Some funny new details emerged yesterday in the trial of the retired cop infamous for aggressively silencing noisy passengers on the Long Island Railroad. John Clifford stood accused of assaulting a woman whose hand he twice slapped in March 2007 after she tried to intervene in his scolding of cell-phone talker Nicholas Bender. And if Jerry Seinfeld is looking for material for his new TV series, he’s got all the fodder he needs in yesterday's......

Long Island Rail Road etiquette enforcer John Clifford – famous for his crusade against rude behavior during his morning commute – was in court yesterday to face charges stemming from a train altercation in March 2007. The retired cop-turned-lawyer stands accused of, among other things, slapping a woman who dared intervene while Clifford berated another passenger for talking loudly on his cell phone. Clifford’s been arrested or ticketed eight times for similar incidents, such as......

"The Blue Wall of Violence" courtesy of MoCADA Yesterday, The Daily News printed an article that began, "A cop-bashing art exhibit at a taxpayer-funded museum in Brooklyn portrays the city's Finest as trigger-happy racists who have put bull's-eyes on the backs of black New Yorkers." The exhibit is a retrospective of the artist Dread Scott's work called "Welcome to America," and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is calling the paper out......

The strange case of the plucky former NYPD officer Arno Herwerth (who is from Long Island, natch) and his GETOSAMA license plate has gotten even stranger. This time the man with “Kill Bin Laden” crudely painted on his American flag themed minivan and a habit of attending Smithtown board meetings in a chicken suit has rejected the offer of the DMV allowing him to keep his plates, since they would not pay his legal fees.......

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League – a group that exists to promote Bill Donohue, er, prevent “virulent anti-Catholicism” – is leading a protest against Jerry Springer: The Opera, which will be performed at Carnegie Hall on January 29th and 30th and stars Harvey Keitel as Springer. The show chronicles Jerry Springer’s adventures in hell, where he's forced to host an outrageous talk show whose guests include Adam and Eve, Mary, Jesus, and, as......

Governor Spitzer may have identified himself as a steamroller in his attempts to accomplish certain executive tasks, but he's got nothing on the former federal prosecutor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. The NY Times has a colorful profile of the the former Mayor as a man who used his offices as bludgeons, crushing anyone who crossed him. When a chauffeur called into the Mayor's weekly radio show in 1997, saying that the cops had established......

There are 9.3 million vanity license plates in the United States, but every now and then there is one person whose choice of to proclaim on his/her plates causes some problems. Typically, the problematic plate is weeded out thanks to the DMV’s “blue list”of banned letter and number combinations ranging from the obvious, like GOD, NYPD and POL1CE, to the less so, like 3M TA3. Still the NY State DMV’s online plate lookup allows for......

Hallelujah! Yesterday the judge presiding over the Reverend Billy case dropped the charges that claimed he harassed public officials. The Rev was arrested in June while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass ride which coincided with the protest of the proposed MOFTB rules. Turns out the prosecutors didn't meet their deadline to file papers explaining the arrest and its justification. The Reverend's (whose real name is Bill Talen) lawyer, Earl......

Over the weekend we pointed to a death at the Knitting Factory that the cops were deeming "suspicious." Yesterday it was announced that the man was Nicholas Phillips, an East Village resident. The Post reports:An East Village man who died of an apparent drug overdose at a Manhattan rock club has been identified, sources said yesterday. Nicholas Phillips, of East Ninth Street, was found unconscious in the bathroom of the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street......

Performance artist and activist Bill Talen, AKA Reverend Billy, has been raising hell in New York City for so long now it’s hard to imagine this town without him. Since first seizing his sidewalk pulpit in the late 90s to combat the Disneyfication of Times Square, the reverend has been consistently down with a host of local and international progressive causes. With the help of his raucous Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, he also puts on......

A retired cop who can't abide cell phone users or loud talkers on his daily LIRR commute to and from Manhattan has made it his business to intimidate fellow riders into being quiet. Standing six foot four inches, John Clifford can be an imposing figure, especially if he's yelling at you, slapping a phone out of your hand, or throwing food or a beverage on you. Clifford's been arrested a number of times, but he's......

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King, and appreciated their beautiful skyline. Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out and......

We received an email alert from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project about a clash between the SRLP and police officers last night in the East Village. Here is an excerpt of the SRLP's account:On the night of Wednesday, September 26, officers from the 9th Precinct of the New York Police Department attacked without provocation members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and of its community. Two of our community members were violently arrested, and others......

You may recall that Reverend Billy Talen was arrested in June for reciting the First Amendment in Union Square during a Critical Mass night protesting the proposed photography laws. We posted video of the arrest at the time, and Talen spent 20 hours in the Tombs charged with two counts of second-degree harassment. Yesterday the Rev faced the judge and The NY Times reports that in court "the prosecutor told Judge Tanya Kennedy that Mr.......

