If you watch just one Community Board Meeting video this summer, make it this one. Willets Point property owners who've been passionately protesting Mayor Bloomberg's controversial $3 billion plan to rezone the area (to make way for a hotel, convention center, offices and retail stores) have put together this video showing how the sausage gets made over at Community Board 7. Their gripping featurette focuses in on a contentious committee meeting that yielded a yes......

The most indispensable member of Council Speaker Christine Quinn's staff seems to be an unpaid 81-year-old World War II veteran, her father Lawrence P. Quinn. An endearing profile in the Times today spotlights his ongoing efforts for his daughter, who will run for mayor next year. Ms. Quinn, an openly gay liberal, calls him "an all-purpose schlepper" who comes in handy for retirement home photo-ops. Mr. Quinn, a practicing Catholic, seems to be crying for......

Photo courtesy Atomische. Angry opponents to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to develop 62 acres of poorly-maintained land in Willets Point, Queens disrupted a press conference yesterday held by city officials in Washington Square Park to tout the proposal. Councilman Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes Willets Point, led over two dozen protesters to the press conference, where they drowned out advocates for the plan, chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” According to the Times, the police refused......

At a breakfast forum this morning, Representative Anthony Weiner – a likely mayoral candidate – handed out a 5,000 word manifesto about how he would keep the city affordable for the middle class. The Sun has it that Weiner also used his half-hour speech to criticize the proliferation of big-box chains in New York, wondering, “What is the value of having a Wal-Mart on Queens Boulevard that wipes out economic development on the rest of......

The Belmar, NJ mayor who hurt the feelings of Staten Island residents is ready to make amends. Mayor Ken Pringle (pictured) insulted the borough to the point of its residents calling for a boycott of his beach town. Pringle isn't getting away with a simple apology for the SI slurs, the Staten Island Advance is reporting that "community leaders are planning to take the mayor of Belmar on a tour of the Island after he......

Mayor Bloomberg's annoyed response to a Newsday reporter's question last week (or was it his disdain at a different press conference the week before) has seemingly inspired Diane Cardwell's section A NY Times article, "As Term Wanes, Bloomberg’s Temper Boils Up." Apparently lame duck status coupled with many of his pet projects failing or on the brink of failure, Bloomberg is getting more testy that usual. Or, as Cardwell puts it, he's been more......

As Senator Hillary Clinton ignores calls to drop out and gets ready for a likely West Virginia primary victory, Politico's Ben Smith reveals one funny suggestion from a NYC politician: Clinton should run for mayor in 2009. The politician's reasoning is that though it's not being leader of freed world, "it's a big executive job, comes with a media spotlight and a mansion." Smith asked Koch for a comment (Koch yelled at Smith for "wasting......

Last September three women filed a lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg’s company, Bloomberg LP, accusing Bloomberg of being personally responsible for creating a "systemic, top-down culture of discrimination," and accusing Bloomberg LP CEO Lex Fenwick of firing two pregnant employees with this gangsta riposte: “I'm not having any pregnant bitches working for me.” Now other 54 women have joined the lawsuit, after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC] conducted interviews with 478 woman who took maternity......

The 144,160 parking placards registered in the city inventory have been reduced by over 25,000, Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler announced yesterday. The cutbacks are targeted at what many frustrated drivers see as an abuse of a system that lets police, teachers and civil servants park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. Initial cuts have focused on the 80,770 placards issued to 68 city agencies, exempting the 63,390 placards used by the Education Department.......

Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg uses the word unconscionable so much that the Times poured 969 other words into analyzing the verbal tic. According to the article, Bloomberg’s U-bombing is definitely excessive; he drops the heavy pejorative in situations that don’t merit it, like when a reporter dared ask him if his trip to Israel was calculated to woo Jewish voters. (“That’s unconscionable. You should be ashamed to ask that question,” he reportedly snapped.) And when a......

Working his political connections to score one of the few below-ground burial plots left in Manhattan, former Mayor Ed Koch has announced that he will be buried in Trinity Church Cemetery at Broadway and 155th Street. The 83-year-old New Yorker says, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.” So when the time comes he’ll be laid to rest in the company of such notables as Jerry Orbach, naturalist John James Audubon, and a slew......

Last year Mayor Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan to seize 61 acres of the Willets Point district next to the forthcoming Citi Field in Queens through eminent domain, raze it, and construct 5,500 units of housing, a hotel, convention center and over 2 million square feet of office space, restaurants and retail shops. But business owners in the target zone have been fighting it, saying their ‘hood, dubbed the Iron Triangle for its chop......

Photo courtesy New York Shitty. Congestion pricing is toast, and so is Bloomberg’s “legacy,” so let’s start talking about the city’s next mayor. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz says he’s not yet made up his mind about running, but, judging from this peculiar photo, eliminating mayoral term limits must be at the top of his agenda. Or is "Marty for Life" just an innocent campaign slogan? If so, it’s a lot catchier than the one......

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens) will be formally announcing his bid to replace Mayor Bloomberg this Sunday. Theories about likely candidates abound (e.g. Councilman John Liu, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly), but Avella is jumping to the head of the line by explicitly announcing his desire to be Mayor this Sunday at 1 p.m. on the steps of City Hall. Avella is the chairman of......

