by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
With tens of thousands of helicopter tours above Manhattan each year, some are questioning once again how wise it is for there to be so many chopper rides offered to the public right above the heart of the city. Some companies won’t offer rides above the dense city streets because they say that it’s not worth the risk if something were to go wrong. New York Helicopter Charter’s owner Michael Roth told the Post, “If you have an engine failure at 1,600 feet and you are on top of the Empire State Building, there’s no way you are going to autorotate [glide with rotors turning] to the East River to make a landing. These are machines.
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Another day of Caroline Kennedy/Senate talk! The NY Times has a revelation : Most other city employees—even ones with “nominal” salaries like Mayor Bloomberg and former Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff— must provide financial disclosures, yet Kennedy never did when she worked for the Department of Education. While discussing her Senate credentials, Kennedy touted her experience working as the DOE’s chief executive of the Office of Strategic Partnerships to prove her commitment to education. Among the various explanations for why Kennedy didn’t reveal her finances, “City officials have most often pointed to Ms. Kennedy’s decision to accept $1-a-year in salary” and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein ” explained that she was ultimately exempt from the requirement because the department did not deem her to be a ‘policymaker.’ ” Kennedy has declined to disclose her finances , though some estimate it could be around $100 million . Kennedy’s awkward demeanor with the press has prompted the Daily News’ Michael Daly to bring up her best recent media appearance : When she was interviewed by 10-year-old fifth-grader Damon Weaver while she campaigned for Barack Obama in Florida. Sure, Kennedy utters a few um’s, but she’s “at her best: smart and warm and funny and not even slightly patronizing .” Weaver, who had hoped to head to the inauguration but was denied press credentials , assessed, ” Caroline’s daddy would be very proud of her .” Governor Paterson, who is tired of the rumors , has said he will not reveal the next Senator of New York until Hillary Clinton officially leaves the Senate to become Secretary of State
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
A court ruling has decreased the city’s liability in thousands of sidewalk-injury cases where people have sued the city after stumbles in areas with defects that had already been brought to the city’s attention. The ruling says that maps made by a company hired by trial lawyers to denote every bump and bruise that pedestrians have come across will not carry weight in the suits because the maps are inaccurate and unclear. With 5,000 maps a year, each depicting several city blocks marked with hundreds of symbols, the city said they ended up with “700,00 squiggles.” This decision further lets the city off the hook after a 2003 ruling moved the burden of injuries over to property owners, a move that has saved the city $13 million a year in lawsuits. Fred Kent, the president of the Project for Public Spaces, said, ” Is the pothole guilty for trapping you and making you fall? Or are you guilty for not paying attention? ” And lauding the court’s decision was the first mayor to suffer an increase in payouts due to the maps, Ed Koch.
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
The Jets are making a huge mistake leaving the door open for Brett Favre to return to the team. Besides the various reports that Favre was a divisive figure in the locker room, his presence is a major hindrance in the Jets search for a new coach. Already Bill Cowher has turned down the Jets and the guess here is that other veteran coaches will stay away from the team because they do not want to be saddled with possibly having to deal with Favre and all the questions that go along with him. That may not seem to be a big deal, but the Jets need to be very careful with their coaching choice. Steve Spagnuolo has done an amazing job with the Giants defense, but will that translate into becoming a good head coach? Maybe, but nobody knows for sure.
