Neil deMause: The Website

Another look at the new New York City elementary school application process, which is slowly becoming clear - or not:

It’s springtime, and the streets are filled with the sound of parents of 4- and 5-year-olds freaking out. This is normal behavior for March, when city parents traditionally bum-rush the schools of their choices and try by hook or by crook (or, according to persistent urban legend, gift of cookies) to get their kids to the front of the line. This year, though, the stress level is up a notch, thanks to a new application process… [read more]

NOTE: After this column had gone to press, schools spokesperson Andrew Jacob contacted me with several clarifications/corrections:

• Kids who don’t get into any schools on their list will be admitted to their zoned school; enough spaces will be held open to guarantee this. If they do get into another school on their list, however, they relinquish the right to automatically get into their zoned school - no backsies, in other words.
• The parent coordinator who said that gifted and talented test results won’t be in until May 16 “is wrong. We will be sending the results by mid-April” - only a couple of weeks later than originally projected.
• The DoE is promising to provide buses to take kids to gifted classes if they’re elsewhere in their district.

I was interviewed about stadium shakedowns by John Miller of National Review Online (yes, you read that right) a week or so ago, and it’s now available online. I don’t remember what I said, so tune in and then tell me!

The new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees are a year away from completion, and they’re costing less and creating fewer headaches for local residents than expected. Just kidding!

When Mets and Yankees fans arrive for the start of the new season, the teams’ past and future will be on display side by side—and not just Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana or Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain. At a record-shattering price tag of more than $2.5 billion, twin homes for New York’s ball clubs are being readied for their 2009 openings—and in the Bronx in particular, the repercussions are affecting not just the city treasury but the local neighborhood… [read more]

Don’t believe anything you read on the front page of the New York Post, no matter how amusing the headline is:

Today’s front-page Post “exclusive” reports that the Yankees and Mets are in “secret talks” to buy the remnants of Yankee and Shea Stadiums so the teams can sell off the scrap to souvenir-hunting fans. In the story inside, memorabilia expert Mike Heffner raves about the value of New York baseball relics, speculating that in the case of Yankee Stadium, “Each brick could sell for $100 to $300. I doubt we’d have any trouble selling every seat in the house for as much as $1,000.”

Even given the low bar for tabloid exclusives, not much of this is news… [read more]

The Wall Street meltdown could have unforeseen pitfalls for New York taxpayers, thanks to past city development deals:

Well, that was quick. In the one week since Bear Stearns suffered its total existence failure, stories of developers bailing on office-tower projects came fast and furious: First J.P. Morgan Chase rethinking its building on the former Deutsche Bank building site, then Bruce Ratner admitting his Frank Gehry-designed “Miss Brooklyn” skyscraper would be delayed indefinitely (though he insists he’s going ahead with the accompanying Nets basketball arena)… [read more]

What is it about journalists and homonyms? From today’s Newsday story on the passport kerfuffle:

A Passportgate scandal swept the presidential campaign Friday as the State Department revealed it is investigating unauthorized peaks into the passport files of all three White House candidates.

No word on whether the files contained unauthorized valleys as well.

Barely two weeks after I wrote about the rising public costs of the new Yankees stadium, those costs have risen yet again:

Baseball may be a game of numbers, but this is ridiculous: Sports fans (or just concerned taxpayers) who opened their morning paper today could read that the city cost of building new parks to replace those obliterated for a new Yankees stadium had risen 48% to $190 million, and also 122% to $288 million. It’s enough to make WXRL seem easy to understand by comparison.

The explanation, it turns out, is that it depends on what you mean by “parks”…

Those of you with a local radio station that carries the talk show Sports ByLine USA, Sirius satellite service, or a computer can tune in tonight at around 7:55 pm Eastern [UPDATE: It was recorded then, but will now air at 11:10 pm Eastern] to hear me plug the new expanded edition of Field of Schemes. Stick around after my segment to Trey Hillman, manager of the Kansas City Royals, discuss whether anyone is aware that he’s manager of the Kansas City Royals.

Yesterday was opening day at Coney Island, and so also opening day for my Coney coverage in the Village Voice:

When Astroland owner Carol Hill Albert announced last fall that her amusement park would be returning for a 47th season, she noted in passing that its traditional opening day of Palm Sunday was set to fall exceptionally early in 2008. “I just hope,” she said, “it doesn’t snow.”

The snow held off, barely. But it was still 40 degrees and threatening rain yesterday morning as Astroland opened the gates for what Albert has sworn is really truly its final season in Coney Island… [read more]

New York state has a new governor today (the old one was defective), and what better time to rethink the dumb ideas of past administrations?

Among the items topping David Paterson’s to-do list as he takes office today — get a budget done before June, remember not to sleep with hookers — is the looming disaster that is a trio of state development projects on Manhattan’s West Side. Thanks to a mix of soaring construction prices and overly rosy projections, the renovation of the Javits Convention Center, creation of a new Penn Station and extension of the 7 subway line to 11th Avenue all face uncertain futures.

All three, frankly, are good candidates for the scrapheap… [read more]

(A note on the headline: Yes, I know that David Paterson is governor, not mayor. No, I don’t know what the headline writer was smoking.)