The Jersey Shore's iconic JetStar Roller Coaster, destroyed after Superstorm Sandy (Getty)

A new thrill ride on the Jersey Shore will be named Super Storm, so that riders can remember how much fun it was when Sandy ravaged the coastline and destroyed their homes.

The spinning, pendulum-shaped ride, which is slated to be open sometime before the Fourth of July, will help replace some of the iconic attractions that were destroyed at the Jersey Shore’s Casino Pier. Five rides were totally lost, and others were damaged beyond repair when Superstorm Sandy hit last October, a spokesperson for Casino Pier told The Observer.

Sandy also resulted in the deaths of 135 people along the East Coast, and destroyed countless homes and buildings.

“I can understand people having mixed feelings about having a name like that,” said the spokesperson. Still, the amusement pier insists that the name should reflect the strength of the Jersey Shore, rather than memories of suffering.

“We thought [the name] would be a symbol of the resilience of the Jersey Shore—how strong the people of New Jersey are after they’ve gone through this,” the spokesperson said, “We think that showing that strength is a good way to move forward and work towards recovery.”

She also noted, “Due to the thrill ride aspect of it, and you know, how the ride runs and [the] ride experience, we were looking to pick a name that would go along with that … Storm names are popular in the ride industry.”

Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers publically supported naming the ride after the devastating storm. “We hope that it’s perceived in a positive way, that we’re back, we know the force of Mother Nature, and that we respect that, and this is our way of celebrating,” he said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Who knows? By the end of the summer, the Jersey Shore might introduce other new disaster-themed attractions like “Cicada Attack” or “The L Train on a Tuesday at 9am”

Ross Finocchio (Patrick McMullan)

This art history professor might be a little too interested in the female form.

Medieval Art expert and NYU professor Ross Finocchio, 34, was arrested for spying on two women, ages 26 and 28, in the dressing rooms of Beacon’s Closet, a West Village boutique. He is accused of hiding his iPhone in his shoe and then not-so-subtly sliding it into the neighboring change room.

“I told the store manager that I saw him put something under the door but I didn’t see what it was,” his alleged victim, a 26-year-old woman, said to The Post.

The woman notified the store’s manager, Stephanie Williams, before the pair  watched as Mr. Finocchio started creeping on another customer, the women said.

“I knocked [on Mr. Finoochio’s dressing room door] and said, ‘You have to come out right now,'” Ms. Williams said.

Ms. Williams thoughtfully snapped a photo of Mr. Finocchio as he emerged from the dressing room; as you can see from the photo, Mr. Finocchio was reportedly “sweating profusely.” As Ms. Williams led the perspiring professor to the front of the store, a co-worker called the cops.

Mr. Finocchio claimed he was  “recording myself for a project” and unsurprisingly, nobody bought it. Mr. Finocchio was charged with unlawful surveillance, a felony, and reportedly admitted to making the recordings.

“Until this matter is cleared up, he will not be assigned to any duties that involves contact with students,” said an NYU spokesman. Hear that, art history majors? Exams are cancelled! Just kidding, probably.

Chris Hadfield casually singing aboard the International Space Station (YouTube)

There’s a new YouTube sensation that’s making the social media rounds, and it’s out of this world—literally.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield marked the end of his stay aboard the International Space Station with a captivating music video that’s now gone viral. While listening to Mr. Hadfield’s cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” viewers may watch as the mustachioed astronaut and his guitar float around the space station, while the view of a far-off Earth forms an entrancing backdrop.

The video was posted to YouTube yesterday; The Soyuz spacecraft that contains Mr. Hadfield and two other astronauts is expected to land at 10:30 tonight in Kazakhstan. Since its posting, the video has already racked up 1.5 million views.

This isn’t the first time that Mr. Hadfield has connected with earthlings over social media. The astronaut is a prolific tweeter, with over 834,000 Twitter followers.

Supporters of the space program hope that connections between astronauts and their earthly followers will help redirect people’s focus back to space exploration. “It all boils down to generating interest,” Mr. Hadfield’s son and social media manager Evan told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “You want people to be interested in the space program.” That’s especially important for Canada, whose space program has been hit with budget cuts in recent years.

