Weighing 267 pounds and measuring 29.2 inches in diameter, the biggest matzo ball in the world was unveiled Thursday and served up to hungry lower East Siders.
The giant kosher creation was schlepped across the city with a police escort after spending 19.5 hours on a slow boil in a custom-made 100-gallon New Jersey kettle.
New York City sucks and it’s getting worse:
A New Yorker would have to make $123,322 a year to have the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston.
And with findings like this, it won’t be long before we have to seriously contend with the crushing burden of one million new residents, which underpins the mayor’s ambitious 2030 plan for the city. Or not:
Researchers said the combination of skyrocketing costs, stagnant wages and a deteriorating quality of life forced hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to flee the city for cheaper areas during the boom years from 2002 to 2006.
The report found that more New Yorkers left each year during the boom than left during the dark days of the early 1990s.
And Mildew, Roaches and Bed Bugs!:
The Hotel Carter was named the dirtiest hotel in America Tuesday by TripAdvisor.com, marking the third time in four years that the W. 43rd St. dump has topped the list.
. . .
The hotel, used as a homeless shelter in the 1980s, gained infamy two years ago when a cleaning lady found a woman’s corpse stuffed under a bed.
A 17th-floor room rented by the Daily News was thankfully corpse-free. And while it was small and sparsely appointed, it wasn’t dirty. The bathroom was nearly spotless and the bed linens unstained.
The room’s most serious flaw was a lone picture frame, covered in a substance one can only hope was mildew. In the hallway outside, a garbage bag filled with used tissues, lay open on the dark-green carpet.
The hotel’s wretched reputation wasn’t news to one worker.
“Just Google ‘Carter and bed bugs.’ You’ll read all about it,” she said. “Roaches, bugs — you’ll find everything inside here.”
Hotel manager Erwin Lumanglas brushed aside its reputation.
“We are not bothered at all,” Lumanglas said. “Even when they tell us we’re the dirtiest hotel in the world, people are still interested in coming because of the price and the location.”
Location Scout: Hotel Carter.
Another gentlemen’s club is reborn in the space formerly occupied by Scores:
“It’s like Yankee Stadium,” Antony, a security guard, said over his shoulder, leading the way through the thumping entrance of what used to be the original East Side location of Scores strip club.
Scores lost its battle with the state over its liquor license last year. Since then, the Las Vegas-based empire, Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club, has moved in, and last night was their official opening in New York.
Sapphire made sure to bring yards of neon sapphire blue back-lighting, a fluorescent, engraved pompadour-shaped ice-sculpture, plushier (much plush-ier, according to the dancers) leather chairs, new carpeting, a concierge service, and a new chef — Jayson Margulies from Robert’s Steak House at the Penthouse Executive Club.
Antony, like other security guards on Thursday night, wore a dark suit with an aquarium blue skinny-tie.
“Yankee Stadium,” he continued dreamily. “That’s what it’s like with this particular venue. This is the granddaddy of gentleman’s clubs, For years when I was growing up they were called strip bars or something else, some less politically correct kind of word, you know what I mean. But you walk in here and you are called ’sir’ or ‘ma’am,’ and you get the white-glove treatment from the minute you walk in the door. That’s how this franchise does the thing.”
Sapphire’s main room looks largely identical to the old Scores, largely because there were no actual construction renovations done. The layout, too, is similar: bar to the left, mirrored wall and couches on the right, the stage front and center.
. . .thanks to the economic contributions of Center Moriches and Bridgeport:
New data show the New York metropolitan area is the largest contributor to America’s gross domestic product, but its position at the top of the national ranking may be due more to the inclusion of neighboring economic powerhouses such as Greenwich and Stamford, Conn., than its own economic strength.
New York City actually is responsible for less than half of all economic activity in its own metropolitan area, the data show. According to the city comptroller’s office, its economic activity constitutes 43% of the region’s total economy.
. . .
The New York City metropolitan area, which includes parts of Connecticut up to Bridgeport, as well as Long Island and northern New Jersey, accounts for 6.6% of the country’s population while contributing 9.1%, or $1.129 trillion, of the country’s GDP.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area came in second place, contributing 6.3% of U.S. GDP or $788.9 billion. Although the New York region has 7% more people than the Los Angeles area, New York contributed 43% more to the country’s GDP.
Because between Joey the slice guy and a four-bedroom house under $300,000, it’s really no contest:
Atlanta sounded pretty good to Scott Merritt while he was squeezed into his parents’ home on Long Island with his wife and two children.
He took a new job in the Georgia capital and moved his family to a $275,000 house in the suburbs with four bedrooms, a two-car garage, and a yard with a swimming pool. It came at a cost to his New York sensibilities.
“I haven’t found a single slice of pizza I have been remotely satisfied with,” Mr. Merritt, 34, said. “I am not going to the corner pharmacy and being welcomed by name any longer. It was a culture shock.”
