Hudson River Airspace: A Tunnel of Terror?A terrible tragedy over the weekend has caused some soul-searching in the aviation community over unregulated traffic over the river.
ByChris Rovzar
company town
‘Times’ to Raise Cover Price 25 CentsPlus AMI is headed for tough times, Fox News makes fun of Nas, Andrew Cuomo looks into AIG, and more, in our daily industry roundup.
intel
Pepsi’s Super Bowl Ad Drags Justin Through NYC
Click above to witness Pepsi’s latest Super Bowl effort. As usual, their big ad involves a celebrity doing something slightly embarrassing and vaguely funny — remember Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey awkwardly dancing on cars? Or Diddy driving a Pepsi delivery truck? Or Britney Spears and Beyoncé as Gladiators? (Okay, that last one was awesome). But this one features an extended cameo by our favorite lady of all, New York City. Justin Timberlake starts out the commercial with some friends at his NYC restaurant, Southern Hospitality. He’s mysteriously yanked out the door and dragged up the side of a building (where SNL star Andy Samberg makes a predictably uncomfortable cameo). Then he’s thrown into the Hudson River near Chelsea and pulled into the suburbs (where he runs into Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and gets hit in the head with a flat-screen TV). We’re not really sure about the message of this ad, but anything that involves a celebrity getting dunked in the Hudson makes us happy. If not particularly thirsty.
Pepsi USA [Official site]
developing
Hudson Yards Development: Guaranteed GreenYou may have seen a bunch of renderings of potential designs for the land above the Hudson Yards in this morning’s papers. But as one of the teams’ lead architects pointed out to us, “The challenge is, your eye immediately goes to the buildings, but it’s unlikely any of the buildings are going to look like this. That’s the challenge to the MTA, to boil down fundamental issues for the public.” So instead, we’re giving you one of the images that probably will find its way into reality if its team is selected — one for the long, narrow green space looking eastward from the Durst/Vornado proposal. That might just be the glass arc over the proposed Moynihan Station that you see in the distance. But meanwhile, what is Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling doing in the foreground on the right? —Alec Appelbaum
Related: The Next ‘West’ Thing [NYP]
Five Companies Bid to Remake Six Blocks of Hudson Yards Area [NYDN]
intel
Mayor’s Gal Gets a New GigDiana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend, just snagged herself a new government job: Governor Spitzer announced her appointment today as head of the Hudson River Park Trust, the state entity in charge of converting land along the West Side Highway into a paradise of playgrounds and boat launches and bike paths. After a career in finance, Taylor joined the governor’s office in the Pataki administration. In 2003, he appointed her New York State’s superintendent of banks, a position she held until February, when she stepped down to join a private investment firm. Her new post will be about as hard as any we can imagine: The trust is regularly lambasted from all sides. Everyone from powerful developers like Times Square landlord Doug Durst to the aging hippies who run the free-kayak program routinely fault it for either regulating too heavily or moving too lethargically. Even worse, when a developer is selected for the MTA’s Hudson Yards site, which should happen this fall, a whole new tangle of questions will arise about access and development rights. A relocation to Washington, D.C., might start to seem like a good exit strategy. —Alec Appelbaum
photo op
The Fleet Is In
The USS Wasp passing the Statue of Liberty earlier today. We’ll spare you the obvious joke about our being down by the piers if you need us.
the morning line
Mike ‘10!
• Mayor Bloomberg says he may run for governor in 2010. The reasoning: He is allegedly angry at Spitzer for trying to “run the city,” so he may as well wrest the state from him. Does this mean people will finally stop bugging Mike to run for president in ‘08? [NYP]
• We told you the Giuliani campaign is going to be filled with moments like this, and, boy, does the man deliver: Just as Rudy got comfortable saying he “hates abortion” on the trail, out pop his donations to Planned Parenthood — six of them, all made while he was mayor. [amNY]
• The Daily News drops an interesting statistic: There are 250,820 fugitives currently on the lam in the state of New York. Of course, almost a quarter of them are “various drug offenders,” which calls into question our drug laws rather than their lackadaisical enforcement. [NYDN]
• In a wire item none of our local papers deemed fit to print, the AP reports a faulty pipe that has spewed millions of gallons of sewage into the Hudson is finally fixed. We knew our Hudson River Raw Tea tasted a little off this past weekend. [WHDH]
• And Christopher Hitchens’s evening at the Public Library last night, in support of his atheist screed God Is Not Great, was originally billed as a debate with You, the audience (how Web 2.0!). Then how did he end up debating the Reverend Al Sharpton — and, God, why? [Empire Zone/NYT]
the morning line
It’s Tough to Love a Steamroller
• Must be all that screaming, cursing, and Medicaid- cutting: Governor Spitzer’s approval ratings plunged 13 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll, with only 48 percent happy with his performance. [NYP]
• A Bronx martial-arts instructor has confessed to a plan to train Al Qaeda terrorists. Tarik Shah, a jazz musician by day, was going to provide instruction in hand-to-hand combat. Does Osama’s new plan involve simply beating us up? [MetroNY]
• We may not have farms in skyscrapers quite yet, but here’s one on a barge: Sun Works, a group of local scientists, is growing tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers in a floating garden just off the West Side Highway. [WNYC]
• Think the city’s taking too much interest in what’s on your plate? You’ll be happy to know its attention is shifting south: The Department of Health is about to start a campaign promoting circumcision. [NYT]
• And in a related item, the City Hall’s inexplicably subway-themed condom giveaway has been a huge success, with five million snatched up in 30 days. The city does not provide statistics on the items’ actual use. Yet. [NYDN]
grub street
Floating Bar-Restaurant to Leave Its Pier, TooSpeaking of long-tenured tenants of the Hudson River piers: The Frying Pan, that floating West Chelsea institution docked for years at Pier 63, is finally sailing off into the night. The 1929 lightship that houses the bar and café is being forced from its mooring as the city rebuilds that section of Hudson River Park, reports Daniel Maurer at Grub Street. Will that leave the pan permanently unfried? Oh, no, far from it. Grub Street’s got the goods.
City Sinks Beloved Party Vessel; New Location in the Works [Grub Street]
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
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
Bollards and Gribbles and Photogs, Oh, My!
• NYPD and DOT realize, after five years, that concrete bollards don’t actually protect us from terrorism. They do, however, teach us new words like “bollard.” [NYT]
• The Dolans really want to take Cablevision private. So much, in fact, that they’ll be happy to absorb $11.3 billion in debt (the company is valued at $7.9 billion). [WCBS]
• Yanks bask in the ultimate humiliation: throwing the postseason to the Tigers and getting outlasted by the Mets. Steinbrenner is likely to fire Torre and replace him with Lou Piniella. [WNBC]
• The city’s operas try to freshen up their crowd by offering $20 or $25 orchestra seats. Giving quotes like “We were all amazed that out of the woodwork these people came roaring up” does not help the populist cause. [NYT]
• In a textbook case of good news, bad news, cleaner water in the Hudson nurses back to life an array of disgusting critters like shipworms and gribbles. Bring back the pretty petroleum slicks! [IHT]
• And finally, city photojournalists, sounding surreally combative (“We are not a group to be trifled with”), demand rights to shoot in Port Authority facilities. Once you’ve seen the Christopher Street PATH station at dawn, you’ll understand. [AMNY]
[Ed. note: Apologies, by the way, for the late start. The Morning Line should post about two hours earlier than it did this morning, assuming in the future we can figure out how to use Movable Type.]
