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Mindboggling Reveals: DoBro’s Future Park With Parking Will Look Like This

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:10:41 +0000

First comes the housing, then comes the green space: Downtown Brooklyn is a little closer to getting Willoughby Square Park , a one-acre public space with an underground parking garage on Willoughby Street. The Economic Development Corporation first solicited proposals for the project back in 2007, and has now chosen the above Hargreaves Associates design, Brownstoner notes. The “Bryant Park of Brooklyn,” part of the neighborhood’s 2004 rezoning plan, will have landscaping and seating but no space for recreation. · Behold Willoughby Square Park ['Stoner] · Willoughby Square Park [NYCEDC]

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Mindboggling Reveals: DoBro’s Future Park With Parking Will Look Like This

Food Truck Takes Over Tavern On The Green

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:10:03 +0000

Shuttered Tavern On The Green will be getting a taste of the city’s food truck trend now that the Parks Department awarded a one-year $100,000 concession to Mount Kisco based Ladle of Love —now with a new Rosh Hashanah menu ! The truck will be serving soups, sandwiches and salads as well as wines and cocktails from a truck parked in a courtyard across from the former iconic restaurant. Ladle of Love will be joined by three other food trucks in the area.

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Food Truck Takes Over Tavern On The Green

NJ Education Commish Asked To Be Fired For Unemployment

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:40:00 +0000

Bret Schundler The saga of New Jersey’s $400 million education funding SNAFU continues. When we last left off, Governor Christie was so upset over the mistake that he fired state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler. But now, Schundler says he asked Christie to fire him instead of forcing him to resign. The reason? College is expensive! He told NorthJersey.com , ““I asked if they would mind writing a termination letter, instead of a resignation letter, because I do have a mortgage to pay, and I do have a daughter who’s just started college.” Schundler was forced out after Christie accused him of feeding him the wrong information for the application (which Christie said the federal government could have just found on the internet anyway ). But now Schundler is saying Christie made the mistakes all by himself. Citing a saved batch of emails between him and the governor, Schundler said , “The governor made an error. But it wasn’t an error caused by me giving him the wrong information…It’s very important for it not to be perceived that I tried to hide something or mislead someone. I didn’t.” Schundler told the Wall Street Journal (paywall) he gave the governor accurate information, and Christie just happened to forget it during the interview with the federal government. “I said to him, ‘No I did not have the data and I did not seek’” to give the federal judges the missing financial information,” said Schundler, and guessed his “best interpretation, what I like to imagine, is that the governor, when he’s on a roll and he’s moving so quickly, he was thinking of what he was going to say and he’s forgetting what I said two minutes ago.”

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NJ Education Commish Asked To Be Fired For Unemployment

Video: ManBarbie Robber Was Also Thirsty

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:12:29 +0000

Police have released surveillance video of the cross-dressing robber who held up a stationery store in Lynbrook on Thursday. And though he donned a blond wig and a baby-pink jumpsuit, WABC says , “he was packing a pistol in his purse and that’s no joke.” The man reportedly approached the clerk, removed the gun from his white purse and demanded cash. However, when the clerk fumbled with the cash register , the crook “became frustrated and stole a bottle of Gatorade and fled the store” on a woman’s bike . At least he was staying in character! Check out the surveillance video below: Police describe the man as between 25 and 30 years old, about 5′8″, and has brown hair under his blond wig. He may have ditched the jogging suit for a different getup by now.

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Video: ManBarbie Robber Was Also Thirsty

Video: NYC Man Walks From Rockaway To Rockaway

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:52:28 +0000

Matt Green walks through Rockaway Beach, OR (with his supplies) yesterday (Rick Bowmer/AP) A New York City man named Matt has been walking across the country and documenting his journey here . He started in Rockaway Beach, Queens, and just ended—152 days later— in Rockaway Beach, Oregon —where he celebrated by running in to the ocean: Why did he do it? Who knows—on his website he quotes John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row , and explains : “A couple years ago I started a walking group called Hey, I’m Walkin’ Here! in New York City, and my love for walking really blossomed over the course of our adventures. Moving through the world at three miles an hour, you can fully take in your surroundings. I’m just doing it for the hell of it. Or, more precisely, I’m doing it for its own sake, for the value inherent in the act itself.” If the MetroCard is going to cost $130/month soon, you may want to start thinking like this guy!

