July 2011
78 posts
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“Deals the Bloomberg administration negotiated in 2006 have stripped some $30...”
– The Parks Department is laying off hundreds of workers this year, and Juan Gonzalez points out who he says is to blame: our local baseball teams. Shea Stadium and the old Yankee Stadium used to generate millions of dollars to the Parks Department—half their operating budget—since the...
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Amazin’. Sept. 21, 2001, the New York Mets played the Atlanta Braves at Shea Stadium. It was the first huge gathering of people since the terror attacks, a big deal for a city still sad and shaken. Plus it was the Braves, the worst team in the world (my thoughts), a team that once had John Rocker on the roster, a jerk who insulted the city and everything it stood for just a year before. The...
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Safety First. The NYPD is the largest police force in the world, working to protect over 8 million people from what seems to be constant terror threats and other people who want to knock our buildings down and kill us all. So, you know, besides those fancy Segways and the bomb-sniffing dogs I assumed they’d have a shredder to properly dispose of documents. I was wrong. This is Bucky...
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“I really do think that when you look at all the top bodybuilders in the world,...”
– That’s Rep. Mike Grimm, the man who loves tanning and represents Brooklyn and Staten Island. He was voted one of the most beautiful people in Washington D.C by The Hill, and the self-described “old fashioned” guy and “gym rat” feels he can better represent his...
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“‘Portlandia, as a 20-something Brooklyn person, hit home,’ said Max...”
– Adrianne Jeffries writes about the “Portlandification” of Brooklyn, a borough whose flea markets and free-range cupcake shops have been made fun of by everybody from snarky bloggers (who usually also happens to live in Brooklyn near those fleas) to Brian Williams. It’s like...
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“It’s my one happiness.”
– That’s Beth Shak, 41, talking about.. (her husband, her career, her philanthropic work, her children, her cat, her dog, her fantasy football team, her beach volleyball team, her famous cheddar scallion omelette?)…shoes! Shak, who makes her money as a poker champion, owns 700 pairs of...
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“I love music so much and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond...”
– Music & Art. Design pioneer Alex Steinweiss, inventor of the modern album cover, on making “music for the eyes.” Steinweiss passed away last week at the age of 94.
[curiositycounts]
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$400 Million Will Get You A Lotta Crullers. Dunkin Donuts has its IPO today, and the Wall St. Journal reports the company could rake in over $400 million as a result. And while the company has debt (it’s like every American company is REQUIRED to not make a profit), it’s still refreshing to see an IPO involving a company that makes TANGIBLE things, especially when those tangible things are stuffed...
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“But wait: Thomas espouses top-down leadership, is male-dominated, punishes...”
– Thomas the Tank Engine is one of those childhood shows usually associated with leisurely afternoons watching PBS. Did you know, though, that behind those cool trains and Rizzo from Grease was an underlying message of conservatism? That’s what Jessica Roake says in Slate today after she’s...
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Drink up…New York Needs You! California produces 90 percent of the domestic wine in this country; New York comes in 2nd with 4 percent. But this state is still producing a lot of wine in it’s many regions, from the Finger Lakes to the North Fork. The wine regions in New York continue to grow—the industry generates $3/75 billion in annual economic activity—but problems loom,...
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Typography. Font snobs and fans of clean, mature typography, shield your eyes: looks like the U.S Army prepared a 100-slide PowerPoint entirely in Comic Sans MS. The font beloved by fourth graders and their teachers alike is probably the most maligned of the fonts, but it’s had it’s say, too
-KH
[Wired, McSweeney’s, ComicSansCriminal, h/t @ThisIsJenDoll]
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“But some parents have already tired of this private-plane status infiltrating...”
– As I grew up and started to meet different people I was opened up to a whole new world. First, did you know kids went to sleepaway camp in the summer? That it wasn’t just a made-up thing on the Disney Channel? And did you know that sometimes these people fly private jets to these camps, even...
