« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »
March 31, 2007
GO HOYAS!
I can't believe I almost forgot this: this evening is the first round of the NCAA Final Four. For the last four months, a group of men have given pretty much everything a long-term fan could hope for. The Hoyas won the Big East regular season championship and then the Big East Tournament. The team didn't get a #1 seed in the NCAA's March tournament, but Georgetown progressed all the same. Tonight they face Ohio State, led by that team's 39-year-old freshman Greg Oden. Is this shaping up to be the best week ever? So far.
Need to get psyched? Check out this clip of Georgetown students filling N St. after the win over UNC. Hoya Saxa!
Tagged: basketball, hoyas, ohio statePosted by Lexiphane at 5:00 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WEEKEND GIG
This entry notwithstanding, posting could be pretty light here on the weekends. I've sold out, been called up, am headed to the show. Call it what you will, but I've taken a paying gig. Even casual readers of Lexiphane.com will know that I'm a big fan of Jen, Jake, et al. over at Gothamist. Fortunately, the feelings are reciprocal and they were nice enough to extend an invitation to become that site's Weekend Editor. Come on over and visit me there every Saturday and Sunday. We're having some good times.
Posted by Lexiphane at 4:35 PM | Gothamist | Comments (1) | TrackBack
CHURCH TO HOTEL: STICK WITH CHOCOLATE BUNNIES
A midtown hotel got an earful from the Catholic Church this week, when the contents of a planned art exhibit became public. Artist Cosimo Cavallaro was scheduled to display his piece "My Sweet Lord" at the Roger Smith Hotel on 47th St. and Lexington Avenue before New York's archbishop objected. The sculpture was a six-foot-tall representation of a naked Jesus, made out of chocolate The Catholic League's President, Bill Donohue, is not a fan of edible iconography:
The Catholic League had said it was highly offensive to display a sculpture of Jesus with "his genitals exposed" and invite the public to eat it.
"The Roger Smith Hotel will rue the day it sought to declare war on Christian sensibilities," said Donahue.
The hotel cancelled the exhibition.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:42 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 30, 2007
ONCE AND FOR ALL, HOPEFULLY
It's no secret. I'm a Georgetown fan. By all measures and by the number of hours I spent on a bus heading to the now unused Cap-Center so I could get a front-row seat for every single game no matter how inconsequential, I could be considered a superfan. Although those days are long gone and my street cred as a true fan has waned (I'll admit I am a bandwagon-hopping fair-weather fan), I am hopeful about one thing, regardless of any Final Four outcome: the death of two college sports euphemisms.
The euphemisms are intertwined and more fully loaded than the latest Mercedes S-Class. Princeton Offense and Georgetown Defense.
The Princeton Offense was made famous by long-time coach Pete Carill, who championed an offensive style that employed brisk passing and designed plays rather than a free-wheeling attack. It's effectiveness was most displayed when #16 Princeton nearly upset #1 seed Georgetown in the NCAA tournament in 1990. When people talk about the Princeton Offense, they use words like disciplined, practiced, and cerebral.
The opposite words would be used for what is described as the Georgetown Defense: swarming, physical, intimidating. The two styles have, I hate to say, become racially loaded code words in the lexicon of college basketball, the same way "athleticism" and "discipline" are code words. Black players are tall, built, high-jumpers, who happen upon excellence by chance. White players practice endlessly and prove themselves against all odds.
The terms gained such traction because of that long-ago matchup and also because the two institutions were so emblematic at a certain time: Princeton is always going to be a lily-white institution, athletically, and a symbol of privelege. Georgetown had the audacity to shatter that mold and hire an unapolagetic "angry black man", who would only recruit african american students and require them to stay in school all four years. John Thompson Jr.'s success was one of the more unlikely successes in sports, but it was what it was. The upside/downside was that Thompson's Hoya teams were 1) almost exclusively black 2) defensively fierce 3) successful. Put the three together and you have Hoya Paranoia, which unfortunately entailed thinly veiled racist characterisations of thugishness.
Almost 20 years later, we arrive at the situation where John Thompson, Jr.'s son, JT III, has coached his way to the Final Four. All the cliches would be intact except that Thompson's son didn't got to Georgetown, he went to Princeton, joined the basketball team, became an assistant coach, and then became the head coach, all under the guidance of Princeton guru Pete Carill. Now he's coaching a Princeton Offense, that the coach likes to identify as a Georgetown offense.
JTIII calls one man 'Coach', and it isn't his dad. The Hoyas have got to the Final Four by incredible team performances that involve set plays and come-from-behind-wins that, frankly, defy regular explanations. This weekend you can watch one, hopefully two, games bya team that's defined itself by crisp passing and unselfish play––also an indefatigable win to win.
As you watch Saturday's game, a lot of wasted airtime will be devoted to blatherings about JTIII's debt to Princeton and Pete Carill. I am going out on a limb and saying that I don't give a shit if G'town beats Ohio State or not; I would really prefer that people stop referring to disciplined and skilled offenses that win conference championships as some type of proprretary gameplan that is unavailable to black players. Yeah! Georgetown's players are black. Yeah! Their coach went to Princeton. Yeah! They're in the Final Four. A puzzled Vanderbilt player described Georgetown's offense as "perfect" as he tried to explain the unstoppable half he just met. Regardless of how far the team goes, if Georgetown's unselfish team-oriented offense that gives up nothing on ferocious defense puts an end to the lamest euphemistic clichés of all time, I can't be too disappointed.
Tagged: college basketball, georgetown, racism
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:37 AM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ONE-ARMED MAN STILL ON THE LOOSE
WNBC is running the above story right now. Granted, some hard-hearted types might bring up the fact that it would be difficult to give hot pursuit with a peg leg. And those people would be wrong, ignorant, and not funny, no matter how amusing that mental image might be. This is the 21st Century, and artificial limbs make will and determination more important than how many appendages one might have.
Brian O'Sullivan was told in July 1999, after he had passed a written police exam, that he wasn't eligible for the NYPD because his lower right leg was amputated because of a birth deformity.