Plus, videos like Mr. Hadfield’s could help generate kids’ interest in space-related careers; we can’t help but think that since the 1960s and 70s, kids’ career aspirations have pushed “astronaut” aside in favor of “professional app designer” or “star of reality TV dating show”.

This Canadian may be a little biased, but we’re certain that whatever the outcome, the “Space Oddity” video has officially made Chris Hadfield the most stellar astronaut ever.

A colorful Mermaid Parade-goer (Featured in the parade's Kickstarter video)

Six months ago, Superstorm Sandy left Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade high and dry. Now, parade participants are hoping their new Kickstarter campaign will help them get back on their flippers.When Sandy struck Coney Island last October, it completely flooded the Mermaid Parade’s headquarters on Surf Avenue. With thousands of dollars of damage still in need of repair, the parade’s organizers realized they wouldn’t be able to finance this year’s parade on their own.

Mermaid Parade-goers pose and pout for the camera (Featured in the Mermaid Parade Kickstarter video)

“Let’s face it: we’ve had some hard times,” says parade founder Dick Zigun, in a video on the Kickstarter page. In the video, Mr. Zigun is standing in the damaged headquarters. “Where I’m standing was up to here in floodwater—our headquarters was totally destroyed…We’re still recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and it’s just beyond us. We can’t pull it all off this year.” The parade costs around $190,000.

The Kickstarter campaign—titled “Save the Coney Island Mermaid from Extinction!”—aims to raise $100,000 in the next 25 days. Already, the campaign is making some serious waves. Launched just two days ago, the parade has already raised upwards of $34,500 dollars from over 750 donors.

“I’m freaking flabbergasted,” Mr. Zigun told the Daily News after the campaign raised $27,000 in a single day. “Would I bet money that there will be a Mermaid Parade? Send a bookie my way.”

Dick Zigun, founder of the Mermaid Parade (Featured in the Mermaid Parade Kickstarter video)

“Please don’t let the Mermaid parade flounder in a sea of apathy!” wrote one impassioned commenter on the Kickstarter page. “Courage, Mer-folks! We WILL prevail,” wrote another.

The Mermaid Parade has been an annual Coney Island tradition since its inception in 1983. Every year, over a thousand elaborately costumed participants make their way down Mermaid Avenue, Surf Avenue, and Neptune Avenue in celebration of “Coney Island pride,” according to the campaign.

We’re crossing our fins in hopes that the Mermaid Parade’s campaign will continue to go swimmingly!

Meryl Streep (Getty Images)

I can’t quite explain how it happened, but last night I found myself performing in my underwear for Meryl Streep.

Well, I can explain part of it—the part that wasn’t the direct result of the Gods of Off-Off-Broadway Theater.

My good friend Hanah Fazio wrote a play called “The Miss Woman Pageant 2013,” which was accepted into the Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s Spring One-Act Competition. Hanah invited me and two of our actor friends to perform in her show (fun fact about me: I was a theater major in college before I decided journalism was a more stable career path—what was I thinking? But I digress. Back to stripping for Meryl).

The play is a satirical beauty pageant in which a cringingly sexist emcee puts three female contestants through three increasingly degrading rounds of pageantry. There’s a round of Q&A (“Contestant Number Two, what do you think it means to be a woman?”), a talent portion (wherein I perform a lip-synch to “Zou Bisou Bisou” á la Mad Men’s Megan Draper), and, finally, an “underpants round,” in which the contestants appear on stage in their underwear and beg the audience to tell them they’re pretty. The curtain comes down on a clothes-less heap of young women.

Tuesday was opening night. We pulled on our tacky pageant dresses and applied our gaudy make-up in a makeshift dressing room in the tiny, one-room theater. We were hardly nervous—the theater only seated 40 people, and from the sounds of applause we heard from backstage, it was clear that the audience was only a quarter full.

The musical stylings of the “POT LEDOM” song from America’s Next Top Model cued our grand entrance. We strutted onstage in our ill-fitting, flashy gowns. We cranked out our ridiculous poses. We pursed our lips in the most glorious of duck-faces. We stared out at the audience.

