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Billionaires Have Bad Days, Too
Carl Icahn is struggling with various projects, Sharon Waxman becomes the latest media lady to start a news-aggregation Website, and — it's official! — most City Council members pay less rent than you do, in our daily roundup of finance, media, real-estate and entertainment news.
Posted 08/11/08 in Daily Intel : Company Town
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Christine Quinn Joins the Scandal Bandwagon
The City Council Speaker has been allocating monies to phony nonprofits at the beginning of every year so she can use the funds later for favors, reports the Post.
Posted 04/03/08 in Daily Intel : Early and Often
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Bloomberg Wins Major Battle in Congestion-Pricing War
One of Mayor Bloomberg's great big plans for changing the city just got a huge boost from the City Council. What he's probably thinking.
Posted 04/01/08 in Daily Intel : In Other News
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Housing Advocate Brad Lander to Run for DeBlasio's Council Spot
Brooklyn City Councilman Bill DeBlasio plans to run for borough president, and the guy who wants to replace him is part of the borough’s urbanist next generation. "I’m running," said Brad Lander, 38, who directs the nonprofit Pratt Center for Community Development. Lander, neighbors might remember, got the Bloomberg administration to include affordable-housing incentives when rezoning the Williamsburg waterfront two years ago. A savvy political operator, Lander is also popular with the brownstone-bourgeois crowd — the Atlantic Yards Report quotes him approvingly. Even Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, has battled with Lander and admits grudging respect. "He’s a bright individual," Spinola says. Having successfully fought last year to bring those affordable-housing incentives to parts of all five boroughs, Lander now wants to expand them to the entire city and require public amenities in all development. He also wants to save rent stabilization. "What I feel a lot of passion about is, shouldn’t this growth and development bring us new parks and affordable housing and jobs?" he told us. "It seems like all they bring is luxury condos." —Alec Appelbaum
Posted 11/16/07 in Daily Intel : Intel
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The City Is Coming for Your Takeout
The city has taken away from you the simple pleasure of a beer and a cigarette, the delicious trans fats that made food you know is not good for you even less good for you, the words "nigger" and, potentially, "bitch" from your vocabulary, and, if Peter Vallone Jr. has his way, the right to look out your window and into your neighbor's. So what can the City Council come up with to ban next? Today's Sun finds the answer: Styrofoam! "It is mind-boggling that our city, which is becoming a leader on environmental issues, is still using Styrofoam when we know it is extremely harmful to our environment and creating massive amounts of waste," said the councilman behind the idea, Bill de Blasio. And frankly we're disappointed. That makes perfect sense: Can't he come up with something more creative to ban? City Council Bill Would Take Out City's Styrofoam [NYS] Earlier: Peter Vallone Jr. Is Coming for You, and for Jimmy Stewart
Posted 08/23/07 in Daily Intel : In Other News
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Peter Vallone Jr. Is Coming for You, and for Jimmy Stewart
When Peter Vallone Jr. came for the graffiti artists, we did not speak up, because we are not graffiti artists. Now Peter Vallone Jr. is coming for the Peeping Toms, and we were not going to speak up, because we are not Peeping Toms. But then we read about the city councilman's proposal in today's Sun, and we got worried. You see, the crazed neo-Fascist wants to extend a state law banning nonconsensual peeping with cameras to also criminalize peeping with the naked eye. Which means, as we read it, and as the Sun seems to read it, too, that anyone looking out his window and into the apartment across the way — a venerable and beloved New York tradition, one dissected by Arianne Cohen in the magazine's last Reasons to Love New York issue — would be violating the law. Soon, there'll be no one left to speak up for us. Ban on Window Peeping Is Sought [NYS] Because We Like to Watch [NYM]
