff that's cool, entertainment, movies

End of the cable monopoly

Tuesday April 29, 2008 8:26 AM By David Freedlander

Today the city announced that for the first time they are introducing competition to cable service in the city. Starting later this year, Verizon is going to roll out high speed Internet and cable to millions of homes in five boroughs.

“Our Administration is committed to bringing better service and competitive choices for cable television to the residents of New York City, and the proposed agreement would go a long way toward doing that,” said deputy mayor Robert Lieber at a morning news conference. “With the introduction of direct competition among cable companies, prices and service levels would reflect real market forces, and New York City customers would be the beneficiaries."

The plan has a few regulatory hoops to jump through, but Verizon expects 30 percent of the city to have cable competition by the end of the year, and all of the city to have a choice by 2014.

--- David Freedlander

Tags: cable, time warner, verizon, competition, media

Lollipops, minus the Venetian palazzo

Monday April 28, 2008 10:01 PM By Rolando Pujol

Crews Friday afternoon were taking down the last of the scaffolding from 2 Columbus Circle, revealing the only distinct architectural feature that survived the building's epic overhaul -- Ada Louise Huxtable's lollilops. Well, they belong to architect Edward Durell Stone, of MoMA and GM Building fame, but former New York Times architectural critic Huxtable gave us that great label. Those lollipops -- or, OK, columns -- at the base are now covered in glass, preserving the building's namesake element. Smart move.

But the marble Venetian palazzo of which she wrote so famously in the 1960s has been utterly extinguished. And in its place, well, you decide. The original structure was one of those buildings New Yorkers loved, just loved, to harsh on. We may well have been guilty of said crime during our less forgiving moments. After all, buildings should be judged in part by how successful a home they are to tenants, and 2 Columbus Circle never excelled in this respect. What it needed was a tenant who could appreciate its role in architectural history, its charms, and yes, its quirkiness.(That whole "portholes, but no windows" thing was a nonstarter for most folks, except perhaps for Verizon switching-station technicians.) That proved to be too tall an order, and time ran out for 2 Columbus Circle.

We were expecting more, much more, given the fevered debate over this building's future. At this point, we can say this much with authority: 2 Columbus Circle now blends in perfectly with its sleek neighbors, looking right at home with the Time Warner Center and the reclad Trump Tower across the way.

The circle is corporate, clean, and now, complete.

-- Rolando Pujol

Note: If you haven't yet read the first architectural review of the new 2 Columbus Circle, click here. And this comment thread on Curbed is not to be missed. Here's Urbanite's previous 2 Columbus Circle coverage.

Tags: 2 columbus circle, endangered nyc, real estate, museums, manhattan, arts, architecture

Eisenberg's: Good for the soul

Monday April 28, 2008 8:21 PM By Rolando Pujol

It wasn't initially part of our Friday night dinner plans, but there we were on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District -- and there was Eisenberg's. Its warm glow and long counter compelled us to come in and sit a spell. We enjoyed Eisenberg's wonderful onion rings and grilled-cheese sandwich washed down with a vanilla egg creme. It was near closing time, and the place was fairly empty. A regular who had been saddled up to the counter promised a return visit the next day as he rushed out the door. A couple sauntered in just after us, pointing out the vintage fixtures and signs and marveling at the place's very existence. Two older women stopped in to pick up some grub to go.

Places like Eisenberg's were a staple of the city block, part of the way New Yorkers ate before cafeterias and Automats began to give way to Burger Kings and later Quiznos and Chipotles. The continued survival of Eisenberg's speaks to the worthiness and importance of the idea of landmarking functioning businesses, not just the architecture or the original interior. (Witness Gage and Tollners in Brooklyn -- landmarked inside and out -- but at one point home to a T.G.I. Friday's.) We are relieved Eisenberg's remains in the good hands of Josh Konecky, who took it upon himself to "landmark" the place by keeping it just the way it's always been.

There's never a bad time to go, but we'll happily recommend a quiet Friday evening, when you can commune with Eisenberg's in relative peace, and get lost in the vibe of one of the most authentic places left in New York City.

-- Rolando Pujol

There are more photos after the jump ...

Tags: eisenberg's, restaurants, flatiron district, endangered nyc, signs, manhattan, history, stuff that's cool

475 Kent: Not ready for close-up

Monday April 28, 2008 2:14 PM By David Freedlander

475 Kent Ave., the converted warehouse space on the Williamsburg waterfront, is still not up to code, a fire department spokesman said Monday.

The building had been home to hundreds of artists, musicians, and designers, all of whom were evicted last winter when the city found that the building was a fire hazard.

The FDNY was due to inspect the building last week, but was told by the landlord, Nachman Brach, that it was still not ready for examination, FDNY spokesman Jim Long said.

Reached by phone and asked when the building would be ready for inspection, Brach said, “I have no idea. I have nothing to tell you.”

-- David Freedlander

Photo from roof of 475 Kent Ave, on Flickr

Tags: 475 kent, development, gentrification

Tribeca Film Fest: Must-see picks

Monday April 28, 2008 1:39 PM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

New Yorkers are standing in long lines--or playing the 'don't you know who I am?!' card--as the Tribeca Film Festival gets underway with its usual mix of dazzling small films and interesting major productions.

And the normal geographic confusion--this year it seems most of the 120 feature films from 31 different countries are actually screening in the East Village.

* See an interview with Bart Got a Room director Brian Hecker (and yes, see William Macy's Jewfro)

* Click here for fellow film fanatic Emily Ngo's interview with acclaimed director Robert Drew about his recut documentary, 'A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy'--and the comparisons with Barack Obama.

* Click here for trailers for many of the films.

And my early favorites thru Tribeca's first weekend--from Muslim women playing soccer to fighting with chicken, crab and halibut--are after the jump.Football Under Cover

This documentary about a German and an Iranian women's soccer teams struggling to play a match in Tehran is exactly what you want out of a film fest: a peek into the lives of strangers more interesting than yourself, but whom--it turns out--you can totally relate to.

Because it's about women playing soccer I'm forced to mention it's as stirring and memorable as Bend it Like Beckham... but without the cloying sweetness and pat resolutions.

The players include Marlene, a sweet but determined German who comes up with the idea for the match and faces down bureaucrats and pigheaded men to make it happen.

And Narmila, a pretty student at one of Iran's top colleges who learned soccer from her mom, plays the electric guitar and seems to dress entirely in things that have the Nike logo on them (except for her mandatory headscarf).

The film gives New Yorkers the rare chance to see what ordinary Iranian people are really like--the food, the culture, the great pride, the strong women, the sly humor, the stubborness, and of course the tensions between the regime's version of Islam and people's desire to lead fulfilling, normal lives.

There are some mesmerizing scenes near the beginning of the film of driving through nightime Tehran, set to a jazz soundtrack. And the directors skillfully intercut shots of the penultimate soccer match (played entirely in modest Islamic dress by both teams) with those of rambunctious, horn-blowing, protesting fans in the stands (all women).

It's a must-see; and afterwards, you gotta go out for chelo kebab (or bratwurst and beers).

-Remaining showtime and tickets here

The Chicken, the Fish and the King Crab

Speaking of food... "My priorities are chicken, crab, and halibut. What about my girlfriend?

Oh! Well, chicken, crab, halibut, and then my girlfriend."

So says one of the chefs preparing for the Oympics of cooking, the Bocuse d'Or competition.

And indeed, master chef Jesús Almagro--head of the Spanish team at the 24-nation competition--spends much of this documentary obsessed with the 2007 contest's chosen ingredients, as he and his all-star collection of chef friends frantically search for the perfect recipes and techniques in the months leading up to the high-pressure competition.

If you think you've had bad meetings at work, wait until you see the withering criticism Almagro stomachs when he presents his first efforts.

His fellow chefs, determined to end Spain's 20-year victory drought, stand in a ring around his offerings and rip everything from the taste to the shape to the color to the chosen plates for his dishes.

But even after an unbelievable amount of hard work that tops anything you've ever seen in Kitchen Stadium, it's not until--sacrebleu!--the proud Spanish chefs bring in a turncoat ex-winner from France that Almagro's team really starts cooking with gas.

The finale shows the best of the best sharing laughs, grimaces, and best dishes, with the winner raising high a golden statue of legendary chef Paul Bocuse.

Which, oddly, looks a bit like Oscar after one too many five-course meals.

-Remaining showtime and tickets here

My Marlon and Brando

How far would you go for love? The real-life heroine of My Marlon and Brando was willing to slip into Iraq at the start of the 2003 war.

The film is based on the frustrating and poignant struggle of the leading actress, Ayça Damgaci, to be with her Kurdish beloved.

She left her home in Istanbul and made her way alone to the Turkey-Iraq border, before being forced to detour their meeting to a small village in Iran.

Damgaci isn't what you'd expect as a romantic lead--she's cherubic, hot-tempered (screaming at an elderly neighbor at one point; justifiably, I'd say), and almost ruthless in her desperate pursuit of companionship.

Director Hüseyin Karabey follows along as Damgaci retraces her harrowing journey, mixing CNN Turkey coverage of the buildup to war with the actual 'video postcards' sent out of Iraq by Damgaci's boyfriend to create a faux documentary in the style of Iranian directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Or, This is Spinal Tap, just without the zaniness.

Karabey revealed after the screening that a major moment in the film was not based on the real story at all, but came out of his desire to put a face on the nearly 3/4 million Iraqis who have died in the war.

-Remaining showtime and tickets here

Playing for Change: Peace Through Music

"When you play on the streets, you don't have a particular audience--you have all the world coming to you," says Clarence Bekker, a street musician from the Netherlands.

And I think all the world should see the opening sequence of this global music documentary--it's absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen in a movie theater.

A street musician in Santa Monica, California starts singing a plaintive version of Stand By Me; through the magic of digital editing a deep-voiced singer in New Orleans is layered in, followed by singers from all over Europe, South Africa, India, Tibet, Native Americans....

By the end of it more than 35 diverse musicians from 18 locations can be heard doing Ben E. King's classic, in a variety of languages and vocal styles. It gave me goosebumps--and the audience gave it an ovation when it ended.

After that amazing start the 76 minute documentary, culled from more than 200 hours of footage, meanders a bit, with a fuzzy narrative and a lack of backstory about some of the musicians who flash on screen. (You can find some of their biographies on the website.)

And although the sound quality is wonderful--the filmmakers dragged their studio equipment around the world and miked all the performers to make sure it sounds like we're there--I think there is a tradeoff when musicians caught on the street sound so crystal-clear.

You lose the ambience, some of the sense of place; it's weird not to hear traffic noises when you can see cars passing, and jarring to see the performers wearing headphones under sunshine.

Indeed, the filmmakers sometimes even pluck the musicians away from their people, posing them against backdrops that--while beautiful--seem sterile compared to the energy of scenes actually shot in the streets.

But these are just things that keep the film from becoming great; it's still good.

You'll walk out remembering not just the Stand By Me sequence, but also the electrifying sitar player in India, the almost-Biblical power of musicians in New Orleans, the oh-so-cool drummer perched on a porch in the Congo, the bewitching Tula in Israel, the Cuban musician making music from a tube of bright red industrial plastic in Spain....

And for a taste of the film, check out this interview by my uber-colleague Lauren Johnston with Playing for Change's directors, Jonathan Walls and Mark Johnson.

-Remaining showtime and tickets here

All film stills courtesy the filmmakers, via Tribeca Film Festival

Tags: tribeca film festival, movies

Update: Market Diner to reopen in early June

Monday April 28, 2008 11:05 AM By Rolando Pujol

The Market Diner's former parking lot, shown below, will accommodate about 100 patrons. (Photos by Rolando Pujol)

The space-age Market Diner in Hell’s Kitchen, once a hangout for Frank Sinatra, is on track to reopen during the first week of June, its new proprietors confirmed Monday.

“It’s not going to be a regular old school diner,” said Nick Tsinias, son of one of the diner’s new operators. “It’s going to be a 1950s diner outside and a more modern diner inside.”

The 1962 diner’s exterior, with its zig-zag roof in the Googie architectural style, will be surrounded by outdoor seating for up to a 100 people. Before it closed in 2006, the diner was known as one of the few businesses in Manhattan to have its own customer parking lot.

The indoor changes will create a more natural and modern look, Tsinias said Monday. The decor will feature a rock sculpture and wooden furnishings.

The eatery, at West 43rd Street and 11th Avenue, will also feature a bar that will sell frozen drinks. The Market will also add a couple of non-diner items to its classic American fare, such as spring rolls.

The Tsinias family, which leases the diner from Moinian Group, has been in the diner business for almost 35 years and owns the Cosmic Diner, which moved to West 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue after many years in Columbus Circle.

-- Marlene Naanes

Tags: market diner, hell's kitchen, real estate, endangered nyc, architecture

Web alert: Reject and Denouce!

Monday April 28, 2008 8:21 AM By David Freedlander

Hat tip to Ben Smith on this one.

One of the fun things about American political life is the way that its discourse sticks in the crawl of the popular consciousness.

Who after all, doesn't now know what a "lock box" is, or "fuzzy math" or "flip-flopper?"

Thus, on the heels of the Ohio debate, where Hillary Clinton blamed Barack Obama for failing to both reject AND denounce Louis Farrakhan, we give you Reject and Denounce

---David Freedlander

Tags: politics, debates, zany

LES boutique closing after 24 years

Sunday April 27, 2008 3:26 PM By David Freedlander

Mary Adams The Dress, a boutique on the once artsy Lower East Side, withstood the times but could not withstand the monthly rent of today. The Ludlow Street store is closing after 24 years, but will go out in style (pun intended).

”The Lower East Side has changed a lot, becoming heavily touristy.

It doesn’t really suit my business anymore,” said the store’s owner and namesake Mary Adams.

Adams’ pieces have appeared in fashion shows at the legendary ’80s nightclub Danceteria, the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Palladium.

She hopes to relocate but is wary of the real estate market. Instead she wants to enjoy her privacy while continuing to do private

appointments.

“I’ll miss the Lower East Side, it had its ups and downs but it is where I’ve been since I started,” said Adams.

--Kathleen Bulson

Tags: lower east side, fashion, gentrification, development, endangered nyc, manhattan

Queens is green ... and stylin'

Sunday April 27, 2008 11:16 AM By Emily Ngo

It was nearly impossible to get a seat this past weekend at the Queens is Green Fashion Show in Long Island City, where several local designers showed off their eco-friendly lines.

I had half-expected the show — the first of its kind in the area — to be a display of newsprint dresses and jeans crafted from tree bark, but was happily disappointed. Most of the clothes shown were absolutely street-ready. Great looking enough for a normal person to wear but made with a conservation mindset. One collection was made of 100 percent organic cotton (Dani Starre); another was de- and reconstructed T-shirts (JUNKSTAR). My favorite? Astridland by Astrid Brucker, which are the perfect spring dresses in extremely original cuts.

I’ll pass on the cardboard flip-flops and innertube miniskirts, but Queens is Green taught me helping out the environment through fashion can be done every day. Shop at thrift stores. Swap clothes with friends. Buy organic. The show, put on by Politirazzi blogger Lynne Serpe and Robyn Sklar, was an extreme success.

More green events to come through Lynne’s group Triple R events, including a garden and grub potluck. Be sure to check it out.

— Emily Ngo

Tags: fashion, shopping, queens, environment

Urban archaeology: Surprise under Murray Hill awning

Sunday April 27, 2008 8:42 AM By Rolando Pujol

Demolition and business shutterings often bring interesting old signs to light. But sometimes, you can find vintage signs on existing businesses, simply awaiting discovery through a little sidewalk sleuthing.

Case in point: Royal Convenience, which is next to the great Frontier Diner at East 39th Street and Third Avenue. Beneath the bland vinyl awning that we've passed countless times lies this: A hand-painted, amateurish sign for a business called "Town *and* Country." The sign is incredibly faded, and perhaps marked a deli or fruit stand in its day. There's something so homemade and innocent about this sign that we just love -- and it prompts us to imagine it during its glory days. Was the Third Avenue El still around? Were the corporate towers up the street even built yet? One thing is certain: We're happy we know it's there.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: murray hill, urban archaeology, signs

'Thriller' zombie dance party at Tribeca

Friday April 25, 2008 4:45 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

It wasn't quite close to midnight, but the dancing zombies a la Michael Jackson's 1983 blockbuster "Thriller" were out in force at the Tribeca Film Festival Thursday night.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the album, and the John Landis film that documents the making of the iconic video of the walking dead, the cast of Bravo's "Step It Up and Dance" re-enacted the video and the crowd joined in. We'd say more, but the video says it better.

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: tribeca film festival, manhattan, zany, stuff that's cool, media, entertainment, arts

Disappearing act for Provincetown Playhouse?

Thursday April 24, 2008 2:45 PM By Rolando Pujol

Left: Three 1820s houses recently landmarked (the middle one is believed to have been a lesbian bar in the 1920s). Right: Provincetown Playhouse. (File photo by Jefferson Siegel)

A historic incubator of Greenwich Village bohemia and American theater is slated for the wrecking ball.

New York University has announced plans to demolish the 1918 Provincetown Playhouse, which featured the early plays of Eugene O’Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edward Albee. The building is not landmarked.

“This is a world famous historic site that is critical to the development of alternative theater in America,” said Andrew Berman, president of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “To demolish it is sacrilege.”

NYU has proposed tearing down a block of buildings, 133-139 MacDougal St., and replacing them with one, slightly larger structure for its law school, among other uses. It has also proposed incorporating a similar-sized theater into the project.

“They want to demolish a theater, offices, and residences in order to build a theater, offices, and offices,” Berman said.

NYU officials did not return phone calls seeking comment, but John Beckman, a university spokesman, said in an email, “the overwhelming tone from people in the neighborhood is moderate and constructive; Andrew Berman's comments are the exception, not the rule,” and he called the plans, “sensitive and sensible.”Last year, NYU and community leaders ironed out a set of “planning principles” with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer that call for greater consultation with the community and more contextualized architecture. Many see this project as the first test of this approach.

The university owns the building as of right, meaning that they do not have to bring it to the local community board for comment, but they are expected to present their proposals to the board next month.

Brad Hoylman, chairman of Community Board 2, said he looked favorably on the initial proposal.

“The plan that NYU has presented shows a degree of sensitivity to the neighborhood as well as to the historical uses of the building,” he said. “They could be building a lot larger than they are.”

-- David Freedlander

Tags: provincetown playhouse, greenwich village, nyu, development, architecture, manhattan

Update: WTC Memorial and Transit Hub

Thursday April 24, 2008 1:44 PM By David Freedlander

Port Authority head Anthony Coscia acknowledged yesterday that the cost of the World Trade Center transit hub was ballooning, and said that the agency must adjust to new financial realities.

Yesterday it was reported that the cost of the soaring Santiago Calatrava designed transit hub at the site was ballooning to over $3 billion, close to $700 million more than the agency had originally budgeted.

“Those budget numbers were developed almost four years ago,” Coscia said. “We remain very committed to retaining the cost of that project as much as possible.”

The initial plan is in danger of being scaled back but officials would like to keep the grandeur of the architect’s original vision.

Coscia said the success of the transit hub was vital to the future of Lower Manhattan, comparing its presence there to that of Grand Central Station on the East Side.“That transit hub has a variety of different features to it that we think will have enormous generational benefit,” he said, adding that the agency must project for needs decades away.

“There are multiple examples of regrettable undertakings when people did build just for the present market and didn’t consider growth capacity.”

The agency chief also reiterated yesterday his commitment to finishing the September 11th memorial in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

“We have got to stick to these dates. We have got to decided that this is now a rebuilding process,” he said. “We are not going to start rolling back down that hill again. Dates that are out there are dates that we have to meet.”

Yesterday, a scathing memo that Coscia wrote to his staff and to the Port Authority board was leaked to the press, urging no further construction delays.

---David Freedlander

Tags: world trade center, port authority, transportation, september 11, development, transit

The 1968 Columbia riots

Thursday April 24, 2008 12:58 PM By Rolando Pujol

amNewYork will be looking at the 40th anniversary of the Columbia riots on Monday. Tonight at 7, there's a discussion on the riots at, appropriately enough, Columbia University. It's at Casa Italiana, Amsterdam Avenue between 116th and 118th streets. Columbia is also hosting an exhibit on the riots, with interesting ephemera on display, with an example at left. It's at Butler Library's Chang Room, on the sixth floor through June 6.

Here's an NPR report by Robert Siegel, who covered the crisis for student radio station WKCR. And a Columbia Spectator article on the exhibit.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: columbia university, 1968 columbia riots, history, manhattan

The massive mural of Eighth Avenue: It's done

Thursday April 24, 2008 12:01 PM By Rolando Pujol

About a week ago, we got a call from a reader wondering why work on the massive geisha mural at West 34th Street and Eighth Avenue had stopped. We'd been documenting the epic scale of its progress (click here), and it come to a halt shortly thereafter. Well, the project was completed Wednesday, and say what you will about such mega ads, it's quite an accomplishment -- ephemeral though it may be.

Two more recent photos after the jump

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: mural, advertising, manhattan

Columbia students walk out against war

Thursday April 24, 2008 11:59 AM By Emily Ngo

A black shroud covers Columbia's alma mater statue via The Bwog

Hundreds of Columbia University students marked the five-year anniversary of the Iraq war (and the gorgeous spring weather) with an old-fashioned walkout today.

Student groups invited people to leave their classes at noon, convene at the Low Plaza and listen to speakers like Hamid Dabashi and Bruce Robbins. Five Years of War, Five Days of Action was the host, according to a Facebook invitation that more than 230 people had accepted. The crowd was at least that large.

