Upper East Side Now Open to LootersBedford-Stuyvesant: You can only wonder what owners of sober-faced neighboring brownstones think of this Santa Claus acid trip on Pulaski. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Dumbo: Now open for viewing, the meticulously restored antique carousel of Jane Walentas, wife of area hero-villain developer Dave. [DumboNYC]
Greenpoint: Every neighborhood should have its own billy goat. [Gowanus Lounge]
Park Slope: Visitors want to ensure that any new plan for a green redo of Prospect Park’s Wollman Rink has plenty of parking. [Streetsblog]
Upper East Side: Attention scavengers: Make an appointment to troll through an uptown mansion next week for some pre-gutting cash-and-carry. [Brownstoner]
Williamsburg: In the bocce off-season, take up ping-pong. [Brooklyn Record]
party lines
Tim Gunn Goes to the Dogs
The fourth season of Project Runway starts taping next month, and Tim Gunn warmed up last night with Project Ruffway, a dog fashion show he hosted in a Chelsea gallery space. A benefit for Stray From the Heart, which rescues stray dogs around the globe, the show featured designer fashions for dogs and their walkers. A dog fashion show, it turns out, is a lot like a people fashion show. Looks were shown in the categories of eveningwear, weekend, resort, and “ruff and tumble” (“whatever that means,” Gunn unhelpfully explained), and many models, all adoptable or recently adopted, came from South America. Clothes were by top designers like Nicole Miller and Juicy Couture; Champagne was the drink of choice, though many well-heeled attendees sipped “Hair of the Dog” cocktails made with blood-orange juice, Champagne, and vodka; and the theme was taken seriously: hors d’oeuvre included little bone-shaped sandwiches of roast beef and grilled cheese and French fries in tiny bone-patterned paper cones.
in other news
NYPD Blues: Low Pay for Recruits Will Hamper Anti-Crime Efforts, Shockingly
It was a great plan. Two-thirds of each Academy graduating class would be dispatched by the NYPD to crime hot spots throughout the city, giving the rookies a trial by fire without draining manpower from better-controlled areas. It was called Operation Impact, and it was a centerpiece of a strategy that has pushed crime down 30 percent in New York’s worst neighborhoods. And now it’s not going to happen anymore, because the city pays its rookie police officers $25,100 a year, and there are simply not enough suckers. The next Academy class, budgeted for 2,800 people, will be lucky to have 800 enroll. Yesterday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly drew this grim picture before the City Council before suggesting that the city negotiate with the police union separately (as opposed to lumping the cops with the rest of municipal workers). However, the Daily News reports, the mayor’s not sold on the idea. So it seems the only hope now is for joining the force to become a new vogue among New York’s rich. Condé Nast manages to fill all its editorial-assistant slots with similar wages, after all.
It’s a Crime! [NYDN]
party town
But Will There Be a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ Screening?• “A Celebration of Learning” autism benefit. Pier 60, West Side Hwy. nr. 23rd St., 6:30 p.m. Conan O’Brien, Will Arnett, Candace Bushnell, Andrew McCarthy, and NBC Universal CEO Bob Wright are expected to be there. Wright is, roughly, the real-life analogue to Alec Baldwin’s character on 30 Rock. No word on what kind of voice-mail messages Wright leaves for his kids.
vulture
But North Caldwell Is Not Expanding!
So maybe you think that first-season Sopranos scene, when Tony garroted the witness-relocated turncoat while taking Meadow to visit colleges, was the show’s most disturbing scene. Or maybe you were as disturbed as we were by his quick, cold asphyxiation of Christopher last week. Whatever your preference, last night’s episode — How to Clean Practically Anything! The Little Italy beating! Bogdanovich and the water bottle! A.J.(poor A.J.)! — was one of the greats. And, argues New York critic Emily Nussbaum on Vulture, A.J.’s attempted suicide ranks as the show’s single most disturbing scene yet. With only two episodes left, we hope they don’t get much more disturbing.
The Most Disturbing ‘Sopranos’ Scene Yet [Vulture]
photo op
Who Told You You’re Allowed to Rain on This Parade?
Wedding March 2007 was held Saturday afternoon, when Marriage Equality New York led several hundred protesters across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate for same-sex marriage rights in New York State. The turnout was smaller than expected, because it wasn’t such a nice day. But, then, if it had been a nice day, the umbrellas would have stayed at home and the aerial photos — as displayed on the blog mcbrooklyn — would have been much less dramatic.
Gay Marriage Marchers Brave Synthetic Turf at Cadman Park [mcbrooklyn]
The Wedding March 2007 [Marriage Equality NY]
in other news
How Stella Got Her Offensive Stream of Vitriol BackSince leading homophobe Isaiah Washington is stuck in a rehab facility for the time being, best-selling author Terry McMillan has gamely stepped up to the gay-bashing plate. As Galleycat reports, McMillan’s contribution to the new anthology The Honeymoon’s Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage, and Divorce is a list of 100 questions for the ex-husband who left her after he realized he was gay. (Readers will recall the man in question was also the model for the hot young lover in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which may put a slight damper on those royalty checks.) What did she want to know?
