Couple get married on the N train - NY Daily News

Couple get married on the N train - NY Daily News

(Excerpt)
She walked down the subway aisle — dodging poles — as the best man held up an iPhone blasting “City Love” by John Mayer.

The couple chose the N for their “I do’s” because they spent a good deal of their courtship traveling on it.

FEMA tells residents it needs Sandy money back after wrongly disbursing funds

FEMA tells residents it needs Sandy money back after wrongly disbursing funds - The Washington Post

New transit hub downtown

@ABC7NY: NYC's new transit hub, the Fulton Center, opens to commuters in Lower Manhattan http://7ny.tv/1ozcfTD http://twitter.com/ABC7NY/status/531776215464820736/photo/1
Shared via TweetCaster

Meteor over Texas

http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/11/09/must-see-video-meteor-streaks-across-texas-sky

Berlin Wall 25 years ago

@GMA: 25 years ago: Peter Jennings anchored @WNTonight from Berlin Wall - WATCH: http://abcn.ws/1xpI2WG http://twitter.com/MicahGrimes/status/530855513253109760/photo/1
Shared via TweetCaster

posted from Bloggeroid

Suicide bomber kills 48 Students in Nigeria

NYTimes: Suicide Bomber Kills 48 Students in Nigeria
http://nyti.ms/1sv2fHc

posted from Bloggeroid

25 M.P.H. Speed Limit Takes Effect in New York - NYTimes.com

25 M.P.H. Speed Limit Takes Effect in New York - NYTimes.com
(Excerpt)
The 25-mile-per-hour speed limit that went into effect in New York City on Friday did not slow a black Mercedes that blazed a path down the middle lane of Madison Avenue at a brisk 34 miles per hour around 1 p.m. Nor did it deter the drivers of a tow truck going 32 m.p.h. or a city bus lumbering along at 28 m.p.h. Even a police car was spotted darting through traffic, though no emergency was apparent.

In a city where any hint of open asphalt can take the edge off a day mired in traffic, the dawn of a new speed limit did not change much.

Cluttered roads still seemed to dictate speed far more than did the city’s new mandate, which dropped the default limit from 30 m.p.h. to 25.

Fear of enforcement was palpable. “Snitches get stitches!” one passer-by called out to a reporter who was monitoring cars’ speed with a radar gun on Madison Avenue near 39th Street.

But for many city residents who still step off the curb with a sense of dread, the first day of a slightly slower city carried with it a sense of promise.

“It’s like Nascar out here,” Carolyn Coates, 58, said ruefully as she approached an intersection along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx where the more open road invites speeders.

“We need this for the kids, for the elderly,” she added, referring to the lowered speed limit.

Though the new limit is already in effect on all city streets unless otherwise posted, city officials said there were no plans for a ticket blitz.

Nor did they expect police officers to begin splitting hairs at speeds just above 25 m.p.h.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Post by Peter Jackson.

New York Habitat on Twitter: "Loving this #autumn view of the #Manhattan skyline from the #Brooklyn Heights promenade

New York Habitat on Twitter: "Loving this #autumn view of the #Manhattan skyline from the #Brooklyn Heights promenade via @oneandonlycory http://t.co/A79oPRkozv"

New York Marathon

NYTimes: With Gadgetry, New York Marathon May Be Watched Like No Other http://nyti.ms/1u4cyYl

Story behind that ’10 hours of walking in NYC’ viral street harassment video

The story behind that ’10 hours of walking in NYC’ viral street harassment video - The Washington Post

Lots of reaction to this and she has been threatened.

Photos: Gowanus Canal Becomes Highway To Hades For The Dreary Coast: Gothamist

Photos: Gowanus Canal Becomes Highway To Hades For The Dreary Coast: Gothamist
(Excerpt)
The story never takes itself too seriously, and under Stark's direction the performance ebbed and flowed seamlessly between delightful theatrical artifice and the truth of the present moment, which was that a group of strangers dressed in hooded cloaks had piled into a boat on a toxic canal to explore a different, somewhat forbidden, part of New York City, hopefully without falling in.

