Peter Vallone Jr. Is Coming for You, and for Jimmy StewartWhen 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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
in other news
Educating About Sonny CarsonSo 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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
intel
City Council: Beware of Nanny AgenciesIt’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).
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
the morning line
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]
intel
Pol and Poet Wouldn’t Support N-Word Ban
Felipe Luciano ran for City Council two years ago, and he lost by only sixteen votes. Which is too bad, because if he’d won, he likely would have been the only council member to vote against the “N-word” moratorium that passed unanimously yesterday. A generation ago, Luciano wrote a poem that he has since performed widely: “Jibaro, My Pretty Nigger.” Jibaro refers to a person from Puerto Rico, and Luciano, who grew up in Harlem, calls himself a black Puerto Rican. “I used the word nigger to defuse its negativity,” he told us by phone. “When Puerto Ricans call each other the Spanish word ‘negro,’ it reflects feelings of love. I think New York blacks picked up ‘You my nigger’ from Puerto Ricans.”
in other news
The Health Department Also Thinks You Really Ought to Be Wearing a Sweater
Things the New York City Health Department spends its time doing, even though we always thought they were the sorts of things that were none of the city’s business:
• Determining whether we may smoke in bars.
• Determining whether we may ingest trans fats.
Things the New York City Health Department is apparently incapable of doing, even though we always thought this was why health departments exist:
• Monitoring dirty fast-food places to ensure they’re not infested with frolicking rats.
Additional responsibilities City Council Speaker Christine Quinn agrees with Mayor Bloomberg the Health Department should take on, according to today’s Post:
• Making sure fast-food chains post calorie information on their menu boards.
the morning line
American Graffiti
• The City Council has approved — 49-0 — a symbolic ban on the N-word; the ban carries no penalties but already seems to be in effect, seeing that not a single publication covering it can bring itself to print the slur. [Newsday]
• And on the same day, a man pleaded guilty to scrawling “anti-Semitic slurs” — also unspecified — on cars parked near a Queens synagogue. City Council, get bannin’! [amNY]
• The Splasher, an anonymous culprit who defaces street art with violent handfuls of paint, has earned a chin-scratching Times profile. As expected, at issue is the line between “respectable” graffiti (Banksy, Swoon) and Splasher’s vandalism. Or is it art? [NYT]
• OMG Madonna’s collection at H&M! We’re more than a little perplexed why this is front-page material to the Daily News, so feel free to point out some sort of Mort-Madonna link we’ve accidentally missed. [NYDN]
• And in a particularly bizarre round of Mad Libs, a 46-year-old dominatrix … was busted for weapons possession … in a $3 million Bedford Hills mansion … owned by an Orthodox rabbinical school. [NYP]
in other news
Pedicab Junction
Like pedicabs? Get ready to see a lot of them on eBay. The city is finally is set to pass measures regulating our suddenly flourishing cyclo-rickshaw industry. Of the roughly 500 of those babies currently on the streets, at least 175 will be pulled: The City Council has settled on 325 as the nicely arbitrary-sounding number of pedicab licenses it’s willing to grant. Lest NYC turn into Bangkok with its tuk-tuks, all electric “assist” engines will also have to come off; it’s all about the drivers’ well-toned calf muscles from now on. (Which, to be honest, is the only reason any locals we know can tolerate the things.) For the cherry on top, the NYPD reserves the right to ban pedicabs from any street at any time, to the apparent joy of the Post (where “Pedi-Pests” must rank among the paper’s worst coinages). We can’t say we have a problem with any of this. But we wonder if the City Council is focusing on the right thing first. Where’s the sorely needed legislation to regulate those mutant- squid-looking seven-seater “PartyBikes” infesting Times Square? No calves could justify those.
City Puts Brakes on Pedi-Pests [NYP]
in other news
Reporta, Please
It’s hard being a reporter. Sometimes you have to cover wars. Sometimes you have to accept silly assignments. And sometimes you have to figure out how to write about a universally reviled term without actually using the term itself. As the City Council marches toward a moratorium on a word that, according to the proposed resolution banning it, means “a lazy person with no self-respect or regard for family,” we checked on how news accounts are creatively avoiding the N-word.
the morning line
Caffeine Is It!