A huge pink “Stop War” banner was displayed from a building and protesters even draped the alma mater statue with a black shroud. Columbia officials declined to comment.

Who says this generation isn’t passionate about protesting? Now, how about arranging some demonstrations on days that aren’t 70 degrees?

— Emily Ngo

Tags: columbia university, war protest, education

Throwback Thursday: Sunday's Great Movie

Thursday April 24, 2008 11:17 AM By Rolando Pujol

Picture it. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1984 and there's isn't much of anything to do, except, perhaps, to watch television. And 11 Alive is ready to deliver. We enjoyed this collection of commercial breaks from Sunday's Great Movie. For starters, there's that funky jingle for the bumper -- to us, it just screams Sunday afternoon. And then a great collection of commercials. These ads are treasure troves of New Yorkania, and of the area's retail history. Do watch it from the beginning for the full effect, but if you want the highlights, here's where you want to fast forward:

2:27: Kleinsleep (The jingle: Have more fun in bed)

4:48: The Money Store (with Phil Rizzuto offering a Cabbage Patch doll giveaway)

5:18: Apex Tech (with the "Apex Tech Man"; remember, you have to call first)

6:19: NBO (They sell everything except shoes!)

6:28: Crazy Eddies (Where prices are insane!)

6:57: Jordache Jeans (The sound was less disco by now, but it's worth a listen to see one of those practices you never see on TV anymore. The local announcer (in this case Bill Biery) interrupts the ad at the end to tell us that the jeans are "available at Sid's Pants and Jeans Country."

Click here. The embed function has been disabled.

-- Rolando Pujol

Previous Throwback Thursdays here.

Tags: 11 alive, wpix, apex tech, money store, throwback thursday, television, advertising

Duly Noted

Thursday April 24, 2008 9:55 AM By Rolando Pujol

From allendavidniven6 on Flickr.

* Jeremiah, guest blogging on Curbed, chimes in on NYU's inexplicable plan to demolish the Provincetown Playhouse. [Curbed]

* Bloomingdale's may face the first strike by employees in 43 years. Labor contract expires April 30. [Racked]

* A Macy's in Harlem? Rumors swirl at Harlem Park, a site that has seen many fantasies attached to it.[Racked]

* At MePa Plaza, folks get a little too cavalier about their Mac products. No way they can be natives. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* Revisit the 1964-65 World's Fair, in full living color. [Gothamist]

* A guaranteed archaeological discovery is hidden for the next time they change this restaurant's sign. [Lost City]

* A Poseidon adventure along Ninth Avenue. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* Awaiting the return of the Red Hook soccer-field vendors. A commenter on Eater tells of a lesser-known scene that's already under way. [Eater]

* A different take on Fresh Meadows, which amNY profiled today. [Queens Crap]

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: duly noted, bloomingdale's, macy's, meatpacking district, 1964-65 world's fair, ninth avenue, red hook, fresh meadows

Taxi! Mario offers New Yorkers free rides

Thursday April 24, 2008 7:33 AM By Peggy Mihelich

Nintendo’s master of the Mushroom Kingdom Mario was in Midtown, Manhattan, Thursday hailing cabs for busy New Yorkers and tourists. The rides were free courtesy of Mario. Onlookers were eager to have their picture taken with the mustached Italian plumber and he was happy to oblige them. "Yo Mario!" a businessman yelled out as he high-fived him.

Mario is in town to promote Nintendo’s new racing video game Mario Kart Wii. The game comes packaged with the Wii Wheel controller -- a steering wheel that lets you mimic driving a real race car. The game hits stores April 27.

On Saturday, former "Beverly Hills, 90210" star Jason Priestley, will join Mario at Nintendo World at 10 Rockefeller Plaza for a meet-and-greet to promote the new game.

You may recall Priestley almost died in a race car crash in 2002. It’s nice to see he’s taking his love of racing to a safer venue... Brandon Walsh, all grown up.

Tags: manhattan

Your helpful MTA service member

Thursday April 24, 2008 6:48 AM By David Freedlander

City Hall Dispatch: Anthony Weiner hates poor people, the rich

Wednesday April 23, 2008 3:17 PM By David Freedlander

Just kidding of course.

But Brooklyn's own Rep. Weiner just announced the formation of the Bi-partisan Caucus on the Middle Class, dedicated to promoting middle class activities like BBQing, watching cable, and losing health care benefits.

Kidding again, except about that list bit.

According to the press release:

The caucus will provide a forum for Members and staff to discuss, advance, and engage the House’s work on strengthening America’s middle class. The group will focus on developing solutions and legislation to protect the middle class and those struggling to make it into the middle class.

There are hundreds of caucuses in the House, including the Organic Caucus, the Peanut Caucus, and the Songwriters Caucus, so Weiner may have some trouble getting his voice heard.

One hates to see cynical political motive in this, but talking about the middle class is one of those things that politicians love to do and voters love to hear, and Weiner is really trying to paint himself as the middle class candidate in '09.

But as Doree Shafrir wrote in a profile of Weiner for The Observer:

Who is the middle class, exactly?...Mr. Weiner’s platform is designed to play on the anxiety felt by a large swath of the population that does consider itself middle class, from an immigrant family in Jackson Heights with no health insurance to a young professional couple who, to their horror, find they can’t even afford a nice two-bedroom in brownstone Brooklyn (and who also may not have health insurance). We’re at this moment in New York right now where more than a few people are making a whole lot of money, but there’s also a creeping feeling that the good times may be killing us—and Mr. Weiner is making it his business to play up those fears.

---David Freedlander

Breaking: Restaurants get court stay in calorie case

Wednesday April 23, 2008 2:02 PM By David Freedlander

New Yorkers who like to eat their greasy food in ignorant bliss of its calorie count can munch on — for now.

A federal judge granted a temporary stay yesterday to the rule that all chain restaurants in the city must post the calorie count of all the food items they serve.

The New York State Restaurant Association asked the court to halt the implementation of the ruling until all legal questions have been answered.

The rule had been scheduled to take effect on Friday.

Photo from Eat and Destroy

Tags: calories, food, courts, fast food

Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment: Not so fast

Wednesday April 23, 2008 1:20 PM By Rolando Pujol

Community activists want their voices heard before plans are finalized to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx.

A group called the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance is heading to City Hall at noon Thursday to make their case. The group, which represents churches, community groups and unions, wants a say in the negotiations on the armory's future, the alliance has said.

Right now, preliminary plans for the site call for retail development that would create 2,000 jobs.

The alliance wants to ensure any jobs pay a living wage and that new businesses won't displace old ones, a member of the group said. Another grievance is that the group wants new schools to be built as part of any development plan, which they say the city promised them.

-- Garett Sloane

Photo via paul rush nyc walks on flickr

Tags: kingsbridge armory, bronx, development, real estate

Cool it, Solow

Wednesday April 23, 2008 8:26 AM By David Freedlander

So say a bunch of Tudor City residents who say that the planning commission, the city council,and yes, billionaire developer Sheldon Solow himself, acted arbitrarily and capriciously in giving approval for the $4billion, mega high rise development. Here's the story.

---David Freedlander

Photo:Vivian Gilbert, a resident of 5 Tudor City Place is one of many residents in the Tudor City neighborhood of Manhattan who opposed to the Solow Project along the East Waterfront. (Dennis W. Ho)

Tags: lawsuit, tudor city, east river waterfront, development

Lookin' for love on the L train

Wednesday April 23, 2008 6:22 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

A world seethes beneath New York where love-seeking straphangers interact with stolen glances between jostling bodies.

Those who enter that world at the L train's Bedford Avenue stop in Brooklyn take to the Internet more often than riders on any other line to turn furtive eye contact into trysts.

In romance fever's high-season -- the two weeks before and after Valentine's Day -- 421 men and women posted to the "missed connections" thread on craigslist.org hoping to connect with a stranger they chatted with or made eye contact with underground.

The Bedford Avenue stop sparked 16 of those postings -- the most for any station servicing a single line. Only Union Square, where the L and seven other lines meet, outnumbered the Williamsburg stop, notching 34 missed connections. [MORE]The Lorimer Street-Metropolitan Avenue stop on the L won second place for scoring 12 missed connections.

"Some people are just shy or want to talk but wait too long," mused said Sammy Howard, 25, of Brooklyn, while waiting for the Manhattan-bound L at Bedford Avenue. "I've met a few cool people on the subway that I wanted to talk to longer, but I waited too long to ask for their number and then they were gone."

Missed connections provide an outlet for frustration like Howard's brewing in the underground sinews of New York. Craigslist created the missed connections thread in 2000. Each month 7,000 missed connections are generated inside the greater New York area.

Missed connections resemble the format of other craigslist's personal ads, with headlines providing general details, "L train to Bedford Ave., Thursday Eve. - m4w – 32."

"You were the super cute redhead with the brownish hood. I was the guy in the dark knit hat who didn't follow up on the significant eye contact because he wasn't in a chatty mood and who now deeply regrets his lack of initiative. Can the Internet save the day? Long odds, sure, but why not."

Mary Pender Greene, a New York psychotherapist and relationship expert, attributes the abundance of missed connections in Williamsburg to several factors: record subway ridership; an increasing number of people don't have time for traditional dating methods; and Williamsburg's straphanger population, which is more likely to be young, single, career-oriented and tech-savvy.

"These are people not able to meet anyone because their circles aren't big enough -- it's people willing to take a risk -- they're adventurous," said Pender Greene.

Stephen Pierce, 25 of Brooklyn, browses missed connections "not so much out of whatever desperate longing romance that most people have, but more for that -- just an interesting experience."

Pierce stumbled upon a missed connection post from the Bedford Avenue stop about him. The female poster identified Pierce by the bicycle he rode home from the stop after work.

"I sent her a picture of my bike and asked her if that was the bike," he said. "It was. We met for coffee and it was awful. I am pretty sure I am not going to meet anyone of value on the Internet."

Would he respond to another missed connection? "Yeah – totally," Pierce said.

-- Erin O'Neill

Tags: transit, williamsburg, zany, transportation

The heavenly survivors of Hell's Kitchen

Tuesday April 22, 2008 4:29 PM By Rolando Pujol

All too often, we find ourselves writing about small businesses that have vanished, taking with them an irreplaceable part of a neighborhood. So we thought we'd begin to profile from time to time businesses that are beating the odds, staying alive and helping preserve the character that makes their neighborhood great. When we happened upon Susan Banas' noble project to give Hell's Kitchen shops owners digital cameras and have them photograph (and thus preserve) their world, we were intrigued. This celebration of the soul of a neighborhood deserves mentioning, and reminds us of the little miracles happening all around the city -- shops that defy the odds somehow. Oftentimes, it's just plain circumstance: They own the building or an understanding landlord. But whatever the case, they deserve to be celebrated.

Explore Kristen V. Brown's story on the homage, as well as shops we selected. And here's a photo gallery.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: hell's kitchen, endangered nyc, gentrification, shopping, manhattan

City Hall Dispatch: The timing of Lancaster's departure

Tuesday April 22, 2008 3:40 PM By David Freedlander

Interesting side note regarding the timing of buildings' commish Lancaster's resignation

On Thursday, Lancaster was scheduled to appear before the Assembly's Cities Committee, chaired by mega-Lancaster hater Assemblyman Jim Brennan.

Obviously, this was something Lancaster hated doing. The last time she appeared before the committee, last year, she did so only after the threat of subpoena, and then showed up only briefly, even though members of the state legislature tell me that she was the whole focus of the hearing.

For what's it worth, the timing of the announcement today--and Hizzoner's public ditching yesterday do seem curious, since most of the damage - -to our city, its citizens, and their sense of well-being, had already been done.

---David Freedlander

Tags: city hall, building department, politics, patricia lancaster, city hall dispatch, development

The floral cocktail

Tuesday April 22, 2008 2:06 PM By Daisy Carrington

Our own imbiber, Dan Dunn, pontificates on the St. Germain craze sweeping the NYC bar scene. We published an article a while back about some of the unusual spirits some bars are using in their mixed drinks, and included mention of the delancey (featured, of course, at Allen & Delancey). Other locations to check out:

Employees Only

Not only do they serve up some mean green fairy, they also have a luscious drink known as Amelia: Russian standard vodka and St. Germain elderflower liqueur, shaken with pureed blackberries and fresh lemon juice. 510 Delancey St. 212-242-3021

Death + Co.

Head here for any number of fancy cocktails. The elder fashion has St. Germain, Plymouth gin, orange bitters and a grapefruit twist. 433 E. Sixth St. 212-388-0882

Tags: st germain, elderflower liquer, allen and delancey, employees only, death + co, food

Nerd Nite!

Tuesday April 22, 2008 2:01 PM By David Freedlander

Photo of "Nerd Nite: Consolidation of the Boroughs from flickr

A few years ago in Boston, our friend Chris Balakrishnan was trying to figure out how he could do two of his favorite things: engage in serious intellectual inquiry and get sauced.

Thus, Nerd Nite, a lecture series in a bar that has been described as "The Discovery Channel with beer."

In the course of time, Nerd Nite, like many things worthwhile, migrated to New York City, and eventually found a home at the bar Angels and Kings on 11th St. between A and B.

The next Nerd Nite, May 1, seems particularly relevant to Urbanite's purpose. It will feature official Manhattan borough historian Michael Miscione, who will be talking about the 1898 consolidation of the boroughs.

From the official description:

In 1898 the patchwork of rival municipalities around New York harbor were joined together to create the five-borough New York City that exists today. But the city that never sleeps was almost the city that never was. Michael will describe the clash between the pro-consolidationists, led by civic visionary Andrew H. Green ("the 19th century Robert Moses"), and the Brooklyn loyalists who opposed them. He'll also answer that age-old question, "Why on earth did we let Staten Island join the club?"

Also on the bill is a lecture on human parasites and a talk on car stereos.

Funny how everything seems to come back to Staten Island.

Nerd Nite

---David Freedlander

Smell your way green

Tuesday April 22, 2008 12:32 PM By Julie Gordon

In the spirit of Earth Day, here's a new beauty pick from the always-green Body Shop: the store's yummy Aqua Lily fragrance collection, launching this week.

The water-based scent has top notes of green apple, watermelon, dewy bamboo, tangerine and pink pepper; middle notes of muguet, lily, rose, violet and reseda; and base of cedarwood and musk.

It’s available in eau de toilette ($15), shower gel ($11) perfume oil ($22), body spray ($13), body lotion ($13) and bath lily ($5).

Who said being eco-friendly was tough?

— Julie Gordon

Tags: shopping

St. Saviour's update

Tuesday April 22, 2008 11:41 AM By Rolando Pujol

It seems these days that moving architectural gems is the only way to save them from sure destruction. Moving the Cheyenne Diner will be a snap compared to the laborious and careful work required to take apart another treasure, St. Saviour's Church in Maspeth, and reassemble it again about a mile away. Well, the deconstruction is under way. Christina Wilkinson of the Juniper Park Civic Association, the organization that fought successfully to save the church, sent along these photos. See more here.

-- Rolando Pujol

Urbanite's St. Saviour's archive.

Tags: juniper park civic association, preservation, queens, maspeth, st. saviour's, architecture, endangered nyc

Court halts Union Square Pavilion construction

Tuesday April 22, 2008 11:39 AM By David Freedlander

A group of area residents and activists have gotten an injunction to stop any further work at the pavilion in Union Square.

The city has hoped to put a new, high-end restaurant in the area that was previously a children’s play area.

Residents fear that putting part of the park in private hands could cut into space for the famed Union Square Greenmarket.

“The restaurant would take away the opportunity to reclaim thousands of square feet of additional play space in a community with the lowest amount of playground space and highest concentration of restaurants in the city,” said Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates.

The suit alleges that if the city is going to take away park land in order to give it to private interests, it must receive permission from the state legislature.

“Less space for kids to run around means that they have to stay indoors and play video games or play somewhere where they can’t be supervised,” said Jonathan Borock, 29, who used to play on the playground by the now-fenced off pavilion.

“It was a rare place for kids in the city to experience something other than buildings, to experience the outdoors.”

City lawyer Ramin Pejan disagreed with the court’s ruling.

“We are disappointed that the court enjoined construction for one week. The city is confident in its legal position and the merits of this project.”

-- David Freedlander

Tags: union square greenmarket, lawsuit, parks, restaurants, real estate, manhattan

Buildings Department chief resigns

Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:13 AM By Rolando Pujol

Click here for updated story. Earlier post below.

A day after the mayor said he wasn't happy with the Department of Buildings in the wake of the uptick in construction accidents in the city, the agency's commissioner Patricia Lancaster resigned today.

"This morning, I met with Patricia Lancaster at Gracie Mansion and accepted her resignation as New York City's Buildings Commissioner," the mayor said.

Lancaster has been facing heat from newspapers and bloggers, especially since the March crane accident in Turtle Bay that killed seven people. It turned out construction of that building should never have been allowed under zoning laws. Thirteen people have died in construction accidents in 2008.

Lancaster has overseen the agency for six years, during the city's historic building boom that has transformed city neighborhoods.

Yesterday, Bloomberg said: "I don't think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings. Whether they've done everything they can is something I'm looking at."

She was out by this morning. From Bloomberg's release:

"Over the past six years, Patricia has moved the Department of Buildings a long way forward by fighting corruption, strengthening inspections and oversight, increasing the public's access to information, and bringing increased levels of professionalism and integrity to all levels of her agency. Patricia led a comprehensive overhaul of the City's byzantine building code, the first in 40 years, which will make the construction of homes, schools, stores and offices in New York City safer, more affordable, and more environmentally friendly for years to come. Patricia leaves a strong foundation of reform and improvement for her successors to build on, and I thank her for her dedication to making New York City a far better place to live, work, and visit."

From Lancaster herself:

Today I submitted my resignation, which Mayor Bloomberg accepted. It has been an honor serving in his Administration and I thank the Mayor for this opportunity. After six years in public service, I made this decision because I felt it was time to return to the private sector. I am proud of the groundbreaking work the department has done during my tenure to root out corruption, increase transparency, overhaul the building code, and increase safety for workers and the public alike.

-- Pete Catapano and Rolando Pujol

Photo: In this May 2007 photo, Patricia Lancaster is seen with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (Photo by Jonathan Fickies)

More:

From AP.

From The New York Times.

Tags: patricia lancaster, building department, construction, politics, real estate, development

The last Moondance

Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:04 AM By Rolando Pujol

The Moondance Diner at 12:40 a.m. Aug. 11, 2007, as workers begin pulling

the diner off its foundation. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel)

Following the good news that the Cheyenne Diner has been saved, photographer Jefferson Siegel checked in with his memories of the Moondance Diner's last night in the city, and this photo from its departure:

Just after 9 p.m. on Friday, August 10, 2007. workers began lifting the Moondance from its foundation on the corner of Grand St. and 6th Ave. It was the coldest night of the summer and a bit rainy, which must have been pleasant for the workers but it made the crowd of onlookers even more melancholy.

This was the night police were alerted to the possibility of a radioactive threat against the city, so as the evening progressed there was increased police activity down the block at the exit of the Holland Tunnel.

As night turned into early morning, the diner was lifted on hydraulic jacks. Steel rails were slid under the gleaming chrome structure and it was pulled to the curb. As it was slowly pulled along the rails the basement was exposed to the elements. Just after 6 a.m. Saturday morning the Moondance was finally loaded onto a truck headed for the George Washington Bridge and points west. By Saturday afternoon the temperature had soared back into the 80s as passersby stopped to look through a fence where the diner had once stood.

Tags: moondance diner, cheyenne diner, restaurants, signs, real estate, old school, manhattan, history, gentrification, endangered nyc, architecture

Two beer fear

Tuesday April 22, 2008 6:37 AM By Julie Gordon

Comedian Aaron Karo is back in New York for a couple of days and what does he do? Walk everywhere, pregame and go out drinking with his buddies. Now that’s true recovering frat boy style!

Karo has made a name for himself with that tag line –- pegged off his 50,000-subscriber strong e-mail column, “Ruminations.”

Karo started his column as a casual weekly e-mail to his pals during his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He wrote about everything from girls to class in his unmistakably sarcastic, humorous voice. The column quickly escalated in popularity.

Two book deals even followed –- “Ruminations on College Life” and “Ruminations on Twentysomething Life.”

Karo’s now back on a stand-up tour, hitting New York’s Nokia Theatre on Sat., May 3 (tickets available through Ticketmaster).

And though Karo will have his signature two beers on stage with him, don't expect him to drink on stage.

"I did two shows at Ann Arbor. And I hadn't done two shows a night in a while. So I got my Goose on the rocks," Karo says. "And next thing I know, I'm kind of f----- up. My show's about getting f----- up, so it doesn't really affect my performance. But half-way through, I'm like, 'I have to urinate.'"

So Karo just walked off-stage, used the men's room and made a joke about it.

"That's why I can't drink on stage," he says. "It's not because I get drunk but because I have to break the seal."