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is getting a lot of ink in our newspapers today after it was revealed that (A) he had requested a visit to Ground Zero - to lay a wreath, no less - and then shortly later that (B) the city had denied the request. Way to work fast, city agencies! Iranian mission to the United Nations says that Ahmadinejad still wants to go to Ground Zero, but the Daily News sends......

After years of legal wrangling, the Appellate Court has backed the College of Staten Island and says that the CUNY school can deny official status to fraternity Chi Iota. But the battle may not be over, as the brothers want to fight this at the Supreme Court. Chi iota had applied for official status at CSI in an attempt to be the first Greek-letter organization on campus, but CSI denied their application, finding that the......

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Holwell found that fast food restaurants do not need to make their calorie information more prominent. Last December, the Health Department had voted that national chain restaurants, which already have caloric information, should display that info on menus or menu boards. Naturally, the fast food industry protested, because it's very hard to order a Big Mac when it says "540 calories, 29 grams of fat"! And, crap, an Oreo McFlurry......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a vessel in distress off Rikers Island in the East River, a dead body found in the East River off Roosevelt Island and Queens, and an industrial accident on 52nd Ave. in Queens. Confirming recent speculation, The New York Times is cancelling its TimesSelect initiative, in which people subscribed to read a number of columnists and other special online content. Mayor Bloomberg signed autographs, greeted courtroom personnel, and posed......

Last night, Picture New York held a First Amendment rally in Union Square to protest some wacky new rules the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcast. For instance, permits would be needed for a group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour as well as any group of five or more people who would be using a tripod......

Last month Reverend Billy was locked up for reciting the First Amendment in Union Square. Tonight he returns with a troupe of others to speak out against the outrageous new law that would limit public photography and filming in New York. Currently there are 2,285,188 photos tagged "New York" on Flickr, and that's just one photo sharing site, imagine if the number stopped there and we lost future images of the city. A new group......

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer yesterday. Quinn had required Plummer to sign a letter agreeing to behave during meetings, after Plummer heckled Quinn during a meeting about street namings and made reference to an "assassination" of Councilman Leroy Comrie, but Plummer refused (she has maintained that she meant a "assassination" of Comrie's character and/or political prospects). And Plummer filed a $1 million racial discrimination suit against......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Saturday we posted about Reverend Billy getting arrested during Friday night's Critical Mass as he recited the First Amendment. The above is a video of how it went down. Each police officer involved is identified by the cameraman, and at the end you'll see Lt Daniel Albano, "one of the main architects of the recent NYPD crackdown on civil rights." That night Reverend Billy was in jail for 20 hours, and charged with harassment......

Reverend Billy was arrested and detained last night while reciting the First Amendment in Union Square. The police claimed his preaching it at this month's Critical Mass constituted "Harassment of a Public Official". The NYPD has a history of some controversial arrests at the Critical Mass events, and at last night's the number of police practically outnumbered the riders. From the press release we received: "...even unaffiliated riders were ticketed as they approached the park.......

The New York Times takes a look at Rafael Martínez Alequin, who is the publisher of a small independent newspaper and recent evictee from the Blue Room, the room where press conferences are held in City Hall. According to the Times, Martinez Alequin has been antagonizing public officials for years with his questions: Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani once called him a “jerk” and an “embarrassment,” and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller asked him in 2005,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Drive in Queens, a shooting on Hale Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting at East 157th St. and Cortland Ave. in the Bronx. The Gowanus Lounge has a post on the giant inflatable water slide that Thor Equities intends to erect at Coney Island. The slide manufacturer's web site advertises that when it comes to entertaining children "size does matter," so good luck......

Will metal and plastic newspaper boxes be a thing of the past? Gowanus Lounge reports that the Park Slope Civic Council will test a new "modular distribution box" at the corner of Seventh and 9th Street. The PSCC is working with Brooklyn based company City Solve, which has designed newspaper distribution boxes (pictured). PSCC and City Solve are splitting the cost of the $2,000 box, and Gowanus Lounge writes:Each box holds eight papers, including......

To tape or not to tape? That is the question before a Federal district court this week. The issue at hand is whether the police may videotape political protestors, and whether a judge would reconsider his decision that answered that question: "No." Gail Donoghue, special counsel for the city’s Law Department, began the hearing by telling Judge Haight that he overstepped his judicial powers in February when he essentially made his own court the......

On Tuesday "The Oprah Winfrey Show" became a platform for the Hip-Hop community to respond to the Don Imus controversy with a panel discussion featuring Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Kevin Liles, Common and more. Should musicians lose their jobs or their contracts for using words that are considered racist and sexist? As seen in the video clip below, the former EIC of Essence Magazine thinks so. She is met with many who disagree, however,......

As part of Adidas's new spring line of End to End sneakers for Foot Locker, the German shoe manufacturer has created an EndtoEnd Project exhibit in an empty lot on Lafayette and Houston. Adidas had different graffiti artists create designs for shoes in an East London warehouse, so in bringing the finished shoes to the states, Adidas has the artists tagging a replica of a NYC subway car! Cue for a quote from City......