Dan Doctoroff Issues Vague Call for Bold Sacrifice
A city planning guru dropped hints Monday that Team Bloomberg might be considering “congestion pricing” to charge drivers for the privilege of adding to gridlock, and today Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff the chief planning guru did nothing to discourage the speculation. Speaking at the annual meeting of the New York Metropolitcan Transportation Council, a regional body that coordinates federal transportation funds, Doctoroff talked of needing “a shift in the way we use automobiles” and called “congestion road, transit and pedestrian” the city’s main barrier to growth. He also noted that taxes and user fees funded the 1811 street grid, the dedication of Central Park, and the city’s water network. “Those who benefit should pay,” he said. Was he hinting at a new fee on driving or cars? Providing political cover for an MTA fare increase? Telling the suburban county chiefs in attendance to look out for a commuter tax? It remains to be seen. But he did promise to issue the mayor’s sustainability plan in early April, just before tax time. —Alec Appelbaum
Earlier: Bloomberg’s Planners Hear Public on Traffic Woes, Would Rather Talk About Something Else
Neighborhood Watch
Space for Even Your Butt in Williamsburg This WeekendHarlem: Eat at Dinosaur, get bowling discount. [UPTOWN flavor]
Lower East Side: Holes suspected in Schiller’s rubber glove story. That’s right, holes. [Gridskipper]
Soho: Babouche, the Moroccan restaurant and lounge brought to us by the people behind Barbes, now serves brochettes at brunch. [PDF: Babouche NYC]
Tribeca: Former Abboccato sous chef Greg Johnson is the new chef de cuisine at Dani. Sun amuses self calling the cook Dani Boy. [NYS]
Union Square: 15 East now serving lunch. But why didn’t the Eater boys “live-blog” the event? [NYS]
West Village: Blind Tiger will open at 4 p.m. today with beer on tap after an exasperating tug-of-war with the SLA. [Grub Street]
Williamsburg: Mystery Japanese restaurant on North 6th thought to open tonight. [A Test of Will] But you probably won’t get in until this weekend. [i’m not saying, I’m just saying] Thankfully new tapas joint Nita Nita has room enough for wide asses. [Bad Advice]
neighborhood watch
Jim McGreevey Exercises Gay American Right to Protest
Chelsea: More glassy façades are replacing the old tenements of Eighth Avenue north of 14th Street, creating more reflective surfaces for area pretty boys to admire themselves in. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Trap-neuter-return. Those three magic words can help humanely manage the area’s feral cat population. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Cobble Hill: Is that boarded-up old building on Warren St. really a former Christmas-ornament factory? And whatever is to become of it? [Lost City]
Gowanus: Faster than you can smuggle out towels in your suitcase, it looks like another hotel is coming to the area. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: The most awesome house ever is on Beadel Street and has a leopard-print door. [New York Shitty]
Times Square: As he promised yesterday, ex-Jersey guv Jim McGreevey turned out at the military recruitment center today (above) with about 60 other gays to protest a top general’s calling la vida homo “immoral.” [Towleroad]
new york fugging city
Let Rosie Be Rosie!
It probably can’t be a coincidence that in the same week rumors surfaced that she’ll stay on The View another year, co-host Rosie O’Donnell announced she’s laying down her machete in her very loud, very public, and very ugly feud with Donald Trump.
In the last several months, people have jumped on every challenging statement to drip from Rosie’s mouth – whether daring to call into question the solvency and taste of our most perplexingly follicled business blowhard or suggestion racism by the producers of America’s most cherished and holy institution (American Idol). Rumor had it that View boss Barbara Walters was displeased with her new hire, even hated her. Elisabeth Hasselbeck found herself on the other end of a Rosie rant and started crying a lot. Web site and magazine polls eagerly asked readers if Ro should go, and the answers trended toward yes. So why bring her back? Two words: ratings and publicity, both of which The View garnered in spades over the last year.
But now the confluence of her new contract and her surprising attempt to take the high road with Trump have us worried the producers have convinced Rosie to dilute herself. And we can’t be the only ones with the fervent hope that’s not the case.
What to Eat Tonight
We’ve Got Oceana’s New Menu — and Word of a Special ServedThe man Ben Pollinger succeeded as executive chef at Oceana in October, Cornelius Gallagher, was one of the city’s top toques, and much of the kitchen left with him. Finally, though, Pollinger has settled in and after much tweaking of the original, finally introduced his own menu (which we’ve filed into our flourishing playground of a database). Says the chef: “Oceana’s menu reflects my vision for what I wanted to do here: a kind of global seafood, with a simultaneous awareness of classic American cooking.”
grub street
The Gobbler’s Guide to Eating Like a FrenchmanWhere, o where, in this city of hiply casual dress codes and hautely fusioned cuisine options and Danny Meyerly chatty service can one find a good, old-fashioned, exorbitantly expensive, extravagantly presented, high French meal? That’s what the Gobbler’s globe-trotting friend Maurice wanted to know. And the Gobbler, as is his wont, came up with the answers. His list of New York’s top 10 outposts of continental opulence is at Grub Street.
