New York City politics might seem convoluted now, but for nearly a century the city was governed by the Board of Estimate, an eight-member body as opaque and sinister as it sounds. On March 22, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional. The subsequent revision to the City Charter created the political…
Say what you want about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s politics, but the man has excellent taste in music. In fact, we share the same favorite album: the Clash’s Sandinista! In 2012, a friend of mine threw a fundraiser for then-Public Advocate de Blasio’s mayoral campaign. As the party wound down, folks were getting in their one…
I think there is zero chance of developers walking away from this waterfront. Look at this view! This is the best view in New York City, maybe in the whole world. You’ve got the entire Manhattan skyline right in front of you. – Councilmember David Yassky (Williamsburg/Greenpoint), 2005 In Williamsburg and Greenpoint, luxury condos have been…
The recovery from my ACL injury is entering a challenging phrase, as I ramp up early rehab efforts. Between the time spend on PT and the erratic sleep schedule caused by the increased discomfort, I’ve barely had time to write, and as you may have noticed, 100% of that writing time has been going to Today in…
Readers, enjoy this super interesting topic. Unfortunately, my first day of PT meant some trying some aggressive new exercises, and the resulting pain makes focusing difficult, so this post had to be done in one take. Apologies for typos and a less than the best narrative. On the evening of March 13, a young woman…
Before you get too excited about spring being just around the corner, remember that from March 11 to March 14, 1888, one of the most intense blizzards in American history buried New York City under mounds of snow and brought the city to a standstill. When the head of the national Weather Bureau, Elias Dunn, closed…
On March 11, 1892, an uptight minister named Charles Parkhurst visited the Gramercy-area brothel of Hattie Adams as part of an undercover sting operation. Before the story was over, it roped in Tammany Hall, Teddy Roosevelt, and New York’s favorite rogue lawyers, Howe & Hummel, and offered a great snapshot of “Gay 90s” New York…
No group did more to raise alarms about the New York City AIDS crisis than ACT UP, born out of a powerful speech delivered by Larry Kramer on March 10, 1987. It is hard to fathom the rising AIDS death toll during the 1980s. The disease was virtually unheard of at the start of the…
On March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali battled Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in one of the most highly anticipated showdowns in sports history. Billed as “The Fight of the Century,” it promised to be a clash of styles, a clash of cultures, a clash of two legendary champions who had been kept apart due…
Last week we took a look at Mayor de Blasio’s primary strategy for creating the 80,000 affordable rental units cited in his ten-year plan: providing benefits to private real estate developers in exchange for making a percentage of their rental units affordable. Let’s look at what “affordable” really means in these programs as we continue…
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