By Steve Huff 7/10/12 7:02pm

Crime

Sarah Fox (AMW/Jessica Katz)

DNA From Unsolved Sarah Fox Murder Linked to Occupy Wall Street

The unsolved 2004 murder of Juilliard acting student Sarah Fox is going from cold to hot–and new evidence in the case has been tangentially linked to Occupy Wall Street. NBC 4 reports police have connected DNA found at the Inwood Hill Park murder scene to DNA collected from a chain found at the scene of an Occupy Wall Street protest in East Flatbush late last March. The evidence is direct; the genetic evidence was obtained from Fox’s pink CD player, found near her nude and strangled corpse in May, 2004: Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/20/12 3:48pm

POPS-ing OFF

Kings Cross Central, one of London's newest "private estates."

New York Is Not the Only Place Struggling With Privately Owned Public Space

Until last fall and the occupation of Zucotti Park, privately owned public spaces, or POPS, were a mystery to most New Yorkers. Ever since, people have been debating the fate of these spaces and what the city should do to ensure their accessibility at the same time to public is expected to behave themselves.

But it turns out such contentious urban space is not the sole preserve of New York. As a recent report in The Guardian reveals, our arch-nemesis London has been grappling with “private estates.” Read More

By Patrick Clark 5/15/12 7:21pm

Fallout

Dimon. (Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images)

A Dimon Is Forever … Right?

In the days leading up to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s bombshell announcement of $2.3 billion in trading losses, chairman and chief executive officer Jamie Dimon faced a delicate predicament. His executives had scheduled visits with banking analysts to discuss the state of affairs at JPMorgan—the company whose stock Mr. Dimon knew was sure to plummet when news of the trading losses were disclosed. These weren’t just any trading losses, of course; they were losses incurred on credit derivatives bets placed by a mysterious trader nicknamed the London Whale and Voldemort by the financial press. And it wasn’t just any bet—it was the same trading position that Mr. Dimon had described as “a complete tempest in a teapot” not one month previous.

“On the inside, Dimon must have been trying to figure out what was happening with the trade, and what to do about it,” said Frank Partnoy, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker, currently a law professor at the University of San Diego. “It’s like he has an inside personality, and an outside personality that he shows the world, and the two things must have been in conflict, like what politicians deal with when they’re handling a crisis.” Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/02/12 10:35am

Rent wars

Almost as good entertainment as the Rent Guidelines Board (_rockinfree, flickr)

Renters Outraged: RGB Votes To Raise Rents Again

Surprise! The rent is going up again next year.

In a move that surprised no one, the Rent Guidelines Board cast a preliminary vote to allow rent increases between 1.75 and 4 percent for one-year leases and 3.5 to 6.75 percent for two-year leases, reports The New York Times.

The ranges will be narrowed to a single percent increase when the board takes its final vote on June 21. Last year the board approved a 3.75 percent increase for a one-year lease and a 7.25 percent increase for a two-year lease. Read More

By Steve Huff 4/27/12 1:01am

General Strike

MayDayNyc.org

May 1 Protests Have Wall Street Jittery About Occupy ‘Wolves’

The Occupy Movement plans a general strike for May 1st. The movement claims this strike will include protesters in “125 U.S. cities” standing up “for economic justice.” Occupy Wall Street has announced that May Day will also mark the launch of 99 Pickets in New York. With 99 Pickets, protesters plan to erect “99 Picket Lines to expose, disrupt, and shut down the corporations who rule our city.” Occupy further states that 99 Pickets “will be an effective way for people to plug into the morning activities on May Day.”  This action apparently has Wall Street as nervous as pack animals beset by wolves.

Bloomberg reports  major financial institutions are readying for both May 1st and for Occupy demonstrations at the N.A.T.O. summit in Chicago on May 20 and 21 with “video surveillance, robots and officers in buildings.” In spite of the presence of robots, there’s a distinct Wild Kingdom element to the psychology behind the banks’ efforts. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Max Abelson, Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations director of global risk Brian McNary provided the Discovery Channel-flavored comparison: Read More

By Hunter Walker 4/25/12 8:00am

Occupy Wall Street

OWS-Subway

Lost In New York: Can Occupy Find Its Way Back To Prominence In The Crowded, Distracted City

You can still see traces of the Occupy Wall Street encampment that once stood in Zuccotti Park—a contingent of police officers by the plaza’s entrance and an NYPD watchtower standing guard on Zuccotti’s
northern edge. However, the protesters who made this park their home before being evicted by the police last November are largely gone and the news trucks that formerly stationed themselves outside have departed in favor of a Chabad Mitzvah Tank.

On a recent afternoon at Zuccotti, The Observer encountered handful of tourists and businessmen on lunch breaks but there was nary a demonstrator in sight. At nearby Federal Hall, there were about 11 Occupiers holding signs and sitting on the steps. On the street below, workers were seemingly oblivious to the Occupiers in their midst.

“You’re a Republican?” a suited man asked his friend as they briskly passed by. “Good man!”

Seven months into the movement, the Wall Street that protesters are ostensibly trying to occupy has become inured to the spectacle of carnivalesque protests, demonstrators sleeping on sidewalks and mass arrests. And it seems the rest of the city has too. The protesters are in danger of becoming just another discordant note in the daily din that New Yorkers are so adept at tuning out, like panhandlers, street performers, sidewalk preachers and the other distractions of urban life. Read More

By The Editors 3/27/12 7:10pm

Opening Shot

A new Christian in focus.

A Cold Snap

What’s the saying? March goes in like a lion, out like a lamb? Whoever coined that turn of phrase must have been talking about frozen mutton: we’ll be leaving March in some of the coldest weather we’ve felt all year. Read More