Posted 08/22/07 in Daily Intel : In Other News
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Partly Cooked
• Something to ponder during your commute: The most recent federal survey rated the upkeep of the Brooklyn Bridge lower than its collapsed Minneapolis counterpart. [NYDN]Posted 08/03/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Eliot Spitzer Has Reached Acceptance
• The Albany County D.A., P. David Soares, announced yesterday that he will review Cuomo's findings regarding use of state police by the governor's office. Spitzer, sounding more Zen by the minute: "I welcome it, I accept it." [amNY]
Posted 08/02/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Stalled Traffic
• After all that, Albany shelved Bloomberg's congestion-pricing idea, letting the federal-funding deadline pass without the issue even coming to a vote. Expect a new traffic-reducing proposal, nothing like Bloomberg's, later in the year. [NYT]
Posted 07/17/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Traffic Jam
• The Feds are insistent on their Monday deadline for approval of Bloomberg's congestion-pricing plan, the mayor says, and Shelly Silver's Assembly doesn't even have plans to reconvene to discuss it. Poor Mike. [NYT]
Posted 07/11/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Educating About Sonny Carson
So the fight over the proposed renaming of four blocks in Brooklyn as Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue has reached the point where people are threatening to kill each other over it. Is the plan really, as Mayor Bloomberg said, "the worst idea the City Council has had in recent memory"? Maybe, maybe not. There's little more controversial about Carson's positions than, say, Malcolm X's: He freely mixed admirable initiatives (closing down crack houses, fighting police corruption), dramatic ideas (reinterring black slaves in Africa), and the baby-with-the-bathwater nationalist rhetoric. But Malcolm X was infamously "glad" at JFK's death, and he's got a street. Here's an observation we can submit, though — Sonny Carson was, among other things, an expert street renamer. As chairman of the Committee to Honor Black Heroes, he led the fight to rename Reid Avenue after Malcolm X, Sumner Avenue after Marcus Garvey, and Fulton to Harriet Ross Tubman Boulevard. Clever, creating the precedent, eh? Related: Fighting In the Spirit of Sonny Abubadika Carson [Amsterdam News]
Posted 06/01/07 in Daily Intel : In Other News
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Murdoch's Meeting
• Now, finally, inevitably, the Bancroft family has announced it would "consider" selling Dow Jones. The rest is hemming and hedging, but do click through for the most ridiculously villainous photo of Murdoch the Times has ever run. [NYT] • Leroy Comria, a city councilman, has been issued police protection after another councilman's aide kinda sorta threatened to assassinate him. Why? Because Comria wouldn't vote to rename a street in honor of Black Nationalist Sonny Carson. [NYP] • While Bloomberg wants to increase the city's real-estate tax cut from 5 to 8.5 percent, renters are screwed again — looks like the Christine Quinn–proposed $300 refund to the city tenants won't happen. [NYDN] • Columbia University, squeezed by the AG's office over an alleged violation of student-loan laws, denies any wrongdoing — but agrees to pay up to a million dollars nonetheless. [amNY] • And, in a possible first, the Hotel Chelsea Blog has inspired a documentary, Living With Legends. The last outpost of bohemia, gentrification, whither New York, blah blah. [WNBC]
Posted 06/01/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Five Shots
