Feed

Foster Kamer

By Foster Kamer 6/01 5:23pm

FRISKY BUSINESS

stop and frisk map

Fun: An Interactive Map of Every NYPD Stop from 2011, By Race and Neighborhood!

If you live in New York, and you’ve picked up a newspaper, you’ve no doubt read about the New York City Police Department’s pesky problem of stop-and-frisks, the tactic used by police to…randomly stop-and-frisk whoever they feel may or may not be carrying something on them that makes them worth arresting. Does it help? Is it racial profiling? It is a total, outright, so-blatant-as-to-be-downright-impressive-in-scale violation of every fundamental civil liberty you assumed most people to have had but are now coming to realize simply don’t? Read More

By Foster Kamer 6/01 4:44pm

HOW IT ACTUALLY GOES DOWN

Screenshot_4

The Secrets of Cameo Appearances on Gossip Girl: Exposed!

There’s no telling whether or not, on Gossip Girl debut in September 2007, the show’s creators anticipated the distinct fervor over the show from adults. In turn, this obsession turned into a mobius strip perpetuated by the mechanism that is the Highbrow Cameo Appearance, whose significance would only be truly appreciated by those with the context to understand what canny remark the writers were making by bringing them in. Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/31 1:29pm

THE HIPPING POINT

rockaway beach

Rockaway Beach: The Page Six Bureau (and What It Means For You)

Rockaway Beach: A well-established Hipster Hamptons of sorts for the last few years, a place many thought would hit fever-pitch sometime this summer, the moment when—like Williamsburg and Bushwick and Red Hook and hell, the rest of the entire borough of Brooklyn before it—well-heeled Manhattanites discover it, and then, ruin the fun for those who were ostensibly there “first.”*

First came The Taco Stand.

Then, the Trend Pieces.

Then, The Hoteliers.

And now: The Page Six Item.  Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/30 8:00am

Babbo's Big Boy

Joe Bastianich

Joe Bastianich and The Gospel of Restaurant Man

Joseph Bastianich isn’t content being a mere Restaurant Man, as he’d have it. Or even a haute grocer.

“Hopefully, we’re going to change the way people consume,” he said, sitting at a table in Eataly, the Flatiron grocery store he opened in August 2010 in a partnership with Mario Batali, his mother, Lidia, and Italian businessman Oscar Farinetti. Before him was a plate of lentils and a glass of red wine. Asked about the rising price of food, he quickly fired off his reply in his distinctly outer-borough-bred baritone: “We’re going to change the balance of the plate. Less proteins, more carbs, more legumes, more rice, more barley. The era of cheap, abundant food is gone.” Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/29 1:16pm

GRAVITAS

Henry Blodget

Does Henry Blodget Hate Jews?

Henry Blodget—the pale firecrotch king of Business Insider, whose greatest moment of intimacy with Jews came when one banned him from the securities industry for life—can’t decide who hates Jews: Is it everyone, or just some people? Or maybe it’s just him? Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/29 12:41pm

QUOTEABLES

Bourdain.

A Brief History of Things Anthony Bourdain Has Said About Scripps and Their Food Television Stars

Technically, Scripps-Howard isn’t a network so much as a series of networks, but the point is: Anthony Bourdain is taking his act on the road, away from the Travel Channel and to CNN. There are no more No Reservations to be had. The ratings-troubled cable news network probably ponied up some decent cash for Bourdain (and Reservations‘ production company, Zero Point Zero) to come their way. Something that also may have helped? The fact that the Travel Channel was purchased by Scripps-Howard in 2009, and Bourdain has never been one to mince words about the Scripps’ networks stable of culinary stars.

For example… Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/24 12:57pm

Great Plaudits

800px-Elmore_Leonard

Great Moments in Journalism Fan Mail: When Elmore Leonard Likes Your Stuff

Typically, journalists don’t get much fan mail so much as letters from The Concerned Public, weighing in on their take with whatever the matter of the day is. It makes sense: Reporters at daily newspapers—especially those who quietly, diligently, and often thanklessly hack away on metro beats—are usually tasked with the gathering of facts first and foremost, and then, the clear-eyed relaying of those facts (usually in a well-established format, like the inverted pyramid). Where there’s room for creativity, it’s in the subtle details, and they usually don’t end up the recipients of epic pieces of fan mail from world-renowned authors.

Until they do. Read More

By Foster Kamer 5/21 5:18pm

TAXI!

End of an Era

Are New York City’s Taxis About to Become Significantly More Expensive?

In March, New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky told the City Council’s Transportation Commission that a taxi fare increase wasn’t on the “immediate horizon.” Local news website Gothamist ran with the headline: Good News Taxi Riders! No Fare Hikes Planned For This Year.

Well, we now know what he meant by “immediate horizon.” And it wasn’t “for the next year.” Read More