A police doctor said O'Sullivan's artifical leg would cause him difficulty performing a number of essential functions of a police officer.
In 2002, O'Sullivan, who has run a marathon, again passed the written police exam but was disqualified medically. He sued, claiming unlawful discrimination.
If you skimmed, let me reiterate: Brian O'Sullivan ran a marathon. I'm trying to think of the officer-related duties he might have trouble with, as based on what I've seen my cop acquaintances do. Sit in a van? Sit in a patrol car? Drive around? Stand around? Run more than three blocks?* Darn, I can't think of a single thing O'Sullivan isn't capable of.
* I've never actually seen an NYPD officer do this, but O'Sullivan clearly could.
Tagged: amputee, cops, nypdPosted by Lexiphane at 12:13 AM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 29, 2007
SIN-É, FINIS
These New York Times elegies for lost neighborhood institutions are beginning to pack all the poignancy of a roll-call, but it's still nice that they do them. Lower East Side club Sin-é is closing its doors this Sunday, unable to keep up with the Joneses that have moved in around it.
Yes, another one bites the dust: Sin-é (pronounced shih-NAY), after a weekend of goodbye shows, will close for good on Sunday. Over two decades and three locations, the owner, Shane Doyle, maintained it as a cozy, unassuming place for up-and-coming musical acts, charting the perimeters of gentrifying areas as surely as Starbucks now defines them. But two months ago, as wealthy neighbors and city and state regulators encroached, he decided his low-key vision was out of step.
“I look at this block, and I know it’s over,” Mr. Doyle, 55, said in an interview in his club on Attorney Street near Stanton. Once an industrial stretch of liquor warehouses and auto-repair shops, that block is now within spitting distance of several million-dollar apartment complexes. When those buildings’ residents started calling to complain of noise and crowds, he knew. “Then the obvious thing is, O.K., let me go somewhere else,” he said. “But I can’t find somewhere else. And even if I could the lifespan would be too short.”
I liked Sin-é. The short depth of the club combined with the height of the stage provided good sightlines regardless of where you were standing, and if you could grab a seat at the far end of the bar, all the better. Something I learned from the Times piece: Sin-é is Gaelic for "That's it."
(Photo from Crackers United at Flickr)
Tagged: club, les, sin-éPosted by Lexiphane at 9:26 AM | Music , NYC , Real Estate | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2007
IF YOU GROW IT, THEY WILL COME
Given the cost of a square foot of Manhattan real estate, one wouldn't think that using an apartment to raise commercial crops would be feasible. When the "IT" in the title is a 'Field of Weeds', however, things have a way of becoming feasible in a hurry. And although this Upper Manhattan resident probably would have loved to see a line of headlights snaking towards his front door in the New York night, the "THEY" dropping by last night were DEA agents.
Drug Enforcement agents raided a Washington Heights apartment building on Tuesday and found a virtual "forest" of marijuana plants being grown on one floor of the building.
News Channel 4's Jonathan Dienst first reported the seizure where agents were seen removing more than 700 plants from the site.
The raid happened around 10:30 p.m. at a building at West 154th Street and Amsterdam Avenue after investigators were tipped off about the facility.
Somebody is seriously bummed right now.
(Picture is not of described operation)
Tagged: dea, marijuana, pot farm, weedPosted by Lexiphane at 8:03 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NYC GETTING BIKE FRIENDLY?
This may be a case of putting the municipal cart before the horse, but some NYC neighborhoods may be getting bike stands, where residents can pick up and drop off short-term loaner bikes. The program will be modeled after similar installations in European cities such as Amsterdam (pictured). The pilot program will start with bike stands in the East Village, Long Island City, and Governor's Island. Even some bike transportation advocates, however, concede that such a scheme could face difficulties.
New York City has long operated with different rules than some of the cities where free-bicycle programs have been successful; one might wonder if the bicycles would leave their racks and never return. Advocates indicate that the scheme would work in New York only in a modified form.
"If we had a program where you could pick up a free bike and use it, those bikes would end up at the bottom of the East River," the deputy director for advocacy at Transportation Alternatives, Noah Budnick, said. "It works to a certain extent in Amsterdam, but eventually even those bikes all end up in the canals."
While I feel that the city could make some other steps first to encourage bike transportation––restricting the use of dedicated bike lanes to bicycles as opposed to speeding cars, or at a bare minimum, making the killing of cyclists by drivers against the law––it's encouraging to see the city make any bike-friendly move.
(Photo from Flickr)
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:15 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MAZEL TOV!
To the right is the winner of the inaugural Matzo Sculpture Competition sponsored by Manischewitz and hosted by NYU. Sophomore art student James Donovan won $1,000 for his unleavened rendering of the Arch at Union Square. Art talk abounded:
The official theme was "Home," contestant Eric Goldberg said, and his three little matzo dioramas were meant to represent his parents' home, his grandparents' home, and now (the one with the matzo futon), his own home, as an NYU student.
"They gave me a foundation," he said of his family, and you just know that somewhere out there, there are two generations of Goldbergs very proud that their boy is spending his $39,000 education gluing matzos together.
Don't worry Eric, they're probably just relieved you're not a performance artist.
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:14 PM | Art , Food & Drink , NYC , Religion | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NYC DISTINGUISHES ITSELF
NYC succeeded in distinguishing itself yet again as a city hostile to the eonomic interests of lower-income households as the CEO of Wal-Mart announced that the low-cost retailer was abandoning attempts to open a store within the city's five boroughs.
Mr. Scott’s remarks, delivered at a meeting with editors and reporters of The New York Times, amounted to a surprising admission of defeat, given the company’s vigorous efforts to crack into urban markets and expand beyond its suburban base in much of the country. In recent years, Wal-Mart has encountered stout resistance to its plans to enter America’s bigger cities, which stand as its last domestic frontier.
Much of the opposition to Wal-Mart in cities like New York is led by unions. Organized labor, fearing that the retailer’s low prices and modest wages will undercut unionized stores, have built anti-Wal-Mart alliances with Democratic members of city councils.