Check out our full interview with Karo in the May 2 weekend edition of amNewYork.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: aaron karo, comedy, entertainment

Duly Noted

Monday April 21, 2008 5:33 PM By Rolando Pujol

Folks soak in the sun last Friday near Giginos at Wagner Park in lower Manhattan. The AIA Guide calls the building, which is also a viewing platform, "a grand brick sculpture." (Photo by Rolando Pujol)

* The next chapter in the saga to save a row of small businesses on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea is May 3, when a protest will be held. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* Those ubiquitous Star Wars ads around the city have inspired noteworthy subway mashups. [Gothamist]

* ... and who could miss the Slave Leias at Comic Con. [Vulture]

* "Look who's talking to Charlie ... Charlie Rose." D.C. expats may remember that jingle from his less highbrow WRC-TV talk show of the early 1980s, but now this video brings the jingle to life. [Gothamist]

* Illegal advertising blossoms anew, this time for cell phones. [Queens Crap]

* Last Saturday marked the 81st anniversary of Mae West's imprisonment on Roosevelt Island on a morals rap. [Roosevelt Islander]

* Remembering the Brooklyn earthquake of 1985. Yep, you read correctly. [OTBKB via Gowanus Lounge]

* Jeff Koons' sculptures now grace the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Unbeige]

* And up in Massachusetts, an awesome neon Dunkin Donuts sign from 1957 -- from the era before there was a DD on every block -- is for sale. [Hatch]

-- Rolando Pujol, Cha

Tags: duly noted, wagner park, chelsea, star wars, dunkin donuts, signs, jeff koons, brooklyn, earthquake, charlie rose, roosevelt island, advertising, architecture, endangered nyc, food, gentrification, old school, parks

Meanwhile, out in LaBarge

Monday April 21, 2008 2:49 PM By David Freedlander

The Moondance before its departure last year. (amNY file)

Speaking of diners, we were perusing the Casper Star Tribune this morning (but how do you stay informed?) when we came across this:

Finally, the Moondance Diner is starting to resemble a diner again

The new foundation is poured, the walls are up, and the barrel-ceiling roof is being installed in Wyoming's newest dining icon -- the famed Moondance Diner that relocated from New York City to this tiny town in southwest Wyoming last summer.

Apparently, things are proceeding apace with the plan to bit by bit relocate all the cool parts of New York City to the mountainous west.

The article details all the work going to getting the diner up and running in Wyoming, including helping it to recover from a 2,000+ mile long journey and a harsh winter in the Rockies.

The new owners hope to open the joint in June, and are adding more seats and this choice detail,

"A "NYC" subway facade will be constructed over the front entrance to keep in line with the New York ambiance."

Actually, all that probably symbolizes is that the place will be dirty, the service slow, and patrons will defecate in the aisles.

Looking Like a Diner Again [CST]

---David Freedlander

Tags: diners, moving, wyoming, moondance diner, cheyenne diner, restaurants, endangered nyc, food, gentrification, history, manhattan, old school, real estate

Former 475 Kent residents nervously await ...

Monday April 21, 2008 1:54 PM By David Freedlander

Photograph of 475 Kent Avenue by imjustsayin' on Flickr

April 28. That's when the Fire Department will give the artists colony building in Williamsburg a once-over, according to long-time resident and "floorlord" Lillian Mauer, checking that new sprinklers have been installed, fire alarms in good working order and the hallways have been sheetrocked.

"We are expecting positive news, but there are a lot of caveats to that," Mauer said.

Another floorlord, Deborah Masters, said the situation was confusing, but that she hoped the building will be certified for occupancy after the inspection.

Mauer added that well over half of the former tenants are still in a state of limbo, sleeping on couches and shacking up with friends.

"I think not knowing the move-in date has been the worst part of it," she said. "If people knew it was going to be three months then they could have stayed with friends or gotten a short-term sublet, but nobody knew when we'd be able to come back. But they want to return. This is a very dedicated group of people."

-- David Freedlander

Tags: arts, 475 kent, williamsburg, real estate, development, brooklyn, endangered nyc, gentrification

Cheyenne saved and moving to Red Hook

Monday April 21, 2008 12:41 PM By Rolando Pujol

Updated 8:05 p.m.: One of New York’s last railcar-style diners will live on, but hash will now be slung on the Red Hook waterfront, miles from its 68-year midtown home.

A construction manager bought the Cheyenne Diner, which served comfort food at 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue until closing April 6, and plans to relocate it to the Brooklyn neighborhood in the next month, a preservationist said yesterday.

Mike O’Connell, of O’C Construction and the son of a noted Red Hook developer, signed a contract to purchase the chrome-covered structure for $5,000 and will now work on securing permits to transport it to its new home.

Preservationist Michael Perlman, who formed the Committee To Save The Cheyenne Diner, was elated.

“It will gain a new lease on life in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and contribute to the appeal of an up and coming neighborhood," he said in an email.The Cheyenne closed to make way for a nine-story residential and commercial development. Perlman began working with the owner of the building and the land beneath it, George Papas, in hopes of finding a buyer who would pay to relocate the diner within the five boroughs.

O’Connell, who was out of the country and unavailable for comment yesterday, was one of the first prospective buyers to come forward. He enlisted a man who restores diners for a living to move and refurbish the neon-lit icon to its 1940s splendor, Papas said.

It is unclear when the diner will be able to open, but it can’t happen soon enough for prospective patrons.

“I can’t begin to tell you how many people are excited about it in Red Hook,” said Greg O’Connell, who is the new owner's father and a force in Red Hook's redevelopment. “It’s a great thing, and my son is so excited over this.”

-- Marlene Naanes

Here's our archive of Cheyenne news.

Tags: cheyenne diner, greg o'connell, mike o'connell. red hook, midtown, diners, endangered nyc, development

Something brewin' at Empire State Building

Monday April 21, 2008 10:10 AM By Rolando Pujol

We learned in October that the Empire State Building will be getting New York's largest Starbucks. Work on the space is moving along -- in fact, a Starbucks sign, with an Art Deco sensibility, is already up. Stay tuned.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: starbucks, empire state building, manhattan, real estate, restaurants, development

Exhibit explores city's use of eminent domain

Monday April 21, 2008 7:56 AM By David Freedlander

Cool exhibit coming up next month at The New York Public Library exploring the use of eminent domain in the city.

The above photo, called "Untitled/This is Just to Say #75" is by local photographer Ethan Levitas, who takes snaps of train cars and passengers on elevated rail lines throughout the city.

The NYPL's press materials say the exhibit is "about the reorganization of urban space and its public use in New York City."

Ever since the Supreme Court decided that local governments could take private property and give it to another private developer, this issue has been roiling local governments, ours especially, so it's nice to see an artistic take on it.

More photos after the jump

---David Freedlander

Thomas Holton, from "The Lams of Ludlow Street"

Reiner Leist, "September 12, 2001," from "Window"

Zoe Leonard, from Analogue

Tags: eminent domain, new york public library, economy, development

The Green Apple

Sunday April 20, 2008 5:18 PM By Rolando Pujol

Patches, colored with eco-friendly paint, will become part of a massive mural with an environmental message. (Photos by Kathleen Bulson)

Using square patches of canvas and eco-friendly milk paint, New Yorkers in Central Park Sunday painted their own small visions for a greener world.

Organizers hoped to take the patches and create the longest and largest "eco-mural" in the world.

Adam Jordan, 27, of Nyack, who founded the group behind the project, PeaceXpiece, said the artwork is symbolic of the little things people need to do every day to help the environment.

“Every little piece makes a difference,” he said. The group, working with Rely Records and modern artist Paul Kostabi, hopes the mural will end up In a New York City museum this summer.

The mural was part of the Green Apple Festival, billed as America’s largest Earth Day celebration. Events were held in eight U.S. cities. In the Rumsey Playfield in Central Park, there were live bands, organic-food vendors, environmental speakers and exhibits. Some participants took what they called an Earth Day ride -- they used their bikes to get to the park -- to promote alternative transportation.Ruth Klein, 63, of Rego Park, Queens, sold environmental buttons she designed outside the festival. The artist likened her buttons — emblazoned with pictures of the Earth, peace signs, animals and the sun—to human bumper stickers. A sign above them promotes her philosophy: “Ignore the planet and it’ll go away.”

The festivities, however, are not going away. Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day, and more events are planned throughout the city. They include:

* Earth Day New York (EDNY), a nonprofit organization promoting year-round environmental awareness, is holding its seventh annual Earth Week celebration at Grand Central Terminal. Giant Earth Images, projections of earth-themed artwork from artists, including Andy Warhol, are on display on the two pillars of the main concourse.

* EarthNight, also sponsored by EDNY and Green Drinks, a social-networking group for environmental enthusiasts, is hosting an eco-fashion show and party. The Park, a restaurant/lounge at 118 10th Ave. at West 18th Street, will host the event from 6 p.m. to midnight Tuesday. The entrance fee is $10.

* Brooklyn’s Prospect Park is hosting Earth Week at the Audubon Center. Tuesday’s advocacy theme has an Earth Day Pledge from 1 to 4 p.m., where attendees learn about the three R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle) before making a pledge to help the environment. From 2 to 4 p.m., advocacy buttons can be created.

* Team Erase Paste, who work for Benefit Cosmetics, will volunteer their time Tuesday to clean up parks across the nation. In New York, the volunteers will paint over graffiti at Skateboard Park, under the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

* Replay, a clothing store in at 109 Prince St. in SoHo, will host a free Earth Day concert with musician Ben Jelen, whose work is featured on the popular TV shows "One Tree Hill" and "Smallville." Replay will donate 10 percent of store proceeds from this week's sales will benefit the Ben Jelen Foundation, designed to improve environmental awareness globally.

* Muse on Earth will take a spiritual look at Earth Day with mediation and art projects, such as creating birdhouses and creating a group painting. The event runs from 6 to 9 pm Tuesday at Manhattan’s Creative Pier (833 Broadway at 13th Street, third floor), an art gallery promoting inspiration and tranquility through the self.

* Students at Columbia University have organized a free exchange of old incandescent light bulbs for new energy-efficient ones. Thousands of the old bulbs will be placed in bins outside Low Library Tuesday at 12:30 p.m.

-- Kathleen Bulson

Tags: earth day, environment, manhattan

It's in the Village --- and "Across 110th Street"

Sunday April 20, 2008 2:19 PM By David Freedlander

One item of note which did not make into our story about the neglected 170+ year old building at the corner of MacDougal and King is that apparently the blaxploitation film "Across 110th Street" shot several scenes in the ground floor clubhouse, which ironically enough, apparently also moonlighted as a real life mafia hangout.

More on the film, remembered more for Bobby Womack's theme song than its plot, is here

-- David Freedlander

Tags: film, greenwich village, 43 macdougal st., old school

Skyliner: Meet 1 Bryant Park and 1 Madison Park

Sunday April 20, 2008 11:19 AM By Rolando Pujol

The world got a peek at One Bryant Park's lobby last week. Here's a fresh look at its spire, which is fairly close to completion. Emporis lists it as New York's second tallest building. The seemingly new building that is in the foreground is not new at all, but is the old New York Telephone tower that has been reclad in glass.

One Madison Park, below, has already transformed the skyline feel of what had been a relatively modest collection of skyscrapers around the park. It's quite skinny -- essentially a 60-story townhouse in the sky -- and is definitely the showy attention grabber in these parts now. In the foreground is the Metropolitan Life tower from 1909, which was New York's tallest tower until it was dethroned by the Woolworth Building four years later.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: one bryant park, metropolitan life (1909), skyline, skyscrapers, one madison park, skyliner, manhattan, development, architecture

A creative way to deal with obnoxious scaffolding

Sunday April 20, 2008 10:08 AM By Rolando Pujol

Scaffolding is an epidemic around the city these days, going up for restoration projects that seem to drag on forever. What it does for small businesses is pose a real challenge due to reduced visibility of their awnings and signs.

We have to hand it to the folks at One Stop Framing Shop in midtown, who are apparently dealing with the scaffolding covering their business by creating a sign that fits perfectly into the scaffolding, and can't be missed as you walk down the sidewalk. It's a creative solution to a common problem, and, while we're at it, speaks well of the shop's way with frames.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: midtown, scaffolding, zany, manhattan, development, signs

White brick is not just for '60s apartment houses

Sunday April 20, 2008 9:18 AM By Rolando Pujol

Photographer Jefferson Siegel sent along this photo and note on a parking garage in Times Square. It's right next to the old New York Times building, which is being gussied up for its luxurious future, and it's across from the not-so-luxurious Carter Hotel, a future subject of Urbanite blogging that enjoys a remarkably comprehensive Wikipedia entry. Now about that parking garage:

On W. 43rd St. near 8th Ave., just west of the former NY Times building, is this five-story garage. While unremarkable from an architectural standpoint, that four-story-high "Parking" sign is a standout, especially with the wavy "garage" at the bottom. I can't find any info. on the building, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's from around the late 60's-early 70's when a wave of white-brick apartment buildings sprang up throughout the city.

Tags: urban archaeology, endangered nyc

Eye in the Sky: Benedict travels up Fifth

Saturday April 19, 2008 4:07 PM By Rolando Pujol

The NYPD provided these aerial photos Saturday evening of the Popemobile traveling up Fifth Avenue earlier in the day. More images after the jump.

Tags: pope's 2008 visit, stuff that's cool, religion

So will "Sinigual" truly be without equal?

Saturday April 19, 2008 1:14 PM By Rolando Pujol

The old August Max space on East 41st Street and Third Avenue just get some new window signage Friday for a restaurant called Sinigual, Spanish for "without equal," which bills itself as "contemporary Mexican cuisine" that is coming soon. The Web address, www.sinigualrestaurants.com, is inoperative as of Saturday afternoon.

The St. Petersburg Times reported last month that the chain is owned by Real Mex Restaurants, of Cypress, Calif., the folks responsible for the Times Square mainstay Chevy's. All together, RealMex owns eight brands, the St. Pete Times reported, including El Torito Grille and Casa Gallardo.

There's more digging to do on this, but it seems, given the ad presentation and the considerable space here, that Sinigual will be more of a sitdown place than than popular lunchtime Mexican chains such as Chipotle and Qdoba. A Sinigual opening in the Tampa Bay area will have entrees running "from $11.99 for a cheesy enchilada stack to a $21.99 halibut in spicy tomatillo sauce," the St. Pete Times said. (March 12 article accessible on Nexis.)

Anyway, we'll see. Long-timers will remember that this space, as well as the square footage occupied by the CVS next door, used to be a Woolworth's many eons ago. We doubt Sinigual will have a soda fountain.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: sinigual, midtown, restaurants, food

Taking a shine to this sign

Friday April 18, 2008 5:06 PM By Rolando Pujol

Sometimes, a vintage sign is so wonderful, it compels us to patronize the store to help ensure -- at least momentarily in our own mind -- that this business and sign may carry on forever. Alas, New York's real estate market often has other plans.

We had one of those moments Friday when we passed Continental Shoe Repairs at Broadway and Barclay in the Financial District. And if we hadn't been rushing to an appointment (and wearing sneakers), we may well have gone if for a quick shine. Long may soles be repaired here.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: continetal shoe sign, financial district, signs, endangered nyc

Vatican in New York: Townhouse with glass-tower appeal

Friday April 18, 2008 4:31 PM By Rolando Pujol

The Vatican's Mission to the United Nations at 25 E. 39th St. has always struck us a rather curious bit of architecture. A townhouse reclad in a glass-and-steel sheath that appears more at home on a 60-story skyscraper somewhere on Park Avenue. Flagpoles and an ominous gate complete the corporate look. The effect is strange: It looks like somebody took an office tower and shrank it to six stories.

We can't blame the Vatican for this. The townhouse was turned into into a tiny tower in 1968, and a finance firm, Metalurg, sold the building to the Vatican in 1994 -- just in time for Pope John Paul II's 1995 visit here -- for a cool $3 million, a steal by 2008 standards.

The idea to convert an 1870 townhouse into a tiny tower in the International Style is odd, and very much a product of 1960s-style urban planning.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: vatican mission to the un, architecture, real estate

Duly Noted

Friday April 18, 2008 3:42 PM By Rolando Pujol

One of our favorite red neon LIQUOR signs ... it's in great shape, and it beams all day.

* The Clash, all right: Take the former CBGB and add John Varvatos, fashionistas, Rev. Billy, punks, a bouncer or two and you get a post you really have to read. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* What to do with sensitive blueprints for the successor to the Twin Towers? Why, put them in a sidewalk trash can! Quick aside: When you look at the pics in the New York Post photo gallery, pay special attention to the way the Freedom Tower is described: "World Trade Center Tower One." Let's finally drop the unctuous Pataki-era nomenclature and call this building what it will be: One World Trade Center. And kudos to the Post for their cover headline: Free-Dumb Tower. Instant classic. [New York Post]

* We'll be the first in line if the Sunview Luncheonette in Greenpoint ever reopens. [Lost City]

* Those beavers at the Astor Place subway station have company: A big beaver was rescued from the East River today, and was spotted probably because of the extra security surrounding the pope's visit to the United Nations. There's debate about whether aiding the animal was really aid at all. [City Room]

* Documented in a remarkable series of photographs: The evolution of a Queens lot, from Victorian splendor to something that is most assuredly anything but. [Queens Crap]

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: duly noted, signs

Throwback Thursday: Stern and Imus on 66 WNBC

Thursday April 17, 2008 12:42 PM By Rolando Pujol

To think there was a time when Howard Stern and Don Imus shared the airwaves of 66 WNBC! Here's a great commercial from 1984, in which the I-Man and Stern grudgingly sit with station vice president and general manager Randall D. Bongarten, who proceeds to apologize to everyone and their mother for "certain indiscreet remarks" made by the shock jocks, who aren't exactly apologetic.

The list of the slighted include: Governor Cuomo, The United States Congress (both houses), Nassau Community College and Rabbi Arthur Selkowitz.

WNBC nostalgics, click here for a fix.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: 66 wnbc, howard stern, don imus, throwback thursday, television

Sad tidings: Rubble all that's left of 1868 church

Thursday April 17, 2008 11:25 AM By Rolando Pujol

When last we examined the sad fate of Glad Tidings Tabernacle Church, there was still a bit of the Penn Station-area church left standing, but enough to know that a sacred place was going down. Only brick from the era of Reconstruction remains in the lot from which a glamorous hotel is set to rise.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: glad tidings tabernacle church, endangered nyc, religion, manhattan, development

On the scene: Manhole blast in Murray Hill

Thursday April 17, 2008 10:30 AM By Rolando Pujol

Con Edison crews work at the scene of this morning's manhole explosion. (Photo by Rolando Pujol)

East 39th Street street between Park and Lexington avenues remains closed as Con Ed crews repair the damage from this morning's manhole explosion. This is just a stone's throw from the scene of last summer's disaster. The latest here.

Tags: con ed, manhattan, murray hill

Breaking: Crane collapse building illegal

Thursday April 17, 2008 10:00 AM By David Freedlander

In a tense city council hearing occurring now, buildings commissioner Patricia Lancaster just admitted under withering questioning from councilwoman Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan) that the building on E.51st street where the crane collapse last month killed 7 did not meet zoning requirements and should not have been approved.

Apparently, members of the community and the local community board tried several times to address DOB about this.

"That is beyond shocking," Lappin said. "What does it take?"

-- David Freedlander

Tags: manhattan

A twinge of guilt as a Bushwick C-Town gentrifies

Thursday April 17, 2008 8:31 AM By Rolando Pujol

The C-Town I helped gentrify. (Photo via MTMONT on Flickr)

By Sara Baumberger

A month ago I knocked a stack of apples onto the floor at my neighborhood grocery store.

I was maneuvering around the usual clutter in the produce section. This grocery store was always a mess: unstocked food was stacked everywhere.

This week, at the same store, I bought Boca burgers.

After living in Bushwick for two years, the C-Town across the street has added a new frozen- foods section. I can finally get my Boca without trudging to the expensive veggie-friendly hippy market in Williamsburg.

The changes in the grocery store don’t stop at Boca, though. A usual trip there used to involve reaching around the boxes — stacked four-high in the aisles — to get to the canned peas, or stepping over dollies to get out of the produce section. All that is now cleaned up, and new tile is being installed.

Even more noticeable: Last week the normal blaring Latin-music station was replaced with an English-language soft-rock station.

I wonder if this revised C-Town will still have produce bags that catch dead flies under the bug zapper this summer.

The changes in my neighborhood have come slowly. But even small changes bring a realization: Gentrification is here.The previous tenants in my apartment say that the block occupied by the new coffee shop and restaurant used to be where all the prostitutes hung out about five years ago.

Now, artists in skinny jeans and flannels sip gourmet brew on that sidewalk. There are now rumblings of a high-end grocery and another restaurant going in.

The condos next door are finally filled. A friend who lives there said that at a tenant meeting last summer, one of his neighbors asked if they could somehow keep neighborhood kids from letting the fire hydrants spout water into the street to cool off: It ruins his shower’s water pressure.

I have to wonder if the people who have lived here all their lives hate me for doing this to them.

I feel guilty for being excited that the new stores are coming. When a friend’s bodega was closed after 10 years of business, I felt myself wondering what would replace it: A bagel shop? A new brunch hot spot?

As I see more and more hipsters and yuppies replacing the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, I can’t help but feel like new arrivals are invading. I’m invading.

“It’s progress,” a friend tells me.

But I’ll still feel guilty as I pull my boots over my skinny jeans and walk to the hipster restaurant for brunch on Saturday afternoon.

Tags: bushwick, gentrification, brooklyn, endangered nyc

Inaugural Bed-Stuy FreshDirect delivery

Thursday April 17, 2008 7:18 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Mazhar Alhadid, a dentist from Flushing Avenue in Bedford Stuyvesant, and Jim Moore, senior vice president of business affairs for FreshDirect chat in Bedford-Stuyvesant Thursday.

It was announced in late May on the Bed-Stuy blog that grocery delivery company FreshDirect would begin service to Bedford-Stuyvesant and the launch day has arrived.

Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz was present to usher in this new era of fresh foods in a box delivered to the doors of Bed-Stuy residents.

"Those who love to eat but are always rushed—-both the good cooks and those “foodies” who, like me, never attained that skill and head straight for the tasty prepared foods, are thrilled that Fresh Direct is catering to underserved neighborhoods, which benefit from the availability of more quality, healthy foods,” said Markowitz in a statement.

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: real estate, gentrification, food, economy, development, brooklyn

80s rockers Asia: In town TODAY!

Thursday April 17, 2008 6:46 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

AP Photo by Jason DeCrow

Oh how the mighty 80s rockers do fall -- or is this a rebirth? Anyway, the latest in a string of (formerly) big name acts to perform (oddly) at J+R Music and Computer World downtown is: Asia. Do you have "Heat of the Moment" stuck in your head just hearing the name? We do!

If you want to see Asia - get moving. It's Noon at J+R (23 Park Row)

We wish we could go to the "show" ... but we can't -- so if you go, can you send us your video clips? Please? (lauren.johnston@am-ny.com).

And now, New York City, put your hands together for ASIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: food, economy, development, brooklyn

Is that a Poem in Your Pocket, or ...

Thursday April 17, 2008 6:10 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

Calling all closet bards!

Today is the sixth annual Poem in Your Pocket day , so if you've got a few eloquent stanzas stashed away, head to Bryant Park this morning for a reading at 11 a.m.

"Poem in Your Pocket Day" is part of the city's April National Poetry Month.

For full poetry event listings, click: [HERE]

- Lauren Johnston

Tags: today's check it out, parks, manhattan, entertainment, education, arts

Duly Noted

Wednesday April 16, 2008 5:04 PM By Rolando Pujol

* Elaine's celebrates its 45th anniversary, and, by the way, she is very much among us.

* April is the cruelest month for architect Santiago Calatrava.

* Jeremiah visits the "Moulded Shoes," a store that has long fascinated us on 39th Street. It's been there since 1942.

* Benedict will enjoy tony Upper East Side digs while in town. [Curbed]

* A decidedly non-kosher turn for a building where Jewish dead were once prepared for burial. [Lost City]

* One Bryant Park's swank new lobby sees daylight. I see that Pronto Pizza and McDonald's are not coming back to 42nd and Sixth. [Curbed]

* An old TriBeCa liquor store (original signage largely intact) readies to morph into J. Crew. [Racked]

* Yep, pizza keeps getting more expensive. L&B's ups its price a quarter. More evidence of the impact of rising dairy and flour costs in Hell's Kitchen. [Postcards from Hell's Kitchen]

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: duly noted, signs

Hand me a tissue

Wednesday April 16, 2008 12:55 PM By Julie Gordon

Try a light scent in spring, like CB I Hate Perfume's "to see a flower."

Are you already popping Zyrtec or Claritin like it’s candy? Then you might want to stay away from certain perfumes.

“Once in a very blue moon I get someone who has very severe hayfever who tries my grass [fragrance] and sneezes. There’s zero pollen in it. So it’s just an [idea] that I sneeze when I smell this, so therefore I sneeze,” says Christopher Brosius, owner of CB I Hate Perfume in Williamsburg.

Spring and summer allergies can also be set off by other scents — so switch to something lighter in the warmer months.

Get scent-hunting advice and our top picks for spring fragrances in Monday’s Style section of amNewYork.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: cb i hate perfume, fragrance, shopping, brooklyn

11 Times Square: It's rising

Wednesday April 16, 2008 11:29 AM By Rolando Pujol

Here's a sight we never though we'd see: Actual real steel rising from the longtime parking lot that for decedaes promised to become a big Times Square tower ...

Set a course for adventure ...

Wednesday April 16, 2008 10:12 AM By Rolando Pujol

The campus lighthouse at Kingsborough Community College. (Photo via Megapickle on Flickr)

John Kostick arrived at Kingsborough Community College Tuesday expecting to take a campus tour. Instead, the prospective student wound up spending two hours on a boat observing the hands-on training of 24 students in the school’s maritime technology program who were recreating a rescue mission with the help of a Coast Guard helicopter.

“I came to see the college, to check out courses,” said Kostick, who wore an orange life vest as he stood on board of a boat floating in quiet waters between Manhattan Beach and Rockaway Point. “They asked if I wanted to see their hands-on training.”

Kostik, 48, of Manhattan, is one of many people turning to the maritime technology program for what he hopes will be a career change. He said he drove trucks for 16 years and now works as a tour guide on a double-deck bus.

“I’ve always worked a lot,” Kostick said. “I pushed my education behind.” He said he likes outside work and believes there are good paying jobs in maritime trade.Tony DiLernia, director of the maritime program, said there are more job offers than graduates in the field of maritime technology. This year, there are 75 people enrolled in the program, which offers an associate’s degree over four semesters. With such a degree, graduates can seek employment on the waterways of New York as captains on dinner boats, sightseeing trips, water taxis and high-speed ferries.

“My father works for Staten Island Ferry, my grandfather worked for Staten Island Ferry.” said Joe Rode, 18, of Staten Island. “I will get my degree next year and will work for the ferry, too.”

Rode participated in the rescue-mission exercise together with 24 other students, as part of a hands-on training conducted at the school each year. This time, the students had to work with a helicopter that dropped a high-pressure pump to be used on a distressed vessel. The students practiced grounding pumps and pulling them back to helicopter.

“It was great,” said Rode. “The Coast Guard helicopter came, water splashed. It was fun!”

“This is very interesting, gracious.” said Kostick, who observed the exercise from a second boat along with program staff and some of last year’s graduates. “I am impressed with the faculty and the program.”

The maritime-technology program is the only one of its kind that offers graduates brown-water licenses without military training. These licenses qualify them to pilot boats in coastal waters, harbors and rivers. Students earn 250 days of sea time while in school, and some, such as James Canham, 49, a retired fireman, work for companies such as New York Water Taxi while earning their degree.

Kostick, who already earned dozens of credits from Hostos Community College in South Bronx, said he is thinking of transferring them to Kingsborough College.

“I am very impressed here. You get actual skills.” Kostick said. “Now I need to discuss it with my wife.”

-- Katya Soldak

Tags: careers, education, maritime, kingsborough community college, brooklyn

Brooklyn rabbi remembers Va. Tech victim

Wednesday April 16, 2008 10:04 AM By Emily Ngo

It's difficult to believe one year has passed since Virginia Tech massacre. But as family and friends mourn today at remembrance ceremonies in Blacksburg, Va., a rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, honors Professor Liviu Librescu, who saved at least 22 people that fateful day by blocking the gunman and enabling his students to escape.

Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, was one of the 32 victims of the massacre.

Rabbi Shea Hecht, co-chairman of the Crown Heights Coalition, has produced an powerful 10-minute video documentary chronicling the life of Librescu, a Romanian-born "scientific superstar" who developed an experimental aircraft. Called "Courage Under Fire," Hecht remembers Librescu's heroism.

— Emily Ngo

Tags: brooklyn, history, religion

Inflation hits L&B Spumoni Gardens

Wednesday April 16, 2008 9:24 AM By Rolando Pujol

L&B's slice has gone up by 25 cents, to $2.25. (Photo via Kenyee on Flickr)

Everyone is feeling the pinch of food prices going up as the economy continues to struggle along.

A few months back there was a lot of upset pizza lovers when Di Fara's in Midwood upped the price of a slice to $4. We were surprised that L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst, long regarded as one of the best pizza restaurants in the city, was holding on to its $2 price for both its round and famous square slices.

But, L&B gave in on Monday, upping the price for both to $2.25 -- just in time for the spring when things start heating up at the popular pizzeria, which is also a hangout for the young and old when it becomes warm thanks to its ample outdoor seating.

-- Pete Catapano

Tags: pizza, di fara's, l&b spumoni gardens, food, brooklyn

Pick up a poem (for free)

Wednesday April 16, 2008 7:14 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

"Pssst... is that a poem in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

If you're going through Grand Central Terminal Thursday morning, be forewarned: the Academy of American Poets and volunteers are going to try and put a smile on your face, as they hand out free poems to mark the first-annual 'Poem In Your Pocket Day'.

The morning extravaganza, which falls during National Poetry Month, will feature poets with a New York connection--Edna St. Vincent Millay, Claude McKay, Walt Whitman and Emma Lazarus.

Along with such non-Gothamites (but pretty decent poets) Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, and others.

Once you've secured your poem make a beeline for nearby Bryant Park, where the city is holding an all-day open-mic reading of poems."Poems and pockets are a magnetic combination for commuters," said Academy of American Poets executive director Tree Swenson. "

Think of New Yorker Frank O'Hara writing poems during his lunch hour. In 'A Step Away from Them,' he ended with these lines: 'my heart is in my/pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.'"

And if you happen to walk into any of five museums with a poem--any poem!--in your pocket, you'll get in free.

Participating museums are: the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Museum of the City of New York, P.S. 1, the Staten Island Museum, and the Brooklyn Historical Society.

And check out this list of 10 favorite poets.

Tags: transportation

Help 'em, Julia: Aspiring French chefs vie for big break

Tuesday April 15, 2008 5:05 PM By Rolando Pujol

Santo Saitta prepares his meal from memory. Below, Kendra Watson sautees a chicken. (Photos by Jed Kim)

For the other passengers on the bus, the spilled chicken stock creeping up the aisle this morning was a nuisance. For Vera Dimarco, it was a disaster.

Dimarco’s 17-year-old son, Nick, needed the jar of stock for the exquisite cuisine he would be creating in less than two hours, so she turned to her fellow passengers for an answer.

“I’m actually paying people for a Ziploc bag on the express bus, coming in from Staten Island - ‘I’ll give anybody a dollar for a bag,’” Dimarco said.

Nick, a senior at Tottenville High School in Staten Island, was competing Tuesday in the annual Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) New York Cooking Competition for Scholarships. He and nearly 30 other high school seniors from the city were going to prepare traditional French dishes that they hoped would secure them scholarships of as much as $80,000 for college.

But first, the Dimarcos had to get to the competition.

C-CAP Program Associate, Caryne Hayes, watches the competition. Below, family and friends eagerly watch through the kitchen windows. (Photos by Jed Kim)

“Not only did we smell like chicken stock, we’re trying to save the stuff on the wrong bus, running late, trying to get into Manhattan,” said Dimarco.

They jumped into a cab with what was left of their stock and made it to the competition without further incident.

“Coming all the way from Staten Island, I made it here in an hour! I am very impressed,” said Vera, taking a break from watching her son prepare his dishes.

In the kitchens of the Institute for Culinary Education, Nick and the other students chopped and seared in a frenzy of cooking. For two tense hours, they blanched tomatos, sauteed chicken, and drizzled chocolate onto plates. Eddies of garlic and oil wafted about as they moved from stove to countertop to refrigerator. The only sounds in the room were the “tock-tock” of their knives and the sizzle of fat in pans – the students themselves were silent.

That’s because they had to concentrate on cooking and presenting two dishes – hunter’s chicken with turned, sauteed potatoes and dessert crepes with pastry cream and chocolate sauce. They had only two hours to finish, and they had to do it completely from memory. The students all had plenty of time to prepare, however – the same two dishes have been on the menu for each of the 18 years that the competition has run.

Students are judged on their technique, skill, and the taste and presentation of their final dishes. They can win scholarships that range from $500 to $80,000 to attend culinary college. The winners of the competition will be announced at an awards ceremony on April 28.

The Careers through Culinary Arts Program runs the competition as part of its involvement with culinary programs in area high schools.

“Culinary arts and home economics take a back seat in high schools,” said Suwun Harris, the program manager at C-CAP. “And so it’s a way to support these programs which are so important.”

Harris said that she’s enjoyed watching the students who take part in her program blossom into chefs. She said that cooking gives them confidence and helps them on their way to successful careers.

“Students will go on to postsecondary education, because they’re excited about the possibility of becoming a chef,” Harris said.

Nick Dimarco said that he is waiting to learn the results of the competition before he makes a final decision on the culinary college he will attend.

Vera Dimarco said that Nick got his love for cooking from his grandparents and other relatives. Nick joked about his cooking heritage, saying that while the love was passed down, the skill wasn’t.

“She’ll probably kill me, but my mom’s not really that good of a cook.”

-- Jed Kim

Tags: food

Kids skip Passover break to sing for pope

Tuesday April 15, 2008 4:54 PM By Rolando Pujol

The last two weeks have been hectic for 10-year-old Matthew Lipschitz. He and 19 other students at Park East Synagogue Day School on the Upper East Side have been rehearsing practically non-stop for a choir concert this Saturday.

But it’s not just any choir concert. The guest of honor at this one will be the pope.

“It’s an honor really,” said Lipschitz, who has played the piano for five years but has no formal vocal training. He and the other children were selected a few weeks ago after a teacher asked them to write down their names if they were staying in town for the school’s break during Passover. In exchange for forgoing vacation, they will get to meet the pope.

Tuesday morning, as reporters and camera crews walked past, Lipschitz sat with 10 other elementary and middle school students on the lobby floor just outside the sanctuary of the synagogue, a congregation on the Upper East Side that has played host to Hillary Clinton and Binyamin Netanyahu.

Just before 11 a.m., Rabbi Evan Hoffman, who has served as their choir director for the past two weeks, gave them a pep talk. “You guys know this, you know the songs,” Hoffman said, kneeling to be eye level with the kids. “Don’t worry about that,” he added, referring to the camera crews, who were there to film the rehearsal.The youngsters then filed into the synagogue and a representative from a public relations firm lined them up, shoulder to shoulder.

The students stood ready to sing, staring at the cameras with tense, wide-eyed half smiles usually reserved for school pictures. Before they could rehearse, Park East’s Rabbi Arthur Schneier first asked them a series of questions about faith and peace. “Are there countries in the world where this could not take place?” Schneier asked. The kids nodded, but none raised a hand to answer. “You don’t have to name them,” said Schneier, who has received a Congressional gold medal for his work in religious freedom.

Asher Elbaz, a 12-year-old seventh grader, said he was very excited for the pope’s visit, and “not at all nervous.” Elbaz hoarsely explained that he sings in a group at Julliard, but lost his voice last week.

The students started their rehearsal with Hevenu Shalom (“We bring greetings of peace to you!”), sounding the way a schoolchildren’s choir should, just slightly off key and out of sync.

Schneier said that the synagogue decided to use children instead of a professional choir for the pope’s visit because “children are the future,” and he wanted to make sure they grasped the message of understanding.

Most of the students echoed the same sentiment when the talked about why they were excited to meet the pope. “He helps our religion. He helps the Jews and he doesn’t just help Jews, he helps everyone,” said 10-year-old Jonathan Czyzyk.

Elbaz said he was excited and stunned when he found out why his teachers wanted to know if he would be in New York during break. Seeing the pope, “it’s just a wow factor,” he said.

-- Emily Meredith

Tags: religion, pope's 2008 visit, manhattan

Empowering victims of crime, one shirt at a time

Tuesday April 15, 2008 4:42 PM By Rolando Pujol

Roughly 600 shirts dangled from the ceiling at Eugenio Maria De Hostos Community College today. They were speckled with paint and held together by wooden clips, thin strings and lots of hope. Every one of them told a story.

“Too many things have happened to me like being abused by the beast, a.k.a. my father,” read a beige T-shirt that bore the initials “S.S.” “Why it got to be me? I never did anything to nobody.”

It was part of the 12th annual Bronx Clothesline Project in honor of National Crime Victims Rights’ Week, which brought together those who have lost family members and friends to homicides, assaults and physical or emotional abuse.

Representatives of the Bronx District attorney’s office and Bronx nonprofit organizations gathered in an effort to inform New York City residents about the importance of coming forth when one is a victim of violence. Brittany Ramirez, a second-year student at Hostos, said that there’s a lot of violence in the Bronx and programs like The Bronx Clothesline Project empower people.In 2007, there were 130 homicides in the Bronx and 311 rapes. This year, 40 homicide cases have been reported, as well as 97 sexual assaults, according to New York Police Department statistics.

“It’s important for them [victims] to get their voices heard not only in the media or in the courtroom, but also in the community,” said Anilda Colon, program coordinator for the Bronx County District Attorney’s satellite office. She added that it’s important for victims and their loved ones to get an opportunity to express their feelings through art projects like The Bronx Clothesline, and not through violence.

The clothesline project began in 1990 at Cape Cod, Mass. The purpose of the program was to educate citizens about the struggles faced by domestic violence victims and their families.

In 1997, the Bronx decided to adopt a similar program with a little twist: The Bronx Project Clothesline added victims, families and friends who were affected by homicide and child abuse.

There seems to be a cycle of abuse among teens and adults who have witnessed a relative being victimized. Therefore, breaking that cycle of abuse begins with the realization that things are wrong and learning that abusive behavior is not to be tolerated, said Melissa Crossley, a domestic violence and sexual assault advocate at Helium, a community blogger organization.

Others at the event agreed with Crossley.

Carolyn Jones, director of community relations and office manager for New York State’s Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Bronx/Westchester) said that parents not only in the Bronx, but everywhere else must respect themselves and their children and not tolerate any kind of abuse.

“Parents who are angry must not hit their children right away,” Jones said, referring to the fact that some will act at the heat of moment and do something they might regret, “It’s bad to then hug them in apology because children then believe that’s love.”

Many of the writings on the shirts noted some form of resentment or hatred towards adults.

“To my father: you’re a loser. You are bad for me, don’t ever talk to me. I am mad at you, don’t ever call us, wrote a child whose intials, “J.R.” were inscribed on a baby-blue shirt.

-- Francis Jacobo

Tags: crime, bronx

A quest to save stories of Shoah's survivors

Tuesday April 15, 2008 1:05 PM By Rolando Pujol

Prof. Saul Friedlander of UCLA and Claims Conference Chairman Julius Berman announce project to collect unpublished memoirs of Holocaust survivors for new online collection. (Courtesy: The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.)

Before going to sleep, Roman Kent’s children used to ask him to tell them stories about his life. Their favorite tale was the one about Lala, the dogged pet that found its way to the Jewish ghetto where Kent’s family was living after being taken away from their home by the Nazis.

Decades after the end of World War II, Kent is preparing to tell his story all over again, this time to anyone who has Internet access. He is one of thousands of Holocaust survivors who, thanks to a recent effort to collect survivor memoirs worldwide, will be able to contribute to and access an electronic collection of first-hand survival accounts.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which works to secure compensation and restitution for victims of Nazism and is leading these efforts, has begun asking survivors in 75 countries to submit previously unpublished or unavailable memoirs to its newly established database.

“We are appealing to survivors around the world to write their stories so that decades from now people will know what happened to you and your families,” said Julius Berman, the conference’s chairman.

The Worldwide Shoah Memoirs Collection, as the effort is known, was announced today by Saul Friedländer, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945. Friedländer, a survivor himself, hid in a Catholic boarding school in France during the German occupation of 1940-1944. His parents were gassed in Auschwitz.

The effort to collect these memoirs is “enormously timely,” said Gideon Taylor, executive vice -president of the conference. More thanOver 60 years after the end of the Holocaust, many survivors are elderly.

“We face a very narrow window of time to gather memoirs by survivors,” he said.“Part of the endeavor is reaching out to institutions and organizations and, through them, to the Holocaust survivors community,” said Taylor. To broaden the effort’s scope, submissions will be accepted in all languages and, while electronic documents are preferred, typed submissions are also accepted.

The conference’s priority is to collect accounts that are not being saved somewhere else but it will also accept works published elsewhere, which would be able to remain in both places.

The collected materials will first be made accessible to organizations and scholars involved in Holocaust research and documentation and, eventually, to the general public. This to ensure that the historical accuracy and integrity of the submissions are confirmed before publication, said Taylor.

“As time goes on, we will work on making it public,” he said, but that will take time. “What we don’t have time for is to gather the information.”

Joseph Rosenbaum, 85, received a letter from the conference organizers last month. His memoir, which he had tried to publish for years, had reached the conference board and they wanted to include it in their database.

Rosenbaum, who was born in Radom, Poland in 1922, survived the Holocaust thanks to his mother, who gave him her work document as Ukranian and German soldiers were taking those without it away. In his memoir, Rosenbaum documents this moment.

“As the selection went on, she was the first of our family to walk away,” he wrote. His mother was followed by his brother’s wife and her two children, his two sisters and brother-in-law. “The little group passed the gate and headed on foot toward Majdanek concentration camp.” He never saw them again.

In October of last year Phil Rosenbaum typed his father’s memoir, all 50 pages of it, and posted it on a blog. “I hope that this time they will publish it,” said Rosenbaum, who began writing about his experiences during the Holocaust in 1985.

To Roman Kent, whose memoirs will be published by Vantage Press, producing this chronicle is a testament to those who perished and those who survived, but it is also a way to help prevent the genocide that is taking place around the world.

“If we forget we bury the conscience of human kind together with the six million who perished” during the Holocaust, said Kent, whose faithful dog Lala eventually was confiscated by the Germans. By the end of the Holocaust, he and his brother were the only members of their family still alive. “Survivors cannot be bystanders,” Kent said. “We must be involved.”

For more information on the collection and instructions for submission, visit http://memoirs.claimscon.org.

-- Sandra Larriva

Tags: holocaust, judaism, religion

Tax day circus

Tuesday April 15, 2008 11:50 AM By Marlene Naanes

Wackiness outside Farley on tax day. (Photos by Jefferson Siegel)

The Farley Post Office was a bit of a circus Tuesday morning, though the thousands of last-minute filers that strolled through the door were not the only ones to blame.

