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The Bronx Wants More Free Water Stations

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:21:06 +0000

Photo via hudson’s flickr Those free water stations are rotating throughout the boroughs—but is the Bronx being left to dehydrate? With ten stations on the move, the borough is only getting one, and only for four days this month. The Daily News reports that in comparison Manhattan will have several stations set up for 24 days this month. City Councilman Oliver Koppell told the paper, “Unfortunately our city government focuses more on Manhattan than on the outer boroughs.” The Water on the Go project was created to encourage people to drink water over sugar-loaded beverages, and as one Columbia professor noted, “The possibility of being overweight in New York City is 86% higher in the Bronx than in Manhattan” (sugary beverages can also lead to dehydration). The Department of Environmental Protection says locations were selected for the amount of foot traffic they get, and from the looks of the schedule , the Bronx isn’t the only borough being left thirsty.

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The Bronx Wants More Free Water Stations

Bronx Woman Survives Lightning Strike

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:27:40 +0000

Flickr user W Endeavors A Bronx security guard got an unexpected shock during Friday night’s storm, as lightning struck her buzzer just as she was pressing the button! Laverne Cook was working at an East Tremont apartment building, buzzing a resident in around 8:40 p.m. At that moment, lightning struck the gate. She told the Daily News , “The lightning struck the gate as I pressed the button. It threw me back. The current went through my right arm.” Though initially nobody heard her cries for help, her boss eventually came in, saw her swollen arm and called 911. She was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where it was determined she had no life threatening injuries. She said her arm still tingles, but she fared better than another victim of the storm. A Crown Heights man is still in critical condition after being struck on Eastern Parkway. A witness said, “His feet were smoking and he was bleeding from the mouth. It was terrifying.”

Storm Causing Citywide Power Outages

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:10:43 +0000

Though it seems to have already passed, today’s short storm caused a lot of damage. There are reports of multiple trees down on West 254th street in the Bronx, and Con Edison reports at least 1,000 without power across the city. Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens were all under severe thunderstorm warnings earlier this afternoon. Stay dry, folks!

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Storm Causing Citywide Power Outages

Fort Greene Residents Discuss Living in Fort Greene

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Via Brownstoner Specifically, the residents of South Elliott between Lafayette and Dekalb Avenues discuss life on their block with the Times , from the Bad Old Days to the recent influx of “white girls.” Between rummy games, pig roasts and block parties, longtime Fort Greene residents have seen a lot of change recently. About 40% of the neighborhood is white now, up from 24% in 1980, and the median income now surpasses the national average. Resident Mike Harsh said: “When I got back, one of the things I noticed was, ‘Whoa, where’d all the white girls come from?’ Different people were moving in—young professional types, black and white. They weren’t families coming to start a family, just young renters looking for a cheap place to live. Now people are better off. There’s still crime, but it’s usually crime against strangers. Your neighbors don’t get involved — that is the big difference. Back then if someone was in trouble, people would help. Nowadays when I’m fighting with a mugger I have young white people yelling at me, ‘What are you doing?’” The first place to look for changing times is always the real estate market, and Brownstoner reports that the Italianate brick one-family house on 53 South Elliott street is going for $3,700,000, which they call “sheer lunacy.” But you’ll get the street cred of saying you live in Spike Lee’s favorite neighborhood !

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Fort Greene Residents Discuss Living in Fort Greene

Inmates Upset Over LiLo’s Treatment, Call Her "Fire Crotch"

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:10:14 +0000

Despite serving less and less of her original 90 day sentence, prison life has been utter torture for Lindsay Lohan. Well, besides the daily room cleanings, new clothes and trips to the infirmary for “medical treatment” (she has reportedly been getting Adderall and Ambien delivered to her cell ). And for some reason, the other inmates have been mean to poor Lindsay, calling her “fire crotch” and reducing her to tears every night. One inmate complained Lohan’s appearance in the jail kept her from being released for over four hours. She said , “They put us on lockdown and told us not to look. It’s discrimination. She’s a criminal, just like me.”

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Inmates Upset Over LiLo’s Treatment, Call Her "Fire Crotch"

Motorcycle Passenger Killed in UWS Crash

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:30:43 +0000

A motorcycle driver was badly injured and his passenger killed when a van crashed into the bike on West End Avenue last night. Cops and a witness say the van sped through the intersection at W 65th Street at 10:30 p.m., hitting the couple and launching them into the air. Witness Kevin Chapman told the Daily News the motorcycle driver got up and saw his female passenger lying on the ground. “He was screaming and crying—yelling, ‘No! No! No!’ She was coughing up blood, and there was blood flowing down her hair. She was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital. So far, police do not suspect criminality, and nobody is in custody.

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Motorcycle Passenger Killed in UWS Crash

Long Island Man Wins Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:03:02 +0000

Via NY1 The 107 degree heat may have kept some in the comfort of their air conditioned apartments, but dedicated sand sculptors headed out to Coney Island yesterday for the 20th Annual Sand Sculpting Contest. The Parks Department “provided” 50 mounds of sand on the beach for participants to mold into whatever they could imagine, from cats to swordfish to actual castles. And at the end of the day, and Long Island man took home the prize. Frank Russo won the $400 first place prize for the third year in a row, blowing away the competition with his 6-foot sculpture of a castle complete with exposed bricks. He told the Daily News , “I pretty much pushed the sand to the limit of what it can handle,” and plans on using the prize money to take his wife out to dinner. Coney Island local Cassie Deshong, 10, also won the kiddie contest for her artistic representation of the dish running away with the spoon.