• Another cop's bullet, another unarmed man dead, another immigrant family demanding justice. An off-duty Manhattan officer apparently killed a Honduran van driver who sideswiped a parked car and tried to leave the scene. An investigation is under way. [amNY] • New York State's Republican party is beginning to line up behind Rudy Giuliani, on the logic that his candidacy will help the GOP hold the State Senate. One senator says "ethnic Democrats," i.e. immigrants, will vote Rudy. Yeah, he's got the Diallo vote all sewn up. [NYT] • Bruce Ratner must be sweatin' about something: He's sent out letters to 700 addresses near Atlantic Yards promising residents free ACs and double-paned windows (to minimize construction nuisances). The kicker: Daniel Goldstein got one. [NYP] • The City Council is touting the "undeniable success" of a campaign designed to inform clinics and drugstores that Plan B, an emergency birth-control pill, can be sold over the counter; some 94 percent of surveyed city stores had it available. [WNBC] • And in lesser city initiatives, a Brooklyn assemblyman is aghast after having been hipped to the fact there are hookers on the Internet. Specifically, on Craigslist! You mean all those "18 y.o. bored females" aren't just, you know, bored? [NYDN]
Posted 05/21/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Foiled
• Six men from New Jersey and Philadelphia are charged with a bizarre plot to attack Fort Dix with assault weapons; this time, the Feds seem to have all the necessary goods on the plotters, including tapes of weapons training (in rural Pennsylvania!). [NYT]
• A huge chunk of Albany's political elite, from Eliot Spitzer on down, are poised to align themselves with Hillary Clinton in the '08 race. Lieutenant Governor David Patterson, Andrew Cuomo, Shelly Silver, et al are all in; Spitzer will announce from Statehouse steps this noon. [amNY]
• Mike Bloomberg is not exactly kind to the city's parkers (who can forget "Stop griping"), but at least he's fair: The mayor's annoyed with municipal workers who whip out government car placards in non-emergency situations, and wants to kill the perk. [NYP]
• Noticed a rash of nasty labor disputes at big-name restaurants lately? So has the City Council. A new bill, to be introduced today, would empower the Health Department to crack down on eateries with labor and wage violations. Bring on the (inflatable) rats! [MetroNY]
• And, teams of sewer workers — with names like the Tallman Island Turd Surfers and the Bowery Bay Bowl Busters — have competed in the twentieth annual Olympics of Sewage Treatment. The Bowery Boys won and will move on to the state finals. That is all. [NYDN]Posted 05/09/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Bruce Ratner vs. the Homeless, Too
• 350 residents were ordered out of a homeless shelter after a parapet fell off a Ratner-condemned building next door. Even the dourest pessimists at Develop Don't Destroy didn't think mass displacement at Atlantic Yards would already be an issue. [NYT] • So that's why the City Council wants to ban metal bats: An assistant baseball coach at East Side's Norman Thomas H.S. allegedly went medieval with one, clubbing two kids over the head for cheering on a rival team. [NYDN] • Not a week after a court confirmed activists' right to film cops at protests, the NYPD is asking a judge to give officers back the right to film protesters. Everyone's a damn auteur in this city. [amNY] • Asian American groups are steadily mounting an Imus Redux; CBS Radio is under pressure to can shock jocks "JV and Elvis" for prank-calling a Chinese restaurant with "shlimp flied lice" jokes. Shouldn't we be addressing the larger issue of why prank-calling restaurants is a marketable career option? [MediaChannel] • And Jon Corzine says "I'm the most blessed person who ever lived." Point taken, J.C.: The man is walking and talking two weeks after meeting a guardrail at 91mph. [WNBC]
Posted 04/27/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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City Council: Beware of Nanny Agencies
It's nerve-racking enough to find a nanny in this city — well, at least so we're told — and now it seems you can't even trust the agencies that are supposed to help ease the process. The City Council released a study last week showing that about half the nanny agencies surveyed break the law: A four-month survey of 37 out of the city’s 52 nanny agencies (as well as interviews with a handful of nannies) turned up infractions running from the bureaucratic (leaving license numbers off public advertisements) to the dubious (overcharging both parents and nannies for services; operating without a license).