I saw Mamie Gummer first, in the center of the second row. My knees wobbled in my already unsteady heels. Through the haze of the stage lights I could see there was an older, blond woman next to her—a stealthy glance leftward confirmed my prediction. It was Meryl Streep—brilliant, beautiful, Oscar winning, incomparable Meryl Streep. She was ten feet away from me. She was smiling. But seriously, you guys—Meryl Streep!

A fantasy flashed before my eyes wherein Meryl—I consider us to be on first-name basis now—would approach me after the show and tell me I was just perfect for her next Hollywood blockbuster project. Then she would whisk me away to a red carpet somewhere and I’d become super famous and next thing I’d know, I’d be thanking her in my Academy Award acceptance speech. Jordyn, I told myself, this needs to be the greatest performance of your life.

Of course, it wasn’t. My nerves made me stumble over the lines in my opening monologue. Brittany threw a prop off-stage and knocked over a pile of stepping stools. Victoria tripped over Brittany’s gown and fell; her leg was bleeding for the rest of the play. But despite the setbacks, we were putting on a half-decent performance: My girl Meryl was relaxed in her chair and laughing out loud.

To top things off, the play ended with the underpants round. It’s hard enough being nearly naked in front of an audience of strangers; I had to be nearly naked in front of a goddess. But If I died tomorrow, I’d be happy knowing that at least I’d sung a song to Meryl Streep wearing nothing but my bra and panties.

“I loved, loved, loved the girl play,” Meryl Streep told us after the play. We all drooled. “It’s true. It’s so fucking true.”

Then she gave us a thumbs-up, winked, and disappeared around the corner. Our mouths were agape. Our lives were made. I think Hanah almost cried. I vowed never to change my underwear again.

Chelsea resident Katie Holmes.

If a typical break-up calls for vats of Ben & Jerry’s and repeated viewings of The Notebook, then we suppose a highly publicized divorce from a top Hollywood actor and devout Scientologist calls for a cross-country move and a gorgeous new apartment. That’s pretty much what Katie Holmes got last summer when she took up residence at the Chelsea Mercantile—the spectacular, star-infused, 21-story building at 252 Seventh Avenue. The actress reportedly signed the lease just a few days after announcing her split from husband Tom Cruise in June 2012.

As you might expect from Ms. Holmes, who has also transmitted her fashion sense to daughter Suri, these are some stylish digs. The actress has been settling into her New York lifestyle pretty well since then. Last winter, Ms. Holmes took the stage as Lorna in Theresa Rebeck’s Dead Accounts, which ran from late November to early January at the Music Box Theatre. Though the show received mixed reviews, Ms. Holmes’s performance stood out, at least to The New York Times. Ms. Holmes “appears much more at ease playing a worn-down country mouse to the hyped-up city mouse of [Norbert Leo Butz],” Ben Brantley wrote. “Ms. Holmes and Mr. Butz summon an appealingly natural family rapport … You may even forget that Ms. Holmes is Katie Holmes for a moment.”

It’s no problem that Dead Accounts closed earlier than expected—Ms. Holmes is already at work acting in another project, a Spike Lee production called Mania Days. In the film, which has been shooting in different locations around New York City, Ms. Holmes plays Carla, a manic-depressive poet who forms a romantic relationship (and later a pregnancy) with a manic-depressive rapper, played by Luke Kirby.

Katie and Suri strolling and riding.

If you’re looking to spot Ms. Holmes on the streets of New York City, it’s unlikely—the star leads a private life (or as private as possible when you are being stalked by paparazzi). The most reliable place to spot the celeb is the H. Stern store on Fifth Avenue, where larger-than-life, nearly nude billboards of the gorgeous Ms. Holmes grace the windows on either side of the doors. Since moving to New York, Ms. Holmes has also been made the face of Bobbi Brown; she’s the company’s first-ever celebrity spokesmodel.

When Ms. Holmes isn’t performing onstage or posing on-camera, she’s playing the role of mother to daughter Suri. Ms. Holmes reportedly enrolled the stylish seven-year-old in the prestigious Avenues school, located near their home in Chelsea.  The school is very new, and has an educational philosophy that might appeal to jetsetters able to pay its slightly higher-than-usual tuition costs.