Running on the Coney Island Boardwalk

Used filter and muted outdoor colors to focus on the runner.

Brooklyn Home Prices Hit a Crazy New Record

Brooklyn Home Prices Hit a Crazy New Record -- NYMag

(Excerpt)
It may be the most basic economic principle in the books — low supply, high demand — but it's having its way in Brooklyn's real-estate market. Though the number of sales practically plateaued at 2,077 transactions, according to third-quarter reports released today by Douglas Elliman, the median price for the borough now sits at a new record — $587,515 — above pre-financial-meltdown levels from 2007, a feat even Manhattan has yet to accomplish.

Those looking to buy in Brooklyn will have to shorten their timeline, too: It now takes about 92 days for a property to sell in the borough compared to 143 this time last year.

New developments still dominate the conversation — the median price for those properties is up 9 percent to $832,000, per the Corcoran Group, and the average price per square foot is up to a six-year high of $960. Corcoran's Frank Percesepe says there simply aren't enough places to satiate buyers hungry for them. "We've had such an incredibly low inventory, and so [what] did come to the market was snapped up right away," he says.

New Jersey Teacher's Great White Shark Photo Goes Viral

New Jersey Teacher's Great White Shark Photo Goes Viral | Fox News InsiderWe're a little scared just looking at this photo, but would you believe the amazing shot of a great white shark was snapped by a teacher from New Jersey?

Sean Connery & Shirley Eaton on the set of Goldfinger, 1964

Sean Connery & Shirley Eaton on the set of Goldfinger, 1964 pic.twitter.com/0kyOrOdltU
— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) October 11, 2014

Subway Heroes Come to the Rescue of Fallen Treasures

Subway Heroes Come to the Rescue of Fallen Treasures - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)

The requests trickle through the bowels of the New York City subway system, funneled to workers more accustomed to calls about tunnel fires or ceiling leaks.

A problem is reported at Columbus Circle one recent afternoon. A passenger could be in great distress. Delays are minimal, but movement on the tracks has perhaps never been slower.

So would a crew mind collecting its helmets and hauling its mechanical claw to rescue the turtle — fumbled by a rider — currently plotting its very methodical getaway from Midtown train traffic?

“It’s a big city,” a transit worker, Vinny Mangia, had said a day earlier, reciting a mantra of his office. “Somebody’s going to drop something.”

And somebody, if the item is sufficiently treasured, is going to try to pick it up. These are the fishermen of the subway system, cobbling together homemade instruments to pluck items from the tracks and release them to a grateful city.

Workers have returned a bag of hospital-bound blood and corralled a collection of artificial body parts, scooped engagement rings from the rails and reunited children with stuffed animals.

Sheepshead Bay Braces for a 30-Story Condo Tower - Coming Attractions - Curbed NY

Sheepshead Bay Braces for a 30-Story Condo Tower - Coming Attractions - Curbed NY

(Excerpt)

Plans have been filed with the Department of Buildings for a 333-foot-tallresidential tower at 1501 Voorhies Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. If the building rises, it will be four times taller than nearly everything in the surrounding neighborhood. New York YIMBY first spotted the new plans for the site, which was purchased in July by joint venture of Muss Development and AvalonBay.Sheepshead Bites points out that the seller, Acadia Realty Trust, had planned to build a two-building development with a 22-story condo tower that the neighborhood vehemently opposed, so they'll probably be totally on board with something even bigger, right?

The oddly shaped 110,028-square-foot chunk of land sits adjacent to elevated subway tracks, overlooking the Sheepshead Bay B/Q stop. It's just a couple blocks from the bay and was inundated with water during Hurricane Sandy, but the plans show that the mechanical systems will only be elevated to the first floor, which is better than the cellar, but not really "elevated." It will have 250 apartments, a 14,530-square-foot commercial space, 124 garage parking spaces, and 52 parking spaces in a surface lot. Perkins Eastman is the architect of record, and amenities—bike storage, a lounge, a playroom, and outdoor space—will be located on the second floor. The site needs zoning approvals, and community pushback should be expected.

