The Fair to End All Fairs

The Fair to End All Fairs - NYTimes.com

When you drive by on the Van Wyck Expressway or the Grand Central Parkway, the space-age towers of the New York State Pavilion, among the few remaining traces of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, rise up from the trees like a relic of some vanished, Jetsonian civilization, and the people who built them seem much more than 50 years distant from us. They were people apparently inspired by the idea of progress, and by a now quaint-seeming faith in the future, who actually believed in things like world’s fairs. Who would think of organizing such an event now? Who would pay for it? Who would bother to go?

Continue reading the main story here.

Carriage Horse Foes Picket Liam Neeson's Manhattan Building

Carriage Horse Foes Picket Liam Neeson's Manhattan Building | NBC New York

Animal rights activists protesting outside Liam Neeson's home say they don't agree with him that New York's carriage horses should keep working.
Neeson didn't appear Saturday as about 50 demonstrators filled the sidewalk in front of his Manhattan apartment building. They held signs with such slogans as: "Liam Neeson: Stop Supporting Cruelty!"
The 61-year-old actor is a vocal supporter of the city's carriage horse industry. His publicist hasn't immediately responded to a request for comment.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to ban the horse-drawn carriages and replace them with electric vintage-style cars, commissioned by a group called NYCLASS.
Its members joined protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Saturday.
They say it's inhumane for the horses to be subjected to traffic, pollution and possible accidents.

Choosing Citi Bike

Choosing Citi Bike by Nicole Gelinas, City Journal 18 April 2014

More than 100,000 people have signed up for memberships since Citi Bike launched last Memorial Day. For an annual fee of $95, they can “undock” a bike at any one of 332 stations in Manhattan and northern Brooklyn and take a 45-minute trip. So far, New Yorkers and visitors have taken 7 million trips. But the company that runs the program, a division of Alta Bicycle Share, has made some missteps. As the Wall Street Journal reported in March, Alta invested in glitchy software, making it hard for casual users to buy daily passes. The company also misjudged demand. Because people use the bikes to commute, docks in mostly residential areas empty out in the morning, while docks in Midtown and downtown fill up. Last October, Alta moved 1,940 bikes around every day. There simply aren’t enough bikes and bike docks to meet current demand.

Let's Go Coney! Island (1932)

Chicago's Vanishing Middle Class

Chicago's Vanishing Middle Class by Aaron M. Renn, City Journal 16 April 2014

(Excerpt)
In cities around the world, two-tier societies are becoming increasingly common. While much ink has been spilled over widening income inequality in cities such as New York, where Bill de Blasio rode his “tale of two cities” theme all the way to City Hall, most attempts to solve the problem have focused on the poor, not the middle class. Liberal mayors across the country are proposing an array of policies intended to address income inequality, including minimum-wage hikes—Seattle’s mayor wants to raise it to $15 per hour—affordable-housing mandates, and tax increases on the wealthy. At the same time, they’ve made massive investments in upscale neighborhoods and business districts. But no one is championing the middle class, even rhetorically.

Archive: Give loved ones a virtual piece of the New York Aquarium for the holidays

OPINION: Give loved ones a virtual piece of the New York Aquarium for the holidays | Brooklyn Daily Eagle


"Now, New Yorkers can go on-line to support our fundraising efforts as we build the NEW New York Aquarium by purchasing virtual tiles of this shimmering wall. Purchasing $100 (tax-deductible) tiles offers a real act of support and a special way to spread holiday cheer.

The virtual tiles, which can be customized by colors and animal themes, are a lasting way to acknowledge friends, family or colleagues who care about conservation. Messages for the aquarium can be included on the tiles that will be displayed on the aquarium’s website: www.nyaquarium.com.

The New York Aquarium is more resilient now than it was a year ago. WCS is working with city, state and federal government officials every day on its full restoration. Our comeback will help the Coney Island community become more vibrant than ever. We invite you to be part of the transformation."

Jon Forrest Dohlin is WCS Vice President and Director of the New York Aquarium.  Virtual tiles of a shimmer wall, which will surround the new Ocean Wonders: Sharks! exhibit,  are being sold at www.nyaquarium.com.

Archive: Coney Island's New York Aquarium breaks ground on new $157M shark exhibit

A rendering of the 'Ocean Wonders: Sharks!' exhibit
at the New York Aquarium. It's scheduled to open in 2016.

