Your Front Lawn Is Useful Not Only For Parking Buses But Issuing Sanitation Tickets, Too

Everybody’s busy finding solutions to people’s bad behavior:

Gennarelli has lived on E. Tremont Avenue between Philip and Randall avenues since 1996. In 2000 or 2001, the city extended a bus stop from the corner of E. Tremont and Randall avenues, in front of Pete’s Donut Shop & Restaurant, up further, in front of five private homes, the widow said. The bus stop is designed to hold two tandem buses, Gennarelli added.

Prior to the change, the city consulted Community Board 10, but Gennarelli, who returns home from work in Manhattan at around 7 p.m., wasn’t able to attend the meeting, she explained. Not only are Gennarelli and her neighbors ticketed for trash, buses and bus passengers often block her driveway, she said.

Some two years ago, Gennarelli purchased a trashcan for the bus stop. She locked it to a pole but when the city Department of Sanitation stopped by to take the trash, the trashcan was unlocked and stolen, Gennarelli said. When Klein interceded, she spoke to a DSNY supervisor who told her that trashcans are only allowed on corners.

The supervisor had Gennarelli’s property observed and found her guilty of no violations. But the ticket barrage didn’t end. Gennarelli thinks that the city uses ECB tickets to raise revenue; her tickets have all been excused.

Gennarelli thinks that a single DSNY agent wrote her tickets on November 14 and November 19. Her November 19 ticket reads: “I observed a large accumulation of scattered bottles, cigarette packs, paper bags, pieces of paper, tissue wrappers and other debris in the front yard,” Gennarelli said. It was issued between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.

“I don’t smoke cigarettes!” Gennarelli groused. “I get to work at 8:30 a.m.”

Highbrow/Despicable Versus Lowbrow/Despicable!

For years, it has been settled law that artists — merchants of everything from hackneyed images of Manhattan to names on grains of rice — have been constitutionally protected to sell their wares in city parks. That apparently is not the case for the High Line:

In 2001, both state and federal courts ruled that New York City could not require permits for artists in parks under the First Amendment under a case brought by Mr. [Robert A.] Lederman. In addition, Mr. Lederman was also a plaintiff in an earlier case which established artists’ rights to sell on the streets in 1997, under the argument that the artists deserved the same protections as booksellers and others selling printed materials, who had long been exempt from licensing.

On Saturday, Mr. Lederman said, representatives of Friends of the High Line, including security and supervisors, had approached him all day, threatening him. Finally they brought a parks enforcement officer. “I showed them a New York Times article and a New York Post article about the artist permit being overturned and that artists don’t need a permit,” said Mr. Lederman, who said it appeared that the enforcement officer believed him. However, Mr. Lederman said that the officer was pressured to issue summonses and arrest him.

When asked about the situation, Katie Lorah, a spokeswoman for Friends of the High Line, said, “We’re actually not commenting right now” and referred all questions to the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The DPR spokesperson claimed the High Line was somehow different. The artist in question fleshes out that argument for them:

“The parks department and the High Line people have their own agenda for commercializing this park, and they’re hoping to nip street artists in the bud by arresting me,” he said. “Frankly I think they made a tremendous mistake. I’m not looking to make a big commotion on the High Line. I would prefer not to have to do that. I certainly don’t need to go back there to make the point. They made the point already. They gave me five different summonses. I’m not going to have to prove anything to the judge about what they’re intentions were and continue to be. I plan to go back there to sell my art if not to protest, and I have a right to. I intend to exercise that right.”

Location Scout: High Line.

Mayor Bloomberg (R) Has Been Responsive To The Needs Of All New Yorkers . . .

Which translates to the Daily News having to wait over four months to receive photos of the mayor with Alaska Governor and divisive figure Sarah Palin, an image that would have become a pretty awesome hit piece for the Thompson campaign:

The picture — and six others — was shot Oct. 10, 2007, when the then-governor of Alaska was on a visit to New York.

Bloomberg hosts visiting pols all the time for short meet-and-greets, and nobody knew at the time that, a year later, Palin would become a controversial Republican icon.

The photos might have been inconvenient for Bloomberg while he was running against Democrat Bill Thompson in a heavily Democratic city, but they belong to the taxpayers.

The Daily News asked for copies of the photographs July 8. Under the state Freedom of Information Law, Bloomberg’s lawyer Anthony Crowell had to respond within five days.

He handed them over two weeks after the election.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

I Saw The Best Restaurateurs Of My Generation Destroyed By Madness

Sure, here’s my email — gofugyourself@youyahoo.com:

The owner of the Meatpacking District bistro made George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump look like pussycats, when he sent a profanity-laden e-mail memo to his staff demanding they get customers’ e-mail addresses or be fired.

“WHAT THE F – – – IS WRONG WITH YOU A – -HOLES?!?!?!” wrote Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky. “How many times do we have to tell you how important it is that you collect emails.

“Everytime we have a slow night and you make no money and you sit there bitching about how you make no money, remember its because youre f – – -ing lazy motherf – – – – – s. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!!!”

Paradou told the staff that they must collect at least 20 e-mails each week from customers or they would be fined $100. If they failed to meet the quota for two weeks, they would be canned, he wrote.

. . .

“This was my ‘Howl!’ ” he said, comparing his epic to the poem by Allen Ginsberg. “How many times can you say the same thing and not get results? You get frustrated . . .

“My e-mail conveyed the seriousness, the anger, the despondence I felt. Collecting e-mails and reaching out to clients that way is an integral part of promoting my business.”

Progress Not Politics!

So nice to see this article burning a hole in the Times’ pocket. Too bad they decided to publish it just as they called the election for him:

The White House switchboard lit up with calls from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s emissaries several weeks ago with a message that was polite but firm: The mayor is going to win re-election, they said. We think the president should stay out of the race.

Members of Mr. Bloomberg’s inner circle were especially worried because they knew President Obama planned to visit the region to campaign with Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, and he would face pressure to support the Democratic candidate, William C. Thompson Jr., the city’s first black comptroller.

At the request of the mayor’s aides, Geoffrey Canada, chief executive of the Harlem Children’s Zone, telephoned Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the president.

“I know she is close to the president and has his ear,” said Mr. Canada, whose nonprofit group has received $600,000 in personal donations from Mr. Bloomberg.

A close adviser to the mayor, who stayed neutral in the presidential race, described the campaign’s pitch to the White House this way: “He didn’t pick sides in your race. Don’t pick sides in his.”

The president’s office agreed, and in early October alerted Bloomberg aides that it would offer only a halfhearted Friday afternoon endorsement for Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Obama did not campaign with him.

In the race for mayor of New York City, there was one campaign on the surface. But there was a more dramatic effort, unfolding behind the scenes, that really mattered: ensuring, through money and muscle, that Mr. Bloomberg faced no serious obstacle to winning a third term.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.