New York’s club scene is still dealing with the aftermath of the Chris Brown/Drake row earlier this month at the SoHo underground hotspot W.i.P. The city has shut down the venue for 14 violations following the fight on June 14th, when a barrage of flying bottles and broken glass rained down upon innocent bystanders. Read More
Takeshi Miyakawa was released from custody a little after 4:30 this afternoon. The Greenpoint-based designer spent the past four nights behind bars for hanging I [heart] New York shopping bags, illuminated from within by an LED matrix of his own design, on trees and lamp posts around North Brooklyn.
So, does Mr. Miyakawa still love New York? “Yes, I do,” he said as a pack of reporters gathered around him outside Brooklyn Supreme Court on Jay Street, a few long blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. It was an odder than usual scene, just so, for the media scrum outside the halls of justice, with the impromptu press conference being conducted in equal parts English and Japanese, Mr. Miyakawa speaking softly either way.
He wore the same mint-green button-up shirt and baggy nylon cargo pants he had been arrested in at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, after cops spotted him hanging one of his pieces at the corner of Bedford and Lorimer Avenues. A similar piece he placed early Friday morning on Bedford and North Sixth Street got three surrounding blocks shut down when a curious 311 call turned into a zealous 911 response.
“I was in shock,” Mr. Miyakawa said of his arrest, “but I was more in shock that people in Williamsburg were locked down for two hours, and I really want to apologize to them.” Read More
Takeshi Miyakawa was released from custody a little after 4:30 this afternoon. The Greenpoint-based designer spent the past four nights behind bars for hanging I [heart] New York shopping bags, illuminated from within by an LED matrix of his own design, on trees and lamp posts around North Brooklyn.
So, does Mr. Miyakawa still love New York? “Yes, I do,” he said as a pack of reporters gathered around him outside Brooklyn Supreme Court on Jay Street, a few long blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. It was an odder than usual scene, just so, for the media scrum outside the halls of justice, with the impromptu press conference being conducted in equal parts English and Japanese, Mr. Miyakawa speaking softly either way.
He wore the same mint-green button-up shit and baggy nylon cargo pants he had been arrested in at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, after cops spotted him hanging one of his pieces at the corner of Bedford and Lorimer Avenues. A similar piece he placed early Friday morning on Bedford and North Sixth Street got three surrounding blocks shut down when a curious 311 call turned into a zealous 911 response.
“I was in shock,” Mr. Miyakawa said of his arrest, “but I was more in shock that people in Williamsburg were locked down for two hours, and I really want to apologize to them.” Read More
Is your annoying co-op or condo board always on your case, nagging you about this, that or the other thing? Didn’t you leave this kind of misery behind when you moved out of your parents’ house?
Well, it’s probably all your fault, according to Brick Underground, which talks to a long-time Upper East Side co-op board member who helpfully explains why your board hates you. Read More
A haunting mystery is unfolding in Toms River, New Jersey: Did Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan flee the 3-bedroom ranch they rented at the corner of Terrance and Lowell to get away from malevolent spirits that fly in the night? Or were they running from the more prosaic demons that haunt every empty pocket book?
Mr. Chinchilla and his fiancee, Ms. Callan, told the Asbury Park Press that they took Ms. Callan’s two children and fled the home one chill March night around 1 a.m.–just a week after moving in. The pair claim they and their children were terrified by a litany of classically vague ghostly visitations: Read More
Many a New York basement and unventilated bathroom is thick with the stuff; the city’s courts may be next.
A few weeks ago, Manhattan’s appellate court overturned an earlier decision blocking damage claims for health problems resulting from living in moldy buildings, The Journal reports—a decision that could result in a wave of personal injury lawsuits. Read More
After all the attention Casey Neistat brought to the perils of biking in bike lanes, and how it is not actually illegal to bike outside of them, you would think the NYPD would stop issuing tickets for this non-offense. But alas, the quota-driven cycling crackdown continues, and it has led one biker to sue the state DMV. Read More
Recently, the public got its hands on the 35-page complaint that Julie Taymor and her company LOH Inc. filed in response to the countersuit launched by the producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
To catch up: Ms. Taymor sued the producers of the show for using her material after firing her, won a ton of money, but is still suing them for more money. The defendants in the case — 8 Legged Productions, LLC, Hello Entertainment LLC, Goodbye Entertainment LLC, Michael Cohl, Glen Berger, Jeremiah Harris, and Savior Productions LLC — include the producers who recently launched the countersuit, claiming that Ms. Taymor’s detrimental influence on the production hurt the show and cost them money. Also, her co-author for the book, Glen Berger. Back and forth, forever and ever.
While we’re waiting for this mess to get untangled (spider web pun!) in court, Ms. Taymor’s complaint contains enough juicy dirt on show creator Bono and his cohorts to keep us entertained for the rest of the week. Here are the 10 most soap opera moments from the document, so you don’t have to slog through the paperwork yourself. Read More
On a recent evening at Mr Chow, the venerable Chinese restaurant on East 57th Street that has catered to free-spending New Yorkers since 1978, a chef wheeled a metal trolley onto the balcony overlooking the dramatic sunken dining room. Taking a large ball of dough in both hands, he began to pull and massage it, thwacking the mass against the butcher’s block, then doubling it over, letting it twist, stretching, thwacking, twisting, doubling, while the room watched in silence.
This was the “noodle show,” a demonstration of starchy prowess that has occurred every night for 44 years.
The Observer was seated at a two-top, doing research (the best kind) on the federal lawsuit then being tried in Miami pitting Mr Chow against the upstart Philippe by Philippe Chow, a strikingly similar chain started in 2005 by a longtime member of Mr Chow’s New York kitchen staff.
There’s a noodle show at Philippe as well—performed by Mr Chow’s former noodle man, in fact—but that wasn’t what had the guests in tight minidresses pulling out their point-and-shoots when The Observer arrived a little later that same evening (stashing our Mr Chow doggie bag on the way in). Despite Michael Chow’s contention that Philippe had ripped off his concept wholesale, the difference in ambiance was striking.
Whereas Mr Chow was refined and understated, the vibe at Philippe could be described only as bumpin’. The bar was tightly packed. Servers wore red Chuck Taylors. Smashing Pumpkins was blaring on the PA. A woman in a tube top was sitting on a banquette in the entryway, eating out of a take-out container. Everyone was texting.
The excitement that evening turned out to be on behalf of the several New York Giants who were following up their Canyon of Heroes moment with a celebratory dinner in an upstairs dining room, while a photographer working for Cîroq vodka captured the scene.
We approached defensive end Osi Umenyiora to ask what the appeal was. “Great restaurant,” he said.
Maybe so, we thought, but whose?
Read More
“I’m literally just a Jewish person living in New York City, but I guess my neighbor doesn’t like that.”
Although he’s pulling the race card, The Observer can’t help but sympathize with Zev Geller, who is being sued for $500,000 for constructing a “fire hazard” on the terrace of his Trump Place condo, according to the Post.
And by “fire hazard” we are referring to his 20-foot sukkah, Read More