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Long Island Man Wins Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest

AG Candidate Rice First Voted In 2002, 18 Years After Registering

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:35:38 +0000

Yesterday, Newsday reported that Nassau County DA and NY Attorney General candidate Kathleen Rice has only voted eight times since first registering to vote in 1984: “Rice, who faces four challengers in a Sept. 14 primary contest for the Democratic nomination, cast the first vote of her life in November 2002. All told through 2009, she voted in eight of the 26 years since she first registered to vote as a Republican in 1984.” Rice explained, “It was my mistake. During that period of my life, I did not vote. Unfortunately, like a lot of young adults early in their professional lives, I failed to see the political significance of casting a ballot.” Rice is considered the frontrunner in the field, what with the largest campaign fund and the behind-the-scenes support of current AG and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Cuomo. Newsday also look at the available voting records of her four Democratic rivals as well as Republican nominee Daniel Donovan (the current Staten Island DA)—you can see the findings after the jump—and most other candidates appear to have some gaps in their voting histories, though Rice has the biggest gap. The NY Times reports this “may help bolster one of the main lines of attack from her fellow Democrats: that she is a political opportunist with no genuine attachment to the Democratic Party.” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), another Democratic AG candidate, who has voted every year since 1975 (he registered in Westchester in 1971; his campaign says he first registered in the 1960s and voted regularly), said, “These were the Bush years, so thank goodness. This meant one less Republican vote during those years.” According to the Times, Rice says she registered as a Republican at age 18 “at the urging of her father,” but then “Working as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, she re-registered as an independent before changing her registration to Democrat in 2005.” She said, “I chose, late in life, to get involved in politics because I wanted to try and make neighborhoods and families safer. While some career politicians may be different, my voting record earlier in life is further proof that I’m not someone who ever set out on some flawless lifelong political plan to run for office.” [See Carolyn Kennedy ] While some candidates didn’t directly address Rice’s voting record, a spokesman for State Senator Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), he of the damaged NY1 editor’s car incident , said , “It’s up to Ms. Rice to explain to New York’s Democratic primary voters why they should choose a longtime Republican who never participated in the civic process until it served her own political self-interest.” From Newsday: Assemb. Richard L. Brodsky (D-Westchester) has voted every year since 1975, according to available records – and he says he began voting in the late 1960s. Donovan, 53, the Republican Staten Island district attorney, voted every year since 1992, and says he has voted every year since becoming eligible in the mid-1970s. Democrat Sean Coffey, 54, a former federal prosecutor, voted in 15 of the 26 years since he registered to vote in Nassau in 1984, and recalled voting previously in other states. Eric R. Dinallo, 46, a former Democratic state insurance commissioner, voted in 14 of the 18 years since registering to vote in New York City in 1991. State Sen. Eric T. Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), 55, voted in 20 of the 24 years since he registered to vote in New York City in 1986, and said he voted as a student in Massachusetts in the 1970s. Rice first voted in 2002 in Philadelphia and has voted every year since. She had registered as an independent in Philadelphia in 2000 after she began working there as a federal prosecutor. In April 2005, Rice returned to Nassau, this time registering as a Democrat to run that year for district attorney. She won and was re-elected in 2009. Coffey’s campaign notes that he voted via military absentee ballot during his Navy years, but those ballots were likely not counted.

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AG Candidate Rice First Voted In 2002, 18 Years After Registering

Bouquet Bandit Says Flowers Show He Is "Polite"

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:08:14 +0000

Poor Edward Pemberton. After being busted for robbing a bank armed with a bouquet of flowers , the former Chelsea’s Flower District employee now says he never wants to see another flower again. He told the Daily News , “They’re the thing that did me in. …They’re bad memories now.” But he also believes the plants that caused his downfall should prove that he’s not really a bad guy. “The flowers show I’m polite… The flowers were ‘Thank yous’ to people who were giving me something that didn’t belong to them, and didn’t belong to me either.” Police caught Pemberton after taking fingerprints from his signature gift, finding him hiding in his brother’s closet in Bed-Stuy . Though other inmates have been asking for his autograph, the romantic father of two says he regrets choosing a life of crime that will keep him apart from his family. He said, “I love Sue [his girlfriend] more than anything in the world. I could do 100 years in here, but being away from her is what kills me. Tell my family I love them. Tell my victims I’m sorry.”

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Bouquet Bandit Says Flowers Show He Is "Polite"

Can You Identify New York City’s Buildings?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:03:00 +0000

How many buildings in New York City’s famous skyline can you identify? Click through the images to test yourself (answers at the end); the Illuminating Engineering Society of New York created this Nightseeing map , and the Daily News recently tested locals with it. Turns out their sample pool of New Yorkers didn’t test any better than tourists! One woman who has worked in the 75-story CitySpire building for three years couldn’t even identify it on the map (in fact, she could only name 3 of the 26 buildings on the map)—and one man standing in front of the Time Warner Center failed to name it on the map! How did you do?

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Can You Identify New York City’s Buildings?