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If They Concoct Entire Terror Plots In Order To Nab Would-Be Bombers, Then Why Not Also This?

So paranoid:

A graffiti crew called “Made U Look NYC” — or MUL NYC — is boasting to have spray-painted a piece spanning 10 subway cars last month, according to a Web site madeulooknyc.com.

The site is selling T-shirts featuring a photo of an R train with the Monopoly character painted on it, and promoting a 60-minute documentary about the piece’s creation that they plan to auction on eBay Mar. 1.

Some bloggers, however, speculate that the NYPD may be behind this stunt as a way to lure the culprits.

“If you were thinking of buying a T-shirt commemorating Made U Look’s painting of 10 whole NYC subway cars, you may want to reconsider now,” warned city blog RazorApple.com. Its recent posting of an explainer showing how the NYPD might be monitoring the site’s visitors got picked up by various blogs such as Gawker and Gothamist.

“It seems illogical that [MUL] would incriminate themselves in this way, with a Web site selling T-shirts,” Razor Apple’s editor Will Sherman told Metro yesterday, “but stranger things have happened.”

Sherman doesn’t doubt MUL was behind the “staggering feat” of painting the 750-foot-long piece — “Nothing this large was put on the subway since Easter Sunday 1988,” he said — but the site’s photos, which appear to have been taken at a rail yard on Dec. 26, seemed fishy, he thought. “It’s hard for me to believe they were able to film and take all those photos in daylight.”

He grew more suspicious after an e-mail exchange he had with “Frank,” who responded to the e-mail address listed on MUL NYC’s site. “He talked about other members in his crew, calling them ‘gentlemen,'” Sherman said. “I wouldn’t think you would describe the people in your crew like that.”

“Frank” denied allegations of police involvement in an e-mail to Metro.

Posted: January 26th, 2007 | Filed under: Crap Your Pants Say Yeah!, Fear Mongering, Law & Order

Please — Please! — No More “Red Storm” Jokes!

There’s something kind of quaint about controversy still erupting over Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues:

Students have already begun taking sides over the controversial issue of whether or not a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” should be allowed on campus.

Senior Alisha Brizicky first presented her desire to have a production of the play at St. John’s in September, but administrators would not allow the play to be produced as a student activity, claiming it is too controversial. The student body is divided on the issue, with some agreeing with the administration’s decision while others argue that the play is an effective means of promoting women’s rights.

. . .

But while some students are urging the school to bring “The Vagina Monologues” to campus, others seem content with the administration’s decision.

“The Vagina Monologues reduces a woman to her private parts and inadvertently does what has been so destructive to the cause of women over history, turning their bodies into objects and failing to see the spiritual element in femininity,” said Michael Paris, a member of the Catholic men’s group Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Confraternity. “For those who want to run the play under the banner of academic freedom: How is a positive representation of a teenager getting sexually assaulted by an older woman academic? How is reducing a woman to her vagina promoting freedom?”

Posted: January 25th, 2007 | Filed under: Queens

On The One Hand There Are Battle Axes, On The Other There Are Gun Runners

Some landlords may be hard-assed old battle axes but at least they’re not gun runners:

A Brooklyn landlord who once smuggled high-powered sniper rifles to Kosovo guerrillas is now at the center of a more domestic dispute.

Tenants in a Carroll Gardens building are taking their landlord, Florin Krasniqi, to court, claiming he is using a ploy to kick them out of their rent-regulated homes.

The six low-income families live in a four-story walk-up at 137 Nelson St., where all the apartments are either rent-stabilized or rent-controlled. The tenants, some of whom have lived in the building for more than 40 years, pay between $350 and $550 a month.

. . .

The tenants’ attorney, Michael Weisberg, said he wasn’t aware of Krasniqi’s intrigue-filled past, which was detailed in a 2005 PBS documentary, “The Brooklyn Connection.”

“No way. Wow. That doesn’t bother me,” Weisberg said of Krasniqi’s history as a gun-runner. “I’ve met him. He didn’t seem particularly dangerous. He seemed like a jackass landlord.”

Posted: January 25th, 2007 | Filed under: You're Kidding, Right?

But It Was For A Good Cause!

Not telling him what you got at the UJA thrift shop is one thing, but explaining what that big wedding dress is doing in the closet is quite another:

A 27-year-old Manhattan woman twirled before a full-length mirror in a lace wedding gown yesterday morning. “If my boyfriend knew I was doing this, we’d break up,” she said.

The strapless gown by Vera Wang retails for $12,900. However, the yet-to-be-engaged woman, who didn’t want her name mentioned lest her live-in boyfriend find out she was planning ahead, bought it for only $450.

Donated new and store-sample wedding dresses by high-end designers went on sale yesterday at the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York Thrift Shop on West 17th Street. All of the usually four- or five-figure gowns were tagged at $500 or less.

At those prices, bride-to-be Molly Davis, 31, bought two. One was a white backless empire-waist Monique Lhuillier white gown, which retails for $4,700. The other was a slinky, ivory halter dress by Vera Wang, usually priced at $2,300. Ms. Davis, who works in the fashion industry, paid a total of $750 for the dresses. “I was planning to pay more, but I’m not going to argue with these prices,” she said.

Posted: January 25th, 2007 | Filed under: See, The Thing Is Was . . .

Modern America’s Emptiest Promise: “Whatever You Come Looking For, It’s All Going To Be There”

The Daily News reports that Astroland will soon be transformed into a glittery hulking mass of commercialism and obsequiousness:

The big-bucks developer who bought Coney Island’s oldest amusement park plans to replace it with a glitzy $250 million playground anchored by a roller coaster that dips under the Boardwalk, the Daily News has learned.

Double the size of Astroland, the multitiered park will include 21 rides, a hotel, a manmade canal for boat rides, a glass-encased atrium and commercial space.

“We’re trying to deliver on the promise of what Coney Island is,” said Chris Durmick, creative director of Thinkwell Design & Production, the California group that is drawing up the 6-acre plan. “Whatever you come looking for at Coney Island, it’s all going to be there.”

Posted: January 25th, 2007 | Filed under: Architecture & Infrastructure, Brooklyn, There Goes The Neighborhood
But It Was For A Good Cause! »
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