Coney Island's New York Aquarium breaks ground on new $157M shark exhibit on Friday  - NY Daily News

(Excerpt)
Coney Island is set for a shark attack.
After years of planning, New York Aquarium is finally set to break ground on a jaw-dropping new shark exhibit Friday.
The massive 57,000-square-foot "Ocean Wonders: Sharks!" exhibit will feature a coral reef tunnel that will give guests a 360-degree-view of the new plethora of ocean life when it officially opens to the public in 2016.

“You will be surrounded on all sides by not only sharks, but by schools of bright colored bony fish and the sort of beauty of the tropics that we all associate with diving,” said Jon Forrest Dohlin, aquarium director and vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the aquarium.
The $157-million exhibit will feature more than 100 species of marine animals, both local and from around the world, including sharks, rays, sea turtles, thousands of schooling fish and other crustaceans.
More than 45 sharks, including sand tigers, nurse sharks, blackttip reef sharks and bamboo sharks will swim around inside the three main 500,000-gallon tanks.
“It’s going to be a tremendous expansion of our collection,” said Dohlin. "I think people will be amazed, exhilarated and inspired.”
The three-story facility will also boast a roof-deck overlooking the ocean, classroom space and a cafe.
Officials were supposed to break ground on the exhibit a year ago, but Hurricane Sandy devastated the aging aquarium and delayed the project, which has been in the works for several years

Closing Bishop Ford High School is like 'A death in the family' - NY Daily News

Closing Bishop Ford High School is like 'A death in the family' - NY Daily News
by Denis Hamill, April 17, 2014

Closing Bishop Ford High School is like 'A death in the family'
If Bishop Ford closes, he will lose another part of his Catholic youth, writes Hamill. The Bishop Ford board of directors is closing the school because of reductions in enrollment. But the alumni association is looking for ways to save the school.

(Excerpt)
"On Monday, Principal Thomas Arria addressed a general assembly with news about Bishop Ford that was even darker than O’Keefe’s humiliating old rant. “He walked on stage and told us that Bishop Ford would be closing forever in June,” says Sean. “Everyone was shocked. Some kids broke into hysterical crying. Some needed counseling from the school psychologist. It was a death in the family.”
Dr. Daniel Ricciardi, a noted rheumatologist, of the Bishop Ford Class of 1970, says the closing smells like a land grab to many alums. “That square block of land in desirable Windsor Terrace must be worth at least a quarter-billion dollars,” he says. “There’s been lots of mismanagement at Ford. The alums raised a half-million dollars recently that just went to pay outstanding bills. We met with Bishop DiMarzio last year asking if we raised $3 million could he guarantee Ford would remain open. He wouldn’t guarantee it.”

Archive: Childs Building Coney Island | Seaside Park Community Arts Center

Childs Building Coney Island | Seaside Park Community Arts Center
A proposal to convert Coney Island’s Childs Restaurant to an amphitheater and public park is well on its way to full City Council approval before the body’s last meeting of the year.
The council’s Land Use Committee gave the project, dubbed the Seaside Park and Community Arts Center, the thumbs up Wednesday, Crain’s reported. In order for the plan to come to fruition, zoning laws must be changed and permits granted for an outdoor amphitheater that would hold more than 5,000 people.
Advanced by the city’s Economic Development Corporation and iStar Financial subsidiary Coney Island Holdings, the project has key support from Domenic Recchia, a City Council member from Brooklyn. The plan is expected to sail through the full City Council vote thanks to his support.
Backers of the development say that it would provide economic stimulus for the area, but detractors cite concerns about increased traffic and noise, and question the redirection of taxpayer funds in an area still plagued by heat and power outages a year after Hurricane Sandy. [Crain's] — Julie Strickland

Fifty Years After the New York World’s Fair, Recalling a Vision of the Future

Click the link below to get the full experience including maps.  It's wonderful!

Fifty Years After the New York World’s Fair, Recalling a Vision of the Future - NYTimes.com

The grounds of the 1964 New York World’s Fair were a blur of perpetual motion: Gondolas dangled above the crowds from the Swiss Sky Ride, a monorail glided in the Lake Amusement area, Greyhound Escorters ferried fatigued visitors, helicopters landed on the Port Authority’s helipad and a giant tire Ferris wheel spun.

On the 50th anniversary of the fair’s opening, we asked readers to share their memories of the event and photographs from their visits. We got more than 1,200 responses, which included many snapshots of visitors with the Unisphere and recollections of eating Belgian waffles, being entranced by new technology (the touch tone phone!) and feeling moved by Michelangelo’s Pietà.