Yesterday, labor leaders, upon learning of Wal-Mart’s apparent retreat from New York — or at the very least Manhattan — returned Mr. Scott’s sentiment.
“We don’t care if they’re never here,” said Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council. “We don’t miss them. We have great supermarkets and great retail outlets in New York. We don’t need Wal-Mart.”
Well, one can't miss what one never had and that's pretty much the crux of this issue. Whatever one thinks of Wal-Mart, this is about a powerful special interest group using its political clout to deprive New Yorkers of consumer choice and the opportunity to save some money while stocking up on groceries, or anything for that matter. And say what you will about the Arkansas chain, but there never seems to be any shortage of people applying for positions to be "exploited" there. Probably because it doesn't ask its workers to "volunteer "as check-out bag boys and work only for tips.
Posted by Lexiphane at 8:46 AM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2007
AT THE ZOO
With the weather warming up, now's a good time to make a trip up to the Bronx Zoo and see some of the facility's new additions. Pictured to the left is an ebony langur that was born over the winter and is now starting to explore his zoo habitat.
Also known as the Javan Lutung, the ebony langur is an arboreal primate found exclusively in the rainforests of Indonesia. They are herbivorous, eating leaves, fruit, flowers, and flower buds, according to Wikipedia.
This species is listed as "Endangered" by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) due to hunting and habitat loss. In recent years, Indonesia has had the highest deforestation rate in the world as a result of illegal logging, fires, and forest conversion for agriculture -- especially oil palm plantations.
The langurs are housed in The Bronx Zoo's JungleWorld habitat. In a map of the zoo here, one can see JungleWorld in the lower left-hand corner near the Asia Gate.
Tagged: bronx, zooPosted by Lexiphane at 12:56 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FRANK THE TANK'S A KILLER
Method actord Will Ferrell is known for taking his acting to the extreme, whether it's as an Elf on the edge,an aged fratboy who'd do anything to get back in-house, or a strung-out ice skater willing to break all the rules to get back in the limelight. Today he perhaps went too far: flinging Meredith Vieira beneath his legs and onto the ice via her skull on the Rockefeller Center ice rink.
.
"Owww, that hurt", said Vieira.
Ferrell didn't respond that Brando probably would've bitch-slapped her just for blowing the shot, even though they weren't even acting, before heading to his trailer.
Tagged: ferrell, today showPosted by Lexiphane at 4:53 AM | Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BAD LAWYERIN' INSTINCTS
Wow! One has to be the worst lawyer in the world to give up the PR bonanza of representing the greatest everyman NYC hero of the last decade in favor of a trying to chisel him out of, what exactly–it's not exactly clear he deserves anything–he's just a fucking hero!
For those that missed out, Wesley Autrey saw a man fall onto the subway tracks a few months ago. Even though he had his daughters in tow, Autrey lept onto the tracks as a train was approaching and pressed himself and the man into a culvert underneath the tracks as the train rolled into the station.
A quick-acting commuter who became an instant hero after saving a teenager who fell in front of an oncoming subway train has sued a lawyer he says manipulated him into signing an unfair, one-sided contract.
Wesley Autrey Sr. says in court papers he signed the contract Feb. 12 without reading it, agreeing that lawyer Diane L. Kleiman would represent and advise him in financial and other matters stemming from his subway heroism.
Autrey, a 50-year-old Bronx construction worker, says in court papers that the contract is "a one-sided agreement" he was induced to sign by "fraud" and that it gives the lion's share of everything he earns to Kleiman and her business partner, Marco Antonio Esposito, operator of an entertainment production company.
I am not a lawyer, but I am also not a natural-born idiot. Someone in this story is.
Tagged: lawyer, subwayPosted by Lexiphane at 4:20 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 26, 2007
BOARDWALKING THE PLANK
I recommend that next weekend you get on the F train heading out of or away from Manhattan, towards Brooklyn and the line's terminus: Coney Island. It's not just a Sunday, it's April Fools' Day; and there is no better place for careless fun than Coney Island's boardwalk. Unfortunately, April 1st marks the beginning of the end for Astroland, the boardwalk amusement park that's been around for 40 years and that has served as an anchor to Coney Island's much longer history as an amusement destination.
The owner of Astroland, Carol Hill Albert, who also owns the Cyclone roller coaster, sold the site to Thor in the fall for $30 million, property records indicate, a deal she said she was reluctant to make. "I couldn't risk going out of business," she said, contending that years of anticipated construction on Thor's property presented a large obstacle.
Ms. Albert, whose family has owned Astroland for all 40 years of its existence, said there were too many bureaucratic obstacles to year-round amusements on her site. "I think Joe Sitt has been taking all the city's attention and energy," she said.
Suffice it to say that Thor Equities has its sights set more on condos than corndogs and cotton candy. If you've never been to Coney Island, this summer is the time for you to make a trip. It's one of those places that you'll be able to imagine or remember years from now, but that you can actually experience for the last time right now.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:09 PM | NYC , Real Estate | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MALAPROPISM OF THE DAY
The subhed to this story in the free commuter daily AMNewYork about the death of Anna Nicole Smith reads "A Florida medical examiner said there was no evidence that the celebutante had taken large amounts of prescription medication." Now I don't want to be like one of those sniffy old matrons jealously guarding membership to society's social register with stringent standards of breeding and wealth, but I will have to take issue with the use of the portmanteau "celebutante" in this case. As I understand it, a celebutante is a young woman who parlays her inherited wealth, beauty, and social standing into celebrity status. Paris Hilton would be the gold standard of celebutantes.
Anna Nicole Smith was a 39-year-old woman who parlayed her poor Texas upbringing, with stints as a jeans model, topless dancer, and unlikely bride of a semi-mummified centi-millionaire, into a career as a drug-addled wreck who careened through life, on camera and off, to the amusement of the general public. And then in the span of about three weeks she gave birth to a baby, lost a son to a drug overdose, and then overdosed herself: a perfect tabloid trifecta, with bonus points for instigating an endless media/legal circus from beyond the grave.
I don't think celebutante is the word someone wanted to use here.