“In addition to teaching traditional subjects,” Avenues CEO and co-founder Chris Whittle has said, “the school takes seriously its mission to prepare students for the world through intensive classes in Spanish or Mandarin and by providing them with a global view of geography, history, religion, demographics and economic development across many cultures and countries.”

We always knew that Suri could out-dress us any day, but from the looks of her new school, we’re pretty sure she’ll soon be able to outsmart us, too.

But Back to Those Digs

The Chelsea Mercantile was originally built as a fabric manufactory in 1908 (that’s exactly 90 years before the premiere of Dawson’s Creek, the show that marks Ms. Holmes’ debut, in case you slept through that pop culture moment). Nowadays—with the influx of trendy galleries, restaurants and shopping spots in the neighborhood—the historic textile building has been transformed into more than 350 luxury condos that house the likes of Marc Jacobs, Jane Fonda and Lance Bass, along with Katie and Suri. It boasts an interior garden, full gym, parking garage, and a 10,000-square-foot roof deck, and yet still retains charming elements of its turn-of-the-century origins.

“The Chelsea Mercantile is really cool,” says Corinne Pulitzer, executive vice president of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which has sold a number of units at the Chelsea Mercantile in recent years. “The building has the infrastructure of a factory building, with the very high nine-foot ceilings. Some of the apartments have exposed brick walls.”

Sensible Katie probably chose the apartment for the distinctly downtown flavor but slightly

Entrance to the Chelsea Mercantile, home of Holmes.

more convenient location. She’s not a kid anymore, after all. “The apartments have a loft feel, but you don’t have to go down to Soho or Tribeca, which I think is a big pull for people,” Ms. Pulitzer says. “It’s great to live down there, [but] it’s a hard lifestyle selection if someone’s in the theater, or [working] in midtown.”

The Chelsea Mercantile is also perfect for anyone with a seven-year-old daughter. “The building has a children’s playroom,” says Ms. Pulitzer. “I can see how [Ms. Holmes] came to choose it.”

The diversity of the Chelsea neighborhood may also be responsible for attracting celebrities like Ms. Holmes. From the threshold of the Chelsea Mercantile, residents can reach avant-garde art galleries, elite eateries and fine retail all on foot (or by chauffeur, of course). “The neighborhood has such diverse attractions that it gets a really good mix of different types of people who are seeking [something] cool and edgy,” Ms. Pulitzer says, “as opposed to the Upper East Side, which I wouldn’t call cool or edgy.”

The Star Grocery Shops, Too

On the ground floor of Ms. Holmes’s apartment building is a cozy Whole Foods Market, where the actress is known to regularly shop. The Daily News photographed her there last summer, trying on  cowboy hats with daughter Suri as the pair shopped for a Fourth of July meal.

Though she had been spotted inside the organic food mecca, reporters last summer—who crowded Ms. Holmes’s building shortly after she moved in—were wondering why they rarely spotted their target entering Whole Foods. Hillary Reinsberg, a staff member at BuzzFeed, explained the popular theory that gradually circulated among the crowd of Holmes seekers: “Nearly every lingering photographer seemed to have figured out that Holmes has a way of getting into the store from inside her swanky apartment building,” Ms. Reinsberg wrote in a July 2012 article.

We needed to know: Is it a secret revolving bookshelf, activated by touching a certain tome? Does she enter through a nondescript girls’ bathroom, á la Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Can Katie Holmes teleport?

We ask a Whole Foods employee if Ms. Holmes really has a private entrance to the grocery store. He laughs—he has heard the rumor before. But, he says, there’s definitely no secret entrance for the rich and famous. “There’s no Batcave in here, there’s only one door.” Like almost everyone else we spoke to for this story, except the vocal Ms. Pulitzer, the real estate agent, this employee declines to be named, citing company policy.

While Ms. Holmes shops at Whole Foods, her “team” reportedly favors the more casual deli across the street. According to Amen, who does give his first name, and works behind the counter at Chelsea Gourmet Deli, “She sends her bodyguard in every morning—it’s one major guy who comes in.” He notes that the bodyguard frequently buys sandwiches, drinks and snacks.