Some Capitol Hill offices received letters claiming responsibility for this morning's bombing in Times Square. WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center "before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" According to the AP, Senator Dianne Feinstein's office sent this email to other lawmakers:"A few offices on the House side have received a letter today addressed to 'Members of Congress' with a picture of a......

Photo by Raymond Haddad, at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Broadway and 231st St. in the Bronx, an aircraft alert at JFK at Queens, and a person fatally struck by a train at 57th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan. Entries for the NYC Half-Marathon will start being accepted at 11:59pm on May 29th. Details. And the Design Trust for Public Space is accepting submissions for its Grand Army......

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71). Most of the big buck city dwellers are familiar names: Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($11.5 billion), publishing powerhouses Samuel Newhouse Jr. and Rupert Murdoch ($8.5 billion and $8.3 billion),......

Turns out the number parking placards sloshing around New York is over 142,000, twice the number guesstimated by Mayor Bloomberg’s office when he announced a 20% cutback on the placards, which allow police, teachers and civil servants to park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. The new total does not take into consideration the number of counterfeit and expired placards, and the city is still not done counting, so this preliminary total is......

Photograph of damaged door by dhfdz on Flickr Around 3:45 a.m., a device exploded outside the military recruiting center in Times Square. No one was injured, but a glass entryway was shattered. The streets around Times Square were shut down (now traffic can pass through) and subway service passed through the Times Square station without stopping (it's back to normal now), as authorities investigated the scene. WNBC reports police were searching for a "suspect......

After his $500,000 donation to NY State Republicans was revealed, Mayor Bloomberg explained why he did it to reporters while attending a Mayors Against Illegal Guns conference, "I've said repeatedly, I will help those who help us. They have stood up for the city a number of times — when we needed to have a voice in Albany and we didn't have that voice from the Assembly or from the governor, whether it was the......

The father who wanted to give up his 6-month-old baby out of desperation has told the police he wants to surrender. Carlos Rodas, 27, was overwhelmed when his 14-year-old girlfriend and the mother of the baby left him to care for their daughter, so he, his sister, and her boyfriend, a livery cab driver, worked out a plan for the driver to leave the baby at a Queens fire house. The story of the......

Just because Mayor Bloomberg has denied running for governor in 2010 doesn't mean it has to be true! The Sun's Davidson Goldin thinks that for Bloomberg, "Running for governor is likely, and becoming more so." Why? Well, though the mayor and Governor Spitzer have tried to be cooperative, Albany is involved in many plans the Mayor has a stake in, such as congestion pricing, OTB, and the Javits Center, not to mention Moynihan Station and......

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who has spent many months (if not years) hinting about his boss's presidential ambitions, is still stirring the pot of rumors. Last night on NY1's Inside City Hall, Sheekey, "promoted the idea of an Obama-Bloomberg presidential ticket." Sheekey revealed that after Bloomberg's official announcement/NY Times op-ed about not running for president, Barack Obama had a chat with the billionaire mayor:"Certainly you could joke that Obama's call was a fundraising call yesterday.......

The Mayor and City Council are facing off over housing regulations that could lower barriers to low-income tenants receiving federal housing vouchers to subsidize their rents. The City Council is attempting to pass a law which would make it harder for landlords to refuse Section 8 tenants, but Mayor Bloomberg just vetoed the Council-passed law. The vouchers fall under the law known as Section 8, which many landlords prefer not to get involved with, citing......

A New York State Assemblyman ticked off about congestion pricing for suburban drivers is retaliating by proposing a $4-per-ride surcharge for taxi riders, rather than the congestion fee of $8 for motorists entering Manhattan below 60th St. That taxis are another form of mass transit that allow New Yorkers to get around without owning a car escapes Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, whose district includes parts of Westchester County. Brodsky and other representatives of suburban communities feel......

Earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new plan to put health information of millions of New Yorkers online. He touted the initiative, "By bringing this health technology to New Yorkers, we are building a national model for a health care system that works... In Washington, they talk about how our health care system should be reformed; here in New York City, we are actually doing it." Using $60 million of city, state, and federal......

Tabloid reaction to Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement that he will not run for president is the usual study in contrasts. The Daily News’s Josh Greenman and editorial board haven’t missed a beat and are already clamoring for Vice President Bloomberg. Grossman says Bloomberg would be the perfect complement to an Obama candidacy by inspiring confidence with his unstoppable financial skills. Greenman also writes Bloomberg’s partisan flexibility, impressive resume, track record in New York and, last but......

Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council may not agree on the appropriateness of cell phones in public schools, but the DoE is now handing out cell phones to a select group of students. The privately funded pilot program will give cell phones to students and reward positive behavior, such as showing up to class, behaving and doing well. In an ironic twist, the Samsung phones will not actually be allowed in class, per Mayor Bloomberg's......

The following post is from our advertiser, Campaign for New York's Future. Photo of crowded subway by Nick Whitaker Overcrowded subways, packed buses, gridlocked streets, and polluted air: just part of life in New York City? With a million more people on the way, these nuisances are poised to become a problem large enough to bring our city to a screeching halt. Tell your state legislators to pass congestion pricing and bring traffic relief and......

Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan that will require better fuel efficiency for city's TLC-run black cars; the change is part of the broader PlaNYC initiative and follows in the tread marks of the new hybrid yellow cabs. Emissions will be halved for the fleet of 10,000 black cars, which currently release 272,000 tons of CO2 equivalents annually, making up 2% of the City's transportation related emissions. The fleet is a part of the Taxi......