A dozen folks dressed as Uncle Sam handed out pretzel snacks, an Ann Coulter impersonator helped launch a parody of the Wall Street Journal and several women promoting Coors Beer cheered on weary procrastinators as they trudged up the post office stairs. For the first time since renovation of the post office façade hampered the hoopla tax day draws, the area in front of the city’s 24-hour post office was again a wide-open stage for protesters and vendors who bank on tax day crowds.

“No one likes to pay taxes, but everyone has to do it,” said Hilari Graff, who was passing out joke goodie bags filled with tissues and stress relievers from the New Yorker Hotel. “We’re adding some fun and lightness to everyone paying taxes.”

More vendors than protestors showed up yesterday morning, some noting that the hoopla was muted compared to years past. People at a Staples tent offering free copies of tax forms, the forms themselves and office supplies, said twice as many vendors showed up in years past.

Onlookers grabbing lunch on the post office stairs chuckled at some of the tax day antics while others were baffled by it.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Amnel Arroyo, 32, said of the Coors Beers women holding signs and cheering as he and a coworker sunned and ate their lunch. “It would be better if they gave out free beer.”

Hendre Smith files his taxes.

Inside the post office, last-minute filers were largely oblivious to what was going on outdoors. The Post Office was on double duty with up to three times the number of windows normally open and six mobile units outside. About 60,000 transactions were expected at each of four automated machines inside compared to their monthly average of 35,000, spokespeople said.

The biggest crushes were expected after work and just before midnight. People yesterday consistently filed in to pick up tax forms—extension paperwork was the most popular—and filled out state and federal returns on tables near lengthy lines. Hendre Smith, 45, a messenger from East New York, was doing his taxes himself for the first time and had just cracked open a tax book on his lunch break.

“Why did I wait until the last minute?” Smith said. “I just kept putting it off and finally the 15th came up on me. No excuses. It’s my fault.”

Some folks standing in line to mail their returns waxed philosophical about why they waited.

“If you know you’re going to get money back, it makes sense to do it early,” said Sathya Vijayendran, 30, of Jackson Heights, who was filing business and personal forms. “I owe, so why would I want to do it early?”

See photos here

-- Marlene Naanes

Tags: zany

City Hall Dispatch: The big winner?

Monday April 14, 2008 12:04 PM By David Freedlander

Photo from DMI via Flickr

The pieces are still falling from slush-fund gate but the person who may benefit the most from this is borough president Scott Stringer.

Before all of this went down, good money would have gone to council Speaker Christine Quinn becoming the next mayor. But fairly or not, the fallout from all of this has taken away the primary reason for a Quinn candidacy--that she was a reformer, especially around budget matters.

But Manhattan pols will not be dissuaded so easily, which brings us to Stringer. Unlike every other major elected official in the city, Stringer won't be termed out in '09. He will however, be termed out in 2013, when all the other plum spots--mayor, comptroller, public advocate--will be held by an incumbent. Thus, even though he is in a safe seat, he's itching to get out of it so he doesn't have to get a real job in 2013.

For a while, speculation had focused around a race for public advocate

But with Quinn's prospects diminishing by the day, Stringer is looking more and more like someone who has set his sights a little higher:

As per The Daily Politics:

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer sounded awfully like a candidate for citywide office while chatting with WNBC's Jay DeDapper in this Sunday's News Forum interview and refused to rule out any options for 2009 - including the mayor's race...

Stringer explained his early support of congestion pricing by saying the city is facing a "transportation crisis" and "health issue" that spans all five boroughs...

Stringer, one of the few electeds in the city not facing term-limts in 2009, has been speculated to be considering a run for public advocate. But he told DeDapper that "we're keeping all our options open," adding that he hopes the next round of city elections focus on "specific issues."

"And we have to have a big and bold initiative and that's up to elected officials to realize that they may not satisfy their constituency today, but they're building a legacy and a New York for tomorrow and that is how I'm going to judge what I do and what other people should do in 2009."

---David Freedlander

Tags: politics, slush-fund gate, christine quinn, city hall dispatch

A pool's birth: 2 years compressed into a few minutes

Monday April 14, 2008 10:16 AM By Rolando Pujol

My friend Mark Jackson mixed a great little project into his work on the new pool and ice rink facility in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Mark, who studied architecture and served on the Peace Corps in Honduras, took still photographs from the steps of the project trailer each day during a two-and-a-half-year period — October 2005 to March 2007 — while he served as project manager. Mark assembled a rough-cut music video, click above, using a time-lapse of the pictures’ progression, but since Mark’s busy with grad school now, this might be the final cut. In case you’re wondering, Mark mixed together Errol Garner, Strunz Farrah, a cumbia track from the 1950s and Ratatat for his video’s soundtrack.Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Natatorium and Ice Rink — the ice rink isn’t operable just yet — went up despite obstacles such as 9/11 and the loss of the 2012 Olympic bid, for which the complex was to be the water polo venue.

At $66.3 million, it is the costliest recreation building ever built in a city park. The pool, steps from the Billie Jean King USTA National Tennis Center, has been open to the public since late February. Membership is $75 per year.

Check out photos of NYC's historic pools, here.

-- Max Dickstein

Tags: queens, zany, stuff that's cool, parks

10th Avenue: Brimming with character

Sunday April 13, 2008 8:48 PM By Rolando Pujol

Our camera draws attention in the window, which is atop a collection of signs, including a brilliant hand-painted affair. (Photos by Rolando Pujol)

To find reasonably undisturbed pockets of retail character left in Manhattan, the edges make a productive place to hunt. A walk down a swath of 10th Avenue last week yielded some pleasant finds in this old Westies stomping ground. Highlights include a mini-empire of shops run by "Sonny," a 1950s-style hotel sign, a Latin record shop, and some ghost signs for player pianos right on a townhouse's facade. Photographic evidence of our excursion, which went from the high 50s to 42nd Street, continues after the jump:

-- Rolando Pujol

Finally, a place to pay our New York Telephone bill. This sign has happily not been updated with the names NYNEX, Bell Atlantic or Verizon. Perfect.

Looking for wine and spirits? On 10th Avenue, a stop at Adriatic is in order.

Le Soleil sells Haitian food, and was doing a brisk business.

What a useful store. Shoes, sneakers, watch batteries replaced, hair cut and on and on, all packed into a small space. This is a perfect example of the kind of shops neighborhoods rely on, and that are never replaced by "high-end retail."

Here's Sonny's Meat Market. And across the street ...

is Sonny's Grocery store. And on the facade above survives ...

ancient ghost signs for a player piano factory!

Lily's is jampacked with balloons and other fun stuff.

Stop One, one of two bodegas by this name along this stretch.

Cash R Plus: It's a pharmacy, and so much more.

Fat Sal's: Love the light bulbs around the sign.

Somewhat bland, computer-generated lettering is saved by the ring of colorful light bulbs a la Fat Sal's.

We know lawyers put out their shingles, but wow, we didn't know that included Pizza Hut-style wood-shingled canopies. Pretty wild. We dig it.

New York's "wurst" restaurant is right here on 10th.

Recent renovations produced a canopy that doesn't quite fit with the sleek mid-century vibe of the sign and the hotel behind. But it's still interesting. New York Songlines says the back of this hotel was once dug up in search of Westies victims back in the day.

An intact Latin record shop in central Manhattan. Music to our ears.

Tags: manhattan, signs, endangered nyc, development, urban archaeology

Magic at Mojo?

Sunday April 13, 2008 2:26 PM By Liz Esquirol

After reading our own Farnoosh Torabi's piece about a relatively new restaurant in Long Island City, I decided to check it out. Maybe because of the name, Lucky Mojo, or maybe because of its ecletic cuisine - either way, it drew me in.

I ventured with some willing friends to the still-in-progress area of Long Island City to see if Lucky Mojo would cast its magical spell over us. As we entered, you can sense a warm and comfortable environment. There are two levels of dining - the lower bar portion has both booths and tables and a stage at the far end for their live music nights. The upper level provided more dining space and a small sushi bar.

The menu is broad with a capital B - so it should appeal to most palates (isn't variety the spice of life?) And my group ordered the gamut from brisket to sushi.

We had the calamari to start. It was lightly fried and had a spicy, almost sweet sauce on it, which my friends thought was a nice change from the traditional marinara sauce (and these were Italians, so for them to like it, it had to be good.)

Of course I just had to have the sushi because it seemed so bizarre to be on the menu (a little risky on my part.) Overall, everyone seemed pleased with their meal and my sushi roll was delicious and fresh. For sushi "snobs", this is probably not the place to go, but I saw it as "silly sushi"....playful.

When the band began their first set we found it a little difficult to converse even though we were upstairs. So I would recommend getting the dining out of the way before the music gets going (or if you don't care to speak to your dining companion, this is a perfect opportunity to ignore them.)

Although the food was good, my favorite part of the night was jumping into an old time photo booth to capture the magic like people did before the advent of camera cell phones - it was just too hard to resist!

Tags: restaurants, queens, food, entertainment, bars

The view from over there

Sunday April 13, 2008 12:59 PM By David Freedlander

Very cool new show up at the British Museum in London called "The American Scene" that features lithographs and prints from the late 19th to the mid 20th Century. The one above, called simply "New York," by the Ukrainian born Precisionist Louis Lozowick. He emigrated to the U.S. in the mid 1920's where he became fascinated by "the verticals of its smokestacks, the parallels of its car tracks, the squares of its streets, the cubes of its factories, the arc of its bridges, the cylinders of its gas tanks"A few more items in the show, or at least on the website that have specific Gotham related content include this one from George Bellows, which shows typical illegal backroom boxing matches which were common in Manhattan bars in the early part of the century

This little tender moment from Edward Hopper on the old 3rd Ave El:

An odd 1931 drypoint from Martin Lewis:

And our favorite, this Greenwich Village street scene called "Spring Night," also by Martin Lewis. Anybody know where exactly in the Village this is?

Tags: art, drawing, street scenes, new york, arts

Street Level: Around Columbus Circle

Sunday April 13, 2008 12:13 PM By Liz Esquirol

I was passing through the Columbus Circle hub on a recent warm day and two things caught my eye and slowed my pace. As I came out of the subway I saw a lone stranger under the Globe looking down upon the commuters. He did not move - and all I could think was that he appeared, both physically and figuratively, to have the weight of the world upon his shoulders.....

The Trump building's globe

As I moved downtown to 57th Street, a glint of sunlight bounced off a building causing me to look up (which as a New Yorker, we almost never do.) I stopped to admire the Hearst Building - with its mix of old and new architectural styles. I know many opposed the building of the nicknamed "lava lamp" above the old structure, but it still attracts the eye with its odd glamour. A little revolutionary and evolutionary, no?

-- Liz Esquirol

The Hearst Building

Tags: manhattan, architecture

Celebrating New York's immigrant heritage

Sunday April 13, 2008 12:08 PM By Rolando Pujol

LibertyandManhattanSkyline1,” by artist Katherine Dolgy Ludwig, was chosen by the Bloomberg administration to represent Immigration Week 2008.

Immigration Week 2008, New York City’s fifth annual celebration of the melting pot, begins Monday and runs through next Sunday. The celebration honors past and present immigrant groups with free or low cost events across the five boroughs.

The week is scheduled around April 17, the date in 1907 when 11,747 immigrants entered Ellis Island, the most ever on a single day.

A kick-off ceremony was held on Friday at Gracie Mansion, formally the mayor’s residence, though Mayor Michael Bloomberg only uses it for visitors and meetings.

Organized by the Office of Immigration Affairs, this year’s week has over 50 events honoring the immigrant journey and contributions to New York City along with celebrating the native cultures of immigrants. Chinese, Cuban, Jewish, Greek, Caribbean, Irish, Russian, and Armenian cultures, just to name a few, are represented.The events include:

* General immigration awareness workshops like Thursday’s “New American Assistance and Information Forum” target today’s 2.9 million foreign-born residents.

* The second annual Conference on Promoting Financial Justice for Immigrant New Yorkers is set for Monday.

* NYCBusiness Solutions/Workshop Career Center in Jamaica, Queens, sponsored by Upwardly Global, goffers a seminar Wednesday on using a foreign degree in the United States

A panel at Hunter College School of Social Work discusses health issues on Thursday, while “The Vote, It’s Our Right” on Sunday addresses the important issue of civic participation with the nearing 2008 presidential election.

Other events include:

Art: A Canadian immigrant and artist, Katherine Dolgy Ludwig, examines immigration in “Sacred Spaces: Faith painting in Brooklyn” and “Art of Welcome: EveryOneWhoHelpedMeGetMy01Visa.”

One of Dolgy Ludwig’s paintings, “LibertyandManhattanSkyline1” was also chosen by the Bloomberg administration to represent Immigration Week 2008.

Music: Bengali and El Mariachi Real De Mexico, in Staten Island, Caribbean Guitars in the Bronx and Armenian music in Queens are among 23 musical events.

“Monkey Steals the Heavenly Peaches,” sponsored by the New York Public Library, is a “Peking opera” for children. Showing Monday, Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday at the Bronx Library Center in Kingsbridge, it is one of the family-friendly theater programs.

Film: Movies including the ninth annual Havana Film Festival, a celebration of Latin American cinema, run all week.

Education: Learning opportunities including the Chinese Ribbon Dance workshop on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 4pm at several Manhattan libraries and Young Playwrights Inc’s workshop, “Write a Play.”

For more, click here.

-- Kathleen Bulson

Tags: immigration

When two blogs unite: A tour of Greenpoint

Sunday April 13, 2008 11:35 AM By David Freedlander

This weekend our friends over at Lost City teamed up with Urbanite to do an archaeological dig of scenic Greenpoint.

The day began with an early stop-off at the Palace Cafe, above, a neighborhood bar in what Francis Morrone once referred to as the city's "Aluminum Siding Historical District."

This bar turns into an odd heavy metal 1980s hair band bar after dark, but during the day, the 1930's lunch bucket spot just has a few old timers who drink pale beers and beautiful light streaming in through the windows.From there, it was on to the Sunview Luncheonette a famous old place of egg creams and 1.25 tuna salad sandwiches and that was sadly shut down last year by the health deptartment:

Seen in the corner is graffiti over the Health Deptartment sign announcing, in jest, "Don't worry--a new Starbucks will be here soon!"

Unseen is the old-timey wooden phone booth in the corner.

On Manhattan Ave, there is a rare still-extant furrier:

with odd Native American knick-nacks in the windowsill:

Further on, there is Rite Aid, which ordinarily be unremarkable except that this, was once an old theater that was converted into a rollerskating rink and that kept the disco ball:

At the "members only" Capri Social Club (wink wink) filled with decades of worth of bar bricabrak

A rare wooden phone booth can be found:

Further down Manhattan Ave, there's the Smolenski Funeral Home:

Across, naturally, from an SRO:

Finally, on Franklin Ave, there are the famous pencils from the old Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory:

And lastly, the city's last wood block sidewalk:

-- David Freedlander

Tags: greenpoint, lost city, tours, urban archaeology, signs

2 Columbus Circle: Tracking the reveal

Friday April 11, 2008 7:23 PM By Rolando Pujol

We last checked in on 2 Columbus Circle's slow reveal two weeks ago; on Friday, much more of the Museum of Art and Design's facade was visible, as well as a hint of the only remaining signature element of the original building (not counting the facade's concave shape) ... the lollipops made famous by Ada Louise Huxtable.

We also noticed a few weeks back what we suppose was the original sidewalk (circle and circle and more circles) still largely intact. Will it last? Does it matter given the original facade's senseless obliteration?

-- Rolando Pujol

The facade on Friday: More images after the jump:

A view from West 58th Street.

A hint of the lollipops.

The old sidewalk lingers on.

Tags: 2 columbus circle, endangered nyc, real estate, museums, manhattan

This is CBS --- and that's Katie still outside West 57th

Friday April 11, 2008 4:55 PM By Rolando Pujol

Katie Couric's troubled run in Uncle Walter's chair at CBS is now drawing to a predictable, if cringe-inducing close. But if you were to handicap her fate as the face of CBS News by examining the facade of the CBS building in Hell's Kitchen, well, you'd think a very different outcome is likely.

For now at least, a banner proudly announces to all who venture out to the wilds of 10th Avenue and West 57th Street that Katie is still the plum of the network's eye.Indeed, it attaches her image to yet another storied brand of CBS News -- See It Now, birthed by Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly. Well, soon enough, we'll probably see a similar banner touting Harry Smith, Scott Pelley ... or Coop?

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: katie couric, cbs, media

Because we need more fro-yo shops

Thursday April 10, 2008 3:29 PM By Rolando Pujol

The trend that refuses to melt appears destined for the Empire State Building. Tourists and office workers alike will be able to get their fro yo fix at Yolato. The purveyor of frozen yogurt and gelato is opening on the tower's 33rd Street side, in the space once occupied by another frozen dessert shop, Uncle Louie G's.

We share fellow blogger Julie's distaste for this trend without end.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: manhattan, restaurants, food

City Hall Dispatch: The Gore endorsement

Thursday April 10, 2008 2:12 PM By David Freedlander

Photo from NY Social Diary

No, not that one.

Apparently the young lady on the right is weighing in, and not on the Clinton/Obama deathwatch, but on our own humble public advocate race.

According to his chief of staff, Ms Schiff and PA-aspirant Eric Gioia got to know each other during the elder Gore's presidential run, with Gioia serving as a campaign staffer and Schiff serving as a daughter.

Now, she's repaying the favor, introducing him at a birthday fundraiser at the Time Hotel. Full details after the jump

---David FreedlanderDear Friend,

Please join me on April 24th from 6pm to 8:30pm. My good friend, author and activist Karenna Gore Schiff, will be introducing me at this event to celebrate my birthday and kick off the City's first carbon neutral, green political campaign.

The invite is below. Please note the new location, at the Time Hotel at 49th and Broadway, just blocks away from a wide array of subway lines including the N, R, W, 1, C and E trains.

Please RSVP by April 21st by calling 212.370.0700 or emailing teamgioia@ericgioia.com. You can also visit my website, www.ericgioia.com, to buy your ticket online now. As always, we are committed to making this an event for everyone, and it's give what you can, with a suggested minimum contribution of $10.

I would love to see you there, and invite you to bring your friends and family. Please forward them the invite below, and also encourage them to join our email list as there is no paper invite for this event.

Thank you once again for your support. I have confidence that together, we can build a better City for our children and our children's children.

Sincerely yours,

Eric Gioia

Tags: public advocate, eric gioia, gore daughters, city hall dispatch

A commute that got cheaper

Thursday April 10, 2008 12:09 PM By Rolando Pujol

New York Water Taxi cruises past downtown. Photo from reneerwest on Flickr.

Here’s a commute that defies the law of ever-increasing fares: The New York Water Taxi announced it is lowering its prices. Trips on the ferry lines into lower Manhattan from Yonkers and Haverstraw will go from $12 to $10 and $15 to $12, respectively, starting May 1.

Savings are greater the more trips you buy. The struggling ferry line hopes cheaper seats will increase ridership, which along the line is at 2,200 people a month — low considering each trip could ferry 149 passengers.

The service is able to keep operating costs down through public funding and grants, including one from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

-- Garett Sloane

Tags: new york water taxi, transit, lower manhattan, commute, transportation, environment

Not so sketchy

Thursday April 10, 2008 11:49 AM By Julie Gordon

When I was in college, I used to love going to see my school’s sketch comedy troupe, Recess. And Wednesday night I saw a performance that gave me a bit of a flash-back — funny college age-looking folk doing kooky stunts and skits that made me laugh out loud.

Wednesday's five-guy group, Pangea 3000, did a short show Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

My favorite skit centered around a couple visiting a sick relative. The doctor waiting outside was just sitting there eating this giant chicken parm sandwich. OK, it doesn’t sound funny. But it was! Another focused on kids at a school spelling bee having to spell out crazy sounds. Again, it doesn’t sound funny. But it was! I swear!

The group plays next April 12 at UCB at 11:59 (according to the guys’ Web site) and April 23 at UCB at 9:30.

Julie Gordon

Tags: pangea 3000, recess, comedy, entertainment

Throwback Thursday: Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge

Thursday April 10, 2008 10:48 AM By Rolando Pujol

Ahh, spring. Time for a quick weekend getaway to the Poconos, and to the delights of beautiful Mount Airy Lodge, where one can enjoy horseback riding, tennis, a dip in a frothy heart-shaped tub in the seclusion of your room, and fine dining while enjoying the stylings of Rodney Dangerfield and Tony Bennett .

That's what those wonderful commercials from the late 1970s promised, and it was all just a 90-minute drive away! Alas, Mount Airy Lodge is no more, but the jingle that promises a beautiful getaway with "your host with the most in the Poconos," lives on.

This commercial below promotes Mount Airy's winter activities, but there were commercials tailored for each season. Because there never was a bad time to go to the lodge.

Click below, if you dare. If this song has been buried in the farthest reaches of your mind, it will quickly become front and center for at least three days. Proceed with caution!

-- Rolando Pujol

And here's another variant of the campaign:

Tags: poconos, mount airy lodge, commercials, throwback thursday, television

America's next tree

Wednesday April 9, 2008 4:31 PM By Rolando Pujol

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tyra Banks plant a tree along the bike lane on Ninth Avenue and 18th Street Wednesday afternoon. The event called attention to Bloomberg's PlaNYC Million Trees NYC Initiative, which is aiming to plant a million trees throughout the city by 2017.

