Some Rules Just Seemed Silly After I Am Legend Grossed Half A Billion Worldwide

The NYPD is reminding its officers that it’s perfectly legal to take beautiful pictures of New York City’s iconic infrastructure*:

Faced with complaints from photographers and tourists alike, the NYPD has issued a department order reminding cops that the right to take pictures in the Big Apple is as American as apple pie.

“Photography and the videotaping of public places, buildings and structures are common activities within New York City . . . and is rarely unlawful,” the NYPD operations order begins.

It acknowledges that the city is a terrorist target, but since it’s a prominent “tourist destination, practically all such photography will have no connection to terrorism or unlawful conduct.”

. . .

But cops are not without successes in confronting what might appear to be innocent videotaping.

In Manhattan, cops spotted a man — who turned out to have ties to a terror group in Pakistan — videotaping the underbellies of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

They did? When exactly was that?

*Finally exonerating Woody Allen thirty years after the fact.

Footprints Like A Couple Of Yetis, You’d Think They’d Be Able To Mix In A Compact Fluorescent Or Two

It makes sense that the Mets and Yankees (especially the Yankees!) would have a bigger carbon footprint in their new stadia; no one would expect any less from two teams that are known for sucking up all available resources:

Yankee Stadium and Citi Field combined use enough electricity to power 20,000 homes, twice as much as the old ballparks, Con Ed says.

Citi Field, the smaller of the two, has the higher peak capacity — 11 megawatts, enough to power 11,000 homes. That’s 120 percent more than Shea’s maximum 5-megawatt draw.

The new Yankee Stadium has access to 9 megawatts, enough for 9,000 homes. That’s about twice the power draw of the old Stadium.

Blame the stadiums’ big potential power use on what makes them great — hi-def TV screens, huge scoreboards and extra elevators, escalators and lighting, said Con Ed spokesman Bob McGee.

The Yankees’ new main scoreboard, at nearly 6,000 square feet, is seven times bigger than the lower-tech scoreboard in the old Stadium.

And both new stadiums have plenty more elevators. Citi Field has 11; at Shea there were just four. The new Yankee Stadium has 16 elevators, compared to three in the old park.

. . .

The standard for green ballparks has been set by the Washington Nationals’ stadium, which opened last year and won a silver rating from the US Green Building Council — the first major pro stadium to earn such certification.

Nationals Park uses about 15 percent less power than the old RFK Stadium did, thanks in part to energy-saving lighting that reduced peak power usage from 1,293 kilowatts to just 1,011 — a savings worth about $440,000 over 25 years.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Nationals Park.

The Problem With Pedestrian Malls Is . . .

. . . they’re generally too small for 40-foot-tall Charlie Brown balloons:

From Felix the Cat in 1927 to Bolt the dog in 2008, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has adapted, over the years, to changing times and cartoon fashions.

But one thing has always been constant: the final stretch of the parade route, down Broadway from Columbus Circle to Herald Square, through crowds lining the Great White Way.

That tradition appears to be doomed. The main culprit is the plan, unveiled last month by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, to turn Broadway into a pedestrian-only zone around Times Square and Herald Square this spring. If you can’t drive a car down Broadway, you can’t drive a float down it either

And so the city has begun the process of figuring out where the cat might hang his hat in November. Crain’s New York Business, in its most recent issue, reported that the city was considering shifting the parade to Avenue of the Americas.

Scott Gastel, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, confirmed on Sunday that “a working group has been assembled on this matter, and recommendations will be made.”

Earlier: “Traffic Calming . . .By Drowning Traffic In The Bathtub Or Shanking Traffic With A Rusty Shiv”.

See Also: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Trust Me, You Don’t Want A Bunch Of Angry Staten Islanders

Because who knows what they might do if worse comes to worst:

Staten Islanders will have to swallow a $13 cash toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, while drivers in the rest of the city will keep their free ride on the East and Harlem River crossings, if legislative inertia continues to propel the MTA to enact its “Doomsday” budget.

The MTA board approved a 25 to 30 percent fare and toll hike this week, with the Verrazano and other MTA bridges set to go up in July, unless the state Legislature can devise alternate revenue streams to plug a $1.2 billion budget gap. Talks involving a bailout that would entail a payroll tax and tolling the currently free bridges have stalled in the state Senate.

. . .

Meanwhile, toll booths at all four Staten Island bridges already collect more than 6 percent of the nation’s tolls, according to Dr. Jonathan Peters, a finance professor and transportation expert at the College of Staten Island, who has done extensive research on the subject. Toll collection from passenger cars alone coming from only Staten Island ZIP codes accounts for about $65 million in revenue per year at the Verrazano, Peters said.

And without movement from Albany to balance that inequity, Islanders will continue to bear a growing toll burden, despite extremely limited transit options to travel off the Island without a car.

(Then again, Shelly says not to worry . . .)

Leading Economic Indicator: Delinking Financial Centers From The Concept Of “Freedom”

You know things are bad with our bailed-out economy when the proposed new financial center of the world no longer feels “free”:

The Port Authority is taking the “Freedom” out of the Freedom Tower.

Although the 1,776-foot tower hasn’t been fully built, funded or leased — and won’t be occupied until 2014 — the agency decreed Thursday it will no longer be called the Freedom Tower. It will simply be known as 1 World Trade Center.

“As we market the building, we will ensure that it is presented in the best possible way — and 1 World Trade Center is the address that we’re using,” said PA Chairman Anthony Coscia.

“It’s the one that is easiest for people to identify with — and frankly, we’ve gotten a very interested and warm reception to it.”

The name change for the 102-story, $3.1 billion skyscraper, unveiled after a PA board meeting, drew a sharp rebuke from former Gov. George Pataki, whose April 24, 2003, speech gave the building its brand.

“The Freedom Tower is not simply another piece of real estate and not just a name for marketing purposes,” Pataki said.

“In design and name, it is symbolic of our commitment to rise above the attacks of Sept. 11. Where 1 and 2 World Trade Center once stood, there will be a memorial with two voids to honor the heroes we lost — and, in my view, those addresses should never be used again.”