By Drew Grant 10/12/11 2:14pm

Occupy Wall Street

Occupiers on Wall Street

The Scruffy Slacker Hippies Who Could

(Note: Some of this article appeared in an earlier article, titled Organizing the Occupation: Wall Street, Post Megamarch.)

What a difference a week makes. The weather was unseasonably mild on Friday afternoon, and as The New York Observer strolled around Zuccotti Park, the atmosphere still had the feel of a Ren Faire that had wandered into the wrong neighborhood. But there was definitely something different in the vibe over at Occupy Wall Street H.Q. Since the unions called out the troops last Wednesday, marching in solidarity with the protesters, the demo has skewed older—for instance, a pair of women standing in the front of the park looked as though they’d qualify for discount movie tickets. They held signs that read “Pissed off Grey Hairs say ‘Jail the Wall Street Bastards.’” Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/27/11 8:37am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

All aboard? (wikispaces.com)

Will Conductor Cuomo Put the M.T.A. On Track?

Transportation wonks have a habit of talking about Jay Walder, the outgoing head of the M.T.A., in messianic terms, as though he were the only man capable of fixing the agency’s myriad problems—an aging system, run by intransigent unions, with almost no political support. While many of them have greeted his resignation with shock and concern, there is a growing sense that this could actually be the best thing to happen to the M.T.A. since Mr. Walder’s arrival two years ago.

“I guess I’m partly responsible for inflating the importance of Jay,” said Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and dean of transit advocate.

Indeed, there have been others—Richard Ravitch, the team of Kiley-Gunn, even Mr. Walder’s predecessor, Lee Sander—who have done a lot to resurrect mass transit from the death throes of the 1970s. Mr. Walder, though, was different. He had moved from McKinsey to run London’s transit system, introducing successful innovations, including the vaunted oyster card, which speeds up bus and Tube boardings, as well as implementing that dread scourge, congestion pricing. He was supposed to bring the same innovation and ingenuity to New York.

“You have to hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in Albany,” blogger and M.T.A. kremlinologist Benjamin Kabak said. Read More

By Azi Paybarah 3/04/11 7:07pm

Schooling

Brodsky Lands at N.Y.U.

Richard Brodsky, a long-time Assemblyman who never hesitated to tell reporters how to cover the state capital, gets to shape the discussion at N.Y.U., as a senior fellow.

Brodsky gave up his seat to run, unsuccessfully for attorney general last year. The notably anti-Albany sentiment on the campaign trail made his bid particularly challenging. But Read More

By David Freedlander 9/02/10 10:19pm

A Loaded Question at the AG's Debate

The attorney general candidates (minus Kathleen Rice) gathered for (what seems like) the 87,242nd debate this primary season at the cramped studios of the public access station Manhattan News Network.

The event was sponsored by the city’s ethnic and foreign language press, and there were few surprises, except when a reporter from the Chinese language Read More

By David Freedlander 9/02/10 6:08pm

Curious

About That Poll…

There was a lot of head-scratching in political circles this morning after a Q-Poll came out that showed that a whopping 85 percent of New Yorkers did not know who they were going to vote for in the attorney general’s race.

Nassau district attorney Kathleen Rice led all comers in the poll with Read More

By David Freedlander 8/30/10 6:11pm

Campaign 2010

Rice Lays Out Enviro Agenda

Attorney general candidate Kathleen Rice released her “plan for environmental justice,” today, which calls for expanding the attorney general’s environmental protection bureau, closing the Indian Point power plant, a moratorium on hydrofracking and a naming and shaming of the state’s biggest environmental polluters.

“I believe the next AG must be a ‘green AG’ and that Read More

By David Freedlander 8/16/10 3:18pm

Stockpiling

Kathleen Rice: The Grassroots Are With Me

Nassau County district attorney Kathleen Rice has a clear lead in the amount of cash on hand for the attorney general’s race, and she is out  with a release that shows that all of that cash is not coming from big-pocketed donors. In fact, her campaign notes, the presumed front-runner in the attorney general’s race Read More