Results tagged “nyc”

Earlier this year the Board of Health began weighing a plan to require restaurants to prominently display a letter grade of A, B or C, depending on the sanitary conditions. (Those restaurants receiving Bs and Cs would be inspected more often than those inspectors' pets with the As.) A similar public grading system has been used in LA for years, and NYC's 24,000 restaurants will soon get with the left coast. But first, the Board of Health wants to hear your opinion!

Earlier this month, Mayor Bloomberg tried to halfheartedly quell an old man fight between himself and undead Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, telling reporters, "As long as he's in compliance with the law, that's fine with me." But it's exactly those kinds of passive aggressive insinuations—that the DA might not be following the law—that drives Morgenthau to call Bloomberg names like "chickenshit." And now it's emerged that their war without end has cost tens of millions of dollars that would have gone to the city if Bloomberg had just kept his mouth shut and not tried to lean on Morgenthau for more.

Bicyclists love griping about motorists parking in bike lanes with impunity, and we've made a cottage industry out of publishing photos of the best bike lane blocks. So, in the interest of fair and balanced reportage, here is a photo showing one Utopian block of Maple Street in Brooklyn, where drivers double park outside the bike lane during alternate side parking. Is our incessant hectoring making a dent? Are Maple Street residents exceptionally considerate? Or is this just some devious Photoshop work? Whatever the case, it's an astonishing image. [Via Chrysanthe Tenentes's Twitter]

One of the most intriguing restaurants and performances spaces in New York will close next month: RIP Monkey Town, a multi-room destination for adventurous food, performance art, music, and video. Owner Montgomery Knott tells Brooklyn Based that "due to landlord issues" the space will close on January 24th.

Kerry Sullivan, a longtime Staten Island gadfly who's awaiting a liver transplant, claims that police arrested him outside his home in August as retaliation for his outspoken criticism of Borough President James P. Molinaro. Yesterday the NYCLU filed a federal lawsuit on Sullivan's behalf, naming the City of New York and the two police officers who arrested Sullivan as defendants, and claiming they violated Sullivan’s rights under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments; the New York State Constitution; and New York common law. Those are a lot of violations! But what's really outrageous is what the cops allegedly told Sullivan during the arrest.

After freaking out street vendors and the bloggers who love them yesterday, the Health Department has emailed us to say it was all a big misunderstanding. A provision in the Health Department's new code [pdf] raised eyebrows by declaring that "no fish, shellfish, or any food consisting of or made with an aquatic animal...shall be prepared, stored, held for service or sold from a mobile food vending unit." That's what it says, but it's not what they meant!

This is the man who was fatally run over by a southbound B train at the Central Park West and 110th St. station; his name was Shem Herman and he was the father of a 2-year-old son, Dylan. The 33-year-old Washington Heights man had jumped down onto the subway tracks to recover his iPod when he was killed by the oncoming train. Yesterday reporters tracked down his distraught wife and mother, so keep reading if you're not sad enough today.

Shake Shack, Danny Meyer's insanely popular upscale burger joint, is expanding, with new Manhattan locations planned for the theater district and the Upper East Side (as well as the previously announced Nolita outpost, plus Miami Beach and Kuwait). In all, five new Shake Shacks will open in 2010, and Meyer's not stopping there. In an adulatory Times profile, he says "in five years we could have 20, mostly up and down the East Coast." And why not? These shacks make bank.

Today's frivolous lawsuit that will probably flush away more of your tax dollars in an out of court settlement: A Queens teenager is suing the city because she broke her ankle in a base sliding drill during high school softball practice. Francis Lewis High School sophomore Alina Cerda had to have six screws and a metal plate implanted in her ankle after sliding on a muddy base path during a May practice. You'll never guess who's fault that was!

This week Sam Sifton at the Times files a twofer on impresario Jeffrey Chodorow's restaurants Tanuki Tavern and Ed's Chowder House. This is exciting because Chodorow famously bought full page ads in the Times after Sifton's predecessor, Frank Bruni, slammed his ventures Kobe Club and Wild Salmon. But instead of publishing separate reviews (and raking in twice the ad revenue), Sifton's consolidated, one star critique issues merits and demerits to both restaurants. At Tanuki Tavern, a plate of corn and white miso tempura cakes are "like something out of a fantasy high school cafeteria: sweet, crunchy and addictive." But Ed's Chowder House serves skate that tastes like ammonia and "a rubbery dish of 'moist grilled lobster' with 'spaghetti vegetables & lemon butter sauce' that might as well have been shipped direct from a grim summer wedding in a beachside catering mill." Daaaaamn! You gonna take that, Chodorow?