Text and photo: Jefferson Siegel

Tags: michael bloomberg, tyra banks, manhattan, environment, politics

Tompkins Square Park commemoration on hold

Wednesday April 9, 2008 3:49 PM By David Freedlander

Photo of Tompkins Square Riot by Clayton Patterson

Big news out of the squats today! The city relented! The riot party's on!

But no, twas not to be.

Early reports from erstwhile East Villager Clayton Patterson was that thanks to, ahem, amNY's

story, the higher up's in the Parks Dept would permit the 20th anniversary of what locals refer to as "The Tompkins Square Park Police Riots" (in order to properly affix blame.)

In a phone interview, Paterson said, "I think in the end they didn't have a legitimate reason not to give us a permit. It's a power thing. If we were the New York City Kennel Club and had some really prestigious corporate sponsor behind us I bet we'd have no problem getting that permit."

He went on: "The Tompkins Square Police Riot has to be remembered from a neighborhood point of view. So many people have been pushed out. We could hold a commemoration of when the Rivington Hotel got built and celebrate and drink champagne, but we don't drink champagne."

But alas, there will be no champagne, and no punk throw-down. It turns out the Parks Department has merely agreed to negotiate, not to surrender.

In the meantime, back to the barricades!

-- David Freedlander

Tags: tompkins square park, punk rock, parks dept, zany

City Hall Dispatch: It's on!!!

Wednesday April 9, 2008 1:32 PM By David Freedlander

Courtesy of "slush fund-gate" the first major skirmish of the '09 campaign was today when city comptroller and mayoral contender Bill Thompson hand-delivered a letter to council speaker and mayoral contender Christine Quinn over her bogus budgeting.

In the letter, Thompson called for more oversight in the city budget and and announced that he would review all agreements with city agencies funded by discretionary funds.

Yikes. Then Quinn held an afternoon news conference asking the mayor to slow down on his plan to reorganize senior centers--which had been a major issue of Thompson's--and pointedly did not invite the mayor.

When asked about the missing auditor-in-chief, Quinn demurred:

"Bill Thompson is the comptroller of the city of New York. He has done a very good job over the past six years auditing city agencies. I have no doubt that whatever efforts he takes relevant to this will be of the highest professional caliber...He obviously has done extensive audits, the audit he did of the City Council's internal budget was certainly helpful to us "All I can comment on is things from my perspective, and from my perspective, obviously we would like to engage outside experts and if Comptroller Thompson can bring other experts to the table who can help us we are happy to work with him in that effort."

--David Freedlander

The King's (photo) plays Times Square!

Wednesday April 9, 2008 1:23 PM By Rolando Pujol

A never-before-seen photo of Elvis Presley taken by legendary music photographer George Kalinsky is displayed on a billboard above the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. (Jefferson Seigel / April 9, 2008)

Elvis Presley performs at Madison Square Garden in this June 1972 photo provided by George Kalinsky. Kalinsky, who has been the official Garden photographer for more than 40 years, came across the never-before-seen photos while looking for images for a publicity campaign called "Great Moments in New York." (AP Photo/From the Lens of George Kalinsky)

Attention New York Elvis fans (and lovers of leisure-suits everywhere): a larger then life photo of the King from his 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden has landed atop the Virgin Megastore in Times Square.

The photo is apart of a number of images taken of Presley by legendary photographer George Kalinsky that have not been published before.

Kalinsky came across the photos while looking for images for a publicity campaign called "Great Moments in New York."

The photos will be displayed at Graceland starting Memorial Day weekend as part of "Elvis Jumpsuits: All Access," a fashion exhibit featuring more than 50 of Elvis' famous stage wear jumpsuits, according to the Associated Press.

Leisure-suit-apalooza. Uh-huh-huh

-- Peggy Mihelich

Tags: virgin megastore, arts, zany, manhattan, history, entertainment

Urban archaeology: We love Te Amo

Wednesday April 9, 2008 11:21 AM By Rolando Pujol

Smoke shops with the Te Amo branding once were incredibly common across the city, but like fallout shelter signs, they're become rare enough that happening upon one merits comment. But what about happening upon two, on either side of Fifth Avenue on 33rd Street?

This one is on West 33rd Street, right across the Empire State Building. It's in pretty good shape, and has the bonus of having a yellow sign touting the other goods available, and a Te Amo "cube" at far right.

Just down the street, on East 33rd Street between Fifth and Madison avenues, is a Te Amo sign with much the same elements, only organized differently. The cube is slapped in the middle of the sign, depriving us of a clean view of the main Te Amo sign. But we're not complaining.

We'll update this post as we find new Te Amo signs, and dig around a bit on their history.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: endangered nyc, urban archaeology, shopping

Places to Eat Near: Madison Square Garden

Wednesday April 9, 2008 9:24 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

Knicks and Rangers fans rejoice--here are five cheap and reasonably-priced places near Madison Square Garden where you can grab good food before or after cheering your team in the playoffs.

Oh, wait... the Knicks didn't make the playoffs this year?

Must be a fluke, I'm sure next year they'll be back to their usual winning ways. In the meantime, maybe you Knicks fans can check out the places below on your way to the American Idol tour.-Pad Thai, 409 8th Avenue between 30th and 31st Street, south of MSG

Stick with the basics here and you can't go wrong--pad thai with shrimp is flavorful, mint fried rice with beef or chicken is fresh and filling. And check out the dish sitting on the counter near the registers--it's the daily offering to Buddha, and changes often.

-Jimmy's Burger Shack, 258 W. 31st Street right off 8th Avenue, south of MSG

The burgers at this hole-in-the-wall cousin to Brother Jimmy's BBQ (itself a fine choice) are good and relatively cheap. The service isn't always as swift as you'd like, but you're about as close to MSG as you can be without being inside.

-Pizza Suprema, 413 8th Ave near 31st Street, south of MSG

It looks like any normal pizza joint, but this place serves some of the best Sicilian-style pizza in the city (note its numerous awards--the garlic knots, alas, aren't as great.) Service is fast, and you can either sit inside or cross the street and join the crowd on the steps of the Farley Post Office building.

-Gyro II, 427 7th Avenue near 33rd Street, east of MSG

I have no idea where Gyro I is, or if there's like a Gyro IX, but this one's good enough for me--just get the gyros, the meat is delicious, pita tasty, tomatoes fresh, and secret sauce addictive. If messy.

-Fat Annie's Truck Stop, 121 W. 33rd Street near 6th Avenue, east of MSG

So what if it's one of those chainy shiny tourist-magnet restaurants--the tater tots topped with everything under the sun are great, the rest of the classic Americana menu is good enough, and the entire place (including the bathroom) is clean and spacious. Plus, who doesn't wanna tell their friends, "Yeah, meet me at Fat Annie's".

Tags: places to eat near, food

"Lots of Things" show worth catching

Wednesday April 9, 2008 9:05 AM By Emily Ngo

Paul Hornschemeier

Dave Eggers ("What is the What" author and Salon.com writer) shows off his artistic side with "Lots of Things Like This," a show he curated for the apexart gallery.

The collection, comprised of more than 100 works by nearly as many artists, boasts three common elements: an image, some words and a sense of humor. Think Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," but with more modern artists (Leonard Cohen, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Paul Hornschemeier among them). Some works are offensive and some look just like doodles on napkins but all are meant to have you chuckling. Lots to take in.

"Lots of Things Like This" runs through May 10. Check out Friday's amNewYork for Scott A. Rosenberg's extended review of the show.

— Emily Ngo

Tags: arts

Diner for sale: Got $7,900?

Wednesday April 9, 2008 7:32 AM By Marlene Naanes

The Cheyenne Diner last week; more interior photos after jump.(Photos by Elisabeth Stuveras)

If you've ever wanted to own your own railroad car diner, here's your chance.

The Cheyenne Diner is for sale for the not-so-steep price of $7,900. The only catch is, whoever buys the chrome-covered and neon-lit icon has to move it themselves.

Preservationists Michael Perlman and Kyle Supley are putting the word out to any and all prospective buyers.

The property owner, George Papas, has been talking to Perlman about his campaign to save the diner and is leaning toward selling and saving it instead of knocking it down to make way for a nine-story residential and commercial development.

Perlman just wants to save this historic 60-year-plus diner, which just last Sunday served its last eggs over easy (on the Jersey side). His short stint as a preservationist has a good record so far: he was able to save the Moondance Diner before it was destroyed. That diner lives on in LaBarge, Wyo.

Anyone interested in buying (and moving) the Cheyenne can contact Perlman at unlockthevault@hotmail.com.

-- Marlene Naanes

Tags: cheyenne diner

An old sign -- and a defiant doodle

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 PM By Rolando Pujol

Jeremiah over at Vanishing New York reported a few days back on the uncovering of an old sign for a Chinese restaurant where the great Latin place Sucelt held court from 1976 until Christmas Eve 2007. Our curiosity piqued, we stopped by to check it out, and it's indeed a true gem of a sign. (The words "Chinese Food" are mostly covered by the big metal roll-down door.)The circumstances under which it re-emerged are incredibly sad, of course, as this defiant marker doodle on the front door, underneath the "closed" sign, reminds us.

We wish they'd bring Sucelt back, too.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: signs, restaurants, endangered nyc, urban archaeology, old school

For downtown businesses, a little TLC

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:34 PM By Rolando Pujol

Dib Reda has sold clothes in lower Manhattan for 18 years and never wants to leave, but times are tough for businesses like his that are disrupted by an unprecedented level of construction.

Small retail operations like Reda’s are eligible for a cash infusion from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is doling out $5 million in HUD grants.

“It’s hard to make rent. It’s hard to make a living,” said Reda of Stylz clothing store on Fulton Street. “We need some kind of help to stay in lower Manhattan.”

The maximum grant of $25,000 for each business could make a difference for Reda, who said he is losing half his business thanks to the nonstop construction in the area.

“One byproduct of redevelopment is the imposition on street-level retail businesses,” said Avi Schick, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.The construction is causing street closures and disrupting the flow of customers to many businesses. Michael Keane, owner of O’Hara’s Restaurant on the corner of Cedar and Greenwich streets, was hit hard after the Deutsche Bank fire in August.

Patrons could still get to his pub but they had to ask police stationed there for access to the street.

“When you see two cops and a barricade, you’re going to keep walking,” he said. He lost a third of his business in the weeks following the fire, he said.

The Alliance for Downtown New York is helping raise awareness of the grant program and has contacted at least 80 businesses that may be eligible.

“The [Lower Manhattan Development Corporation] has the right idea, and our job is to help get the word out to small businesses,” said Elizabeth H. Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance.

The program has strict guidelines: Grants are only offered to small retailers on the ground floor that have faced street closures for 15 days in a 30-day period, and eligibility is retroactive to July of last year.

But for the businesses that are eligible, the money may help keep them here when construction is done and the vision for downtown is realized: “I want to be here when that happens,” Keane said.

-- Garett Sloane

How to get help: The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. offers grants to eligible businesses, but the guidlines are strict. For complete details, click here.

Tags: lower manhattan, development, small business, economy, world trade center

Rashad lends voice to promote arts in city schools

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:04 PM By Rolando Pujol

Masterpieces by Picasso, van Gogh, and Degas hang in New York City museums; world-renowned ballerinas grace the stage at Lincoln Center, and groundbreaking artists sing in the Apollo Theater. But children growing up in this city won’t have the opportunity to contribute anything to its cultural scene if their schools are artistic wastelands.

That was the message that actress Phylicia Rashad delivered Tuesday at a City Council committee hearing on the state of the arts in city schools.

“What a lot of people don’t get is that music and dance class is what keeps kids in school and wanting to learn,” Rashad told the education committee.

Rashad, who is best known for playing Clair Huxtable on 1980s television sitcom "The Cosby Show," said that even while attending a segregated black school in Texas she checked out music instruments every day after school. “Carrying that clarinet home was a badge of honor,” she said.

Education committee co-chair Domenic Recchia Jr. (D-Brooklyn), asked Rashad why art is important.

“Arts at the very least are humanizing,” said Rashad, who began her acting career on the Broadway stage. “When we hear a beautiful song, we experience the human heart, soul, and mind.”

Last month, the education department released its first annual Arts in Schools Report, which looked at the prevalence of dance, theater, music and visual-arts classes in city schools, as well as the level of student participation in each. It found that while some schools are doing an “outstanding” job in educating students in the arts, others had a long way to go.For instance, only 4 percent of city elementary schools offer classes in all four art forms in every grade, as required by the state, pointed out Councilwoman Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan).

Councilwoman Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan), described one elementary school in which the music room contained a sour-sounding piano and a violin with a missing string and bow. And that’s the norm in the city’s public schools, she said.

She and other members of the education committee hurled tough questions about the report at the Department of Educations’ deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, Marcia Lyles, and its arts educator, Sharon Dunn. Members also accused the department of sweetening its statistics, at least a little.

For example, one school reported that it has a full-time dance teacher, but offers no dance classes. Dunn said the dance teacher may be teaching another subject.

Lyles also said that the department’s art standards instruction template, “Blueprint for the Arts,” was adopted as a national model.

Recchia, who is running for Congress in the 13th District, blasted the department for allowing arts programs to quietly die inside the city’s schools. For instance, Dunn said the department claims to have spent an average of $366 per pupil on arts education in middle schools, $295 in high schools, and $292 in elementary schools, said Dunn.

But Recchia’s said his office investigated and found that the schools did not actually spend this much on students’ arts education; rather, some of that money was funneled in other directions.

In Venezuela, every school has a music program, and as a result there are youth orchestras at level, said Councilmember G. Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx). “Certainly Venezuela should not be ahead of New York City, but they are,” he said.

-- Amy Larson

Tags: education

Are judges being bought? Justices warn of slippery slope

Tuesday April 8, 2008 2:33 PM By Rolando Pujol

Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen G. Breyer handed down an opinion Tuesday in New York: “We are seriously in trouble when it comes to our nation's courts,” O’Connor said, with Breyer concurring.

The two were seated not on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C., but at Fordham Law School’s Manhattan campus for a panel on judicial independence, part of the law school’s day-long panel series on enhancing the independence of judges in state courts.

Because these judgeships are elected positions, candidates for the position often wind up accepting campaign contributions from a variety of individuals and organizations, a setup both justices said they feared could influence the judges’ independence.

“We’re putting cash in the courtrooms and it’s just wrong,” said O’Connor, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2006.

Ninety to 95 percent of all laws are state laws, according to Breyer, but the courts at the state level receive little media attention. “It’s a topic of great interest to judges and of very little interest to anyone else,” he said, laughing.The U.S. is unique in its system of electing judges at the state level. O’Connor said that while she recognizes that elections help prevent corrupt political appointments, campaign financing can have a corrupting influence on a judge as well. She recalled a lawyer in Texas telling her that he finds out how much opposing counsel has donated to the judge’s campaign and then makes a corresponding donation before trying a case.

O’Connor also recalled seeing signs that read, “Impeach Earl Warren,” the former chief justice, along the highway in Arizona years ago. And she also described learning about President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal to forcefully retire judges once they turned 70 years old.

Still, O’Connor went on to say that attacks on judicial independence started to increase and become more severe as she prepared to retire. “Things were like nothing I had seen in my very long life,” she said.

The audience obliged her with a laugh before she launched into a list of what she views as encroachments on judicial independence. Among them: legislation to impeach judges for citing foreign court rulings, and an organization in South Dakota called JAIL 4 Judges, which stands for Judicial Accountability Initiative Law. The group sought to enact legislation that would allow people to sue a judge if they didn’t like his ruling, though the legislation was not approved.

O’Connor made similar arguments in an editorial published in The Wall Street Journal in 2006. Both justices cited partisan campaigns for judgeships and a lack of civics educations as major reasons for the encroachment.

The justices did not offer specific policy recommendations, but Breyer did call on the business community to be more active in campaigning for independence. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s assertion that an independent judiciary allows for economic growth and opportunity as a reason for entrepreneurs to get involved.

“Half of the states no longer make civics and government a requirement and we’re a nation of immigrants with no basis for understanding,” said O’Connor.

Even though there were no explicit policy changes, lawyers and law students who attended the discussion were generally positive. “They’re trying to energize the profession,” conference attendee Norman Reiner said of the two justices.

Breyer told the group that while there is “no magic solution” to stemming the tide of encroachments on the judicial independence, advocating for better civics curriculum in high schools would be a good start.

“I know it’s a soapbox, but I could not believe it more,” he said.

O’Connor spoke up again. “I think that’s a good place to stop,” she said, bringing an end to the discussion. “I could not agree more.”

-- Emily Meredith

Tags: manhattan, politics

Circa 1971 Starbucks lands in Bryant Park

Tuesday April 8, 2008 2:11 PM By Rolando Pujol

People gather as free samples of Starbucks' new "everyday" brew Pikes Place Roast are handed out in Bryant Park Tuesday. Starbucks constructed a replica of the original Seattle Pike Place Market Starbucks to celebrate the launch. (Getty)

New Yorkers are crazy about coffee, and Starbucks knows that.

The company that turned “large” into “venti” and the homely cup of joe into a fashion accessory is now making a celebrity out of its new “every day” brew.

At a replica of the original store that was set up in the middle of Bryant Park Tuesday, company representatives gave out samples of “Pike Place Roast,” a single-brewed coffee that will be offered daily in stores across the country. The event was one of a series of tastings that took place simultaneously across the country to mark the launch of the new coffee.

As the event got under way, more than 200 people stood eagerly in the sunshine clutching paper cups. Also on hand was a large crowd of journalists, including seven television crews and more than a dozen photographers. The latter went into a frenzy of snapping worthy of a Hollywood star and yelling “Over here! Over here!” when the company co-founder and CEO Howard Schultz stepped up to the microphone.

“Starbucks is very popular in Japan,” explained Noriaki Takada, reporter for Nippon TV.

By the time the news conference began, Edelman, the public-relations company in charge of the event, had signed in a list of journalists five pages long.

“I’m, like, looking around and thinking, who are all these people?” said Kyrsten Laboda, a Starbucks visual presentation manager who helped set up the replica overnight.

“Ok, it’s getting serious,” said her colleague Brandon Mosby as the speeches were about to begin.

No fewer than eight people took turns on stage, talking bout how amazing Starbucks is.The event was carefully staged: Journalists who approached the speakers after the speeches were over were forced to conduct their interviews in the presence of an Edelman chaperon.

Amid falling stocks, slowing sales growth and increased competition, Starbucks announced sweeping changes last month in an attempt to re-brand itself and reconnect to its coffee roots.

“We are now going to reinvent brewed coffee,” said Schultz, claiming that Starbucks had already changed how the country viewed coffee before.

All this for coffee? What’s the big deal?

“It’s not just coffee,” he said. So what is it?

Several tasters agreed that the new flavor was less bitter. Master coffee blender Andrew Linnenman said the company had listened to customers, who wanted a coffee that was at the same time bold, smooth, and mild.

“You wanted a coffee that was like a Ferrari, at the price of a Chevette and in the style of a Chevrolet,” he said.

Perhaps it just that New Yorkers have a special relationship with coffee.

Jessyca Escobar and Stephen Flynn, two 19-year-old Hunter College students, skipped classes today to come and taste the new brew and get free bags of coffee beans autographed by Schultz.

Escobar, a self-avowed addict who goes to Starbucks once or twice a day for a venti skinny mocha, said she started drinking more coffee when she arrived in the city a year ago.

Joyce Huang and Sarah Kline, both 25, took the subway over to Bryant Park from work a few stops away after reading about the event online.

Kline theorized that New Yorkers are big coffee drinkers because they have to be.

“There’s a lot to do in New York so you need a lot of energy,” Huang explained.

-- Mathilde Piard

amNewYork extra!

What do murdered mobster Albert Anastasia and Starbucks have in common? Click here.

Tags: starbucks, bryant park, parks, manhattan

The best buns in town

Tuesday April 8, 2008 1:45 PM By Daisy Carrington

I’m baaack … and I have a bone to pick.

Sure, I have a reputation for liking hamburgers, but burgers aren’t just about the meat. Many a gorgeous burger have been ruined by a soggy bun, or in the case of a burger I ordered from a local diner the other day …

A massive bun, stale, artificially colored bun.

I say, no more, rubble rubble. Below are some places to find good buns (outside of a romp with Mayor McCheese).Westville

210 W. 10th St., at Bleecker St.

212-741-7971

In some ways, the Portuguese muffin was meant for hamburgers in a way that even hamburger buns were not. At Westville, a tiny, no-frills neighborhood hot spot, they understand this. The Portuguese muffin is similar to an English muffin, except it’s bigger, and sturdier, and it won’t break apart while you gorge.

Blue Ribbon Bakery

35 Downing St., at Bedford St.

212-337-0404

At Blue Ribbon Bakery, the bun is king. That is the benefit of ordering a burger in a bakery. For starters, it is made in-house and baked in a wood burning oven, so it assumes a crisp-yet-soft quality, and has the sweet, doughy taste of bread right out of the oven. It is a sturdy little fella’, and plain refuses to bend to the will of the meathead that usually calls the shots (much like Mayor McCheese).

DoJo

14 W. 4th St., at Mercer St.

212-505-8934

Alas, DoJo’s is down to a single location, from two, but the burger at the remaining West Village haunt still serves its burgers in pita bread. The resulting pocket ensures no matter what you pack on (or in) your burger, spillage will be at a minimum. Plus, the thinness of the bread allows you to appreciate the ingredients on (and in) the burger.