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Video: NYC Man Walks From Rockaway To Rockaway

Anti-Cyclist Scaremongering At Boiling Point

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:46:47 +0000

F.Trainer’s Flickr This week CBS 2 and the NY Post are busy fanning the flames of the bicycle backlash. CBS 2’s sensationalist ” Bike Bedlam” series looks at the turf war over street space fought between motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, focusing on “plenty of New Yorkers [who] have little liking for the biking.” CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reports that “many New Yorkers have stories to tell about dangerous encounters with bike riders, but when you look for statistics, they are nowhere to be found. New York City doesn’t keep a central database of accidents involving bicycles and pedestrians.” But a DOT source tells Streetsblog that Aiello didn’t even bother asking the DOT for this info, probably because it goes against his anti-bike narrative. The DOT’s numbers show that accidents between cyclists and pedestrians have gone down almost by half since 2001, from 130 to 49, despite a major increase in the number of cyclists in NYC. Streetsblog’s Ben Fried says the stats “pretty much shred the whole ‘Bike Bedlam’ premise that pro-bike policies are putting pedestrians in danger.” And when Fried contacted Aiello to ask him if he had indeed tried to contact the DOT, Aiello snapped, “The city DOT press office has no business talking to you—or to me, or to anyone, about inquiries made by other journalists.” And there’s the Post’s Andrea Peyser , who just keeps on giving. In her most recent column, she braves the city’s streets to reinforce her pre-conceived notion that cyclists are essentially Al Qaeda terrorists on two wheels. “You see them coming from the corner of your eye, if you’re lucky,” writes Peyser. “Fearless bike riders, whom Mayor Bloomberg and his minions see as the green glory of New York, have morphed into what a police spokesman said was the Upper East Side’s No. 1 quality-of-life menace. “Taking my life into my hands, I stopped deliveryman Ivan Zamora, 25, as he ignored signs and rode in the opposite direction of arrows painted on First Avenue. He removed his noise-blocking headphones. ‘I think it’s OK’ to ride the wrong way, said Zamora. ‘The cops no give me a ticket.’ ” The dangerous, illiterate scofflaw then ran his calloused fingers through Peyser’s hair and pulled her in for a long, passionate kiss, which she was powerless to resist, and which instantly transformed Peyser from an odious, elitist hack to a vivacious, fun-loving pixie eager to try new things. And then we woke up.

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Anti-Cyclist Scaremongering At Boiling Point

Blind Serving The Blind At Dans Le Noir?

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:40:59 +0000

The concept of ” Dark Dining ,” a meal in which the customer is blindfolded, is not very new . But Community Board 3 just gave the green light for a liquor license to “blind dining” franchise Dans Le Noir? , who will be adding an extra twist to their New York establishment: blind waiters. They say the service will create an “interesting sensory experience,” and Lighthouse International, a nonprofit whose services include finding jobs for blind people, say they have plenty of people who would love the employment opportunity. Sounds great, but this sounds a little too much like we’re going to wind up eating blue steak for us to get completely on board.

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Blind Serving The Blind At Dans Le Noir?

Video: Shirtless Firefighters!

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:20:37 +0000

There are few traditions better than the firefighter calendar… and the 2011 City of the Brave calendar has arrived! According to the Daily News , this is different than the official FDNY calendar, but who doesn’t need more than one calendar? Photographer Katherine Kostreva created the City of the Brave one after firefighters saved her life, and the 26-year-old has since “made it her artistic mission to honor the firemen’s selfless bravado and their muscular bodies.” Meet those muscular bodies at the launch party at Red Sky Bar (47 East 29th Street) tomorrow at 8 p.m. And in the interest of being fair, here’s a peek at the official FDNY calendar boys. You’re welcome:

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Video: Shirtless Firefighters!

Linkage: Iconic Hotel in Contract; Chelsea Museum Takes Time Out

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:56:17 +0000

[Via Curbed Photo Pool/holdfast ] · Iconic but closed Milford Plaza Hotel finds a buyer [NYP] · Modell’s moving into UWS’s Harrison [NYO] · Amenity alert: young renters care about free WiFi [BrickU] · One Williamsburg resident’s bedbug story [NYDN] · There’s a woman who lives aboard a retired Red Hook Oil Tanker [NYT] · Chelsea Art Museum shutting for month as it tries to avoid foreclosure [WSJ] · No clear timeline for future of Tavern on the Green [NYP] · Stores with cabbie customers surprisingly not fans of new bike lanes! [DNAinfo]

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Linkage: Iconic Hotel in Contract; Chelsea Museum Takes Time Out

CurbedWire: Brooklyner Rooftop Open; Wrecking Ball Making Early Coney Stop?

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:55:11 +0000

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN— Two tenants wrote in late Friday to inform us that the roof deck on the 51st floor of The Brooklyner , Brooklyn’s tallest tower, is officially open to building residents. This after the tenants weren’t invited to a belated building opening party on the rooftop back in June. We assume everyone involved is now enjoying those DoBro sunset views (of which one happy tenant took a video !) in peace and harmony. [CurbedWire Inbox] CONEY ISLAND— Apparently it’s not just the Grashorn and Coney Island Bank Building structures that will soon be feeling the weight of Thor’s hammer. Save Coney Island writes in a press release that workers began demo work this a.m. without permits on Coney’s Henderson Music Hall . Unsurprisingly, Save Coney would like Thor to stop the wrecking ball. The above spy shot was taken early this morning. [CurbedWire Inbox]

CurbedWire: Brooklyner Rooftop Open; Wrecking Ball Making Early Coney Stop?