June 30, 2005
If Fresh had a dollar for every secretary in tennis shoes who nearly or actually spilled her morning coffee on him on the E train....
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is still without a five-year capital plan, and billions of dollars worth of building projects may be put on hold, but its chairman found himself contemplating an altogether different matter yesterday: Just how much of a mess can a cup of coffee really make?
In a rare move, the chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, asked fellow board members to postpone a final vote on new passenger rules that would prohibit, among other things, moving between subway cars and drinking from an open container while riding.
The board, facing a barrage of unanticipated criticism from riders who are not keen on being separated from their morning cup of subway java, agreed to hold off until July while Mr. Kalikow reviews the rules more closely.(NYT)
Tags:
coffee, mta, regulations, subway
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Posted on 6/30/2005
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June 30, 2005
With their contract set to expire at midnight tonight, newsroom employees and advertising sales representatives at The Village Voice said yesterday that they were prepared to strike for the first time in the newspaper's 50-year history if they did not get the deal they wanted. Negotiations to renew the three-year contract began on June 14. They continued yesterday, but the union said it was not optimistic about reaching an agreement before the deadline.(NYT)
Tags:
strike, union, village voice
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Posted on 6/30/2005
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June 28, 2005
No more changing cars (even if there is a smelly or dangerous person), no more coffee or soda-drinking on the trains (discard it before you get on), no more sitting on your bike, riding a skateboard or wearing in-line skates on board. Putting your feet on the seat is now illegal.
But hey, at least you can take photographs without fear of going to jail!
Tags:
feet on seat, obey, regulations, subway
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Posted on 6/28/2005
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June 25, 2005
$20 admission to MoMA is now offset by free audioguides, thanks to a gift from Bloomberg News. Fresh is going to create his own audioguide to MoMA so that visitors can be spared the corporate guide to modern art. Stay tuned.
Tags:
art, audioguide, fresh, moma
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Posted on 6/25/2005
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June 25, 2005
In the withering midday heat, Fresh sees his old mailman near the Post Office:
Fresh: Hey man, did you see me honking to you from my car the other day?
Mailman: Yeah papi. Note: His every sentence ends in papi.
Fresh: So how's things?
Mailman: Good, papi. Where you park your car anyhow?
Fresh: Near the church. No one robs your car if you park near the church.
Mailman: That makes sense papi.
Fresh: So what's the word at the post office?
Mailman: Things good, papi. You know I put in 19 years now.
Fresh: Really? That's great.
Mailman: I got started late you know, papi. I was already in my 30's.
Fresh: Is there a mandatory retirement age?
Mailman: No, papi.
Fresh: Well, I'll check back with you when you're 80. So long as you can still walk...
Mailman: No way, papi. I got to give it up. There's other things to do in life.
Fresh: True, true.
Fresh notes his new Puerto Rican maillady also calls him papi.
Tags:
fresh, mailman, parking, post office
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Posted on 6/25/2005
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June 25, 2005
Eleventh hour manuever to save NYC's olympic bid:
The city will find a cabinet-level cheerleader for its Olympic bid next week in Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state. She is planning to come to town to offer support to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the rest of the local Olympic team before they make a last-ditch effort, in Singapore, to win the 2012 Games, city and federal officials said.
Ms. Rice is set to promote the city's Olympic bid during a round of the major morning television shows - all of which are based here - on Tuesday morning and later at a rally and probably a news conference at City Hall.
Mr. Bloomberg and officials with NYC2012 - the group spearheading the effort - are planning to go to Singapore later in the week to attend the final meeting, on July 6, of the International Olympic Committee, which is to decide which city will be host to the Summer Games in 2012.
New York is competing for the Games against Madrid, Moscow, London and Paris.
Jim Wilkinson, a senior adviser to Ms. Rice, said she had badly wanted to help Mr. Bloomberg and local Olympic officials to lobby committee members in Singapore next week, and was "deeply disappointed" that she could not ultimately resolve a scheduling conflict.
"Secretary Rice cleared her schedule to be in New York," Mr. Wilkinson said. "She loves and believes in the city and wouldn't think of missing this."