Tags: hamburger, food, buns

Designer jeans galore

Tuesday April 8, 2008 10:54 AM By Emily Ngo

Sorry to step onto your shopping beat, Julie, but I've found the ideal place to shop for jeans. More specifically designer denim, for I am a Seven for All Mankind/Citizens of Humanity/Rock and Republic addict.

A trip to stock up ordinarily involves visits to massive department stores like Nordstrom, Saks and Bloomingdales, but Atrium, an oversized boutique at Bleecker Street and Broadway in the East Village, has all the names within a few feet of each other. More impressively, the jeans are organized by fit not by designer. Shop on.

— Emily Ngo

Tags: fashion

Calling all angels

Tuesday April 8, 2008 8:08 AM By Julie Gordon

Have you seen the Earth Angel? Unfortunately I have — twice now on the 34th Street crosstown bus.

He looks like a strung-out Elvis, with his long black hair and glazed look in his eyes. He says he’s roaming the Earth (or the bus, in this case), looking for “angels.” Now, in his mind, angels are only girls under age 25. “If you’re even a second over the age of 25, you’re not an angel,” he preaches to the bus.

On my first trip with “Earth Angel,” he picked one girl out of the crowd that could be saved. On the second trip, none of us qualified.

I did a Google search on “Earth Angel Ministry” (which he says he’s a part of), and only got a handful of responses. The most interesting and helpful was from www.earthangelministries.com:

“Due to reasons that cannot be explained Earth Angel Ministries is NOT active any more. The MySpace has been deleted and the P.O. Box most likely BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE Who has nothing to do with the ministry, so PLEASE refrain from sending mail to the old P.O. Box. Your E-Mails will no longer be answered And Born-Again Starter Kits can no longer be obtained.” Etc.

I guess the 34th Street Earth Angel is now traveling with a posse of one.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: zany

Chic bag lady

Tuesday April 8, 2008 7:53 AM By Julie Gordon

I’ve been searching high and low for a short spring jacket. So I was psyched when a super-funky one made its way to my desk yesterday — a black, water-resistant “packable” number from Montreal brand Mackage.

After taking a spin around the office in it, my co-worker said I resembled a garbage bag. But I think I looked more Derelicte than Hefty.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: mackage, shopping, jacket, fashion

Ride to the Mets opener with David Wright!

Tuesday April 8, 2008 5:49 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

Nostalgia Train photo courtesy of Flickr user bifteck

Well, sort of ....

It's a historic day for the Mets - today's home opener will mark the last opening day at Shea Stadium [photos].

To mark the event - in a bizarre bit of homage - MTA's Nostalgia Train will make the trek out out to Shea on the No. 7 line, carrying the Madam Tussaud's wax figure of David Wright.

So - if you want to see if he's really that cute in "person"- head to the No. 7 platform at the 42nd St. Times Square station. All aboard for departure at 11:30 a.m.

And for those of you who've never riden the Nostalgia Train and can't make it today, a virtual video tour:

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: mets, sports

Grand Central

Monday April 7, 2008 1:35 PM By David Freedlander

Is there any place more glorious, or more mysterious, than Grand Central Terminal? It’s not just it’s marvelous beaux-arts architecture that appeals, or its cavernous layout, but it’s the feel of the place.

It’s an odd waystation in the midst of the city. On the one hand, everyone is rushing about to points near and far, but there is also a whole bunch of hanging around and waiting. If there is one place left in the city where you could reasonably film a noirish murder mystery, this would be it.

Recently, the Times reported on a 77-year-old man who discovered a trove of photographs that he took 50 years ago depicting life in Grand Central.

David Margolick writes:

The young student thought he was documenting the great terminal’s eternal rituals, mostly the ritual of waiting. “It was a place of contemplation, really — the exact opposite of what it is today,” he recalled. “In the waiting room, you could sit. The policemen wouldn’t bother you. No one bothered you. I liked the quiet of it. It was like a cathedral. You didn’t have to pray; you could reflect on yourself.”

Some of the photos:

And beneath Grand Central is another one of the great NYC spots, the vaulted-ceiling Oyster Bar, dating to 1913

Some closing time shots after the jump:

Tags: grand central, oyster bar, photos, bars

Behold, the birth of a massive wall mural

Monday April 7, 2008 1:08 PM By Rolando Pujol

The massive painted advertisements that emerge every few months on a tall wall at West 34th Street and Eighth Avenue never fail to amaze. A great deal of work -- and a great deal of risk -- go into painting them, made all the more remarkable by the ads' short lifespan.

During the past week, a Sumo wrestler has given way to a geisha girl, touting a phone offered by AT&T. We've been snapping pictures every time we notice progress. After the jump, check out the birth of a mural. The project isn't quite done, but its scale, and the human toil it takes, make every step an impressive one.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: zany, manhattan

City Hall Dispatch: The man in the middle

Monday April 7, 2008 10:45 AM By David Freedlander

Photo: NY Mag

Why is this man smiling?

Probably because he is the lone man in the room. After over a year of build-up, the fate of the mayor's plan to charge drivers to come into (most of) Manhattan rested on the hunched shoulders of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

And he gave a big 'ol no:

"The conference has decided that they are not prepared to do congestion pricing," he intoned in his famous old baritone. "I think you can speak to the members of the conference who have made that determination.Many of them just don't believe in the concept. Many of them think this bill is flawed. So an overwhelming majority of the conference that opposes congestion pricing, and for that reason, the congestion pricing bill did not have anywhere near a majority of the Democratic conference, and will not be on the floor of the Assembly."

Dude has been in kind of a spot here. Probably no part of the city would be more helped by congestion pricing than Shelly's Lower East Side/Chinatown neighborhood, which is tangled mess of double-parked cars and dirty exhaust. But Silver has always had two constituencies: the voters in his district and the 105 members of the majority party in the lower house in Albany. He's survived for speaker for so long not by keeping an iron grip on power (like his colleague in the upper chamber, Joe Bruno) but by getting members of caucus what they need, and, for the folks back home, he's been a master at wrangling concessions for his district.

So what do those members need now? Apparently to be able to get into Manhattan without having to fork over 8 bucks.

This one was close, with Albany sources telling us, both Senate leader Joe Bruno and Gov. David Paterson hoping to deliver this one for Mayor Bloomberg, which Hizzoner desperately wanted for his legacy.

But alas, what Shelly wants, Shelly gets. Which you've probably noticed every time you've gone to check out a game at the West Side stadium.

Interestingly, for the first time in a while, Silver's getting a vigorous primary challenge from a couple of young bucks who want to shake the status quo upstate.

Obviously, they got a tall task ahead of them, but Messrs Newell and Henry may finally have something of the break they were looking for

--David Freedlander

Tags: politics, albany, congestion pricing, city hall dispatch

Saving St. Saviour's: Where things stand

Monday April 7, 2008 8:54 AM By Rolando Pujol

St. Saviour's in Maspeth; see more photos here. (Robert Holden)

Updated: Preservationists and community activists alike are rushing against the clock to move St. Saviour’s church so they may honor the deadline for relocating the building. In yet one more turn in the story of the little church that could, the Juniper Park Civic Association, which has led the effort, is pulling out all stops to get the Maspeth church safely to its final resting place, including the equivalent of a preservation SWAT team, which has started its assessment of the building.

Civic association president Robert Holden met with representatives from a building moving company last week. Moving the church in one piece is “cost-prohibitive, with estimates beginning at $150,000—and that’s just to get it down the street,” says Holden. In addition to excavating costs, moving the building intact requires pricey permits for dismantling utility wires and trimming trees. The new site at All Faiths Cemetery is about a mile away.

“Every time, there’s been some little obstacle,” says Holden. “We’ve come to the conclusion to just get it off the site however we can.” That leaves dismantling the church, timber by timber, a task that must begin soon. Though the developer has agreed to extend the end-of-the-month deadline once a good-faith effort to move the building is underway, Holden says “the church is the obstacle to any sale [of the land].”His group has reached out to the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which is providing emergency funding and technical resources in the way of preservation architects and master carpenters, who must mark each piece and create construction documents. Additionally, Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz confirmed approval of $100,000 to fund the move. A private donor who wishes to remain anonymous also provided funding.

“Ideally it would take a month to document and another three months to disassemble, but we’re on a fast track,” says Ann-Isabel Friedman, director of the conservancy’s Sacred Sites Program, adding that even with a full staff, such a rush documentation takes at least week.

“We want to avoid ending up with a pile of splinters,” she said.

Dismantling a building of that size is a last resort, but with skilled oversight, is still preferable to demolition. The effort will be helped by architect Richard Upjohn’s master plans for the church, which are in possession of the civic association. Maspeth Industrial Development has agreed to store the disassembled building until the new site is excavated and funds are raised for reassembling the church.

Says Friedman, “I think this building has been though a lot and its history has just recently been uncovered. Making one or two more interventions are just a couple more chapters in its life.”

The church’s vinyl siding was recently removed, revealing its original Gothic details. Once restored, Holden hopes to apply for landmark status with the city, a request that’s been previously denied because the building did not meet the criteria for designation.

A spokeswoman from the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to speculate on whether future alterations or restoration would affect the building’s eligibility.

-- Lana Bortolot

Tags: st. saviour's, queens, preservation, juniper park civic association, endangered nyc, development

Cheyenne Diner serves last meal

Sunday April 6, 2008 3:09 PM By Marlene Naanes

People get the bad news that the 24-hour Cheyenne is closed after 68 years. (Kathleen Bulson)

Loyal customers and diner enthusiasts flocked to get the last eggs over easy ever served at the iconic Cheyenne Diner yesterday as the chrome-covered eatery closed its doors forever.

Weary employees and the diner’s owner served up heaping portions of comfort food and

breakfast dishes and received best wishes from patrons before the midtown business was official closed by 4:30 p.m. yesterday. Some folks came for the first time, some came back after several-year hiatuses and regulars showed up to pay their respects and look at one of the last diners of its kind for the last time.

The likelihood that the railroad car-style diner, including the iconic neon sign, would be saved may have increased Sunday as the property owner confirmed that a diner museum was checking out if the structure could withstand a move. The museum also found interested buyers. It could take weeks before any decision on a move or sale is made.

Unclear though was if business owner Spiros Kasimis will open up another eatery with some of the familiar memorabilia, including signed photos of celebrity patrons like David Letterman. Kasimis, who’s owned the business since 1989, said he was touched and overwhelmed by the number of patrons who showed up yesterday, and gave at least one longtime customer a free meal.

Preservationist Michael Perlman began an effort to save the diner recently, just as he had done to preserve and move SoHo's Moonlight Diner, which the American Diner Museum helped relocate it to LaBarge, Wyo.

Photo above: Owner Spiros Kasimis, center in white sweater, during the diner's last day. (Marlene Naanes)

-- Marlene Naanes

Here's the full amNY story.

Read more about it

Other blogs

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York profiled Perlman Friday and broke the story last week.

Here's a You Tube video on one New Yorker's last trip to the diner.

Urbanite coverage:

Cheyenne update: Owner open to moving it

Oh, Cheyenne, a lamentation with some night photography

Bid to save Cheyenne

amNY photo galleries

Great NYC diners, past and present

Remembering the Munson Diner

Tags: cheyenne diner, diners, history, midtown, endangered nyc

The cherry blossoms are here

Sunday April 6, 2008 3:09 PM By Rolando Pujol

Justin Smith and Tara Tanico were engaged Sunday under a cherry blossom tree in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. (Photos by Kathleen Bulson)

Tara Tanico, 24, strolled down an oak-tree-lined path at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden holding hands with her new fiance Justin Smith, 32. The longtime Manhattan couple had just gotten engaged under a pink cherry-blossom tree, a proposal that Tanico said she was not expecting. “I asked her if she’d spend the rest of her life with me,” says Smith.

The couple was among the New Yorkers who braved the chill for the second day of Hanami, the Japanese tradition of appreciating the cherry blossoms -- and a traditional sign of spring in New York..

The garden has 42 varieties of blossoms on 52 acres with several prime locations, but so far only a few trees have blossomed. The festival continues through May 11.

The entrance near the parking lot gate has several trees in full bloom, including a light pink Everblooming Cherry. The Cherry Walk is still bare, but three Weeping Spring Cherry trees are in bloom nearby at the Cherry Esplanade.Edward Ziff, 65, a regular at the garden, sat on a bench eating lunch, and catching up on work. The Manhattan resident often visits on weekends, cherishing the peace and the abundance of flowers that he can’t find in Manhattan parks.

The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden offers more of the Hanami vibe. Gary and Barb Siebert, of Illinois, were visiting with their daughter Erin Simpson, 25 and her husband Todd Simpson, 25. The four rested in the viewing pavilion to admire the fish and ducks in the pond, visible through the slats in the wooden benches. Across the pond a torii, a Japanese gateway, marked the entrance

Farrel Duncan, 36 and Leila Barratt-Denyer, 39, a Clinton Hill couple, commemorated their relationship’s second anniversary with a picnic under a Japanese Flowering Cherry tree, which is where they had one of their first date.

“With only a few trees [blooming], you appreciate it more. You can really take it in,” Duncan said.

-- Kathleen Bulson

Tags: brooklyn botanic garden, cherry blossoms, holiday traditions

Meet the Mets -- for their last season at Shea

Sunday April 6, 2008 1:37 PM By Rolando Pujol

amNY photographer RJ Mickelson took this shot of Shea Stadium Sunday afternoon, as a worker painted the Mets logo on Shea's field in preparation for the final home opener at the 1962 stadium. Tuesday night's game will feature a tribute to the stadium's namesake, William A. Shea, whose name won't carry over to the new field -- Citigroup will have those honors from now on.

Oh, and one more thing ... "Rickrolling" may be coming to Shea. It's up to you to make it happen.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: mets, shea stadium, citifield, endangered nyc, sports, queens

Not so tasty eats

Sunday April 6, 2008 12:30 PM By Julie Gordon

For a party to celebrate the launch of foodie community Web site Eats.com, the food being served at Marquee on Thursday was inedible enough to make us question the merits of said Web site. The fact that the accompanying magazine recommended The Spotted Pig as one of the city’s hidden gems makes us further question said Web site.

In other party news … Antonio Prieto Salon celebrated 25 years in business earlier Thursday night. Prieto and his crew toasted the silver anniversary with champagne sangria, tapas, cupcakes and hiring model-bartenders.

— Julie Gordon and Daisy Carringon

Tags: eats.com, antonio prieto, marquee, salon, food, restaurants, entertainment, shopping, manhattan, fashion

Duly Noted

Thursday April 3, 2008 6:07 PM By Rolando Pujol

* Time is running out for a supermarket with an odd footnote in history: It replaced the great Ratner's, and still retains a relic of the deli by the front door. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* The Flushing Remonstrance goes on display Sunday at the Queens Museum of Art. [Queens Crap]

* Savoring the salvation of St. Saviour's. [Queens Crap and NY1]

* It's cherry blossom time! [NewYorkology]

* We just discovered the Fading Ad Blog. Beautiful stuff. Here's a sample.

* A look at a religion icons store that's paying Columbia Street's high rent. [A Brooklyn Life]

* A interesting look at the Brander Matthews Dramatic Museum at Columbia University. (Never heard of it? Neither had we.) [Postcards from Hell's Kitchen]

* A red-tailed hawk hangs out with an angel in Central Park. [City Room]

Photo: Ratner's shortly before its iconic sign was dismantled in 2002. (Mayita Mendez/Newsday)

Tags: duly noted

Throwback Thursday: The Choice is 5!

Thursday April 3, 2008 5:10 PM By Rolando Pujol

We lavished some nostalgic attention on Channel 11 on Wednesday, so we thought we'd now cast a loving gaze at good old Channel 5. And by that we mean, Channel 5 before it was purchased by Fox in March of 1986.

The station was owned by Metromedia for years, and was among the great American independent stations. The highlights? Weekday reruns and cartoons (Lucy, the Bradys, Woody, Popeye), a no-nonsense news department (their great 1985 slogan: The Channel 5 10 O'Clock News: We Give It To You Straight), and a weekend slate of movies and movies and movies (who can forget badly dubbed kung fu flicks and American International horror classics). And there were those old PSAs: Have you done your homework yet, have you hugged your child today, and, of course, do you know where your children are?

Channel 5 had a distinct feel and identity, a texture most TV stations have lost today. They've mostly become repositories of first-run, syndicated programming amid a general blandness and lack of local identity that carries over from market to market. There are exceptions: We wrote of Channel 11 Wednesday and Gothamist had a great piece on Channel 4 the other day. And even Fox 5 got into the retro act, when it celebrated the 40th anniversary of its news department -- here's a link of old clips on its Web site.

What follows after the jump is a highlight list of what made Channel 5 great. Notice the jingle, the bumpers, and of course the work of those old announcers, like the great Tom Gregory with his deep voice, Ed Ladd, who was once a cartoon show host, and Lou Steele, known to viewers with long memories as "The Creep" on "Creature Features."

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: old school, wnew-tv, metromedia, channel 5, fox, wpix, throwback thursday, television

Whose Park? Our Park!

Thursday April 3, 2008 3:01 PM By David Freedlander

A group of graybearded squatters, anarchists, and activists who battled police 20 years ago in Tompkins Square Park are once again fighting for the right to gather there.

And once again, they say, the authorities won’t let them.

The Parks Department has designated Aug. 2-3, the weekend closest to the 20th anniversary of the Tompkins Square Park Riots, as a “no-amplified sound weekend,” a monthly quality-of-life measure for parks in Manhattan. The group was told that its lineup of 1980s punk bands and political speakers is unwelcome.

“Cops come out, gentrifiers come and go, but we’re still here, we’re still active, we’ve never been chased out,” said Chris Flash, editor of the underground newspaper The Shadow, and a 30-year resident of the area. “The city has displaced many of us, but it’s important to remind people of a time when the neighborhood rose up.”

The Tompkins Square Park Riots began after the city tried to remove squatters from the park and institute a 1 a.m. curfew. Heavy-handed efforts by the police to remove the protesters lead to widespread violence, much of it caught on tape, and the event has widely been considered a low-point in the police-community relations in the city.

And though the landscape has changed, with many of the old squats that ringed the park now converted in multi-million dollar condos, veterans of the old battle say they still have the old fight in them.

“It’s like we said back then, ‘Whose park? Our park!’” said Karl Rosenstein, 56, adding a common expletive between the words. “If they won’t give us a permit, I say we just take the park back over.”

Park and city officials said they remained hopeful of working something out, but said the group had been less than flexible of working to come up with a solution.

“We have approved many permit requests for this group and were willing to work with them to find alternate dates in this case, but the group rejected this compromise,” said Parks Department spokeswoman Christina Deluca.

--David Freedlander

Tags: lower east side, tompkins square park, noise permits, development

Urban archaeology: Funky old sign on West 34th

Thursday April 3, 2008 1:28 PM By Rolando Pujol

Traces of an old sign have been uncovered on West 34th Street, outside the shop where Sephora is undertaking a makeover. This appears to have been the home of the "New Hankow" restaurant, and all I could find online is a reference to it as being unsavory. In Nexis, it turns up once, in a 1989 article about fortune cookie advertising. Now, it's a cool ghost sign, for a few more days anyway. Let us know if you know anything about its past. And this uncovered treasure is still there.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: urban archaeology, signs

Congestion pricing: Calling them out

Thursday April 3, 2008 11:30 AM By David Freedlander

Just when you thought it couldn't get any hotter, the fight over congestion pricing just got turned up a notch. City Councilman Tony Avella, who's running for mayor, is trying to find out why so many council members changed their position on the plan when the vote hit the floor Monday.

So much so, Avella (D-Queens) is putting in a freedom of information request to "obtain information regarding the Mayor and Speaker's negotiations with Council Members in relation to the Council's consideration and vote on Congestion Pricing," according to a press release his office released Thursday.

"I was stunned to see a number of my colleagues flip their votes in favor of congestion pricing at the eleventh hour," he said in a statement.

The council passed a resolution on Monday supporting the plan, which would charge cars entering the city from 6 a.m. to 6 pm. during the week to $8 to enter below 60th street. The plan, though, still faces hurdles in Albany.

-- Pete Catapano

Tags: politics, congestion pricing

City Hall Dispatch: Who's running for what

Wednesday April 2, 2008 2:58 PM By David Freedlander

We may never leave our desks again.

Our friends over at the Gotham Gazette put up this week a handy Web primer on the 2009 elections.

"2009!?!" you say in a mixture of agony and disgust. "Isn't the never-ending election of 2008 enough?!?"

No, it is not.

Two-thirds of the local 51, otherwise known as the City Council, are going to be termed out of their seats in '09, as are the mayor, the public advocate, the comptroller, and 4/5ths of the borough presidents.

And that 1 beep not out of a job next year is thinking about running for public advocate just to keep up with everybody else!

This creates an odd bit of Kabuki theater among all pols, both in the city and those stationed up in Albany, as everybody is lying in wait watching to see what everybody else does.

How to keep up?

We give you "Who's Running for What," a handy contraption that allows you to keep up with all the latest by just punching your favorite politico's name into a box and finding out where the punditocracy says they'll end up.

-- avid Freedlander

Tags: politics, 2009, city hall dispatch

Notes from a crappy kitchen: Counter space

Wednesday April 2, 2008 2:31 PM By Daisy Carrington

New York is land of many things, but by-and-large, it is the land of the cramped kitchen. “I hate my kitchen,” is an excuse I have heard many times to explain the classic New Yorker’s restaurant addictions and aversions to keeping a fridge stocked with anything other than take-out leftovers. Growing up in New York (yes, there is such a thing as a New York native), dinner usually meant a phone call to a now-defunct Thai place (damn board of health).As an adult in the city, I have embraced cooking for myself more and more — in spite of my crappy kitchen. Would you like a tour?