• City Councilman Simcha Felder has either great timing or way more power than we thought. Two days after he embarked on a public crusade to get caffeine content included on food labels, Coca-Cola did what he wanted. [AP via Newsday]
• Ooh, a big twist in an otherwise uneventful election! Dr. Mathieu Eugene, the new councilman elected to replace Congresswoman Yvette Clark, has to prove that he actually lives in the district before he can legally take the seat. [NYP]
• A five-judge state appeals court has unanimously upheld the constitutionality of New York’s long-in-the-tooth Cabaret Law. (A lawsuit claimed that the dancing ban in bars and clubs infringes on free expression.) At least there are no plans to beef up the silly rule’s enforcement. [MetroNY]
• NYU’s College Republicans got exactly what they wanted — scandal and press — when they staged a “Catch the Illegal Immigrant” game on campus. (The objective was to spot a student with an “immigrant” tag for a $50 reward.) The event drew 300 angry protesters instead. [NYDN]
• And André Balazs isn’t the only one bringing Beaver back to New York. For the first time in 200 years, the actual North American beaver is setting up camp in the Bronx River, a testament to a recent, $15 million cleanup. [NYT]
the morning line
Wanna Buy the Freedom Tower?
• Guess what Port Authority is going to do with the Freedom Tower once the construction is over? What every owner of a half-built property dreams of doing: Flip it. By its completion in 2011, the skyscraper may be up for sale, say Spitzer and Corzine. [Metro]
• Meet Mathieu Eugene, the City Council’s newest member and the first Haitian to fill the seat. Eugene won a low-profile, low-turnout special election in Brooklyn after his predecessor, Yvette Clarke, moved on to Congress. [NYP]
• Busta Rhymes, on trial for kicking a fan and beating up a former chauffeur, rejected a deal that would land him in jail for a cred-building six months. The alternative: probation, anger management, and two weeks of lecturing kids about violence. [NYDN]
• In New York, we wage our war on Christmas all year round — and we’re winning it, too. The U.S. Supreme Court washed its hands of the Brooklyn-filed case that challenged the citywide ban on school nativity displays. (Menorahs and Islamic crescents, however, are totally okay). [FoxNews.com]
• And in New Jersey, a similar battle with a techie twist: A public-school history teacher is in hot water after a student taped him proselytizing (“If you reject [Jesus], you belong in hell,” etc.) and saying that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark. [NYT]
the morning line
Viva Sullivan County
• Governor Spitzer has approved a “Las Vegas-style” gambling den in the Catskills. The Mohawk tribe will run it, despite the casino being 400 miles away from its reservation, and the state will get a 25 percent cut. That is, if environmentalists and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior get on board. [NYT]
• Call us twisted, but we love watching JetBlue continue to flagellate itself over last week’s stranding of its JFK passengers; the CEO of the formerly cuddly airline is scripting a my-bad TV ad and proposing a “customer bill of rights” that will financially penalize JetBlue for such things. [NYDN]
• The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office seems eager to reinvent itself as a telenovela. An ADA was suspended for allegedly passing witness info to her boyfriend, a defense attorney; that’s one day after a female investigator was accused of a dalliance with a jailed mobster. How soon before evil twins show up? [NYP]
• Next up for Bloombergian rezoning: the Garment Center. Crain’s predicts “a flurry of buying and selling.” Luxury condos? Actually, no, just newer and better offices. Whew. [Crain’s]
• And you can always rely on the City Council for an offbeat ordinance proposal. Today, the honor goes to Councilman Simcha Felder, who wants warning labels on coffee. [amNY]
the morning line
Giuliani’s Horse Manure• Deceased cop Cesar Borja may not have been the hero the press claimed, but it doesn’t mean the issue he symbolized is off the table. Mayor Bloomberg says that post-9/11 illnesses are costing the city $400 million a year, and called for $1 billion in federal aid. [Bloomberg]
• Giuliani’s presidential run is getting more entertaining by the hour. Yesterday, the ex-mayor stumped at a farm-equipment expo, saying he’s not “an expert” on the subject but will be by the end of the campaign. Uh-huh. [AP]
• Schools chancellor Joel Klein is rolling back some new rules in the wake of the city’s school-bus fiasco. For instance, 5-year-olds may now not have to navigate Manhattan on their own, MetroCard in hand. [NYP]
• The City Council has been threatening to regulate pedicabs for a while now, but this time, they’re serious: Say hello to licensing, compulsory insurance, safety inspections, and a citywide pedicab cap at 300 three-wheelers (there are about 500 now). [amNY]
• And fill your Valentine’s Day with images of old codgers coupling: The Times drops a feature about local sex educators who grapple with the Greatest Generation’s pharmaceutically induced sexual renaissance. Most haunting line: “collapsed uterus can complicate penetration.” [NYT]
in other news
City Proposal Could Limit Bars to One Homicide Per YearThe City Council is reportedly mulling a curious proposal that would shut down bars as “public nuisances” if more than one person is killed there within a year. That’s right — one murder is fine, but two are pushing it. How very Deadwood. Apart from that eye-catching provision, however, the proposal’s language frees authorities to close places for pretty much any repeated violations (for instance, regular pot smoking or three “violent felonies” on the premises). Club owners, including the folks behind Sol and Crobar, are crying foul: According to them, the nuisance legislation’s language is so vague it can slap the n-word (nuisance, that is) on a bar for virtually any infraction. Which could be a problem. While we’re all for the thinning of the progressively vile 27th Street herd, we’d prefer that the culling be done constitutionally.