AvalonBay currently has 10 projects in New York City, and two more are in development in Downtown Brooklyn. All of these are located in much trendier, more expensive neighborhoods than Sheepshead Bay, but Muss Development is very familiar with the farther reaches of the boroughs. Not far from the Voorhies Avenue site, Muss development the successful Oceana condos in Brighton Beach.

Transportation Alternatives, pro-bike group, condemns 'reckless behavior' of cyclist accused of hitting woman in Central Park

Pro-bike group condemns 'reckless behavior' of cyclist accused of hitting woman in Central Park - NY Daily News
(Excerpt)
The city’s leading pro-bicycling group, Transportation Alternatives, came out against the “reckless behavior” Jason Marshall has been accused of in striking Jill Tarlov of Connecticut.

“As the most vulnerable users of our streets, pedestrians must be safe from reckless cycling, just as they need to be protected from reckless driving,” the group’s executive director, Paul Steely White, said in a statement. “This is particularly true in our parks.”

Peggy March - I Will Follow Him

Brooklyn and the Nation's Oldest Bike Path on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn

Brooklyn and the Nation's Oldest Bike Path | Cody Lyon

Verrazano Bridge at sunset

Fewer New Yorkers Getting the Benefit of Being Hired, and Fired, at a Young Age

Fewer New Yorkers Getting the Benefit of Being Hired, and Fired, at a Young Age - NYTimes.com
At first, I tried to ignore the unsettling signs that my job was in danger: the gentle prodding from my bosses, who suggested that I needed to broaden my responsibilities; the effusive praise for a charming, newly hired colleague, who was shaking things up with his get-up-and-go.

I dug in my heels. I was hired to do this, I told myself, not that. This was collecting admission from visitors to the Staten Island Children’s Museum (and burying myself in my favorite books when traffic was slow). That was actively engaging with parents and children, offering impromptu tours and demonstrating the ins and outs of the exhibits.

One afternoon, as I was heading home for the day, my boss told me not to come back. I went home and cried. I was about 14 years old. I had just been fired from my first job.

I learned something that day: An employee ignores her boss’s expectations — whether they seem reasonable or not — at her own peril. Thirty-odd years have come and gone, but I have never forgotten that lesson.

You Can't Afford Brooklyn-Who can't?

You Can't Afford Brooklyn -- NYMag

Manhattan who? Real estate database Streeteasy.com just released a report comparing median prices in Brooklyn (from the first seven months of the year) to Manhattan's, and it proves something many of us have long suspected: Brooklyn is expensive, yo. So expensive, the price of real estate in some of its neighborhoods easily surpassed Manhattan's median sale price of $890,000.

The 9/11 therapy dog

Post by The view from Ocean Parkway.

Just unicycling

Just biking

Don't feed the birds

Post by The view from Ocean Parkway.

Owner of Junior’s Rethinks a Move - NYTimes.com

Owner of Junior’s Rethinks a Move - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)
It was headed for another distinction this year, when Alan Rosen, who took over the business in 1992 and whose family has owned the restaurant since its first cheesecake, decided to sell the two-story building. In a neighborhood where real estate brokers talk about record-setting prices and rents the way pilots used to talk about breaking the sound barrier, the sale was major news. Offers to buy and build an apartment tower poured in from Brooklyn, Manhattan and abroad. The highest bid: $450 per buildable square foot, well over the previous high for Brooklyn of $350, for a total of $45 million in cash.

“That’s a lot of cheesecake,” said Mr. Rosen — who, nevertheless, and after much agonizing, a visit to his therapist and a series of sleepless nights, turned it down.