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WWW. Most of us have lived in a world without the internet. I only signed up for AOL in the fifth grade, so I had a good ten years of an internet-free existence. Now I live and die by the internet. My job didn’t even exist until like two years ago, and that’s all thanks to the web! I check-in with the internet before I go to sleep! I tell the internet where I’m going, when I get...
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“Decades from now, when you are attending the weddings of your great...”
– That’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to the daughters of John Feinblatt and Jonathan Mintz. Both work for the city—Mintz as the consumer affairs commissioner, and Feinblatt as a chief policy adviser—and were married by the marry on Sunday at Gracie Mansion. The couple walked down their...
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10 Ways to Prepare for a New York City Blackout →
The villagevoice reminds us that temperatures rose to 102 degrees last summer and we all survived. They’ve gracefully shared Jen Doll’s 2010 guide for how to cope with a New York City blackout. Here’s hoping we don’t need to use it.
-LB
[RunninScared]
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“The ostensible purpose of this marketing effort, or whatever you want to call...”
– That’s from a Village Voice report that next week in New York will officially be the designated as Smurf Week. And as someone who lived in New York for six years, let me just say that if you’re visiting the city just because you want to see a makeshift Smurf village erected by Sony, then you should...
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“In Al Qaida’s latest edition of its chilling e-magazine,...”
– The Gentleman From New York Will Get Made Fun Of. Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal has now totally jumped the shark with a mention in an Al Qaida magazine. This is both awfully funny and sad; funny when you think of the fact that there’s an Al Qaida magazine making jokes, but sad when...
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“The Gates Foundation recently put forth a challenge to assorted universities...”
– That’s from a Village Voice post noting that Microsoft techlord Bill Gates is dropping $41.5 million to research the toilet described above. And it shows you just how isolated rich people can be from society when Bill Gates is spending $41.5 million because he’s apparently never heard of a...
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RIP Mars Bar. The baddest bar in the city was not taken down by the rough and tumble NYC of the 70s and 80s, the one I only know from the movies. The Mars Bar was taken down by overpriced condos. And 850 fruit flies. And I’m a fraud for never going, for walking by it tons of times but passing it by for whatever stupid bar was up the street. There was supposed to be a big closing bash, but...
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Tan Congressman Against Tan Tax. In June, Congressman Michael Grimm pushed for the repeal of the tanning tax instituted in March. He said it was unfair to small-businesses and the middle-class who are just looking to get a base tan before their trip to Cabo.
Now it looks like his pro-tanning stance has earned the Brooklyn/Staten Island rep the financial support of one of the top (only?) tanning...
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WatchAzi Paybarah, a political reporter for the New York Observer and a member of The 20, sat down to discuss campaign disclosures, the race to replace Weiner’s seat in Congress, and Rupert Murdoch’s interesting hearing. Follow him on Twitter, @azipaybarah, to stay up-to-date with everything going on in politics.
[NBC New York, @azipaybarah]
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WiFi On International Flights Has Arrived. Extra Legroom Has Not. If you’ve ever been stuck on a 14-hour international flight lodged between two chatty Montenegrans and prayed for some kind of escape, you should know that Lufthansa is unveiling WiFi service for their international passengers, a first in the airline industry. Sure, it’ll cost you upwards of twenty Euros for a 7,000-mile flight, but...
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“I grew up on the monkey bars in Fort Tryon Park, and I never forgot how good it...”
– That’s former parks commissioner Henry Stern, a man passionate about parks, talking in the mid-90s about the new wave of safe parks to hit the city. The 90s was my decade for parks, and I’d have to agree with StarQuest. Growing up I spent most of my time at spots that are not around...
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Rats. The Atlantic Yards project was supposed to bring tons of jobs and affordable housing to Prospect Heights. Instead, it’s just brought traffic and rats. The Brooklyn Paper reports that neighbors around the construction site have been complaining about an ”out-of-control rodent population that is feasting on unprotected sidewalk trash.” The problem started when excavation on...
