Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new york. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

ABC chose a super vague and ominous image for a tweet about the Rainbow Bridge border crossing "explosion"



Niagra Falls or Silent Hills?

Update:

Monday, February 21, 2022

"The Bronx Hall of Justice [Opened in 2008] Is Falling Apart and No One Knows How to Stop It"

The City:

Floors built over an underground stream are collapsing. The lower level floods regularly, rendering six courtrooms empty and useless and redolent of persistent mold.

The automatic handicapped door at the entry lobby has been shut down because the floor right inside the door is collapsing. Contractors on scene repairing what the original construction wrought for a time routinely disabled the fire alarm while they worked, which allowed a fire inside the building last year to spread.

Last Saturday, one of the glass windows that envelop the building spontaneously shattered — a regular occurrence 

Saturday, February 12, 2022

"When Visitors Were Banned From Rikers Island, Even More Drugs Showed Up"

The City:

Between April of 2020 and May of 2021, correction department authorities seized banned drugs inside city jails more than 2,600 times, according to data obtained by THE CITY.

That’s more than double the number of such seizures made during the same time period from 2018 to 2019 when the jail population was larger and there were more people coming and going, Correction department records show.

NYPost:

[A former guard], smuggled K-2, cigarettes and a cellphone into the George R. Vierno lockup on the island in an effort to keep “peace” among gang members housed in his unit, his lawyer said in a sentencing memo in his Manhattan federal court case.

In the court filing, [the ex-guard claimed he] smuggled the contraband in 2020 because he desperately wanted to gain full-time employment at the jail – and needed inmates in his unit to behave for a shot at the promotion.

NYC Streets:

[A citizen] filed a 311 complaint to the NYPD earlier that day about the illegally parked truck and included his own name and number on the report. The city says it keeps that information confidential. Somehow it made its way to [a man who repeatedly called and threatened to harm him and his family].

...

Spokespeople for the NYPD and 311 did not answer questions about whether any city officials shared [the citizen]’s contact information with anyone after he filed his 311 report. 

...

The truck seemed retrofitted to skirt accountability. Photos...show a New York State Police Investigators Association sticker on the windshield, a sign reading FUNERAL on the dashboard, and four different temporary paper license plates — three from New Jersey and one from Minneapolis — borne by the truck over the course of a year.

...

[The citizen] called the police after the second call, and two other officers arrived at his apartment. But they said there was little they could do about the threats, according to [the citizen], and recommended that he file another 311 complaint

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Absolutely wild article about extensive, decades-long criminality by New York lifeguards

It's more a novella than an article, detailing decades of crime and corruption. After each paragraph, you think, thankfully they finally put a stop to it. And then the next paragraph starts:
[The head of the union] relies on a playbook of patronage, power brokering, and intimidation. Since 1981, his supervisors have rigged swim tests, shielded sexual predators, and falsified drowning reports. One lifeguard refers to his crew as “La Cosa Nostra.” Through tabloid scandals, wrongful-death lawsuits, and 79 on-duty drownings since 1988 — at points, the city’s drowning fatality rate has been three times the national average — [he] has hung on like a barnacle from a bygone New York, successfully sidelining anyone who challenges him.

...

New York City in the 1980s was a far more dangerous place than it is today, and beaches and pools were no exception. Lifeguards dove into the water to escape drive-by shootings. Teenagers hopped pool fences and hosted all-night parties with motorcycles, drugs, and water snakes. Lifeguards arrived at work to find floating corpses in pools and body parts washing up on beaches.

Lifeguards were out of control too. They ordered kegs at pools and tapped them while on duty. Coney Island guards threw cocaine-fueled parties and made T-shirts that read WE DRINK, YOU SINK.

There was, and there remains, a lifeguard hierarchy: first pools, then bay beaches, then open ocean. Rockaway Beach and its dangerous surf attracted the alpha lifeguards — and featured the wildest parties.

...

Green’s investigators spent three months going undercover at the lifeguard school. His office’s June 1994 report concluded that the lifeguard program was “swimming in mismanagement, negligence, secrecy, favoritism, conflicts, and even deception.” Lifeguards dressed up torpedo buoys with jackets and hats to sit their shifts; there was widespread favoritism in hiring, including passing people who literally couldn’t swim.

Saturday, March 28, 2020

"Train conductor killed, at least 16 hurt in New York City subway fire"

"A statement from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it is offering an up to $50,000 for information leading to an arrest."

The City:
Multiple sources told THE CITY that authorities discovered a charred shopping cart with a possible accelerant inside the second car of a northbound No. 2 train that filled with smoke and flames as it pulled into the Central Park North-110th Street station at 3:14 a.m — around the same time as three other fires in and around the subway system.

...

the incidents rattled workers, who said they feel more exposed amid the pandemic

Monday, April 30, 2018

"dog owners hijacked a public Tribeca pup park nearly a decade ago"

NYP:
The Warren Street Dog Park was originally taken hostage by the Dog Owners of Tribeca (DOOT) in 2008 — after the 92-by-43-foot green space opened between Greenwich and West streets.

...

Founders installed a keypad lock on the gate and sent members a secret 4-digit passcode after they paid a $120 annual fee over Paypal on the group’s Website. The code was updated every few months.

Members were to live by 22 strict rules

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Profile of the party planner that recently arranged for Nicki Minaj to perform at a Bar Mitzvah

NY:
Over the years, he’s learned the nuances differentiating Manhattan’s private schools: “When you’re at Dalton, you have to keep up with the Joneses; when you’re at Chapin you don’t, necessarily.” Mauro, who is Catholic,

Monday, February 2, 2015

Private island home being built off the coast of New York

SNY:
A few months ago, I had to charter a boat to take scout pictures of Davids Island, located in Long Island Sound off the coast of New Rochelle. As we were curving around the southern side of the island, I noticed something in the distance…

A squat, one-story structure on its own private island.

Though it seemed dilapidated and possibly abandoned from a distance, as we drew closer, I began to see signs of modern activity: a huge solar panel on the roof, along with construction equipment scattered about. My guide explained that this is Columbia Island, and that the owner is currently converting the building into what will be the only private island home off the coast of New York City.

Friday, May 3, 2013

"A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city"

ABC:
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.