And when it comes to eating out, Ms. Holmes has no shortage of choices in Chelsea. “The restaurants—my God, you never have to cook!” Ms. Pulitzer gushes.

Back in Beverly Hills, Ms. Holmes was known to be a fan of Crumbs Bakery. Luckily for Ms. Holmes, she can feed her sweet tooth on the East Coast, too; there’s a Crumbs a block away from her Chelsea apartment.  And indeed she has visited the cupcake shop. “It wasn’t a big interaction, but she was very nice,” says the manager of Crumbs when asked about Ms. Holmes’s visit to the bakery. She admits feeling a little star-struck: “I pretended like it wasn’t Katie Holmes!”

Nearby is also the trendy Meatpacking District, whose cobblestone streets are clustered with the hottest bars and restaurants in the city. “I’m sure [Ms. Holmes] hangs out there a lot,” Ms. Pulitzer says. “You have the Ganesvoort, all of these fabulous hotels and clubs. The Standard is there too, and they have that beer garden in the summer. It’s a really high-energy neighborhood.”

Living the Active Life

Of course, for a celebrity with a physique like Ms. Holmes’ and modeling and film contracts, along with great cupcakes come great demands for cardio. Though Ms. Holmes ventures outside of Chelsea to attend spin classes at SoulCycle, the actress is also known to frequent the Chelsea Piers, an expansive, multi-purpose athletic complex along the Hudson River, just blocks from her apartment, although this might be more for Suri’s benefit than her mother’s. Last summer, photographers spotted Ms. Holmes taking Suri to a Chelsea Piers gymnastics class.

If Suri tires of gymnastics, there’s always ice skating to try (and adorable skating dresses to wear while doing it), golf, bowling, boating and facilities for just about any kind of kid party.

But there is at least one sport Ms. Holmes enjoys partaking of at Chelsea Piers. An employee at Chelsea Brewing Company—a microbrewery and restaurant that’s part of the Chelsea Piers—says that Ms. Holmes is reportedly quite the alley cat.

“She goes bowling,” the employee says. “What’s interesting is they offer the private room—they have a private room with eight lanes—but they don’t want it. They want to be in

Crumbs, a favorite of Katie's and Suri's.

public.” Bowling in plain sight. Pretty brave.

Shopping Around

Ms. Holmes is known to be a long-time fan of Anthropologie; lucky for her, the store has a retail space in Chelsea Market, an easy walk from Ms. Holmes’s apartment.

We swing by Anthropologie’s Chelsea location in the hopes of spotting the actress—or at least finding out if she’s a frequent visitor. A friendly employee confirms our suspicions, noting that Ms. Holmes often comes into the store to grab a few things. “She’s a loyal customer,” the sales representative says. “She’s an Anthro girl!”

One Columbia grad student and frequent Anthropologie shopper describes the time she and her roommate spotted Ms. Holmes at the Chelsea Market store: “I was admiring bowls and glasses and first saw her from the periphery,” the source says. “I walked over to my roommate and asked her to look for me again to confirm. Katie Holmes said, ‘Let’s go, sweetie’—she was with Suri, and they were looking at plates. I also checked out next to them and she asked about different colors for table settings.”

The student also reports that on that day in November, Ms. Holmes’s overall style was pretty casual. “From what I remember, [she wore] a long gray cardigan, jeans and short boots,” she says.

Ms. Holmes has also been seen checking out other spots in the famed indoor market, which houses popular joints like Morimoto, Friedman’s Lunch and Sarabeth’s Kitchen.

Walk a little farther south to the Meatpacking District and you’ll hit even more high-end clothing shopping destinations: Diane von Furstenberg, Tory Burch, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney all have shops there. And the shopping options are only continuing to grow: “On the corner of 14th Street toward the West Side Highway, one of my favorite gas stations is now going to be 20,000 square feet of retail right by the Highline,” Ms. Pulitzer says. It’s a market that’s certainly perfect for a fashionista like Ms. Holmes—or even a budding fashionista or a budding one.

jtaylor@observer.com

Governor Christie takes aim at a spider on his desk.

Oh, Chris Christie, ever a man of the people. First he saved New Jerseyans from the ravages of Superstorm Sandy, and last Friday, he saved innocent schoolchildren … from a spider.

