New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s long-awaited rezoning plan for Coney Island was finally released yesterday. But while most news outlets were distracted by the pretty pictures, they largely missed the bigger story – the city’s plan to use a never-before-tried … Continue reading
In an article in today’s Newsday on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease: ALS destroys motor neurons and gradually leads to loss of speech and paralyzation. Coining new words when there are perfectly good old ones is a time-honored … Continue reading
Headline in today’s Washington Post: Turkish Troop Dies; Kurd Rebels Trapped My first thought: An entire troop of Turkish soldiers died? No – only one soldier. Or as the Post calls him, one troop – in defiance of longstanding English … Continue reading
It’s official: Coney Island amusement park Astroland will be open again in 2008. The pirate ship will take flight again: In what seemed inconceivable only a few months ago, Astroland operator Carol Hill Albert and her landlord Thor Equities have … Continue reading
I’ve been seeing so many awful grammatical/spelling mistakes in my daily newspaper reading that I’ve decided to start keeping a running log here. Today’s offender: Newsday’s Ken Davidoff, who is otherwise one of my favorite baseball columnists. Torre was a … Continue reading
In this week’s New Yorker, economics columnist James Surowiecki takes on Elizabeth Currid’s book “The Warhol Economy,” which argues that the art/music/fashion industry is more vital to New York City’s economy than even Wall Street. While agreeing that art and … Continue reading
A demonstration against gentrification in downtown Brooklyn this weekend gave me a chance to revisit the scene of one of my previous articles: A massive throng — well, let’s say a spirited assemblage — of about 100 residents of Fort … Continue reading
The media frenzy over those Yankees hotel-room aliases continues, as I make two radio appearances tomorrow to discuss the pressing question of why Jorge Posada goes by “Ricky Ricardo”: Peter Greenberg Worldwide, syndicated/XM, 10:50 am Eastern The Roy Green Show, … Continue reading
And because apparently nobody can get enough of those Yankees hotel room aliases, here’s more on those Yankees hotel room aliases, this time in quiz form. The first villagevoice.com reader to successfully identify all four mystery Yankees—heck, the first to … Continue reading
For those of you within reach of central Brooklyn, I’m going to be moderating a discussion this Saturday night by Brian Berger and Tom Robbins, two of the many authors (Berger is co-editor as well) of the marvelous new anthology … Continue reading