Ms. Rice's visit is meant to send a message that the administration is fully behind the New York City Olympic bid, which seemed dead just a couple of weeks ago when the West Side stadium plan was killed.(NYT)
Tags:
bloomberg, condi rice, mayor, nyc 2012, olympics
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Posted on 6/25/2005
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June 24, 2005
Pimp my ride: NYPD hauls tractor-trailers full of phony stuff out of warehouse:
Huge Haul of Counterfeits Seized in Warehouse
Since Monday, scores of police officers and workers have been hauling away tractor-trailers full of counterfeit goods from a warehouse in Manhattan's bustling wholesale district that officials say contained one of the largest caches of counterfeit merchandise ever seized in New York City.
Officers converged on the dilapidated warehouse at 1141 Broadway, at 26th Street, after a report of three armed men in the building. The gunmen eluded capture, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's deputy commissioner for public information, said yesterday. But officers searching for them began a floor-by-floor search that led them to mountains of counterfeit caps, sweatshirts and other clothing bearing designer and sports-related logos on seven of the building's nine floors.
The two other floors were empty, Mr. Browne said, because a previous police raid had cleaned them out of fake merchandise. He said that the warren of rooms inside the warehouse was intricate and that officers at the earlier raid did not have enough probable cause for a search warrant for the seven other floors.
The latest raid yielded "so much merchandise that we've been running tractor-trailers two at a time since Monday" to haul it to an incinerator in Smithtown, on Long Island, Mr. Browne said yesterday.
The building's awning and several signs identified the tenant as Epoch USA Trading Corporation. Several calls to Epoch yesterday were met with a busy signal. A police officer at the scene, who declined to give his name, said yesterday that more than 30 workers from Relocation Logistics, a moving company, and as many as 10 officers had been working around the clock to pack the goods into black plastic garbage bags, similar to those used by customers at the many wholesale shops in the area that sell knockoffs of designer jewelry, handbags, hats and other accessories.
The officer at the Epoch warehouse said the merchandise would continue to be hauled away until at least today or tonight and perhaps longer. Asked to describe the quality of the goods, the officer replied: "There's Nike, there's Lacoste. You'd never know the difference."(NYT)
Tags:
contraband, counterfeit, haul, nypd, warehouse, wholesale
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Posted on 6/24/2005
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June 23, 2005
cesspool of hate: drivers clip cyclists, cyclists crash into pedestrians, pedestrians walk in front of cars. These three headlines remind Fresh why he gave away his bike last year:
WANTAGH: 3 DEAD and 12 HURT IN CRASH
MANHATTAN: DRIVER ARRESTED IN HIT-RUN AFTER CHASE
MANHATTAN: CYCLIST KILLED IN TRUCK ACCIDENT
The actual reason was a female jogger on the Hudson River Park bike path, too busy listening to her iPod as Fresh cautiously cycled by to her left; she suddenly did an about-face and crashed into Fresh, throwing him from his bike. She was unhurt; Fresh was furious. And no one else was around! How unlikely was this? Fresh also got sick of asshole taxi drivers honking at him at 7 a.m. when there was absolutely no traffic anywhere. (In some countries, it's considered de rigeur to honk at all bicyclists or just to honk for any reason or for no reason.)
Tags:
bike path, crash, cyclist, driver, fresh, hit and run
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Posted on 6/23/2005
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June 22, 2005
It costs plenty to live in New York City — but how much does it cost to live well? The breadwinner of a Manhattan family of four looking to achieve an affluent lifestyle — not private jets and chauffeured limos, but no public school, either — will have to earn nearly a half-million dollars a year after taxes, according to a survey by forbes.com. (NYP)
Tags:
500 grand, affluent, manhattan, rich
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Posted on 6/22/2005
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June 22, 2005
Uh hello? 3-Year Federal Study of 9/11 Urges Safer Skyscraper Rules
A seventh-grader who has ever participated in a fire drill could probably tell you: YA NEED MORE STAIRCASES!
After an exhaustive, three-year study of the collapse of the World Trade Center, a federal panel will call for major changes in the planning, construction and operation of skyscrapers to help people survive not only terrorist attacks but also accidental or natural calamities, according to officials and draft documents.