NB: Occasionally, Lexiphane.com likes to publish attempts at neologism in its pages. I'll take this opportunity to coin the following:
celibutante, noun
SEL-i-byu-tahnt
etymology: celibate + debutante, celibacy + celebutante
def: A young woman known as much for her general celebrity as for an outspoken sexual demureness.
"One-time celibutante Britney Spears has worked assiduously to attain the status of Showbiz Slattern over the past five years, going as far as romping in the bushes with another patient during her stint in rehab."
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:13 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LUCKY OR UNLUCKY? LET'S CALL IT A WASH
Like two booze-cruise ships not quite passing in the night, two cars helmed by drunk drivers slammed head-on into each other in Suffolk County early this morning.
Police said their cars were traveling in opposite directions in the same lane of traffic on North Ocean Avenue in Selden when they slammed into each other head-on.
Suffolk County police said the drivers have been charged with driving while intoxicated. One of the drivers suffered serious internal injuries and a broken thigh bone. One driver is hospitalized, and the other is in police custody awaiting arraignment.
So this was like a theoretical physics problem involving immoveable stupidity and unstoppable irresponsibility. I'm glad no one was killed, although I can't say the one driver in the hospital is likely to keep me awake nights with worry. I'm sure at least one of these two drivers is thinking "Jeez, can't a guy drive drunk in the right direction without some drunker jerk going the wrong way slamming into him? Learn how to drive drunk for Chrissakes!"
Tagged: drunk driversPosted by Lexiphane at 10:53 AM | Total Jackassery | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!
Get 'em while they're hot off the silkscreen presses! Celebrate the the top four college teams in the nation gathering for the Final Four in Atlanta with this commemorative t-shirt.
Tagged: final four, tshirtPosted by Lexiphane at 1:28 AM | Sports , Total Jackassery | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2007
GHOSTS OF '82, EXORCISED!
(Hoyas celebrate 2007 East Region Championship)
My hat's off to North Carolina coach Roy Williams and his band of Tarheels. For 35 minutes North Carolina executed their gameplan seemingly to perfection. Using their neverending bench, they'd backed Georgetown into foul trouble and maintained a quick pace throughout the game. Both were situations lethal to Georgetown's regular style of play, which relies on intense defense, grinding out scores on possession after possession, and the low scores that reflect that style. Perspective: In a season where the Hoyas's accrued a 30-7 record thus far, when the team tied the game tonight at 81 on a three-pointer with :32 remaining, it was only the fifth time they'd scored more than 80 points. With six minutes remaining in the game, facing a 9-point deficit, and in a game that was not being played at its own pace, lesser teams may have folded under the pressure. Georgetown methodically kept pushing back at UNC, however, and their shots fell more often than not. What happened in the final 5:32 of Carolina's game will be puzzled over for some time.
With the final possession guaranteed and Georgetown in double-penalty foul land, the play to call seemed obvious: Carolina would hold for the final shot and then drive to the basket for the high-percentage shot. Georgetown wouldn't dare foul; Carolina needed only one point from the charity stripe to get to the Final Four. For some reason, Carolina came out of its own TO huddle and under little time pressure had Wayne Ellington launch a three-point attempt that clanged off the rim. After that it was as if a fog descended over the Tarheels, who could not buy a shot to save their season as the Hoyas scored seemingly at will and rebounded as if by right. Even highly reliable UNC Center Tyler Hansbrough bricked two freethrow attempts! With :08 seconds left in OT, Carolina's Ty Lawson drained a three, but at that point the Georgetown players were almost already celebrating. Georgetown beats Carolina: 96-84.
I'm not going to even roll call the great plays and contributions of different Georgetown players. That was a team that dug down deep and played like a group of guys that trusted each other implicitly. I will say that it was the first time all season that every starter scored in double digits. Sure, that's in part a reflection of the overall high score of the game; but I think it also says something about the way all of them function as a team. It was beautiful. Congratulations gentlemen, you have joined the Pantheon of McDonough and you're not even through yet. The Final Four follows . . .
NB: A transcript of both teams' postgame press conferences is available here. I watched the video of it and it's amazing to see how quickly Tyler Hansbrough could be reduced to the 19-year-old kid he essentially is. The poor guy looked like he was physically in shock and that someone should be calling the school nurse or something.
Posted by Lexiphane at 8:43 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"THEN SHE DROPPED INTO SPACE"
Looking at the image to the right, it is not hard to think of bystanders watching the World Trade Center towers burning: heads tilted upwards in dumb disbelieving shock, even as bodies began to pile at their feet. This was March 25, 1911 though, and the bodies were those of the women who worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the Asch Building (now the Brown Building) at 23-29 Washington Place. A fire broke out on the factory floor at 4:45 p.m. that day and quickly spread. Finding that they were locked in to the factory (a move to improve productivity by management), women fled to the fire escapes to make their way down from the 7th and 8th floors. Although the Asch Building was only ten years old, the fire escapes gave way under the combined weight of too many women and collapsed. 146 women died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, many choosing to leap to their deaths instead of burning.
Cornell University has a superb site with information and resources concerning many aspects of the fire and its aftermath. Matthew Shepherd was a United Press reporter who phoned in his account from the scene. Here is part of it:
I was walking through Washington Square when a puff of smoke issuing from the factory building caught my eye. I reached the building before the alarm was turned in. I saw every feature of the tragedy visible from outside the building. I learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk.
Thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead. Sixty-two thud—deads. I call them that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet.
The first ten thud—deads shocked me. I looked up—saw that there were scores of girls at the windows. The flames from the floor below were beating in their faces. Somehow I knew that they, too, must come down, and something within me—something that I didn't know was there—steeled me.
I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself. Then came the thud--then a silent, unmoving pile of clothing and twisted, broken limbs.
