Anthony Weiner is signaling that his exile is over, his penance performed. He seems on the verge of entering the Democratic Party’s crowded field of mayoral candidates, a development that would shake up an already unsettled race. If he does, he will bring with him not only the memories of his famous humiliation, but a campaign treasury of more than $4 million. That would make him well-endowed, indeed, but we already knew that. Read More
Give Mayor Bloomberg credit: the man is determined to leave behind a genuine public health legacy, whether the public likes it or not.
Days after a court threw out the mayor’s ban on oversized sugary drinks, Mr. Bloomberg was back on the soapbox, proposing a new law that would force merchants to hide their tobacco Read More
City Comptroller and would-be mayor John Liu apparently finds it amusing that so many press accounts take note of the scandal that has enveloped several of his key campaign aides. As The Observer noted several weeks ago, the comptroller laughingly referred to himself as “embattled” in an email invitation to a fund-raiser—his way of poking Read More
The infamous gun show loophole has been part of the nation’s conversation about gun control since the appalling massacre in Newtown, Conn., late last year.
Advocates for tighter regulation, especially Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have been pointing out that in most states, those who purchase weapons at a gun show are not required to submit to Read More
It was a different city then, and not a better one. When The New York Observer first appeared in lobbies on the Upper East Side and at a scattering of newsstands in Manhattan, the fat years of the 1980s were over, the ebullient mayoralty of Ed Koch was ensnared in scandal, the AIDS epidemic was Read More
Some time ago, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott formed an organization called the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, a group designed to provide Mr. Walcott with important input from the front lines of the public school system.
Nobody would ever say that the parents are an objective source of information about local schools—that’s not the Read More
Let’s be clear about this: the Fire Department of New York is the finest force of its kind in the world. The courage of New York’s firefighters is beyond all understanding, something we all witnessed nearly 12 years ago at the World Trade Center.
But the department is not without challenges, chief among them diversity. Read More
Should flood-prone areas along the city’s coastline be turned back to nature? Or should some of the properties be redeveloped creatively, using modern construction methods that take into account the inevitability of extreme weather?
That’s what city officials are pondering as federal money begins to flow into New York for post-Sandy reconstruction. It would seem Read More
At a time when the economy continues to sputter and many middle-class New Yorkers are worried about the cost of everyday goods, you’d think that members of the City Council would welcome the nation’s largest discount retailer with open arms.
But Walmart remains a pariah in the City Council. Its efforts to find a location Read More
With a vote on gay marriage looming, a handful of state senators remain undecided about this fundamental civil rights issue. It’s time for them to do the right thing for hundreds of thousands of their fellow New Yorkers.
One upstate Republican state senator is showing the way. Undecided until just this week, Senator James Alesi, Read More