Tags:
collapse, regulations, safety, staircases, tower, wtc
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Posted on 6/22/2005
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June 21, 2005
Government INaction: Commissioners worry more about their public personae than moving forward. At least one commish notes: "I don't quite understand this love affair with larger vehicles" at a time when oil hits a record $60 per barrel. Stay tuned for further ineptitude.
June 21, 2005 Commission Devotes Session to Hybrid Cabs
By SEWELL CHAN and COLIN MOYNIHAN
A stalled effort to introduce alternative-fuel vehicles into the city's taxicab fleet dominated a meeting of the Taxi and Limousine Commission yesterday, but its members reached little agreement on how to balance the interests of cab owners, passengers and environmentalists.
The unusually spirited discussion at the commission's headquarters in Lower Manhattan had some urgency because of a pending City Council bill that would compel the commission to immediately approve cabs that run on compressed natural gas or a combination of gasoline and electricity.
The city passed a law in 2003 requiring the sale of special medallions for such vehicles, but there has been little progress.
One commissioner, Noach Dear, said he was frustrated by the agency's handling of a medallion sale last October, at which three men placed winning bids on 18 medallions for use with alternative-fuel vehicles. The men, who were unable to use the medallions because no such vehicles were approved, have filed a lawsuit.
"Now that we have a lawsuit, which I think they're going to win, and it's going to look like egg all over our face, why have we not moved forward in that direction and moved forward with regard to those vehicles?" Mr. Dear asked.
When the commission's chairman, Matthew W. Daus, said that lawyers for the city had advised him not to discuss the suit, Mr. Dear retorted: "This was a public auction. Everything's going to be public anyhow when you get to court."
Another commissioner, Harry E. Giannoulis, said: "I don't want anybody talking about the lawsuit. If I'm being sued, I don't want anybody talking about it."
In recent years, the commission has adopted regulations to make taxi rides more comfortable, notably by increasing legroom. Peter Schenkman, an assistant commissioner for safety and emissions, told the panel that neither the Toyota Highlander nor the Ford Escape, two hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles under discussion, had as much legroom as the Ford Crown Victoria now in use.
Commissioner Iris Weinshall, who also heads the city's Transportation Department, cited rising gasoline prices and suggested a compromise on interior space.
"I don't quite understand this love affair with larger vehicles," she said. "I think the world has changed since we had this bigger-is-better attitude."
While she said she did not want the Council to compel the approval of any vehicle, she pointed out that there was growing public interest in cleaner fuels and lower emissions. "This commission has to be a little more forward-thinking," she said.
Mr. Daus said he would soon ask the commission to approve an experiment with hybrid vehicles, but he did not offer details.
Also yesterday, an environmental group that supports the Council bill, the Coalition Advocating for Smart Transportation, released a poll indicating that a large majority of city residents consider pollution and air quality the leading environmental problems and would sacrifice taxi legroom in favor of cleaner vehicles. The poll was conducted by the Global Strategy Group from June 11 to 14 among 600 registered voters.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Tags:
alternative fuel, hybrid, taxi
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Posted on 6/21/2005
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June 10, 2005
A longtime fixture in the East Village, Mondo Kim's, a mecca for independent music and video at 6 St. Marks Place, was raided and closed for five hours on Wednesday by police officers who left with boxes filled with CD's, DVD's and computer equipment. Five store employees were charged with trademark counterfeiting.
According to several employees of the store, known widely for the its independent labels, and sometimes ornery staff, the police arrived about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, and ordered all customers to leave.
Then, all of the 20 or so clerks, managers and other employees who were working in the three-floor store, which sells DVD's, CD's, books and production equipment, were told to line up on the ground floor. The police quickly identified four men and one woman and led them away in handcuffs. They ordered everyone else to leave and searched the store until about 6 p.m., when officers filed out carrying boxes.
The police said yesterday that investigators had carried out a search warrant for counterfeit trademarked goods and that the material seized included nine computer towers, a CD burner, a laptop computer, 471 compact disks and 53 videos.
The employees charged with counterfeiting were identified as Theo Frimpong, 39, of the Bronx; Diana Kinscherf, 19, of Queens; Donald Stahl, 26, and Charles Bettis, 29, both of Brooklyn; and Craig Willingham, 32, of Manhattan.
Tags:
dvds, kims video, pirates, st marks place
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Posted on 6/10/2005
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