At the beginning of 2008, Brooklyn-born musician and filmmaker Adam Yauch (famous for his work with a little hip-hop trio called the Beastie Boys) launched a movie distribution company called Oscilloscope Laboratories with ThinkFilm vice president David Fenkel. They hit the ground running, snatching up fresh narrative and documentary features from festivals and bringing a consistently provocative roster of movies to theaters and DVD (made without plastic and printed on FSC Certified 80% post-consumer waste paper and produced in a carbon neutral, hydroelectric, ISO-9001 and ISO-14001 certified plant!)

Last month Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against the United Homeless Organization, accusing the group of running a scam that funnels money to the bosses at the top and the workers who solicit donations throughout Manhattan, in the name of "helping the homeless." Today Cuomo obtained an interim court order requiring the not-for-profit group to immediately halt all charitable solicitations from the public by any means. The order also freezes UHO’s assets, including bank accounts and vehicles.

On January 1st a little-noticed Health Department rule will take effect, prohibiting street vendors from selling any seafood products. This is going to put a dent in the business of such vendors as the Schnitzel Truck, the Endless Summer Mexican truck, and the NYC Cravings Truck, to name a few. The Health Department's new code [pdf] declares that "no fish, shellfish, or any food consisting of or made with an aquatic animal...shall be prepared, stored, held for service or sold from a mobile food vending unit." Blogger Midtown Lunch, which spotted the change today, is not taking this well:

The city will debut a special limited-edition condom package next fall, and the Health Department is holding a contest to pick the new look. They're calling for designs that reflect NYC's "distinctive culture and style while also promoting safer sex." As they put it on the website, "Maybe you’ve admired the NYC Condom’s sleek package design. Maybe you even own one or two of the 41 million the Health Department gave away last year. We’re not about to abandon the now-iconic package, but we want to keep things interesting." (But "not raunchy"!) So what does the winner get?

A man who witnessed his young friend's murder after a dispute at a popular Halal chicken and gyro street stand has admitted that he lied to police about the incident. Chandradat Deodat, 23, of Jersey City, was with the victim, 19-year-old Tyrone Gibbons, and his brother Shannon on the night in October 2006 when the trio cut the line at the food stand at 53rd and Sixth. An argument ensued with the man behind them, Ziad Tayeh, who is accused of stabbing Gibbons to death after a car chase. But yesterday Deodat may have complicated things for prosecutors.

The wife of Senator Joe Lieberman—whom the Times dubs a "master infuriator" for his recent threat to join a Republican filibuster unless Democrats drop a plan to let uninsured Americans under 55 purchase coverage under Medicare—is in the cross hairs. Liberal activists led by the blog Firedoglake are calling upon the Susan B. Komen Foundation to fire Hadassah Lieberman, who works as a paid international spokesperson for the breast-cancer research group.

The NYPD has not revealed any more details about a man who was charged over the weekend with ten felony counts of using Manhattan pay phones to make "terroristic threats" to kill Mayor Bloomberg. Jeffrey Fisher of Philadelphia (not Robert Morgenthau of New York) is accused of calling 911 to make statements such as, "There are bullets now aimed at the mayor’s head everywhere." NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and his family were also threatened.

An unidentified man was fatally struck by a southbound B train last night around 7:30 at the Central Park West and 110th St. station. Witnesses told police the man, an Hispanic male from Washington Heights in his mid-30s, was engaged in an agitated cell phone conversation when he dropped his portable music device onto the tracks. One bystander says, "I saw a guy sitting on the stairs talking on his cellphone, then I saw him leaning over the tracks watching for a train to come, when, all of a sudden, he was nowhere to be found."

Bike riders weren't the only ones demonstrating in the rain yesterday; in Times Square a small but annoying group gathered to protest a Congressional proposal to tax breast augmentations, facelifts, tummy tucks and other procedures, as a way to fund a health care bill. The protest was organized by an affluent Park Avenue plastic surgeon, Dr. Stephen Greenberg, who was on hand holding a sign that read, "Washington leave our boobs alone." But this video of the small, shrill protest suggests that Greenberg might have his hands full trying to rally the masses.

Since May, a Philadelphia man has used Manhattan payphones to make 10 calls to 911 threatening to kill Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly, authorities tell NBCNewYork.com. Jeffrey Fisher, 48, is being held on $100,000 bail after his arraignment Saturday in Manhattan Criminal Court on 10 counts of making a terroristic threat. According to prosecutors, his calls included such threats as, "I'm gonna come and kill your Mayor," and "The Mayor's office, he's a target, we will kill him." During one of four calls in October, he allegedly asked the operator to "tell Commissioner Kelly he is dead," and during another call he threatened to "kill the mayor if he shows up to the marathon." (This proved to be an empty threat.)