Council Mulls Bill To Tighten Curbs on Bars [NYS]
The Short, Drunken Life of Club Row [NYM]
the morning line
There Either Will or Will Not Be Six More Weeks of Winter
• We can all agree it’s Groundhog Day, but there’s little agreement beyond that. Contradictory early-morning behavior from local groundhogs Staten Island Chuck, Holtsville Hal, and Malverne Phil casts uncertainty on the duration of winter. [Newsday]
• Hillary Clinton has announced that her presidential fund-raisers must pony up a record-breaking $1 million apiece to make her BFF inner circle. (By comparison, Dubya’s BFF benchmark in 2000 was a trifling $100,000.) The burning question: Should the HRC BFFs be called “Pathfinders” or the naughtier “Hillraisers”? [NYT]
• Just in time for Black History Month, and egged on by rap legend Kurtis Blow, the City Council ponders a resolution to urge all New Yorkers to stop using the N-word. And even when you end it with an a, dawg. [amNY]
• In the political equivalent of wearing the same dress to the dance, ‘08 rivals Giuliani and McCain learned they’d be sharing top billing in May at a big New York State GOP fund-raiser — and some party insiders are calling it a major dis to Rudy. [NYP]
• One day after he suggested that Barack Obama was the first black presidential candidate to master both English and personal hygiene, Senator Joe Biden hit Al Sharpton’s radio show to insist he had the highest regard for the Rev’s syntax. [NYDN]
the morning line
The Cost of Utopia
• The city’s doing so well financially that some City Council members — Democrats, even — are raising the specter of a tax cut. With the Independent Budget Office projecting a $688 million surplus in 2008, why not? [NYP]
• A souped-up playground is coming to South Street Seaport. One suggested game: groups of children “loading containers with sand, hoisting them up with pulleys and then lowering them down to wagons.” David Rockwell designs the kiddie labor camp, pro bono. [NYT]
• Time to check in with our pal Koral Karsan, Yoko Ono’s driver turned attempted blackmailer, now that the full text of his demand is public. Stalking points: Karsan frames his $2 million demand as compensation for “pain and suffering,” threatens to expose John as a “wife-beating asshole,” and boasts friendship with “NY media.” And yet, Koral, you never call anymore. [NYDN]
• Say what you want about the new Village Voice, but at least it’s not afraid of readers’ letters. From the new issue’s crop: “You … take a dying paper and kill it over and over again.” “The Village Voice is dead.” “Reader’s Digest is edgier than you are.” [VV]
• And a city Department of Sanitation cap is apparently a huge seller and a nascent fashion staple; Scorsese, Liv Tyler, et al have been spotted in them. So reports the Scotsman, our trusted source for apparel news. [Scotsman]
the morning line
Cha-Ching
• Where did that come from? The city now projects a $1.9 billion surplus — its largest ever — for the fiscal year that began in July, citing an awesome real-estate market and “sound management decisions” by the mayor. A City Council member even uttered the words “tax cuts.” Keep talking. [amNY]
• The police have identified the fourth man who was in the car on the receiving end of NYPD’s 50-bullet hailstorm. There’s a chance, they say, that the witness may have run off with a gun; he thus appears to be the cops’ last hope to somehow justify the shooting. Meanwhile, survivor Joseph Guzman, shot eleven times, denies from the hospital bed having any weapons (according, it must be said, to Al Sharpton). [NYDN]
• Say hi to the much-discussed taxi-fare hike: “Wait time” is now 40 cents a minute, not 20. Count on a temporary cab shortage, as most cars spend the day in line to get their meters adjusted (earning nothing in the meantime). [Newsday]
• Governor Pataki and Governor-elect Spitzer both came out in favor of downsizing New York’s hospitals (we’re about to lose five in the city, nine statewide). The only real news in that sentence is Spitzer’s pronouncement, as Pataki was behind the whole initiative to begin with. “The commissioners did an outstanding job,” the Times quotes Pataki saying — via satellite from, of all places, Kuwait. We didn’t know they had an early primary. [NYT]
• And this, from the Department of Unenforceable Ordinances: Starting tomorrow, the City Council will make it illegal to toss rechargeable batteries in the trash. The toxic, cadmium-filled things must go back to the manufacturer for recycling. For the remedy — a $50 fine — to kick in, the violator has to be literally caught in the act, the likelihood of which strikes us as extremely slight. [NYP]
in other news
One More Reason Not to Visit Staten Island?