The fire occurred a little less than a year and a half after an address given by Clara Lemlich to hundreds of assembled workers at Cooper Union. She passionately proposed a general strike for better and safer working conditions for shirtwaist workers, and nearly two out of every three of the 32,000 workers followed her. The strike of 20,000 women was eventually ended in February 1910 with concessions on wages and working conditions. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was not an adherent to the settlement. It was only until after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that workers' conditions began to improve on a larger scale. Assemblyman Al Smith, representative of the Lower East Side in Albany, was part of the commission that investigated working conditions in the aftermath of the fire. He began a crusade for improved working conditions and with the support of Tammany Hall was eventually swept into the Governor's office.
Standing on the corner of Washington Place and Greene St. today, there is little to indicate it was the site of a castrophe that left firehoses washing a river of blood down the street's gutters. But on a spring evening not that unlike today's, 96 years ago, onlookers witnessed sights so horrible, that it changed the course of New York history.
NB: Concidentally, today is also the 17th anniversary of the Happy Land Social Club Fire in the Bronx. 87 people died in a fire that swept through a crowded club. It was set by a man after he argued with his girlfriend.
Tagged: al smith, clara lemlich, triangle shirtwaist firePosted by Lexiphane at 1:50 PM | History , NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2007
MANHATTAN LOSES GRIP ON GAY-REPS-FOR-ISLAND-BOROUGHS MONOPOLY
This may be the answer to a trivia question some day: 2007 is the year that Staten Island may elect its first openly gay representative to the State Assembly. The politically Red Borough that usually elects Republicans in a city of Blue State voters, Staten Island is holding a special election following the death of John W. Lavelle, who represented the 61st Assembly District for Staten Island's north shore. Unlike the rest of Richmond County, the north shore of Staten Island generally tilts Democratic and this Tuesday's special election could elevate openly-gay Matthew Titone to the State Assembly. Titone is opposed in the race by Rose Margarella, running on the Republican and Conservative Party lines, and Kelvin Alexander, who is running on the Independence Party line. Given that Margarella and Alexander will split the fiscal and social conservative vote, Titone will likely win the race despite his radical gay platform:
Mr. Titone said that his election would indeed be “an exciting thing,” but that he was most concerned about finding ways to increase health care financing in the borough, reducing class sizes in the Assembly district’s schools and making prekindergarten programs available for all 4-year-olds.
Alright, his radically moderate centrist-Democrat platform.
There is another special election on Staten Island this coming Tuesday. Assemblyman Vincent Ignizio was elected to the City Council in a special election February 20th, so his south shore seat must be filled. Democratic leaders feel that their candidate, John S. Mulia, has a chance in the heavily Republican 62nd Assembly District. His Republican opponent is the unfortunately named Louis Tobacco, who was nominated after frontrunner Chester Asbestos dropped out of the race for health reasons*.
*Made that last part up.
Tagged: assembly, gay, politics, staten islandPosted by Lexiphane at 11:27 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WHITHER THE PRINCIPAL?
In my piece a few days about the release of wrongly accused school janitor Frances Evelyn, who was arrested for the repeated rape of an 8-year-old girl and then released when the charges appeared unfrounded [see WHOOPS! WE SAID WHAT? 3/21/07], I concluded by inquiring about P.S. 91's principal:
And here's something else I'm curious about: what happened to P.S. 91's principal and what happens now?
Somewhat lost in the drama of the police's catch-and-release exercise with Evelyn, the principal of P.S. 91, Solomon Long, was relieved of his position by the school board. I missed the followup the next day, but the Times was on it:
On Tuesday, education officials removed the principal of the school, Public School 91 in East Flatbush, saying he had failed to report an earlier allegation of abuse by the child that she said had taken place outside school and did not involve a school employee.
And yesterday, city officials said the girl had previously complained of being sexually abused by her father and also by a classmate her own age.
Following the death of Nixmary Brown last year, the Bloomberg administration instituted much stricter regulations with regards to reporting incidents of child abuse. These are what Principal Solomon Long ran afoul of and precipitated his removal. While it may seem like regulations regarding reporting child abuse could never be stringent enough (report everything!), blanket prescriptions remove a valuable layer of discretion wielded by the people closest to the situation and likely with the most firsthand information.
Judging from the Times account, it seems that Principal Long was employing a little discretion in formalizing complaints made by a girl who was not unfamiliar with accusing adults and contemporaries of abuse. While privacy laws shield the results of an investigation by the Children's Welfare Agency, the Times wrote that police sources believed allegations against the girl's father were found to be baseless.
So Principal Long has been relieved of his position for exercising discretion in formalizing complaints that he suspected were confabulations by a child. It appears that his experience and judgement in this matter were correct. Critics will say that draconian rules are there to purposefully override the discretion of individuals and that children must be protected at any cost, no matter what the consequences. That may be, but it's certainly cold comfort to Frances Evelyn, whose face and name were dragged through the mud by the NY media alleging he was a child rapist. And it may be cold comfort to Solomon Long, whose well-founded prudence and judgement in a matter of child welfare were proven correct, a fact he can comfort himself with as he looks for a new position.
Tagged: abuse, evelyn, principalPosted by Lexiphane at 6:33 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
GHOSTS OF '82
(Jordan gets lucky in '82, UNC 25 years later)
For the three times in four years that Georgetown reached the finals of the NCAA Men's Basetball Tournament during the early '80s, its teams are most often remembered for their spectacular and unlikely losses, rather than their one national championship. In 1985, the Hoyas were the defending national champions. They made it to the final, but lost to the heavy underdog Villanova in what is still described as the most unlikely upset in the history of the tournament. In 1982, the Hoyas were making their first appearance in the title game in school history. The game was closely contested, but Georgetown seemed to have things in hand in the final minute, when a UNC freshman named Michael Jordan launched a ball from the left of the basket in a move that would become all-too-familiar to opponents over the coming years. To Carolina fans, it is simply referred to as The Shot. Down by one point, Georgetown still had posession of the ball and the opportunity for the final game-winning shot when the Hoyas' Fred Brown inexplicably passed the ball directly to UNC's James Worthy. Why he did this remains one of the great mysteries of sport, but UNC won the national championship a few seconds later. It would be the only national championship Michael Jordan would win with the Tarheels. He later graduated to an undistinguished career as a minor league baseball player.
