Welcome Home, Intrepid!The beloved floating museum returned to Manhattan today, and some photographer snuck into an important person’s office to take a picture of it.
ByChris Rovzar
company town
NBC Throws a ChangeupThe Peacock network is the first to ditch the traditional notion of television “seasons.” That, and more news from the city’s media, finance, law and real-estate industries.
it just happened
Intrepid ‘Intrepid’ Finally Sails Away
This morning, 24 years after it opened as a museum and a month after the last attempt to move it, the USS Intrepid was successfully towed from its home at Pier 86. We’re pleased to see that the Hudson River mud is, in the end, no match for the U.S. Navy.
Earlier: USS ‘Intrepid’ Behaves Like Any Other New Yorker With a Long Lease at a Good Rent
the morning line
Hillary for President!
• OMG. Hillary Clinton is — you’re not gonna believe this — totally running for president. She said so to a “New York lawmaker” on the phone, and he told the Post. Her declaration? “I’m really going to go for this.” OMG. [NYP]
• Yesterday in Astor-ia: In finalizing the settlement long settled, Anthony Marshall was cleared of abuse allegations concerning his 104-year-old mother, Brooke Astor. He and his wife still need to return over $11 million in “gifts.” Oh, and his lawyer was docked 10 percent of his six-figure fee for chatting to the press. [NYDN]
• Thirty-nine people in New York and New Jersey are now down with E. coli, all traceable to a single Taco Bell in South Plainfield, New Jersey. Some of the joint’s employees are sick as well. And the marketers of Fast Food Nation are really wishing this happened two weeks ago. [NYT]
• Crews will take another tug at the ol’ Intrepid, currently stuck in cementlike silt on its way to a dry dock where it was supposed to be getting a spruce-up. The path is reportedly clear now that a Navy contractor has ladled out some of the gunk from under the ship’s stern (for $3 million). [amNY]
• And in an irresistible police-blotter item, a man is arrested for a series of shop, hotel, and drug-store robberies wherein he’d open his coat to reveal a dynamite-stick belt (actually highway flares). Inventive but unsurprising, considering the perp is an actor with Law & Order on his resume. (Duh-dum.) [WNBC]
the morning line
Hizzoner for Prez!
• Rudy Giuliani is absolutely positively running in ‘08, the papers say, unless he’s not. The ex-mayor formed an exploratory committee, registering it, intriguingly, with New York State instead of the Federal Elections Commission (this limits public access to the findings). So how long before Bernie Kerik somehow screws this one up? [NYP, NYDN]
• From the police blotter, a murky drama in Brooklyn: A mother leaped onto subway tracks in front of the F train shortly after the police found her son dead in the family’s apartment. She survived; the authorities are investigating how the boy died. [WNBC]
• For those keeping track: The Intrepid is still stuck in Hudson River mud; the first attempt at budging it failed; now a new round of dredging begins. The ship’s keel and propellers are reportedly encased in an “almost concrete-like” sediment. And the next highest tide is not until December. [amNY]
• Looks like the upcoming Spanish exhibit at the Guggenheim is going to be a Goya short. The painting Children With a Cart was stolen somewhere near Scranton, Pennsylvania, while making its way to New York from Toledo (the one in Ohio). The FBI is on the case, which is to say they’re soliciting tips. [NYT]
• And in other painting-mishap news, it will only cost Steve Wynn $85,000 to repair the damage caused when he put his elbow through Picasso’s Le Reve. The gaffe’s witnesses, by the way, included Barbara Walters and Nora Ephron. So we’d expect Tom Hanks to soon be stumbling through a Pollack or something at a theater near you, on his way to meeting Meg Ryan. [AP via Yahoo]
it just happened
USS ‘Intrepid’ Behaves Like Any Other New Yorker With a Long Lease at a Good Rent
The Intrepid was scheduled to be moved today from its West Side home to New Jersey for repairs — and a refurbishment of its pier — but refused to go, getting stuck in the Hudson River mud. The move was called off at about 10:30 a.m.
USS Intrepid Stuck in Mud; Move Put on Hold [NY1]
the morning line
End of the Race
• As you probably know by now, Brazil’s Gomes dos Santos won the men’s side of the New York marathon yesterday in a massive upset; Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia defended her women’s title. Lance Armstrong came in 856th. And, in a rare moment when the cliché actually makes sense, a good time was had by all. (Yuk yuk yuk.) [AP via NYDN]
• The Post, classy as ever, Photoshops a noose on Saddam’s neck, as Republicans furiously milk the dictator’s curiously well-timed death sentence for last-minute gains. [NYP]
• Jury selection begins in one of the weirdest murder trials in recent history: A one-legged Long Island man shot an arrow at a stranger he found threatening, piercing his heart and killing him. The alleged bow killer, although caught on the run, is pleading not guilty. [amNY]
• The Intrepid sails off! The museum ship — as familiar a fixture on the West Side as the Lincoln Tunnel, at least for the last few decades — is heading to Bayonne, New Jersey, for repairs. Eighty-eight-year-old Rear Admiral Lloyd Abbot Jr., who commanded it more than 40 years ago, will serve as skipper for the short journey. [WNBC]
• And Jeanine Pirro gets a late endorsement for attorney general where it counts: from the New York City Department of Correction Columbia Association (an organization of Italian-American prison workers). We don’t even know which joke to go with here. [Empire Newswire]