The Merritts are among throngs of New Yorkers relocating to Georgia for affordable housing, a lower cost of living, a thriving job market, and warmer winters. Displaced Northerners must adjust to Southern accents, a slower lifestyle, restaurants that close early, a ban on Sunday liquor sales, and a reverence for “Gone With the Wind.”
They’re hunkering down by sticking together. New Yorkers in Atlanta have their own group on MySpace.com, and crowd athletic venues when the Mets, Islanders, or Jets visit. One exile has a Web log called Voted Off the Island.
“We have this pocket of all relocated New Yorkers who hang out together,” Mr. Merritt said. “All damn Yankees.”
About 40,000 New Yorkers resettled in Atlanta between 2000 and 2005, double the number from any other state, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission. An additional 14,000 came from New Jersey. Atlanta gained 1 million people in the past seven years, the most of any American metropolitan area. It added 177,549 jobs from 2003 to 2006.
“There is a huge migration from high-cost areas to lower-cost areas, and Atlanta is a big beneficiary,” a senior economist with Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C., Mark Vitner, said.
The beach, the free cultural events, the high heat and unrelenting humidity that makes this the greatest of all cities:
If you haven’t installed your air conditioner yet, Friday might be the day to do it.
That’s because New York this weekend will be sweltering through a brutal heat wave, the first of 2008.
Daytime highs will soar above 90 degrees from Saturday to Monday, according to Accuweather.com. And the high humidity will make those afternoons feel as though it’s hotter than 100.
Friday will be seasonable, but a warm front later in the day will leave hot and sticky air behind it.
“The heat will dominate much of the area. Saturday, Sunday and Monday highs in the 90s are likely from midtown to central New Jersey,” said meteorologist Alan Reppert of Accuweather.com.
Reppert said it will stay warm and humid until Wednesday or Thursday.
. . .
And if you’re not a fan of the hot weather, you may be in for a long summer.
“Temperatures are expected to be above normal for the rest of the summer, running about two degrees above normal,” Reppert said.
Almost a year after dividing the posh 10021 zip code into three atomized bastions of wealth, people finally seem to be getting used to just how wealthy “10065″ sounds (after all, “65″ is more than three times as great as “21″):
The new neighboring 10065 — formerly part of 10021 — is now the Upper East Side’s most expensive address.
Since the split, in July 2007, the average real-estate sales price in the 10065 has hit $2.9 million — topping 10021’s $2.2 million average, according to Streeteasy.com, a real estate-tracking Web site.
The hot ZIP’s stock continues to soar, too — with the current market price for homes selling at an average $4.1 million, nearly $1.5 million higher than residences in 10021.
Moviemaker Spike Lee, The Donald’s ex, Ivana Trump, corporate raider Henry Kravis, Revlon’s Ronald Perelman and NBC “Today” show host Matt Lauer all reside in the flush 10065 neighborhood, which spans 61st to 68th streets from Fifth Avenue to the East River.
Coveted real estate in the 10065 includes The Pierre hotel, whose penthouse is on the market for $70 million, and the renovated Lexington Avenue Barbizon Hotel, with apartments for sale for $12 million.
Since July, 10021 hasn’t been able to keep pace, despite being home to 740 Park Ave., once home to John D. Rockefeller and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and where the city’s richest man, billionaire businessman David Koch, hangs his hat.
Up the street, Brooke Astor’s famed 778 Park Ave. duplex just hit the market for $46 million this past month. And real-estate tycoon Aby Rosen is asking $75 million for his town house at 22 E. 71st St.
“People work their whole lives to get into the 10021 ZIP code” — which now covers 68th to 76th streets from Fifth Avenue to the East River, said Brown Harris Stevens Realtor Nancy Candib. “They were upset when it was taken away from them.”
In July, the US Postal Service carved up the historic 10021 ZIP code, which once stretched from 61st to 80th from Fifth Avenue to the East River, into three sections, creating the new 10065 ZIP code and its smaller cousin, the 10075, the area from 76th to 80th.
But now, those who ended up in the new 10065 are lording it over the 10021.
“[The 10065's] most beautiful and notorious buildings compete with anything in the 10021,” said Candib.
. . . but Yankees fans aren’t like other fans. Add to the annals of Yankee-hating lore:
The boozed-up Yankee fan from hell who ran over and killed a Red Sox supporter last week had a crush on Derek Jeter and a living room dominated by Pinstripe regalia.
A neighbor of Ivonne Hernandez, 43, who was charged with murder for allegedly running down Matthew Beaudoin in her Dodge Intrepid in Nashua, said the Bronx-bred fan loved the handsome shortstop.
“She thought he was hot and had beautiful eyes,” said the 28-year-old mom, who declined to be identified.