The Hoyas and Tarheels meet again Sunday evening––not for the first time––in the tournament 25 years after that legendary game. The winner will go on to face one, and hopefully two, other teams in the Final Four in Atlanta. It's a one-seed versus a two-seed matchup, but UNC spent the majority of the season ranked #1 in college polls, or hovering around the top spot. Both teams are winners of their respective Conference Tournaments (ACC and Big East). The game starts at 5:05 pm EST and will be aired on CBS.
Tagged: basketball, georgetown, tournament, uncPosted by Lexiphane at 12:23 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NOT THAT RAM TOUGH
UPDATE, 3/26/07:Jason Ray, the UNC student who played that school's mascot during athletic events, died this afternoon after being struck by a car Saturday while walking along a NJ roadway. Again, all condolences to the Ray family and the UNC community.
UPDATE: Very sad news regarding this item. According to this story in the Newark Star-Ledger, Jason Ray, the UNC student who performed as the school's mascot, is in a coma, brain dead, and doctors are offering little hope that he will survive. My deepest condolences to the Ray family. END OF UPDATE
When the UNC men's basketball team took the floor at the Meadowlands last night, it was without the support of their normal mascot. Jason Ray, the Carolina senior who normally dons the costume of Ramses the UNC mascot, was in a hospital bed not far from the arena after he was struck by a car earlier that day.
The Fort Lee police said Ray was walking on the shoulder of Route 4 when he was hit by a 2006 Mercury Mountaineer driven by 51-year-old Gagik Hovsepyan of Paramus. Hovsepyan called the police and aided Ray, hit while returning to the Fort Lee Hilton after purchasing food at a convenience store.
Ray remains in critical condition at Hackensack Medical Center in NJ. All basketball concerns aside, let's root for a full recovery.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:55 AM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
'LE X-FILES'
Break open the champagne and bust out the tinfoil party hats, conspiracy theorists! Unlike those damn curmudgeons at Area 51, who will only respond to individual Freedom of Information Act requests for documents on a case by case basis, the French government has just made its entire archive of UFO reports open to the public. And they put it on the Internet!!!! My God, Agents Mulder and Scully would have loved this. I wonder what the French translation of "Anal Probe" is?
France is the first country to open up fully its UFO files to the public.
Although other countries including the UK collect data on UFOs, files can be requested only on a case-by-case basis under the Freedom of Information Act.
Now, thanks to a small team of space agency researchers who call themselves the Office for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena
[pictured to the right], the French will be able to access some 10,000 documents about UFOs, including photographs, police reports and videos sent in by witnesses.The team offers explanations for some of the sightings - for example when 1,000 people reported seeing flashing lights in the sky one November night 17 years ago, the researchers were able to prove it had been a rocket fragment falling back into the earth's atmosphere.
But only about 9% of France's UFO cases have ever been fully explained, the group says.
And of the 1,600 cases registered since 1954, nearly a quarter are known as Category D - meaning that in spite of good data and witnesses, the mysterious sightings remain inexplicable.
So many visitors have been attempting to access the site online, however, that its servers have been overwhelmed and it has become impossible to access the archives. Or so they tell us.
Tagged: france, ufo, x-filesPosted by Lexiphane at 8:58 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MOST FORGIVING D.A. EVER
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes's job description is essentially to lay blame. As a D.A., he's the agent of the state responsible for making the case for guilt of people charged with crimes. When it comes to, not criminal actions, but a colossal blunder made by someone in his own office that may have cost a young rape victim her life, however, he is more forgiving than Jesus, at peace than Buddha, and understanding than Oprah.
In 2005, Natasha Ramen was allegedly raped by a man named Hemant Megnath, who had lured her to his home under the pretense of showing her an available apartment for rent. Months later, she went to the police and reported the rape. Megnath was charged and released on $5,000 bail with an accompanying order of protection prohibiting him from contacting Ramen, who was scheduled to testify against him.
In October, relatives of Ms. Ramen told the police that Mr. Megnath had threatened to kill her and her husband. He was arrested on charges of aggravated harassment, under the jurisdiction of Queens prosecutors, but the Ramen family did not press charges.
Ms. Teitelman, who was standing in for another assistant district attorney on the rape case in Brooklyn, was told of the harassment arrest in Queens, Mr. Hynes said in his statement. Prosecutors routinely use such information to argue for an increase in bail or other conditions to restrain the defendant. For reasons Mr. Hynes did not explain, Ms. Teitelman did not tell Judge Walsh about the harassment arrest.
Last Thursday evening, Natasha Ramen left her job in Queens and a man cut her throat twice and deeply, nearly decapitating her (I guess we could call if 'OJ-Style'). Mr Megnath was arrested almost immediately and has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail. So is it normal for a person charged with rape and an order of protection against his witness, who has threatened to kill that witness and her family, to be out on the street on just $5,000 bail? No, it's not. But D.A. Hynes lets us know that everything's cool, because it was an "honest mistake."
The Brooklyn district attorney reportedly says his office should have warned a judge that threats had been made against the family of a rape victim who was later killed.
But according to reports, District Attorney Charles Hynes says it was an honest mistake that his office didn't warn the judge ahead of time and so it shouldn't be blamed for the death of Natasha Ramen.
The Times provides some more detail:
“It was an honest mistake,” he said. “To attempt to blame her is almost as ludicrous as trying to lay the blame on Ms. Ramen’s family, who refused to cooperate in the Queens prosecution. My heart goes out to the family for the terrible tragedy that the defendant brought upon them.”
Perhaps the reason the family wouldn't cooperate was because they were terrified of Mr. Megnath, and rightly so. Note that it was relatives who had to contact the police about the death threats Megnath made to Ramen. Is ludicrous the word that is appropriate here? Is it ludicrous to think that an A.D.A might want to inform a judge that a defendant has threatened to murder the victim of his crime who is the state's primary witness in its case? Perhaps too many years of watching "Law & Order" have left me with a wildly inflated impression of professional standards of competence maintained by the D.A.'s office.
