The Great Airbnb War entered its latest chapter five months ago, when New York City enacted its crackdown on short-term vacation rentals, forcing anyone offering stays of less than 30 days to prove their legality by registering with the city. Airbnb hosts have … Continue reading
It’s December 2018, and I’m waiting, as I have for the seven previous nights, for the doors to the Bowery Ballroom to open. After 12 years at Hoboken’s beloved Maxwell’s, Yo La Tengo’s annual Hanukkah benefit shows relaunched the previous … Continue reading
The last time Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos held a town hall on Mets owner Steve Cohen’s plans to build a casino on the Citi Field parking lots, she emphatically stuck a fork in the project by putting on hold a required … Continue reading
Nina Simone is a fairly recent arrival in my music collection, though I had known her name, and at least a little bit about her music, for years before. For much of that time, she was one of those figures … Continue reading
The One Rule for this site is that the topics are selected by the iTunes shuffle function from my music library, and I try not to deviate from that. So it sometimes comes to pass that I arrive at a … Continue reading
Seriously? I’m supposed to try to explain how I first learned about Joe Walsh? I grew up in the 1970s, when the air was literally saturated with Joe Walsh; even now, it’s hard for me to think about anything from … Continue reading
I first learned about Dean Schlabowske via the Waco Brothers, of course. I’m pretty sure the first time that band came to my attention was via a Village Voice (R.I.P.) concert ad that read “WACO BROTHERS (feat. Jon Langford of … Continue reading
When Governor Kathy Hochul issued her 2023 budget plan at the start of February, one line item that didn’t make the top bullet points in her press release was her proposed expansion of the state’s already-generous tax credit program for TV and … Continue reading
Mets owner Steve Cohen’s quest to build something undisclosed atop the parking lots around Citi Field—psst it’s a casino—held its coming-out party on Saturday, as roughly 450 Queens residents and assorted Mets fans trooped through the stadium’s Piazza 31 Club to … Continue reading
One day after he fed the New York Times an exclusive about his deal with New York City F.C. to erect a new $780 million soccer stadium at Willets Point in Queens, Mayor Eric Adams, a panoply of elected officials, … Continue reading