There you go. There’s my kitchen, and there’s my counter space. How do I pull off the occasional dinner party? Well, this bad boy lends a hand …

Whoops, wrong bad boy. This bad boy.

I got this little fella at the Hell’s Kitchen flea market, and it’s one of the best buys of my entire life.

It’s counter space, it’s storage space, it makes me feel like Donna Reed …

Do you need to maximize counter space?

This nifty little item has also made my life a lot easier:

It turns your sink into a cutting board. Does it get more genius than that?

I’d also like to take this opportunity to announce that “Notes from a crappy kitchen” will be a regular Urbanite blog feature. Stay tuned more some whacky kitchen antics.

Tags: food

Sex and the James Beards

Wednesday April 2, 2008 2:00 PM By Daisy Carrington

This just in, Kim Cattrall is slated to host this year’s James Beard Awards ceremony. Of course we know that sex and food go together with like peanut butter and chocolate, but we just never thought of Samantha Jones as a culinary kind of gal. Apparently that Cattrall is dating a personal chef makes her some kind of expert. We will give you this though. She certainly is sexier than the deceased gastronome the awards are named after …

At least we think so.

Tags: james beard, kim cattrall, food

Creativity to a T

Wednesday April 2, 2008 1:05 PM By Julie Gordon

Miss those kindergarten arts and crafts days? We sure do.

Then head to the SUPIMA pop-up shop in SoHo Thursday to paint your own T-shirt. The store will provide the shirts and art supplies — plus cocktails (this isn't kindergarten, after all). You supply the creativity.

72 Greene Street, between Broome and Spring streets; 12-7 p.m.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: shopping, fashion

Cheyenne update: Owner open to moving it

Wednesday April 2, 2008 11:32 AM By Rolando Pujol

Even though the Cheyenne Diner will close its doors on Sunday, its future is looking brighter.

Local preservationist Michael Perlman has launched the Committee to Save the Cheyenne Diner, hoping to preserve and move the circa-1940s structure, one of Manhattan's last railroad-car-style diners. Perlman helped save SoHo's Moonlight Diner through a similar effort that convinced a developer to donate it to the American Diner Museum, which found it a new home in LaBarge, Wyo.

Perlman said he'll submit a proposal Wednesday to Cheyenne property owner George Papas in hopes of convincing him to donate the chrome covered structure for a possible tax write off. So far, Papas said he is willing to talk.

"If he can make sure that it's movable ... sure I'm open to that," said Papas, who also owns the nearby Skylight Diner. "I would really love for somebody to take that away and put it somewhere."

Papas said a nine-story steel and glass building with two floors of commercial space and seven floors of housing, some affordable, will eventually take the diner's place.

-- Marlene Naanes

Tags: cheyenne diner, endangered nyc, restaurants, manhattan

PIX, PIX, PIX ... If you get this ...

Wednesday April 2, 2008 10:33 AM By Rolando Pujol

.. then you remember Channel 11 in its old-school heyday. The phrase was uttered by countless kids who'd call into the station during cartoon time to play a primitive "Space Invaders" type game, trying to match the utterance of a "PIX" with a strike on the screen. (And yes, there was always the clown who'd exclaim "PIX PIX PIX PIX," to the frustration of genial staff announcers such as Ralph Lowenstein.)

TV Pixx is but one of many WPIX memories people of a certain age savor. Another is repeats of "The Honeymooners," "The Odd Couple," and "The Jeffersons." And the thing is, you don't have to troll YouTube or plumb old Beta tapes to find these shows on the CW 11. Channel 11, unlike most other TV stations in the nation, still has respect for its history and the power of its old programming, so you now catch Felix and Oscar at 2 a.m. and George and Weezie at 2:30.

And Ralph and Alice? You can enjoy an hour's worth at 1 a.m. Monday mornings, and, this being the age of interactivity, you can even help program the hour. The station recently began a contest where viewers can select their faves for screening. Hey, that goes with the PIX vibe -- remember the phrase "What's your opinion, we'd like to know."

[Full disclosure: amNY is part of Tribune, the owners of WPIX. Even more disclosure: We're nuts about old TV.] A few years back, WPIX offered a "Pix at Night" slate of classics in prime-time, a noble experiment, as well as an "Odd Couple" marathon hosted by Tony Randall shortly before his death. So we're happy to tell old-school TV fans that they better make sure their cathode-ray tubes are fine-tuned come June. A station spokeswoman told us that WPIX is planning a 60th anniversary celebration with a retro day of programming. Will we hear the 11 Alive jingle again? Hang out with Paula and Carol on "The Magic Garden?" We hope so.

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: wpix. 11 alive, odd couple, honeymooners, nostalgia, television, old school

Worth your time?

Wednesday April 2, 2008 9:59 AM By Julie Gordon

We perused the following sample sales so you know whether they’re worth checking out (and lowering the balance in your checking account) this week:

Calypso Warehouse Sale (261 W. 36th St., second floor, running until April 6)

What’s good: $50 leather clutches, $50 teensy but adorable leather cross-body bags, $30 flats (Note: they run wide/big), $50 sweater dresses

What’s bad: You can’t try any of the clothing on.

Verdict: Check it out for the accessories.

Linda Richards (209 W. 38th St., fifth floor, running until April 18)

What’s good: Gorgeous winter coats at majorly reduced prices, really helpful employees who actually give honest opinions

What’s bad: You might get turned off by the pastel raincoats and dowdy flowery skirts.

The verdict: You can get a beautiful winter coat for $300-$500 (Some regularly hover around the $1,000 mark).

— Julie Gordon

Tags: calypso, sample sales, linda richards, shopping, bargain, manhattan, fashion

Oh, Cheyenne

Wednesday April 2, 2008 8:05 AM By Rolando Pujol

The Cheyenne Diner, which is set to close on Sunday after 68 years, is one of our default delivery places for lunch. (We're seriously going to miss their pea soup, among other menu favorites, as well as their competitive prices.)

Last night, I stopped by the diner for a bite, since I had never eaten at the place I'd ordered from dozens of times. The experience of dining in one of these railroad-car-style diners is not to be missed, especially in the middle of Manhattan. The place was fairly empty, and most of the folks there were taking in the Cheyenne's vibe fully aware it was doomed. One or two people just popped in to take pictures. You have only a few more days to enjoy this special place.

We snapped just a few pictures, (see a bunch after the jump) since we hope to be back at least one more time. To be sure, the Cheyenne's disappearance will make the city just a little less interesting and rich. Nothing can replace the Cheyenne, nor the sea of places like it that have vanished in the past few years. And heck, where else can you see pictures of Fred Berry, Jack Cafferty and Jerry Lewis all displayed on one wall?

-- Rolando Pujol

Tags: cheyenne diner, endangered nyc, restaurants, manhattan, signs

Angry journalists unite

Wednesday April 2, 2008 7:17 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

The irascible Lou Grant might have enjoyed

AngryJournalist.com. (MTM TV)

Good news for all you disgruntled journos out there with pent up rants on the uncertain future of our esteemed industry: You can dump them with as much rage and venom as you want at AngryJournalist.com ... anonymously!

Here's their missinon statement: "Tell us what’s making you upset at your journalism job. Anonymity guaranteed. One rule: no real names."

An example post from Angry Journalist #2927:

"I’m angry I got plagiarized by a blogger, and that other bloggers picked up “his” story. I’ve posted comments on the original and related blogs, linking to my story. But, what else can I do? ..."

And more on the fragile state of the print medium and the power of the almight Internet(s): A piece by Eric Alterman in the New Yorker titled "Out of Print: The death and life of the American newspaper

So .. rant away .. and maybe an answer will surface somewhere amid the angry keyboard pounding.

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: zany

Panel to Corporate America: Think Green

Tuesday April 1, 2008 4:15 PM By Rolando Pujol

The world can be saved from the dangers of climate change if big businesses alter the fundamental way they think, a panel of business experts agreed today.

A combination of greater investment in green energy, the development of new technology and a complete change in corporate and government philosophy is required to combat the effect of human damage to the environment, they said.

“Right now we’re apparently stuck in an age of limits,” said Michael Mandel, the chief economist for Business Week magazine, speaking at Baruch College in Manhattan. “But I want my kids to live in an era of opportunity.”

Each speaker agreed that more money needs to be spent on energy reform by businesses, that the government needs to provide incentives for them to do this, and that consumers need to be prepared to pay more for their fuel.

Mandel said that a big obstacle to change was that the U.S. economy is carrying $3 trillion more debt than it should and “the financial system is choking on it.” He also mentioned his disappointment in the steady decrease in federal spending on energy and the environment since the beginning of the 1980s and described it as “astonishing” that world-wide spending in this area is also down.After reiterating the current climate concerns of scientists, pointing to the melting of the polar ice cap and the destruction of 50 percent of Earth’s wetlands and forests in the last 100 years, Stefan Doering, an expert in corporate climate responsibility at , said that businesses needed to change the entire way they run themselves to slow down global warming.

He said that businesses have evolved from pure money-makers to money-makers who care a little bit about the environment today. Such evolution needs to, and can, continue so that businesses realize that they can make more money by helping the environment and then attain the next, opposite stage, an attitude described by Doering as “let’s make more money so we can make more good.”

Mark Brownstein, the managing director of Business Partnerships in the Climate and Air Program of Environmental Defense, said that more needed to be done in Washington D.C. to force a change in the policy of large corporations.

“We have for the first time the prospect of some serious presidential leadership on this issue,” he said, referring to the three current presidential candidates and their environmental promises.

However Peter Fusaro believes more needs to be done to persuade the government to intervene on environmental issues. He said that the relationship between government and big business needs to change, and one way this could happen is by the government placing a higher tax on all carbon products to persuade big businesses to go green.

“We have the money to do the right thing,” he said, “but the incentives aren’t there.”

Zachary Karabell, portfolio manager for the China-U.S. Growth Fund, said that the problem can be addressed from lower down by persuading college graduates to take jobs in the government.

“The brightest minds are currently going into the private sector,” he said, “because the locus for change right now, for better or worse, is capital.”

Brownstein ended on an optimistic note. He pointed to the innovations of the last 100 years; the emergence of the car and electricity that we could not cope without today as well as prominent social change.

“Frankly, 100 years ago, there would have been no women in the room.”

-- Laurence Witherington

Tags: environment, corporate america, manhattan

The ticket masters

Tuesday April 1, 2008 2:43 PM By Rolando Pujol

Outside Madison Square Garden, a Rangers fan holding up his tickets to Thursday night's Rangers game. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel)

There are plenty of big shows and big games in New York City, but there never seems to be enough seats to accommodate all the people who went to get in the door to see them.

Most of us have gotten that awful when tickets sell out moments after they go on sale on Ticketmaster. But for each frustrated New Yorker who gets shut out of a sporting event or concert, there's a ticket broker who's beaten you to the punch.

And it seems ticket brokers are everywhere on the Web, and it's been legal for almost a year now after ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer had the law repealed last spring.

Here's our full story.

-- Pete Catapano

Tags: manhattan

One tree planted -- just 999,999 to go

Tuesday April 1, 2008 2:02 PM By Rolando Pujol

On the first day of April, at the first park in the country, a gaggle of third-graders planted the first of what the city hopes will be a million new trees.

The students, from P.S. 134 in Manhattan, stabbed at the soil in Seward Park on the Lower East Side with large heavy shovels to plant the crabapple tree, which was already taller than they were.

The event marked the kickoff of a project called “MillionTreesNYC,” an effort by the city to plant 1 million trees across the five boroughs by 2017.

One of the students who helped with the planting, 8-year-old Sophia, said there are 15 trees in her neighborhood, and that’s not enough. Lining her street with new trees would make the area a lot nicer, she said.If the MillionTreesNYC campaign succeeds, there will be 20 percent more trees by the time Sophia and her classmates graduate from high school. The project is the result of a cooperative effort between the Department of Parks and Recreation and the New York Restoration Project.

The trees will be planted in parks and other public spaces, with the city responsible for 60 percent and the other 40 percent by private organizations, homeowners, and community groups, according to MillionTreesNYC.

Seward Park was chosen for the first tree planting because it’s the oldest permanent park in the United States. The park’s 80 elm trees circle a floor mosaic containing a 1903 quote by former Mayor Seth Low. It reads: “This park indicates that the city realizes it must provide for its children, that they have a right to play as well as work.”

Like the mayor 100 years before him, the current mayor supports turning the city into a greener and more eco-friendly place; Michael Bloomberg has proclaimed April 2008 as “MillionTreesNYC month.”

But the newly planted trees will not survive without thousands of New Yorkers adopting them.

“The first two years of a tree’s life are the most crucial,” said Drew Becher, executive director of the New York Restoration Project.

Trees come with more benefits that just adding color to a gray concrete landscape, said Becher. Tree planting is a socially responsible investment because trees pump the air full of oxygen, reduce air, water and noise pollution, break up whipping winter winds, and cool hot summer days, he said. They also increase property values.

“Spring has arrived and we hope that all New Yorkers will preserve our city’s trees,” said parks commissioner Adrian Benepe. “Whether it’s by planting trees in your own backyard, watering the street tree outside your apartment, participating in a free tree education workshop or donating online.”

Benepe said the parks department and volunteers will plant 20,000 trees on April 12th to gain headway on the million-trees goal.

The campaign’s slogan calls for New Yorkers to “think globally and plant locally.” To learn more about MillionTreesNYC, visit www.milliontreesnyc.org

-- Amy Larson

Tags: environment, manhattan

City Hall Dispatch: Harlem hearings

Tuesday April 1, 2008 10:56 AM By David Freedlander

The plans to drastically reshape the cultural and economic heart of Harlem took another step forward today in crowded and intense hearings before the city council.

The “River-to-River” rezoning would add density to the corridor, permit a high-rise office tower at Park Avenue, and would lead, according to some estimates, the displacement of dozens of local businesses.

“The 125th Street rezoning is the first comprehensive plan for Harlem’s main street in over 40 years,” said planning commissioner Amanda Burden, whose agency approved the plan lat month.

“The plan has been carefully crafted to strengthen this regional business district and bolster its historic role as an arts, entertainment and retail center.”

Harlem has been roiled in recent years by massive changes in the last few years that several long-time residents fear will forever change the make-up of the neighborhood. The average sale price of an apartment in the neighborhood in the last quarter of 2007 was 93% higher than the average sale price of an apartment in the last quarter of the previous year.

The question before the zoning committee today was whether or not the city’s plan would exacerbate the current trends or solve them.

“We can no longer afford this kind of Jim-Crowism in our housing policy,” said councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn.) ‘There should be some kind of commercial rent control to protect the businesses that are there and that have been there for 25 years.

Proponents of the plan argued that there are no current zoning protections in the neighborhood now, and that the mayor’s proposal would add height protections, protect existing brownstones along the corridor, eliminate frontage space for banks, and crucially add the city’s first incentives for developers to create performance and practice space for existing cultural institutions.

The plan will next go the full zoning committee, and then the full council for a vote. The council typically follows the lead of the member whose district will be most effected, which for the 125th Street rezone is Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan.)

Dickens appeared to approve of the proposal during the hearings, but refused to comment publicly.

---David Freedlander

Tags: harlem, politics, land use, planning, rezoning, city hall dispatch

Memo to Hil: Rocky's for McCain

Tuesday April 1, 2008 10:25 AM By Rolando Pujol

Hillary Clinton wants to be like Rocky, but the Italian Stallion is probably hoping she throws in the towel.

Trying to stay in the fight against Barack Obama for the White House, Clinton yesterday said she's like Rocky Balboa while at a campaign stop at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art seen in the Oscar-winning film "Rocky," Clinton said that ending her presidential campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough.'"

However, Sylvester Stallone, Rocky himself, is in Sen. John McCain's corner.

"I like McCain a lot, a lot," Stallone told Fox news in January. "Things may change along the way, but there's something about matching the character with the script and right now, the script is being written and the reality is pretty brutal and pretty hard edged, a rough action film, and you need somebody who's been in that to deal with it."

-- Pete Catapano

Tags: politics, rocky, sylvester stallone, hillary clinton, manhattan

Good-bye Bertha, we'll miss ye ...

Tuesday April 1, 2008 7:20 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

The New York Aquarium won't be the same without Bertha, the 43-year-old sand tiger shark who died today and was believed to be the longest-living sand tiger shark in captivity. She was dropped off at the aquarium in 1965 by a local fisherman.

The aquarium director called her "a belived resident of Coney Island" and "a great

animal and a symbol for the plight of all sharks in the wild.”

This isn't the first time Bertha's been in the news. She was the star of this science feature on ABC News last year.

The aquarium reports that Bertha was about 7 feet long and 270 pounds.

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: brooklyn, coney island, new york aquarium, parks, museums, history

Bridal bang for your buck

Tuesday April 1, 2008 7:12 AM By Julie Gordon

Bride-to-be Priyanka Mahajan tries on a Monique Lhuillier gown. (Photo by Dennis Wo. Ho)

Though Filene’s Basement’s “Running of the Brides” sounds like a good idea in theory, hundreds of women fighting for discounted wedding gowns also seems like our worst nightmare. That said, we’re suckers for a bargain.

Thankfully, Mark Ingram Bridal Atelier offers a civilized approach to dress shopping as well as bargains (well, the bargain part is only for a limited time). From April 8-9, the atelier will have a bridal sample sale — with gowns 50-75 percent off. And the best part? It’s by appointment only. Call 212-319-6778 to schedule.

We fell in love with Mark and his shop at a recent photo shoot we did there with New York brides-to-be. His couture gowns are breathtaking — all types of styles from Monique Lhuillier, Anne Barge, Elizabeth Fillmore and other top designers.

Before you head over to the sale, get amazing shopping tips from Mark Ingram. And, check out our full bridal guide for advice on planning the ultimate affair.

— Julie Gordon

Tags: bridal, wedding, gown, dress, shopping, mark ingram, manhattan, fashion, entertainment

Vincent swallows the Village

Tuesday April 1, 2008 6:40 AM By David Freedlander

If for some reason you have this rainy April Fools' Day off, head over to the hearings at Manhattan Community College, where Villagers and preservationists alike will square off against St. Vincent's plans to sell, tear down and rebuild.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation helpfully passes along these talking points:

* It is the largest proposed development EVER in a New York City landmark district; if approved, it would include the two largest buildings EVER approved in any of NYC's ninety landmark districts (even those in Midtown and the Financial District) in the 43 year history of NY'S landmarks law.

* The plan proposes to demolish nine buildings in the Greenwich Village Historic District, some of which are as much as 85 years old. No one has ever sought, much less gotten permission for, demolition of nine buildings in a NYC landmark district.

Also, there is this helpful vid:

---David Freedlander

Tags: greenwich village, development, preservation

The mustache is back! Again! On our own (well, he used to be) Justin Rocket Silverman

Tuesday April 1, 2008 6:22 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

That storied strip of facial hair above the upper lip -- revered on men, reviled on women (whole blog devoted to that topic, in fact).

The mustache -- it just can't stay out of the NYC tab headlines. It's made a comeback in amNewYork (which came with a fun "Match that 'Stache" game) and on the AP's youth service asap (which came with a cool interactive) and for the New York Times.

And today, we have former amNewYorker Justin Rocket Silverman of "My Crappy Apartment" fame who's gone on to sprout a bit of stubble for the New York Post.

And this time there's a video tour -- which is just a click away: HERE

And now ladies and gentlemen, once again, we give you amNewYork's own ... MATCH ... THAT... 'STACHE!

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: mustache, justin rocket silverman, zany, fashion, entertainment

LOL: Urbanite duped by longtime April Foolster

Tuesday April 1, 2008 4:52 AM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

Addendum 4:25 p.m.: Yeah ... We were fooled.

Urbanite became an unwitting participant in the performance art of the infamous Lower East Side trickster, Joey Skaggs, when we "reported" earlier on an April Fool's Day parade.

Sorry people, there was no parade. Yeah, we read the press release and thought it sounded all jokey and whatever -- but we thought that the gathering of pranksters would be real!

Sorry if you showed up and got nothing.

We just spoke to Skaggs on the phone. "Believe me, you weren't the only ones fooled," he said. Thanks for the consolation, but we don't feel so bad - we wish the city's swanky shopping district had been taken over by April Fool's revelers. Oh well, maybe next year? ...

Original Post: Join the NYC April Fool's Day Parade

Calling all pranksters, mischief makers and ... George Bush look-a-likes! The 23rd Annual NYC April Fool's Day Parade wants you! (Yes, it's a real parade, not a joke!)

If you're up for gags and giggles on this day devoted to tricks, go to 59th St. and Fifth Avenue at 11:30 a.m. and join the parade.

Notorious artist and satirist Joey Skaggs, who founded the parade an is also author of the blog Pranks.com says all revelers are welcome, in or out of costume: "They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome. The Parade Committee assumes no liability for damages caused by satire."

"The New York April Fools' Committee was formed in order to remedy a glaring omission in the long list of New York's annual ethnic and holiday parades. All of these events fail to recognize the importance of the day designated to commemorate the perennial folly of mankind -- April 1st."

Parade presser here - and check this retrospective of Skaggs' artwork here.

And - we have some laughs for those of you stuck at work: The APRIL FOOL'S DAY NEWS QUIZ!

-- Lauren Johnston

Tags: april fool's day, zany, stuff that's cool, parks, manhattan, holiday traditions, entertainment