The fair, with pavilions sponsored by car companies and insurance giants and with special effects by Disney, may have been as corporate as a modern Olympics, but it still sparked the imaginations of those who attended.

The grounds sprawled over 646 acres of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, divided geographically into five sections: Industrial, International, Federal and State, Transportation and Lake Amusement. There were more than 100 restaurants. Here is a sampling of readers’ recollections and images from the fair, and a map of the fairgrounds.

Keep the Carriage Horses

Keep the Carriage Horses - NYTimes.com

Mayor Bill de Blasio noted his 100th day in office last weekwith a big speech and a proud recitation of campaign promises kept: universal prekindergarten, an end to unconstitutional policing, paid sick leave, among other things. There is one prominent pledge he would do better to break.

Mr. de Blasio ran on a vow to abolish, in his first days in office, the horse-drawn carriage rides that have been a fixture for generations in and around Central Park. To fulfill that promise to animal-rights activists, his administration is considering sending more than 200 horses to pasture and finding something else for their 300 drivers to do, like possibly shuttling tourists around in antique-style electric cars.

Don’t do it, Mr. Mayor. Here’s an instance where delay and inaction are the preferable form of leadership. Let the carriages and the horses alone. Let this small business survive. Side with the drivers and do not add fleets of new cars, electric or not, into the streets and parks.

The carriage opponents argue — often vehemently, though with very little evidence — that pulling people around is a terrible fate for a horse and that city living and working the streets are abusive by nature. The owners counter that this slow mode of transportation has a good safety record, considering how few horses have ever been injured or killed in accidents given the tens of thousands of trips taken over the years. They say they treat their horses with love and comply with strict city regulations like five weeks of vacation a year for the horses and other health and safety standards.

While there is no lack of animal-welfare problems in the city — abused pets, feral cats, rats, Asian long-horned beetles, geese at the airports — New York’s well-treated, well-regulated carriage horses are not among them. Mr. de Blasio should, by all means, protect the health and well-being of horses, but he has far bigger and better things to do than eliminate the carriage trade.

Besides, there is much room for compromise here, short of abolition. Let the horses work, but maybe just in Central Park, not on the avenues or in Times Square. Find ways for more children and the disabled to get close to them, and for the horses to eat and socialize with one another when they aren’t pulling carriages. To get the horses safely to and from their stables on the West Side of Manhattan, block off a lane for them twice a day.

Carriage horses have a place in New York, a working, workaday city. The de Blasio administration should make every effort to ensure that they are safe and protected. They do not need to be banished.

ARCHIVE: BusTime Is Now Available In Brooklyn » Sheepshead Bay News Blog

BusTime Is Now Available In Brooklyn » Sheepshead Bay News Blog

by Allan Rosen on Mar 10th, 2014

Display using the Bus Bus NYC, an app on an iPad that uses BusTime data. Click to enlarge

THE COMMUTE: BusTime, already available on all bus routes in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, has been expanded to all bus routes in Brooklyn as of Saturday. Previously in Brooklyn, it had only been available for the B61 and B63 bus routes. The expansion throughout Brooklyn and Queens, originally scheduled for 2013, was revised to March 9, 2014 according to an MTA press release, but was actually available a day early.

Signs, however, announcing the expansion to every borough already began appearing in several subway stations as early as February 24th. Leave it to the MTA to cause unnecessary confusion, even if it was only for two weeks.

What Is BusTime?

We’ve discussed BusTime several times before. It isa bus tracking system advising passengers where the next bus is so they would no longer have to rely on schedules, which are mostly not adhered to. Originally intended to be digital displays, either stand alone or built into the bus shelter, showing the arrival of the next bus, the MTA opted for a different system. A system that is only available to computer and smartphone users and those who know how to send text messages on a cell phone. Yes, that is most of the population, but does not include many seniors who are not tech savvy.

One winter day on the Coney Island boardwalk

Dog walking on an empty beach is special

Cool running to the ocean

Walkers rule in the pedestrian path

Bike cannot move easily in the snow

Tight squeeze to avoid remaining ice

Joggers and walkers share space

I see some ears popping out

Video: Adorable Baby Seal Sunbathes Leisurely On Brighton Beach

Video: Adorable Baby Seal Sunbathes Leisurely On Brighton Beach: Gothamist