Upper Manhattan residents and Brooklynites who live south of Atlantic Avenue are in for a treat. Citi Bike’s 2016 expansion is bringing new docking stations up to 110th Street in Manhattan and to several Brooklyn neighborhoods including Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Red Hook. Additional stations will also be added in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, to improve bike availability. By the end of the expansion Citi Bike will have over 600 docking stations, and the company plans to have 700 by 2017. (Gothamist)
Almost four years ago, Vincent Zanfardino was driving near the Pelham Bay exit on the New England Thruway when he experienced an epileptic seizure and hit another car, leading to a crash that killed the backseat passenger in the other vehicle. Now he says he’s been a victim of malicious prosecution. Mr. Zanfardino was prosecuted for a manslaughter charge after the incident, which alleged he was aware his seizure history prohibited him from driving. But now he claims his doctor told him he only needed to be seizure-free for six months before he could drive again. Mr. Zanfardino was eventually cleared of criminal charges. (Daily News)
Taking a break from what probably hasn’t been the best few weeks of his administration, Mayor Bill de Blasio is spending the weekend on the other side of the country with his older brother, Seattle resident Steve Wilhelm. a journalist with the Puget Sound Business Journal who has covered business and the aerospace industry since the early 1980s, is retiring. Mr. Wilhelm said that he and his brother haven’t planned anything too elaborate for the visit. “We’re just going to wing it,” he said. (Politico New York)
According to current zoning rules, 40 percent of Manhattan buildings shouldn’t exist. Or rather, if these buildings were to be constructed in 2016, zoning regulations would get in the way. They’d either be too tall, or too crowded, or have too much commercial space, among a range of other offenses. This is all according to Stephen Smith and Sandip Trivedi, heads of the real estate firm Quantierra, which looks for investment opportunities through data. In reaching their conclusions, they looked through public records of over 43,000 buildings. (New York Times)
Following in the footsteps of New York’s storied tradition of strange dessert concoctions—remember the Cronut?—an Astoria coffee shop has brought us the “Donutccino.” The new dessert (or should it be called a drink?) is a cup of iced coffee topped with whipped cream, sprinkles and chocolate sauce, with a doughnut hanging off the straw. The shop will only sell the concoction on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so get ready to modify those weekend plans. (DNAinfo)