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Subway hero Wesley Autrey isn’t done being a public figure yet. While being interviewed by the Daily News to commemorate the second anniversary of his famous rescue of a man who had fallen onto the tracks and into the path of an oncoming train, Autrey mentioned, “I would like to do a couple of commercials for Subway sandwiches.” Being a hero and all, naturally his motivation for doing them would be to raise money for his foundation that works with troubled youths. For the first time since his memorable leap at the 137th Street 1 train station, Autrey was reunited with the man he saved, film student Cameron Hollopeter. It wasn’t exactly The Gift of the Magi , but the two exchanged presents. Autrey passed along a reproduction of a painting inspired by their encounter, “A Hero/Angel Is Born,” while Hollopeter brought a framed picture of himself, sitting at a piano
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Over a dozen Broadway musicals and plays will close this month, and Charles Isherwood at the Times is getting a little verklempt about it. The number of productions bowing out amounts to almost half the total number of shows currently on Broadway! According to Crain’s , box office grosses increased during the holiday season, but were still 10.6% less than the same time period in 2007. The glut of closures is not entirely due to the lousy economy; productions like Spring Awakening and 13 surely would have continued if they were raking in the money, but other shows such as All My Sons were always scheduled for limited runs. Nine shows will close today alone, and Isherwood makes a strong (if somewhat sentimental) case for being in the audience when a production breathes its last: “Being present at the moment when a work of achieved art passes into history can be inordinately moving, a reminder that beauty itself is mostly an evanescent thing in life.” But don’t despair! As Broadway’s corpse grows ever cold and stiff, Off Broadway is pulsing with life this month
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
A few years ago, Staten Island resident Mamie Manneh was arrested for smuggling “smoked bushmeat” —skulls, limbs and torsos of “green monkeys and hamadryas baboons” (packed in a box marked “African dresses and smoked fish”)—into the U.S. Her lawyers went to the First Amendment, explaining that Manneh’s religious beliefs required to eat the contraband goods, with one lawyer telling the judge in 2007, it was “something like a seder … you know, bitter herbs and that might have some reference to the Exodus or something along those lines.” This past week, a judge struck down that argument: According to the Staten Island Advance , federal judge Raymond J. Dearie said that “Manneh’s faith didn’t bar her from applying for the permits need to import exotic foodstuffs or explain why she misled border officials.” Additionally, Manneh is currently serving jailtime for running over a woman she believed was sleeping with her husband.
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Photo of Bloomberg visiting a hospital in the Israeli town of Sderot courtesy AP/Tsafrir Abayov As Israeli forces gained control of the eastern section of northern Gaza and pushed deeper into the territory, Mayor Bloomberg visited Israel and continued to emphasize his support for the continued strikes. He told the AP , “You should rest assured, if anyone in New York was being threatened, my instruction to the NYPD would be to use all the resources at their disposal to protect civilians.” Bloomberg made the trip along with NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Queens Congressman Gary Ackerman. Ackerman, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said the onus of the civilian deaths was on Hamas for using them as human shields. The mayor once again brought the scope of the current military conflict close to home, invoking the attacks on New York as he said, ” I think as a New Yorker, we’ve been attacked twice by al-Qaida itself
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Yesterday, a funeral was held for 10-year-old Jaquan Oscar Porter, who was apparently killed by his abusive mother in their Staten Island home. The boy’s father, Charles Porter, said , “I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore,” but was also angry that his ex Melissa Sekulski managed to keep their son from him , ” From the Board of Education to the family courts to ACS, nobody helped me see him. No city officials called to help. It just fell down the drain .” Porter, who last saw his son alive in 2003, had asked for a court-ordered visitation in 2005, but Sekulski never showed up to that hearing —or to subsequent ones in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
by Gossip Daddy on January 4, 2009
Photograph by jphillipobrien on Flickr Today, the 4th Annual Memorial Ride and Walk , organized by the Street Memorial Project, is taking place. The Memorial Ride and Walk visits the sites where bicyclists and pedestrians were killed—according to Transportation Alternatives, “There were 14 known bicyclist fatalities and more than 100 pedestrian deaths in 2008, according to media reports.” There are rides and walks across the city and they will converge at 4 p.m. in the Lower East Side (details and times for the rides and walks after the jump) and then participants will head to St. Mark’s Church to dedicate and install memorials for the “as-yet-unreported victims” in 2008. Bronx/Upper Manhattan Ride: 10:45-11:10 gather at White Plains rd and Allerton ave -subway: 2 to Allerton 11:15 Michael Needham -Barnes ave north of Allerton ave 12:30 Faustino Morales -Truxton st and Randall ave 1:20 meetup & break nw corner of Central Park at Frederick Douglass circle 1:35 Unnamed -Central Park West at w110th st 2:30 Alvaro Olsen -w36th st and Broadway 3:15 Amelia Geocos -e49th st and 1st ave Queens/North Brooklyn Ride: 12:00 - 12:15 Gather in Astoria Park at east end of running track (Hoyt &19th st) –subway: N to Astoria blvd 12:30 Arturo Flores -27th st and 23rd ave 1:30 Asif Rahman -Queens blvd at 55th road 2:30 Sze Man (Josephine) Chan -Manhattan and Montrose aves 3:15 Unnamed -under north side of Williamsburg bridge, Brooklyn Brooklyn/Lower Manhattan Ride: 12:45-1:00 gather top of Sunset Park hill (6th ave btwn 41-44th sts) -subway: R to 45th st. 1:15 Pedro Fernandez-Pacheco -54th st and 7th ave 2:15 Jonathan Millstein -President st