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“Bad spellers are a breed apart from good ones. A writer with a mind that doesn’t...”
– The NYT takes a look at typos and bad spellers, which seem to be on display more now than in the pre-digital age. Typos are popping up in print more than before, some say, because most publishing houses have gotten rid of their full-time copy editors. Also ,the expectation to print more books at a...
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“I guess our secret is out. On Monday, I’m introducing legislation renaming...”
– That’s City Councilwoman Gail Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, which is now the place for surviving falls from buildings. There have been three falls and three “miracle tales of survival” on the UWS, although two were cats and they’re supposed to survive up to 9...
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“Its absolutely horrible!…People take pictures and wave at you when...”
– That’s Ronni McFadden, who lives in an apartment near the the Highline in Manhattan. The abandoned railroad tracks-turned-park was a dream for locals happy to see the space renovated. Luxury high-rise buildings then quickly sprang up around the space, with real estate agents selling the...
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“It is not acceptable to swat a stranger’s tattoo because you mistake it for a...”
– That’s from a recent New York Times article on tattoo etiquette. Did you know there is etiquette now for tattoos, even though people used to get tattoos to show you just how much they don’t care about etiquette? Well there is, which means that tattoos have pretty much been ruined for everyone. ...
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“I don’t know of any other elected official any place that has that kind of...”
– That’s Mayor Bloomberg on this morning’s John Gambling radio show, discussing his totally-cool, ask-me-anything, I’m-here-when-you-need-me! approach to the press. Bloomberg said he is more accessible than nearly every other politician in recent memory, and Azi Paybarah...
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“He’s a very honorable, honest man…This can’t be something that...”
– That’s former mayor Rudy Giuliani, referring to News Corp mogul Rupert Murdoch. He told CNN that people shouldn’t “rush to judgement” in thinking that Murdoch was involved with the phone hacking scandal that rocked his corporation and led him to shut down the New of the World...
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Google Stalking Yourself Just Got Easier. More than once, I’m certain you have typed your name into the Google tool bar and hit “Search” (or maybe you hit, “I’m Feeling Lucky”, I don’t know how adventurous you are.) Weird things sometimes come up, depending on how active you’ve been on the internet. Have you found a same-named doppelganger? Have you...
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Champions! Google threw their first science fair this year, encouraging young scientists from all over the world to send in their submissions. The top three winners were girls, proving our dominance exists off the soccer field, too. Drumroll, please, for the winners:
Lauren Hodge (13-14 age group), who studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in...
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MTA, Going Your Way (Sometimes.) I don’t know how the MTA came up with the idea that weekends were the best times to slow down service. Don’t they know that’s when we like to ride the trains? And that sometimes people work on Saturday and Sunday, too? No subway line is immune to the weekend service changes, but one local State Senator is actively looking to help ease the pain of...
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Mapping NYC. Everybody has a favorite street in the city: Maybe it’s the first block you lived on, or you stumbled upon it late one-night walking home. We walk a lot here, and this means we are exposed to more of it. We can find streets that mean something to us and are traced to experiences in the boroughs. One web site is looking to document all the different people and places that makes...
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“The place is a phenomenon. I don’t think there is anything like it in the...”
– I always hope, for the sake of future generations, that a statement like that would be referring to a museum or art exhibit and not a giant barn that serves some of the largest quantities of Bud Heavy in the country. But of course it is about the Boardy Barn, the Hampton Bays hot spot that goes...
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“As for a chef for the eggs, Harwell wants to ask his friend and celebrity chef...”
– Last week, we told you that Smashmouth lead singer Steve Hartwell agreed to eat 24 eggs for charity. Now with Guy Fieri by his side (Guy Fieri and Smashmouth: Have two entities ever been so predictably tight with one another?), here’s the question: What is BEST way for Steve to eat and digest these... 