Sandy-hit towns wrestle with eminent-domain choice - SFGate

Sandy-hit towns wrestle with eminent-domain choice - SFGate

(Excerpt)

ASHAROKEN, N.Y. (AP) — On a tiny spit of land off Long Island, the wealthy village of Asharoken faces a dilemma borne of Superstorm Sandy.

Either it accepts millions of dollars in federal aid to build a protective sand dune and for the first time in its nearly 90-year existence allows the public to use its beach or it rejects the aid and retains its privacy, potentially worsening an erosion problem that saw part of its main road washed out and power lines toppled during the October 2012 storm.

But some of the 600-plus residents in the village of million-dollar homes worry opening up the area could lead to traffic problems, trespassing and more garbage.

"I think privacy, pollution and safety, these are the three main concerns," residentAsenneth Elsin said. "I don't have a problem sharing, but unfortunately there will be people not following the rules."

Asharoken is just one place where the tussle among coastal protection, property rights, public access and federal funding is playing out in New York and New Jersey, both hit hard by the storm.

Djokovic and Williams Advance at U.S. Open; Bouchard Loses - NYTimes.com

Djokovic and Williams Advance at U.S. Open; Bouchard Loses - NYTimes.com

Click above for latest resutls

A Tower in Brooklyn, but Soon Just a Memory

A Tower in Brooklyn, but Soon Just a Memory - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)
From the East River Ferry, it seems to belong more to the industrial Brooklyn Navy Yard than to the increasingly glass and steel skyline of Williamsburg: a hulking mass of brick, covered with graffiti, that could pass for a ruined castle were it not for the insistent modernism of the beige refinery tower that squats to its right. But the tower holds what to many is the most important part of the whole structure: the yellow letters that spell out Domino Sugar.

French teenagers planned suicide bombing at Lyon synagogue

French teenagers planned suicide bombing at Lyon synagogue | The Times of Israel

(Excerpt)
Two teenage French girls, arrested last week in a crackdown on citizens who consider traveling to other countries to join “jihad,” were planning to attack a synagogue in Lyon with a suicide bomb, French media revealed Friday

The two, 15 and 17 years old, were detained and interrogated last week in Venissieux, a suburb of Lyon in southeastern France, and Tarbes, a town in the south, after French authorities uncovered a plan to bomb the Great Synagogue of Lyon. They were charged for conspiracy to commit terrorism.

Management vs Leadership

@LeaderChat: Management vs Leadership: the Divide http://t.co/VNdxC1uxuo By @managersdiary
Shared via TweetCaster

Hurricane Sandy pictures: 50 dramatic images of destruction - Telegraph

Hurricane Sandy pictures: 50 dramatic images of destruction - Telegraph

Umbrellas on the #ConeyIslandboardwalk

Stand Out

The locust invasion

http://guardianlv.com/2014/08/locusts-darken-skies-above-capital-of-madagascar/

Vintage Superman comic sold for $3.2M

@HuffingtonPost: This vintage Superman comic just sold for a whopping $3.2 million http://t.co/zLs4Bj3eoZ

Kate Moss and Other Models Get Wet For The Ice Bucket Challenge

Kate Moss Gets Wet For The Ice Bucket Challenge

Moss' go-to makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury uploaded an Instagram video on Saturday of the 40-year-old wearing a tiny black bikini and tons of gold rings before getting soaked.

"Kate has asked me to upload her ice bucket challenge for her... Please support ALS and raise money for this very worthy cause," Tilbury wrote.

Can U.S. Men’s Tennis Rise Again?

Can U.S. Men’s Tennis Rise Again? - NYTimes.com

(Excerpt)
In May 1984, as Christopher Clarey of The New York Times recently noted, six of the world’s Top 10 were American, as were 24 of the Top 50. A decade later, there were four in the Top 10 and 11 in the Top 50. Last May, there was only one American in the Top 50, and that was the lumbering 29-year-old journeyman John Isner, who has never made it past the quarterfinals of a major tournament. Spain, meanwhile, has 10 players in the Top 50; France has seven.