I commend Charles Hynes for being the type of boss that reflexively moves to defend his underlings when they are being attacked in the press. I'm sure that Ms. Teitelman is a good lawyer and probably well liked by her co-workers, who are rushing to defend her (in part by blaming the victim and her family.) She made an "honest mistake" however, in that it was definitely a mistake, and one that she did not make with any malice towards the victim. It's more akin to a surgeon who removes a patient's healthy kidney and leaves a diseased one in, thereby killing him; or an airline pilot who mistakenly doesn't follow the control tower's directions and lands his plane on the wrong runway, which results in a fatal crash. These are serious mistakes and ones that can't be brushed away with non-mea culpas like "Whoa, our bad. Sorry 'bout that. What's for lunch?"
Tagged: d.a., hynes, murder, rape, witnessPosted by Lexiphane at 8:16 AM | Current Events , NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 23, 2007
GET ON THE BUS
A staple sight of summer is throngs of well-heeled-looking NYers standing in line to get on a bus at 40th St. and Lexington Ave. Loaded down with enormous LV, Coach, and grocery bags, they are all waiting to get on the Hamptons Jitney. The Jitney is the coach service bus that allows NYers to flee the city in style while knocking back a few road cocktails on their way to their Hamptons summer shares. The migration usually picks up steam Thursday afternoon as the crowds assemble at their designated pick-up spots on Manhattans East Side.
This year, however, the Hamptons Jitney is offering service directly out of Brooklyn, something The New York Sun notes is irking Manhattan's Upper West Siders. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz couldn't help but gloat a little:
"We have the hip zip," he said. "No disrespect to the Upper West Side, but Brooklyn is always hipper. If Shelter Island is not half Brooklyn, I'd be surprised."
The Brooklyn pick-up spots will be at two locations in Park Slope and one in downtown Brooklyn. One of the Park Slope pick-ups will be on 4th Avenue and 9th St., which should be an interesting sight. While the neighborhood continues to gentrify, that particular corner remains a little down at the heels, with 4th Avenue perpetually darkened by the elevated subway overpass and the corner of 9th St. usually crowded with people loitering outside of the check-cashing business or hanging around outside the bodega across the street. Let's just say that it's the kind of spot that will leave Hamptonites wondering "When is that bus going to get here!"
Tagged: brooklyn, hamptons, jitney, summerPosted by Lexiphane at 1:38 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PUBLIC INVASION OF PRIVACY
I present a pleasant view of a tropical beach becaue I am about to broach the subject of private vs. public ownership of corporations. Whoa!! whoa!! Drop the mouse and/or razor blade! Stare at the pretty picture to the right if you feel it'll calm you, but this might be interesting.
In very short order, this is the difference between a public corporation and a private one:
A public corporation is like a democracy, where any person who owns a share in the company can have his say. They'll be ignored of course, until they can garner enough votes to make a difference on the corporate board, but even the tiniest voters can be a pain in the ass to management. Also, the management of public companies are rewarded the most when they give the voters what they want: smooth, uncomplicated, unvarying earnings growth. When they vary from this scheme, management is severely punished.
Voters/shareholders are a fickle lot.The costs associated with this are pretty high.
Management has to spend a good portion of its time making every portion of its financial transactions visible and understandable to outsiders. They also have to incur legal fees every time some individual or group of investors feels they've been misled and lost money in a company's stock. In short: shareholders are a whiny bunch of pissant second-guessers who are nothing but trouble.
A private company is like a medieval fiefdom. The ownership class may consist of one or a number of individuals. One may even buy into ownership class in the privately-held fiefdom. But business is conducted as ownership sees fit. There is no public voice though. If you don't like the way things are going, you can be invited to take your money and get the hell out--don't forget to leave your profits at the door. Free from the clamoring voices of jackass shareholders who know as much about your business as they do about their rotisserie baseball leagues, you can carefully plan for longterm investment and success, especially with all the savings you've accrued from not having to deal with public ownership.
This is only interesting because it's one of those instance where you'll see dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer capitalists swiveling their heads, not sure which way they should turn. On the one hand you've got the public force of numerous decision makers dictating "the market" decision on whether one should do this or that according to your share price. On the other hand, you've got individual profit-minded businessmen making the decisions that they feel is in their (as owners) best interest, without the meddling of know-nothing jackasses and detestable government regulators.
The intersting thing is that one is not clearly more beneficial than the other. The higher the costs a government may place on a public corporation, the more attractive it may be to go private. The costs of being private, however, is that one cuts one's company off from the market-intelligence of a million sources, carping or otherwise.
The reason I brought all this up is that two papers whose editorials are usually bent at the same angles went in different directions this morning.
The Wall Street Journal's article is (Bah! article is only availble via subscription) here. It's in favor of the beauty of market ownership to create a self-sustaining and self-regualting model of profitability. This opinion piece at The Sun goes the other way by praising a billionare who runs his company exactly as he wants it.
NB: One would think that one model is more disposed to criminality than the other. A publicly-owned corporate executive with his profits tied to a stock price so he can cash in on options may be incentivized to falsify or distort financial statements. A private, or controlling, owner can decide to loot a company's resources through extravagance or other malfeasance because there is no external check on his actions with any weight. I can say with no authority but a hint of suspicion that the uber-meta-market regulates ALL OF THIS so that privately conducted chicanery and publicly held jackassery inform the greater world of their benfits and costs. The result is the result. That's the market as one big world correction.
Anyway, all this has been in the news lately, so this has been a Lexiphane.com heads up.
Tagged: finance, private, publicPosted by Lexiphane at 12:17 AM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2007
THE LAW, THE CASH, AND THE PUBLIC GOOD
A few weeks ago, I wrote about what a bad idea it was to align economic interests with a propensity to increase jail populations [see REAPING WHAT WE'VE SOWN, 3/3/07]. I know; it's a fairly far-fetched idea that law enforcement would allow itself to be slowly affected by base matters such as cash on the table, political pressures to provide it, or political pressures to demand it. On the other hand, sometimes one doesn't have to go that far up the ladder for examples:
On January 1, caps on the amount of overtime a police officer can accrue were removed, leading to a spike of more than 10,000 more arrests than in the same 2 1/2 month period in 2006. Two weeks ago the caps were restored at 60 hours of overtime a month, and the arrest rate has since dropped, sources said.