Posted 04/24/07 in Daily Intel : Intel
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Council: 2; Mayor: 0
• The City Council overrode Bloomberg's veto and instituted a ban on metal baseball bats in high schools. And council members did the same with his veto of pedicab restrictions. A two-hitter, if you will. [Bloomberg] • President Bush is in town today for a speech and a photo op at the Harlem Village Academy Charter School, because it's been doing well under the No Child Left Behind act. We're sure the city had nothing to do with the improvement! At any rate, enjoy the gridlock. [amNY] • Historian David Halberstam, Pulitzer-winning legend of New York journalism died in a Bay Area car crash. Halberstam covered the Vietnam war for the Times and went on to write dozens of widely read books on that and other subjects. [WNBC] • The condo-weary Upper West Side is making like the Lower East and mulling a height limit on buildings. Under a proposed plan, all new construction west of the park between 97th and 110th Street would top off at about fourteen stories. [NYDN] • And the Waverly Inn — still not officially opened! — got slapped with 38 points for nine violations by the Health Department, including "mouse activity." We're sure our Grub Street brethren will have more to say, so let us just quickly smile at Mr. Carter's plan for a "Waverly cat" to deal with the mice. [NYT]
Posted 04/24/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Cardinal Rules
• Cardinal Egan turned 75 yesterday, and, as is required of cardinals who reach that age, submitted a resignation letter to the Vatican. The move could well be a mere formality — the Pope doesn't have to accept — but Egan's shaky standing within the archdiocese is giving it extra weight. [WNBC] • They set 'em up, he knocks 'em down: Fresh from vetoing the proposed pedicab guidelines, Mayor Bloomberg is overriding the much-discussed City Council ban on aluminum bats. ("I don't think that it's the city's business to regulate that.") [NYDN] • There will be an Imam on the NYPD payroll. The force is hiring a new chaplain. Khalid Latif, a Sunni who's ministered at NYU and Princeton, will be in charge of counseling the department's many Muslim officers. [amNY] • Starbucks is accused of breaking the law 30 times trying to stem unionization in its Manhattan shops. Now brewing, allegedly: retaliation firings, illegal interrogations of workers, and selective enforcement of the company's dress policy. [NYT] • And police on Franklin Gallimore III, the man that allegedly murdered his parents in cold blood when they asked him to move out: "He was a 20-year-old who was not living up to his mother's expectations." [NYP]
Posted 04/03/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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Really, What the Bell?
• Remember yesterday's sensational admission by a Queens drug dealer that he was once shot — "in the buttocks" — by the future police victim Sean Bell? Disregard. Not only is the guy backtracking, he denies ever saying it to the cops (who say they have it on tape). [NYP] • Meanwhile, in the wake of the Village gunman's rampage, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city is giving its 4,500 auxiliary cops bulletproof vests (at the cost of more than $2 million). Thing is, though, one of the two slain officers was wearing a vest. [amNY] • And another cop got shot in the ankle. In Park Slope. By a guy who was facing nothing more serious than a possession charge (he was spotted smoking a joint on the street). Great. [NYDN] • The home-buying boom's worst-case scenario is playing out in Newark, which has one of the highest concentrations of brutal "subprime loans" in the country: Staggering debt and foreclosures are close to wiping out entire neighborhoods. [NYT] • And a city councilwoman is proposing a citywide ban on all exotic animal performers, timed to coincide with the circus' arrival at the Madison Square Garden. We wouldn't be the first, either — progressive places from Pasadena to Provincetown have already passed the proposal. [MetroNY]
Posted 03/28/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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The Perfect Firetrap
• Yesterday's lethal Bronx fire was a perfect storm of human error: faulty wiring, two dead smoke alarms, no fire escape, the tenants' panicked attempt to deal with the flame themselves, and a tardy rescue truck. [NYT] • Look who's back in business: Former mayor Ed Koch will head a commission that will review, and help reform, the state comptroller's office. Also on the commission: Tom Suozzi, the would-be Spitzer, and the AFL-CIO chief. We're getting serious "shadow government" vibes. [amNY] • Mathieu Eugene, who beat nine opponents for a City Council seat, is demanding a revote. Despite his decisive victory, Eugene can't take office: He flouted the residency requirement by living in Canarsie before the election. Meanwhile, leaderless East Flatbush shockingly does not descend into anarchy. [NYDN] • In a Law & Order–worthy case of creative definition of jurisdiction, the Manhattan D.A. is indicting a Brazilian congressman, Paulo Maluf. Maluf has never been in New York, but his money sure was: $11.6 million of it, all allegedly stolen and funneled through a Fifth Avenue bank. [MetroNY] • Speaking of Law & Order: The community-board meeting on renaming a midtown intersection the Jerry Orbach Corner turned into meta-farce when Sam Waterston showed up to address the surly board. The vote ended in hung jury. [NYT]
Posted 03/09/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line
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