Sand sculpting at Coney Island

My favorite...very powerful.

Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest is set for Saturday

Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest is set for Saturday - am New York
(Excerpt)
The contestants who vie for prizes ranging from $100 to $400 are diverse in age, background and aesthetic sensibility, but there is one fact upon which they all agree: The sand in Coney Island is among the best in the world.
"The sand in Coney Island is truly magnificent," for building and carving, affirmed Matt Long, a professional sand sculptor from West Brighton, SI, who also owns a wood restoration business.
Just as Manhattan schist makes a great anchor for skyscrapers, Coney's sand has "a fine angular grain and good silt content to help hold it together," that allows sculptors not only to build higher, but more elaborately, resulting in mind-boggling tall and precise sand sculptures, Long said.

Coney Island's Shore Theater now being used by homeless squatters - NY Daily News

Coney Island's Shore Theater now being used by homeless squatters - NY Daily News
(Excerpt)
A squalid and long-abandoned Coney Island movie palace has been taken over by homeless squatters.
A woman was seen Tuesday sleeping on a mattress among the peeling plaster and collapsing walls on the fourth floor of the historic Shore Theater on Surf Ave.
The interior has the apocalyptic air of a bombed-out shell that might be seen in a horror movie. Steel wires hang from the rotting ceilings above heaps of dust-strewn wood and bags filled with debris.

Robin Williams dead at 63 in suspected suicide | Fox News

Robin Williams dead at 63 in suspected suicide | Fox News

Andrew M. Cuomo, NY governor, signs New York City speed-reduction bill including Coney Island Avenue and Flatbush Avenue

Andrew M. Cuomo, NY governor, signs New York City speed-reduction bill - Newsday
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday morning signed a bill to let New York City drop its default speed limit to 25 miles per hour from 30.
The bill signing ceremony, held inside the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, was attended by more than a dozen families who have lost loved ones in crashes involving motor vehicles.
"New Yorkers like to do things fast. Everything is time. Everything is pressure in New York. But this says 'slow down and save a life,' said Cuomo, standing between two "SPEED LIMIT 25" road signs.
The chance of a pedestrian's death is "cut in half" when the speed of the traveling vehicle is lowered to 25 mph from 30, the city's transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, said at the ceremony.
The new speed limit can go into effect in as soon as 90 days, once City Hall enacts its own law formally lowering the limit, which it is all but certain to do.
The default limit is the maximum speed motorists can legally travel unless a posted sign indicates otherwise.

DiNapoli: Brooklyn is king of NYC economic growth

DiNapoli: Brooklyn is king of NYC economic growth - NY Daily News

 (Excerpt)
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a report late this May that examined changes in Brooklyn’s economy from 2003 to 2012, and the results are encouraging.

• Private sector employment grew by nearly 20%, nearly double the growth in the rest of the city
• Private sector wages increased by 42%
• The number of businesses increased by 21%
• Manufacturing jobs increased for the first time in decades

More Than Half of Citi Bike's Early Members Did Not Renew

More Than Half of Citi Bike's Early Members Did Not Renew - WNYC
Audio included

(Excerpt-click on link for full text)
Citi Bike doesn’t publish numbers on how many people are renewing their memberships. While the system does release monthly reports on how many people sign up or renew, it doesn’t break out renewals as its own figure.

We know that at the end of May, the system had 105,355 active annual members. Those are people who have paid $95 for a year’s worth of riding, and have activated their little blue key. At the end of June, the system had 96,318 members.  Does that mean almost 10,000 people didn’t renew at the end of that month? Unclear.

But a WNYC analysis of Citi Bike data suggests that about 22,000 people renewed during May and June of 2014. At the end of last June, the system had 52,125 members. Which indicates almost 30,000 of the system’s first users have chosen not to renew so far.
Click link above for the rest of the story.