Visiting Staten Island might be about to get even less pleasant: The City Council is considering reinstituting the ferry fare, according to a document the city’s Independent Budget Office has posted online. “You asked us to consider fares of $1.00, $2.00, $3.00 and $4.00,” IBO director Ronnie Lowenstein writes to Councilman James Oddo. At one buck, Lowenstein writes, costs will exceed revenue. At $2, however, there will be an “operating surplus.” And at $3 — boy, howdy, now we’re talking!
The single most awesome thing about this fare fantasy is that it’s apparently aimed only at tourists — the council’s idea is to waive the charge for island residents and people who work there. But the IBO letter says there would likely be “legal and operational concerns with charging one group and not another” (really?), which is a shame. Because some sort of a Staten Island Resident card would be the first step toward our long-standing fantasy: a New Yorker I.D., preferably a police-style badge, the flashing of which would automatically halve the price of street-cart hot dogs, allow first dibs whenever a big designer does a line for H&M, and let you jump the line at Magnolia Bakery.
Oh, and it’d ban you from the meatpacking district, too.
Letter to City Council Member James Oddo [IBO]
the morning line
Crimes and Misdemeanors
• Yesterday’s already depressing story — a Brooklyn mother leaped in front of the F train, and survived, shortly after her son was found dead in their apartment — continues in the maximally depressing way possible. The woman has admitted to killing the boy, saying “demons overtook” her. [NYP]
• On the lighter side of the police blotter, Naomi Campbell’s arrest warrant kicks in today, should she fail to appear at Manhattan Criminal Court for a hearing about her latest alleged phone-throwing ways. Campbell has already missed the previous hearing; her lawyer says he’s considering a plea bargain. [ITV]
• This one could have ended badly. A pilot landed his Cessna in the middle of a city park. Paul Dudley was heading to New Jersey’s Linden airport when he heard the engine sputter and decided to land in Brooklyn, coming to a leisurely stop in a field near the Verrazano Bridge. [amNY]
• NBC is cutting costs and cleaning house, laying off about twenty people across its flagship news programs (Today, Dateline, and Nightly News) and reportedly readying to shed twenty more. Dateline, which has been faring worst in the ratings, took the deepest hit. [NYT]
• And the City Council is proposing a law that could send parents to jail on a misdemeanor charge for kids’ drinking. One wouldn’t have to actually serve alcohol to a minor to be liable; turning a blind eye would suffice. Hey, kids — another way to get even with Dad: Rat him out with one drunken phone call! [NYDN]
the morning line
Alan Hevesi, and Other Car Wrecks
• So after all that outraged wife-chauffeuring tabloid ink, Alan Hevesi handily won reelection, 57 percent to 39 percent. Anyone want to bring up the scandal now? Didn’t think so. “You can make the case that the public has spoken,” says Mayor Bloomberg. [NYDN]
• A 5-year-old Brooklyn boy is dead after a ruthless hit-and-run. An SUV lurched onto the Flatbush sidewalk, struck a family of four and continued on — until shocked drivers in other cars nearby gave chase and blocked its way. And another errant Brooklyn SUV collided with, of all things, an ambulance this morning, injuring at least five people. The ambulance’s driver had to be cut out of the wreckage. [NYP, WNBC]
• The City Council met to discuss an urgent topic: raising its own members’ salaries 25 percent. Surprisingly, almost everyone’s in favor. The current base salary for the part-time job is $90,000. [amNY]
• Remember the long, hysterically pitched discussion of whether cell-phone service in NYC subways would be a good or a bad thing? MTA doesn’t. Four companies submitted competitive bids to retrofit the city’s trains with cell-phone transmitters back in January; ten months later, the Authority still hasn’t made a decision. [NYT]
• And Christie’s cleared $491 million in one night, almost doubling the record for an art auction. It could have been even more, but the house ended up withdrawing the Picasso, on whose convoluted origins (Mendelssohn, Nazis, Andrew Lloyd Webber) we reported, at the last moment. Still, some vigorous paddle work there. [NYT]