Gothamist has become so damn annoying (e.g. this) that I’m hoping Sean‘s NYC.Metroblogging site can become the NYC-oriented site we can all rely upon.
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NYC.Metroblogging
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Categories: NYC -
Rooftop banners in Brooklyn
I love this story. I heard about it on the radio yesterday.
Bright blue tarps, painted with glaring yellow letters, are going up on dozens of rooftops in Brooklyn, under the flight paths into busy New York airports. Thousands of delegates and convention guests peering down at the city might see messages like “No more years” and “Re-defeat Bush.”
“We just hope that they’ll look down and ask themselves, ‘Why, why do they feel so strongly? Why is it that New York feels this way?’” said Genevieve Christy, who has painted more than 80 banners since thinking of the idea a few weeks ago.
The movement is so popular in her neighborhood that Christy, a 57-year-old consultant, is putting orders on a waiting list. She even brought supplies with her on vacation so she could keep working.
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The First Amendment only applies to the NYPD and NYFD
The NYC police and firefighters don’t have to worry about barricades, or someone telling them when and where they are allowed to protest.
From today’s New York Times:
And in recent weeks, the mayor has been drawn into another protest battle, with firefighters and police officers who have trailed him at his public events, holding loud and sometimes raucous demonstrations. Last week, they even gathered outside his home at 1 a.m., clearly violating the city’s noise code by yelling loudly and at length.
During at least two other protests, police officers and firefighters moved freely without barricades, at times blocking traffic in the street. A group of police officers and firefighters also swarmed the mayor outside a community meeting, forcing his detail to hustle him into his S.U.V., which was momentarily blocked before it pulled out.
No firefighters or police officers were arrested at any of these events. By contrast, during that same time, four women were arrested after trying to hang an antiwar banner from a hotel window in Midtown, and four other protesters who erected a tent near the south end of Central Park to protest Bush administration economic policies were arrested and detained for hours. The Police Department said that police officers and firefighters had not been given any special treatment.
The city has been signaling that it will deal with convention protesters forcefully, permit or no permit.
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Rick Santorum’s priorities
Senator Rick Santorum on the anti-gay marriage amendment:
“I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance,” he said shortly before the vote. “Isn’t that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?”
As a New Yorker, I’m pretty sure that gay marriage is NOT the biggest danger we face.
[photo courtesy of Jesse Chan-Norris]
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Manhattan Ecosystem
Thomas Locke Hobbs manages to snap a photo of a hawk with its pigeon prey.
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Categories: NYC -
The malling of NYC continues
From Crain’s:
Ian Schrager’s Paramount Hotel, at 245 W. 46th St., will be bought by the Hard Rock Hotel chain for $125 million. The deal is expected to close in June.
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Categories: NYC -
RIP Keith Cylar
Keith Cylar, co-founder of Housing Works, has died. I have never known of an organization that started out as a grass-roots activist organization and grew into something serving so many people while keeping its activist credentials. They have always helped the people — drug users, people with AIDS — that the other service and homeless organizations didn’t want to deal with.
James has a post about him.
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Happy Tartan Day from Chelsea
Spotted on Eighth Avenue today. Happy Tartan Day!
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Categories: NYC -
More on our subway adventure
Ray Sanchez has a column in today’s Newsday on our little subway adventure. I think it’s quite good. I never had an experience with the media before where the point I wanted to make actually made it into the article.
If you run out and buy the print version, you get a photo of us.
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Categories: NYC -
Our unexcellent subway adventure
photo from James
James and I had an adventure yesterday in the subway – he has a more detailed write-up plus more photos. Around 5:30 our F train stopped between Broadway/Lafayette and West Fourth because of a homeless man throwing debris onto the tracks. Around 6:20 it moved briefly, then there was arcing and noise from the 3rd rail visible from our car’s windows, along with some smoke in our car. People were pretty calm, and they told us to go to the front of the train. We then spent an hour standing around near the front of the train, until they told us to go to the rear of the train to exit via an emegency exit to the street. During that hour, they kept telling us that the police and fire departments were “on their way.” Let me repeat that: they were “on their way” for an HOUR.
From the stories I’ve seen online we had it pretty easy, as we didn’t have much smoke at all. I think it was much worse in some places.
New York Times
Newsday
New York PostEven though what we personally went through wasn’t that bad, I was pretty shaken up once I thought about it later. Why did it take two hours to get us 15 feet to the emergency exit? Is the MTA, and its coordination with city emergency services, really that bad? We couldn’t see significant smoke out the windows and we had the car windows open for the last 30-45 minutes. Is the city really that incapable of dealing with something bad happening in the subway?
This is the kind of thing that makes me question living in NYC. I’m not sure the people in charge are really capable of preparing this city for possible calamities. A single homeless man throwing some garbage can cause people to be trapped for hours in the subway?
I’m also disturbed that the “we’re not prepared” angle seems lost to the media. Newsday put the article on page 17, under an article about Joan Rivers and the Oscars. The NY Times story, which didn’t make the print run, is just ridiculous. They can’t even calculate time properly. The last time I checked, 6:20-9 is not two hours, and in any case our train first stopped at 5:30.
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Categories: NYC