A video posted to YouTube last week shows an heroic scene from a group of schoolchildren’s visit to the N.J. Governor’s office: After somebody spots a spider on Gov. Christie’s desk, the governor nudges the students aside and throws himself in harm’s way, fatally squashing the spider before it gets the chance to unleash its arachnid wrath on the children.

Then, Gov. Christie casually wipes the spider’s remains onto the jacket draped over the back of his chair and then onto his pants—keepin’ it classy.

“That’s also one of the fun parts about being governor,” Gov. Christie is heard saying in the video, “Any bugs on your desk, you’re allowed to kill them and not get in trouble.”

At least, that’s what he thought. Predictably, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is upset over the spider’s demise, and has issued a statement on the event. “He probably did it without thinking,” said Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president, “Some people put the spider outside, but spiders are often scary to people, and that can prevent them from pondering their worth.”

Though we are certain the spider had plenty of worth to his or her spider community, we can't help but side with the governor on this one. Though the world lost one spider last Friday, it also gained the laughter of twenty children.

Anyways, Gov. Chrsitie may not win the arachnophiles’ votes come November’s gubernatorial elections, but there’s no doubt N.J.’s fearless governor has won himself a roomful of pint-sized supporters.

(Getty)

It looks like UFC is fighting hard to make its way into the New York arena.

In an exclusive report, the Daily News found that Zuffa LLC—which owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Extreme Cagefighting—has spent $1.6 million on lobbying in New York State since 2007. Of that $1.6 million, $594,200 has been allotted to campaign contributions—and Governor Cuomo has benefited the most.

“No one has benefited more than Gov. Cuomo, who has received $180,600, or 30.4% of Zuffa’s total donations in New York since 2007,” the Daily News reported. After Gov. Cuomo, the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee has received a significant portion of the contributions—$110,000. The Republican Senate Campaign Committee has received $95,000, followed by the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which has received $39,500. UFC must think that watching muscly cage fighters beat each other into bloody oblivion is a bipartisan desire.

For UFC, the quest for legalization has been a long battle. The sport was first banned by Governor George Pataki in 1997. Four times since then, the Senate has passed legislation to legalize ultimate fighting, but each time it’s been knocked out in the Assembly. In March, the Senate passed the legislation again; the jury’s still out on whether or not the bill will make it past the Assembly round, and then on to Gov. Cuomo.

Make of it what you will, but Gov. Cuomo doesn’t seem opposed to legalizing the sport.
“I don’t have a feeling towards the sport that says, ‘That sport should not happen in the state,’” Gov. Cuomo said to the AP.  “My question is: Why should we do it? The obvious answer is that it could be an economic impact to the state, and you could generate economic activity. That could be persuasive, if it’s true.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver also had inspiring words regarding the UFC vote.

"I think at some point there will probably be an approval in this state," Speaker Silver said, according to MMAFighting.com, "I can’t tell you when."

We won’t make any official calls yet, but who knows—maybe this is the year that all of Zuffa’s lobbying efforts will finally, er, pay off.

Galliano (Getty)

Anti-Semitism is out of style at Parsons.

Students at The New School of Design are angrily protesting the schools’ controversial new hire: designer John Galliano, the notorious deliverer of a hateful, pro-Hitler tirade in 2011.

The world-renowned design college has reportedly hired Mr. Galliano to teach a short workshop on “emotion” this May. Upon hearing the news, an anonymous group took to Change.org to start a petition that would block the designer from teaching at the school. 

“This is a person who was fired from Dior for his anti-Semitic remarks, who Natalie Portman refused to work with because of his remarks, so why is Parsons The New School for Design hiring him?” the petition demands.

“[Parsons] plans to hire John Galliano for a 3-day workshop,” the petition continues, “It doesn't matter if its for three months or three days, hiring someone who has made such horrific comments shows that the school values Galliano over their entire Jewish student body. It shows they value him over their students' respect, peace of mind, and heritage.” The petition later likens the hiring of Mr. Galliano to hiring a member of the KKK.

Supporters of the petition angrily voiced their disgust with Mr. Galliano. Most commenters were students, disgraced and offended that their school would hire an instructor with his track record.