She was less excited by Alex Rodriguez, who she felt was a “wuss,” the Nashua neighbor recounted.
. . .
Hernandez, taunted by Red Sox fans outside a bar, bounced the 29-year-old off her windshield at up to 60 mph, witnesses said.
. . .
Officials said Friday’s events turned deadly not long after Hernandez slapped a female bartender outside a bar. The bartender’s friends chased Hernandez to her car and, seeing the Yankee logo on her rear windshield, began chanting, “Yankees suck!”
Hernandez hurriedly drove away, then stopped.
“She turned her car around and gunned the engine toward Matthew,” a witness told The Post yesterday. “She hit him and he was on the windshield. He flew 40 feet in the air.”
The witness said he cradled Matthew’s body in his arms, as he gasped for air. Beaudoin was taken off life support the next day.
Officials said Hernandez claimed she only wanted to scare the hecklers and expected them to get out the way.
Hernandez is being held without bail on charges of murder and aggravated DWI.
But you know what they say about guys who drive Lamborghinis:
New York sports teams scored miserably with their fans when it came to performance and likability, with the awful Knicks dead last in a nationwide fan-satisfaction poll, according to ESPN The Magazine.
Even the Big Apple’s pride and joy — the Super Bowl-champion Giants — placed 48th out of the 122 pro teams that comprised the Web-site survey of NBA, NFL and NHL and MLB rooters.
. . .
The survey graded fan satisfaction based on the affordability of tickets and the stadium experience, their team’s win-loss performance, and the accessibility of players.
Unfortunately, you have to go all the way to No. 40 to find the first of our nine local teams — the New Jersey Devils.
. . .
The Yankees bombed out in 65th place, well below last year’s 48th.
Part of the reason is that new manager Joe Girardi “is no Joe Torre,” according to fellow analyst Eddie Matz.
“Throw in price hikes for beer [up a dollar to $7], soda [up $1.50 to $5] and parking [up $2 to $14], and the imminent destruction of Yankee Stadium . . . and the Yanks drop by 17 spots overall, giving them their lowest ranking in [ESPN] standings history,” he blogged.
But the Yanks did beat the Mets, who scraped the bottom at No. 93, behind even the hated Boston Red Sox, which claimed 89th place.
Is it perverse New-York-is-the-center-of-the-world braggadocio to say that Isiah Thomas’ Knicks are “Absolutely, Positively the Worst Team in the History of Professional Sports”? No, actually it seems about right:
When the venerable Donnie Walsh arrived on Wednesday as the Knicks’ fourth president in seven years, he supplanted the least-loved incumbent since LBJ. During the four years and change of the Isiah Thomas era, the team lost more than 60 percent of its games, a ratio that got worse after Thomas added the title of head coach in 2006. Over that span, the Knicks have amassed the largest payroll (peaking at more than $160 million with luxury tax) and the third-worst record in the National Basketball Association. Never has so much been spent for so little in the world of sports. They’ve been called the worst team in the history of pro basketball, but they’re really much worse than that. These Knicks are worse than the fire-sale ‘41 Phillies or the expansion ‘62 Mets or the ‘76 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were perfect in their winlessness. They’re the worst of the worst because of how they’ve lost, in petulance and complacency — and with management that bulldozed any critic it could not ignore.
. . .
Not surprisingly, the current edition leads the league in forced shots, blown assignments, sideline spats, mini-mutinies, and wholesale mockery. Old nemesis Reggie Miller, now on TNT, called the Knicks “a leaguewide joke.” The Phoenix Suns’ Leandro Barbosa was distraught when a prankster said they had traded for him. “My heart was hurting,” the Brazilian said. “I went a little crazy.”
. . .
The HMS Thomas was a loose ship. Practices went short, with scant focus on defense and off days galore. When Isiah got bored, he’d invite a special guest like boxer Roy Jones Jr. to join their drills or hang around the locker room. Perhaps the Knicks ran out of things to do, as their playbook was the slimmest in the league. “Scouts love going to see them because it’s an easy night,” the Eastern scout said. When in doubt, Thomas fell back on “isolation,” where Randolph or Crawford went one-on-one before chucking. This didn’t take much practice; the players had been doing it since they were 8 years old.
Atlantic Yards opponents are aiming high with their latest, and possibly last strategy:
The proposed Atlantic Yards development near downtown Brooklyn could prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider when government may use eminent domain to seize private property.
About a dozen holdout residents within the project’s planned boundaries are petitioning the high court to forbid their eviction. If the residents win, the development, which entails 16 towers of residential and office space and a basketball arena, would be halted. One resident, Daniel Goldstein, said his two-bedroom apartment is near center court of the proposed arena.