When fares rose to $2.25 and the state legislature bailed out the MTA in May, it was with the understanding that there would be no service cuts. But now the MTA's "doomsday" scenario has been revived in order to cover an unexpected financial shortfall of nearly $400 million. A budget plan under consideration by the authority’s Finance Committee today would slash the number of subway trains during the day, late nights and weekends. Free or discounted fares for students would be phased out, dozens of bus lines would be reduced or eliminated, the W and Z would be terminated, and service on the M and G lines cut back. And people are pissed.

Well, the title of this video pretty much says it all. Making good on their promise to make a commercial for their vivid ad campaign discouraging sugary drink consumption, the NYC Health Department has just released this little opus. If you like Garbage Pail Kids, you'll love this:

On the afternoon of December 3rd, two men, Jesus Muñoz, 38, and Joseph Cartagena, 21, found a 2008 beige and gold Lexus parked on West 81st Street with the keys inside. But instead of counting their blessings and using their new-found wheels for a road trip to Dollywood like sensible people, they decided to cash in. According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Post, the Lexus belonged to Richard Grausman, 71, a notable chef and culinary educator who reported the car stolen that same day. But police wouldn't have to look to hard for it, because the alleged thieves called Grasuman themselves.

          

Click on the film stills for more details on reviews on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Invictus; The Lovely Bones; A Single Man; Slammin' Salmon; My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?;Yesterday was a Lie; Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year; Black Christmas; You Can't Take It With You; and Don't Look Back.

Yet another employee is suing the New York Post, accusing the editors and reporters at the tabloid of racist and sexual harassment. You'll recall that former editor Sandra Guzman filed a discrimination lawsuit in November, describing the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house run by the crude, misogynistic editor in chief Col Allan. (Among other things, Guzman claims they fired her in retaliation after she complained about a controversial political cartoon.) Weeks later, a black reporter named Austin Fenner filed his own lawsuit expanding on Guzman's allegations, and now another black reporter, Ikimulisa Livingston, has joined his lawsuit. What's new here is that she is actually still employed at the Post, and famous reporter Steve Dunleavy has been targeted for some allegedly racist conduct.

Investigators have previously said that "everyone's hand was out" for bribes at SLA, and now two women have been caught planning to bribe liquor authority officials to help speed up a booze license approval. A court ordered wiretap allegedly found that Annie Guerrero, the owner of El Nido Del Aguila, in Inwood, and Maria Elena Nunez, the owner of an expediting company that represents businesses applying for liquor licenses, colluded to bribe an SLA official with $5,000, in hopes of avoiding a full SLA review.

The man accused of fatally stabbing a teenager who cut the line at a popular midtown gyro and chicken cart told the officer who arrested him that he was acting in self-defense. The violent incident took place one night around 4 a.m. in October 2006, after Ziad Tayeh, 26, accused two brothers, Shannon and Tyrone Gibbons, of cutting ahead of him in line. Shannon says, "We just ignored him," but after they drove off with their food, Tayeh allegedly chased them in his white Lexus SUV.

Four waitresses at the super douchey Nolita "hotspot" Cafe Habana are suing the owner for fostering a "sexually charged environment." Known for its celebrity clientele, attractive staff, and Mexican grilled corn, the tiny restaurant has been a favorite of "keeping it real" stars like Josh Hartnett, Serena Williams, Adrien Grenier, and Owen Wilson. In fact, the Marley & Me star is mentioned in the recent lawsuit because one of the waitresses claims she was punished after rejecting his date request.

NYC's Bicycle Access to Buildings Law takes effect tomorrow, requiring commercial buildings to allow tenants to bring their bicycles into offices using the freight elevator. If your employer approves your request to bring your bike up into the office, he or she can submit a formal request to the DOT, which will then require the person who controls the building to complete a Bicycle Access Plan. It's not really that complicated, and Transportation Alternatives has put together a great manual [pdf] to guide you through the whole process.

While those space age automated public toilets—or A.P.T.s, as they're known in the business—have been getting all the attention lately, one atavistic bathroom experience is still quietly savored by the public at Herald and Greeley Squares. It involves actual human attendants, who clean and inspect the restrooms 15 to 25 times a day. Their continued employment is sort of a John Henry victory over the rise of the machines that will soon be operating every train, controlling every taxi, and flushing every toilet.