The NYPD is quick to provide an explanation for the increase:
The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said at a budget hearing on Tuesday that many of the new arrests were due to a narcotics initiative at the beginning of the year, but a spokesman could not be reached yesterday to clarify the details of the initiative.
That sounds reasonable, except for the fact that this particular article is about how courts are so clogged with cases of no consequence that a lot of arrested people are being released due to legal restrictions on how long one can be jailed before being charged. Also, the lede of the article described a 15-year-old girl who was held for 30 hours in a NYC jail for passing between two subway cars while the train was in motion. Up until this was made illegal two or so years ago, I did the same thing every single day for 10 years.
If cops can get paid for arresting someone for doing anything illegal at the end of their shifts, when it can net them an extra few hundred dollars of overtime a month, expect an increase in law enforcement harassment beyond what is prudent or reasonable.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:41 PM | Politics & Policy | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CALVERT DEFOREST, RIP
It's the rare bit of comedy that holds its potency after a shelf life of 25 years. Topical turns to dated. Boundary-pushing turns to prosaic. Slapstick turns to childish. Even the acts of the most beloved comedy figures of the past 50 years find it difficult to muster more than an appreciative smile and a chuckle from me. This is especially so when the comedy originates from one's youth.
I started watching "Late Night With David Letterman" on NBC during the summer vacation between my 6th and 7th Grades. For some reason, my older brother and I would stay up late enough to catch Letterman turn the late-night format upside down. One of his recurring character/guests was an old vaudeville performer named Calvert DeForest, who went by the name Larry Bud Melman on Letterman and one of my most enduring memories is howling in laughter 'til it hurt at his bits on Letterman's show. One will have to watch the video above to get a sense of who DeForest was playing, or was. As an old vaudevillean, it's hard to believe that DeForest was not playing a character, or inhabitating it. Regardless, my brother sent me a link to the video above this morning and as I watched it I laughed as hard as did more than 20-odd years ago.
The New York Times has a nice autobiography for Calvert DeForest here. I can only, but strongly, disagree with its opening paragraph:
Calvert G. DeForest, the dweebish man who gained cult status on David Letterman’s late-night shows as the comic figure Larry (Bud) Melman precisely because he was not funny, died Monday in Babylon, Long Island. He was 85.
Calvert DeForest was funny; and the man and his act has weathered far better than most and will continue to do so for as long as I'm around.
Tagged: larry bud melman, late night, letterman, tvPosted by Lexiphane at 10:58 PM | History , Television | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2007
WHOOPS! WE SAID WHAT?
Frances Evelyn, the janitor who was arrested Monday and subjected to extensive questioning by the police for the repeated rape and sodomization of an 8-year-old girl, was released from custody early this evening when his accuser's story was called into question as different versions began to be told and a rape kit displayed negative results. Parents were thrown into a panic Tuesday and P.S. 91's principal was removed as news of the arrest quickly spread. Counselors were brought in to talk with students. All for nothing, apparently, as police now believe that Evelyn is innocent.
I thought WNBC's quick response to news of Frances Evelyn's release was admirable. It's not uncommon for news outlets to trumpet someone's arrest and then bury ensuing news of a release a few days later. What's interesting is that I couldn't find any record of WNBC's initial story on Evelyn's arrest. Look at the red arrow in the image above and you'll see why: WNBC still considers this the same item that it released Monday evening, just an updated version two days later. That's great that they're keeping the facts current, but it seems a little disingenous to in effect purge a story and report its 180-degree opposite as an "update." That leaves the historical record a little too malleable for my tastes. And here's something else I'm curious about: what happened to P.S. 91's principal and what happens now?
Tagged: janitor, wnbcPosted by Lexiphane at 5:36 PM | Journalism | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RITE OF SPRING
It may seem like the most unnatural sight in the world, but watching elephants emerge from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and march down 34th St. signifies the arrival of spring to me in a manner that Punxatawney Phil can only dream of. The elephants are accompanied by all sorts of other exotic animals belonging to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. When the circus comes to town, the elephants are too large to be brought into the city by rail, so the city shuts down the Queens-Midtown tunnel one night a year and marches the elephants through it into Manhattan. The crowds very with the weather and there's always a significant number of animal rights protestors, but it's worth staying up late for. Gothamist got its hands on the schedule for the event, which occurs next Tuesday, March 27th.
Unload Stock Cars: 11:30 PM (Tuesday, March 27)
The Walk Begins: 11:59 PM
Time At Tunnel: Approx 12:20 AM (Wednesday morning)
In Manhattan, the elephants will emerge from the north tube of the Queens Midtown Tunnel and proceed along 34th Street to The Garden.
I've found that the elephants usually emerge from the tunnel in Manhattan around 12:45 am to 1:00 am.
Tagged: circus, elephants, march, tunnelPosted by Lexiphane at 10:15 AM | NYC | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 20, 2007
IF YOU CAN'T SAVE IT, AT LEAST DOCUMENT IT
This week's feature at Gotham Gazette (put out by the Citzens Union Foundation) is an transcript of a recent Gotham Gazette Readiny NYC Book Club meeting. Featured guests were Kevin Walsh of ForgottenNY and Roberta Gratz, the author of two books about urban development. Walsh recently published a book version of his site and I was reading it in the Grand Central Terminal bookstore the other day [if Kevin is reading this, rest assured I intend to actually buy a copy soon] and it is fantastic. Forgotten New York: Views of Lost Metropolis is an everyman's guide to discovering the little-known about the city, as well as documenting and sharing the bits of NYC that are disappearing without most of us even knowing they were there. The Gotham Gazette transcript comes with some great photos illustrating essential NYC items lost to the ages. Here's some of the transcript:
In 1963, they also eliminated all the cast iron lampposts on 6th avenue. These lampposts dated back to 1910. Overnight, they were wiped out. Even at that young age, I had been filling notebooks with drawings of these cast