If four justices agree to hear the appeal, it would be the court’s first to test the power of government to seize property through eminent domain since a landmark decision in 2005 in the case of Kelo v. the City of New London. In that decision, which produced a groundswell of public opposition across the country, the court ruled 5–4 that the government can seize property and transfer it to a private developer to foster economic development.
“If they had the stomach for it, they could accept this case to overrule Kelo,” the lead attorney for the residents, Matthew Brinkerhoff, said of the justices.
Mr. Brinkerhoff’s petition to the Supreme Court focuses on a more modest aim than convincing the court to scrap its opinion in Kelo just three years after issuing it. The residents are asking the court to give them a chance to prove their allegation that the primary motivation behind the Atlantic Yards project isn’t a desire to benefit the public. Instead, the plaintiffs claim the project is mainly a conspiracy to benefit the interests of the project’s developer, Bruce Ratner, and his company, Forest City Ratner.
Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.
The vaunted Bloomberg terminal, applied to health care records, makes the health commissioner gush:
After two years of planning and a public investment of more than $60 million, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that New York City was ready to equip doctors with computer software that can track patients’ medical records in order to provide better preventive care.
. . .
The new system, a software package developed with $30 million from the city and roughly $30 million from the state and federal governments, would let doctors do much more than is possible with paper charts by integrating a patient’s medical history, lab results and current medications into one electronic interface.
Among its important advances, city officials said, the system will give up-to-date information to doctors through a series of alerts, like overdue dates on prescriptions or cholesterol checks. It will share data with other doctors and provide information about the current best practices for treating illnesses. City officials hope that the system will help reduce overall costs by eliminating expensive and repetitive tests.
Two hundred doctors with 200,000 patients have committed to use the system, and the city hopes to have 1,000 doctors with one million patients using it by the end of the year, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the New York City health commissioner.
Dr. Frieden said the system would provide more finely tuned information to doctors quickly than anything now available.
“This can do for health what the Bloomberg terminal did for finance,” he said in an interview.
The first election in years that actually meant something actually ends up not meaning much:
Supporters expect Barak Obama to pick up one or two delegates when primary results from New York City are recounted.
The unofficial results were strikingly under-recorded in several districts around the city — in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, Board of Elections officials have said.
Those results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Harlem’s 94th and other historically black areas — but many of those initial tallies proved to be wildly off base.
“Every election has problems, but in this case, all the problems seem to have been his,” said state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem). “He got all the zeroes and undercounting.
“Some gross mistakes have been made. Very often, there are clerical errors. In this case, it was strictly with regards to Obama.” Perkins told The Post the issue is more than the “one or two delegates” that could be added to Obama’s tally, noting that if the results were accurately represented, there would not have been a “false momentum” for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
50 tons . . . why that’s 100,000 pounds of paper — this for a team that plays in New Jersey:
About 50 tons of shredded paper is expected to rain down upon fans and members of the 2008 Super Bowl champions, the Giants, as the team travels up the storied Broadway route to City Hall for a ceremony to commemorate their win over the Patriots.
The parade marks the first victory march through the Canyon of Heroes for the Giants, a franchise that before Sunday’s upset victory had won the Super Bowl twice. The Yankees were the last New York team to receive the honor, after winning the World Series in 2000.
In preparation for the 11 a.m. parade, the city yesterday procured 1,000 pounds of shredded paper donated by a packing company in Brooklyn, Atlas Materials. The rest of the expected 49 tons of paper will likely come from the bowels of shredders belonging to companies along the route.
Following its first Super Bowl victory, in 1987, the team was denied the opportunity to hold a ticker-tape parade because Mayor Koch said he didn’t recognize the Giants as a New York team after their decision to move to New Jersey for a lucrative stadium deal.
In 1991, the Giants won the Super Bowl for a second time, but with the Gulf War weighing on the country, it was decided a parade would not be appropriate, an assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Records, Kenneth Cobb, said.
The end is near when New Yorkers start embracing the underdog role:
In this town, a sports championship usually consists of the Yankees winning in October. Which is to say, another year to hang on the stadium walls, another ticker-tape parade.
Yet no matter how good such victories may feel — and it’s getting somewhat harder to remember — Yankee championships have always felt a bit more like the divine right of a king than the conquest of a warrior; a bit more about the payrolls than the putouts; and, when you really get down to it, a bit more of the same.
Not so the Giants’ stunning win in the Super Bowl on Sunday night, a victory that actually felt victorious. In the unfamiliar role of the underdog, New Yorkers finally had a chance to savor the sweet taste of a triumph that wasn’t only unexpected but was utterly deserved.
“The wine tastes better when you think the cup is full of coffee,” said Paul Majors, a superintendent from the Bronx who stepped onto a downtown No. 2 train Monday morning in an Eli Manning jersey and a dark blue Giants cap. By Mr. Majors’s lights, the great enjoyment of the game revolved around a single word: “surprise.”