“As president of the Jewish Student Union (the oldest and largest club on-campus), I am shocked that The New School hired John Galliano,” one Jennifer Kaplan commented on the petition’s webpage.

“I find it appalling that a known Anti-Semite like John Galliano could be hired to teach at The New School,” wrote Alex Goldblum, a Parsons alumnus. “I am demanding his immediate termination.”

The petition was supported by Parsons parents, too.

“My in-laws are survivors and lost their parents and many relatives in the Holocaust,” wrote Sally Baerman, whose daughter is a Parsons freshman. "Galliano, who debases himself with anti-Semitism, is NOT an instructor that is worthy of educating students ~ no matter how talented he may be.”

Mr. Galliano made headlines in 2011, when his anti-Semitic rant in a Paris cafe was caught on tape. “I love Hitler,” Mr. Galliano says in the video. “People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f------ gassed.” Following his actions, the designer was promptly fired from Christian Dior.

Mr. Galliano made waves again last Fashion Week, when he stepped out in a questionably-offensive outfit that channeled Hasidic Jewish garb.

Still, the school stands by its decision. 

"The planned master class with John Galliano will be a dynamic and intimate opportunity for our students to learn from an immensely talented designer," a statement released by Parsons read.

"We believe that over the past two years Galliano has demonstrated a serious intent to make amends for his past actions, and as part of this workshop, Parsons students will have the opportunity to engage in a frank conversation with Mr. Galliano about the challenges and complications of leading a design house in the 21st century."

The  petition aims to collect 500 signatures. Stay tuned to find out if Mr. Galliano will be permitted to walk the runway, or whether the school will decide he’s simply out of fashion.

Update: An earlier version of this story said the petition was started by an anonymous group of Parsons students started the petition. It is not known whether they are students.

A man is loaded into an ambulance after he was injured by one of two bombs exploded during the 117th Boston Marathon near Copley Square on April 15, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)

The Boston Marathon was interrupted this afternoon by multiple large explosions, killing at least two attendees and injuring dozens more, according to the Boston Police Department.

The New York Post is reporting that as many as a dozen have been killed, with fifty injured, but other outlets are currently more conservative in their estimates.

The three blasts, which took place near the marathon's finish line, occurred about four hours after the start of the men’s race, according to The New York Times. The Associated Press reported that additional explosive devices were found near the event and are being dismantled.

"There were two bombs that exploded near the finish line in today's Boston Marathon," the organizing body behind the race said today on their Facebook page. Runners and spectators have been redirected from the blast area as law enforcement officials secured the scene.

Initial accounts described the devastation as extremely serious. "It was huge. There had to be people killed. There had to be," a witness told the  The Boston Globe. Another said there was "blood everywhere."

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick issued a statement earlier today, urging people to stay away from the area.

“This is a horrific day in Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured. I have been in touch with the President, Mayor Menino and our public safety leaders," he said.

"Our focus is on making sure that the area around Copley Square is safe and secured. I am asking everyone to stay away from Copley Square and let the first responders do their jobs."

Steven Saurbier, who saw the explosion's aftermath from his window, described a grisly scene to The Observer.

"It shook my building, we're about 100 yards down the street. I figured it was a cannon, or some giant confetti blast, or something planned for the Marathon. Then a second blast went off--much larger--and it rattled the whole building," he said.

"There was a large cloud of white smoke and people were running from the blast site. Police swarmed immediately, they removed one or two people after patting them down. There were a lot of injured people ... I estimate 20 people were medically transported. ... I saw a woman being carried by two men and I am almost positive her left leg was blown off at the knee."

Mr. Saurbier further said it wasn't clear what had caused the initial explosion, but there was a "black crater" left on the sidewalk.

“The blast was on the sidewalk outside of a restaurant. It looks like there is a black crater about a meter radius,” he continued. “There was no fire, no black smoke.”

A man is loaded into an ambulance after he was injured by one of two bombs exploded during the 117th Boston Marathon near Copley Square on April 15, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)

Photographs of police and other emergency personnel on the scene have already begun appearing on Twitter, organized by the hashtag #BostonMarathon.

This post will be updated as additional news arrives.