Where to Send Your French Friend Maurice for Continental Opulence [Grub Street]
cultural capital
‘The Godfather’ at 35Thirty-five years ago tonight, The Godfather premiered at the Loews State Theater in Times Square. The good people at Variety remind us of this milestone, and to mark it run their original review on Variety.com. (“[I]t is also overlong at about 175 minutes (played without intermission), and occasionally confusing,” the film-land bible’s critic, A.D. Murphy, wrote in 1972. “While never so placid as to be boring, it is never so gripping as to be superior screen drama.”) Over at the Times, Vincent Canby was more impressed: “Francis Ford Coppola has made one of the most brutal and moving chronicles of American life ever designed within the limits of popular entertainment.” What did New York think? Not so much, apparently.
company town
Notes Go Missing in Charney CaseLAW
• Gallion & Spielvogel is drawn into Aaron Charney case when notes the firm kept during a settlement conference are destroyed. [Soloway via Above the Law]
• State Chief Judge Judith Kaye asks business leaders to lobby for judicial pay raises. [Crain’s]
• Harvard Law tops the list of 25 leading schools based on the success of its graduates. [Law Dragon via Above the Law]
the know-it-all
What’s an Auxiliary Cop?Last night’s murder of two auxiliary police officers in a bizarre Houston Street shoot-out accidentally shines a spotlight on the underreported vocation of auxiliary policing. Who are these uniformed, unarmed cops-but- not-quite, whom you probably wouldn’t be able to tell from the “real” police on the street, and why do people sign up for the gig?
photo op
The Morning After
Streets in the West Village remained closed this morning after a shoot-out last night that left a bartender, two auxiliary police officers, and the gunman dead. Here, the view east on Bleecker Street from Macdougal Street. The assailant, David Garvin, was shot and killed by police on this block.
gossipmonger
More Bad News for Time Inc.The cafeteria at Time Inc. has a rodent and plumbing problem. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering running for Senate. Nobu partner Drew Nieporent just opened Mai House, a Vietnamese eatery on Franklin Street, says Cindy Adams. (Actually, Cindy, he opened it a few months ago.) Some snobby Columbia students were disappointed that alum Matthew Fox was chosen to speak at graduation. Howard Stern filmed a naked basketball segment with porn stars for his TV show. Martha Stewart is not fond of the courtroom sketch artist who drew her.
Mediavore
De Marco’s Bartender Shot in Village Gun Rampage; Big-Check Chains on theDeMarco’s bartender and two NYPD auxiliary officers shot and killed in Village gun rampage. [NYP]
High-end chain restaurants like Smith & Wollensky or Dos Caminos are on the rise, as some recent mergers and acquisitions suggest. [Nation’s Restaurant News]
Joël Robuchon stands behind the counter at L’Atelier this week; Alain Ducasse may not be going to Chicago after all. [Snack]
in other news
Countdown to Saint Patrick’s Day: C Is for Cookie
At Saint Patrick’s Day approaches, the man who might be New York’s angriest blogger, Copyranter Mark Duffy, reminds us of an artifact of our not particularly Irish New York youth: Carvel’s Cookie O’Puss. Specifically, he found what we think is the TV commercial that initially introduced regular Cookie Puss’s Irish friend. It’s from 1982, and dig those low-fi special effects. Copyranter, we thank you for your patronage.
Cookie Puss [Copyranter]
party lines
Maya Rudolph Did Not Like ‘300’300, the bloody action movie based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the ancient battle of Thermopylae, has conquered the all-time March box-office record, and also the hearts of the SNL cast — with the exception of Maya Rudolph. Asked what was the most “rockin’” thing they’d done to prep for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony they attended this week, Fred Armisen replied, “We went to the movies!” Andy Samberg clarified, “We saw 300.” Did they get more excited about this movie than the Chronicles of Narnia? Their tale of moviegoing is after the jump.
the morning line
The Noho Corral
• A massive gunfight on Macdougal and Houston ended with two “auxiliary officers” (volunteer cops), a bartender, and the gunman dead; as many as 30 shots were fired in all. Bizarre details abound (the perp, wearing a fake beard, shot the bartender fifteen times in the back). [NYT]
• Eliot Spitzer and embattled Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno had it out in a fifteen-minute shouting match of the kind that’s fast becoming a hallmark of Spitzer’s reign; cowed witnesses say Bruno blew up after Spitzer called his proposed budget increases “absurd.” [NYP]
• Naughty in the Hamptons: An Amagansett physician is out on a $500,000 bail for allegedly churning out millions’ worth of phony OxyContin prescriptions; a Southampton cop is accused of soliciting female suspects for sex bribes Bad Lieutenant-style. [WNBC, Newsday]
• New Yorkers really, really love Bloomberg: a new Quinnipiac poll finds the mayor enjoying a 73 percent approval rating, with 46 percent preferring him to Giuliani and 46 percent figuring Mike for a better presidential candidate than his predecessor. Considering he isn’t even running, that’s gotta hurt, Rudy. [NYDN]
• And, here’s one more demographic the mayor just won over: pedicab drivers. Bloomberg granted the slightly wacky industry a last-minute reprieve from the proposed tough regulations after talking to a group of drivers. Aww. [amNY]
