On the Run with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the World's Greatest Curator
Riding Along with Real Estate Reality Star Ryan Serhant
Building On a Boneyard? Preservationists Beg Steiner Not To Put Luxury Condos On Former Cemetery Site
Get Life Advice From AJ Jacobs And His Facebook 'Friends'
GIRLS Porn Parody to Feature Less-Weird Sex Than Actual HBO Show
The Cicadas Are Coming! The Cicadas Are Here! Staten Island Officially Invaded
NYCLU: Nearly 400,000 Innocent People Stopped and Frisked Last Year
Abercrombie and Fitch Finally Apologizes for CEO's Awful Comments
Not Everyone Is Returning Anthony Weiner's Calls
Building On a Boneyard? Preservationists Beg Steiner Not To Put Luxury Condos On Former Cemetery Site
The dead may not literally walk among us, but they can certainly cause headaches for developers. In 2006, work on Trump Soho was temporarily halted when human remains were discovered at the construction site, where a Baptist Church once stood. Last year, plans for a development in Queens were nixed after the property—home to a colonial-era cemetery—was landmarked. And back in 1991, the federal government was forced to significantly alter plans for its $276 million federal office tower in Lower Manhattan after uncovering the 17th and 18th-century remains of hundreds of African Americans.
Now, several preservation and community groups are pleading with developer Douglast Steiner to his abandon plans to demolish the Mary Help of Christians Church complex at 181 Avenue A (between East 11th and East 12th streets), because the buildings were built over a former Catholic Cemetery. Read More
Get Life Advice From AJ Jacobs And His Facebook ‘Friends’
Esquire editor at large AJ Jacobs is starting a new advice column, he announced today in a blog post. But it is not just a regular old advice column. Instead of just getting advice from Mr. Jacobs, the column will include curated advice from his “100,000 Facebook Friends*” with whom he is sharing the byline.
“You will be getting the combined experience of a brigade of Ann Landerses, a stadium full of Dan Savages,” Mr. Jacobs wrote. “As for me, I will be the Nate Silver of this experiment, curating and collating and commenting on the mass’s responses. I will print the best, funniest, and oddest answers (providing full credit, of course). And we will determine the best course together.” Read More
GIRLS Porn Parody to Feature Less-Weird Sex Than Actual HBO Show
You could say “It was only a matter of time,” but in the case of a GIRLS porno, is that really true? The HBO show–which already features more controversial sex scenes than most actual pornos–is getting its own Hustler parody, This Ain’t Girls XXX. And as you may intuit from the title, there is a strange reversal of the norm going on here, with the pornography trying to market itself as less transgressive than the original series. Read More
The Cicadas Are Coming! The Cicadas Are Here! Staten Island Officially Invaded
They’re hereeee…
Thousands of cicadas have been spotted in Staten Island over the last few days, sending residents into a Twitter frenzy. Dozens of photos, videos and tweets have been posted chronicling the invasion of the insects.
Brood II or the “East Coast Brood” returns every 17 years to mate and drive humans crazy with Read More
NYCLU: Nearly 400,000 Innocent People Stopped and Frisked Last Year
The NYCLU thinks the NYPD is way too frisky.
According to a new study by the civil liberties group, 400,000 innocent people, largely black and latino youths, were wrongfully stopped through the course of 2012 due to the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy. This policy gives policeman the power to stop people on the street, only on suspicion of Read More
Abercrombie and Fitch Finally Apologizes for CEO’s Awful Comments
Abercrombie and Fitch has finally issued a formal apology for CEO Mike Jeffries’s face.
Just kidding. They apologized for his ridiculous comments about “cool” kids.
“We sincerely regret and apologize for any offense caused by the comments we have made in the past which are contrary to (the values of diversity and inclusion)” a Read More
Not Everyone Is Returning Anthony Weiner’s Calls
After jumping late into a race they’ve been running in for months, ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner decided to break the ice with his now-Democratic rivals with a telephoned “hello” before they meet on the campaign trail.
“I’ve done a round of courtesy calls,” Mr. Weiner told Politicker during a telephone interview Wednesday–hours after formally launching his campaign for mayor. Read More
Video
60 Minutes Rebroadcasts Two Year Old Segment on Taylor Swift and No One Notices
If anyone missed Lesley Stahl’s segment this weekend on 60 Minutes (though come on, how unlikely is that?), you might not have noticed that her profile of Taylor Swift, “A Young Singer’s Meteoric Rise,” was actually just a re-aired interview from 2011.
Which is fine–Ms. Stahl tells the audience that “we first met Taylor Swift in 2011, during her Speak Now tour,” and on the 60 Minutes website, they disclose “The following is a script of “Taylor Swift” which originally aired on Nov. 20, 2011 and was rebroadcast on May 19, 2013″–except that it says something about Taylor Swift’s “meteoric rise” that most people would have no idea that this interview was two years old. Or that on Twitter, 60 Minutes gave no clue that this would be a rebroadcast episode. Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
City Selects Developer For Affordable Housing Slated To Rise On Architectural Graveyard In Williamsburg
Fifty-five units of affordable housing may not do much to stem the tide of gentrification washing over Williamburg, but they will allow a not-insignificant number of low-income families to stay in the increasingly expensive neighborhood.
Today, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced that it has selected MDG Design and Construction and the North Brooklyn Development Corporation to build a mixed-use affordable housing development at 337 Berry Street, the site of a former Landmarks Preservation Commission warehouse. The development team was selected nearly a year after an RFP went out for the project, which will include 55 low-income units, ground-floor commercial space for a grocery store, community space for tenant services and an open space for use by future tenants. Read More
Nice Apartment If You Can Get It: Gershwin Heir Sells $5.4 M. Central Park West Pad
Completed in 1930, 101 Central Park West is about as famous as the Gershwins’ most famous productions. And for the past three decades, it’s also been home to Marc Gershwin, the son of George and Ira’s brother Arthur. The songwriters’ less-well-known brother was, according to his son, a minor composer who “had the misfortune to be the brother of a dead genius.”
When Mr. Gershwin took over trusteeship of the famous Gershwin music trove—estimated to bring in $5 to $10 million a year—he told The Telegraph that “it was not being well minded: Ira had been very passive and trusted everyone.” Mr. Gershwin has been warier, turning down an all-white Finnish version as well as a more insidious apartheid-era South African production of Porgy and Bess. (That said, they haven’t been as faithful to the original productions as Stephen Sondheim would have liked—he penned a sneering and sarcastic letter to The New York Times decrying a recent adaptation of George Gershwin’s operatic magnum opus.) Read More
