Are Downtown Residents Being Punked by Phone Bank Bunk?

City Council member Margaret Chin is concerned that her office telephone number may have been hijacked by a phone bank seeking to mobilize support for a controversial zoning measure currently under consideration. At Tuesday night’s meeting of Community Board 1 (CB1), Paul Leonard, Ms. Chin’s communications director, said, “we got a heads up from a...
Local children play in the public spaces describes by critics as "often underutilized covered walkways" that a recent telephone campaign (which some recipients claim was disguised to appear as if it came from the office of City Council member Margaret Chin) sought to generate support for privatizing and converting into retail space.

May 25

567 BC – Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans. 240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet. 1521 – The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw. 1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War...
Oscar Wilde "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

Veterans Group Plans Pig Roast in Front of Lower Manhattan Mosque

The embattled veterans group, the Wounded Warriors Project, is planning to roast a pig over an open fire on a Lower Manhattan street, directly in front of a mosque. This could arguably constitute a grave offense to Muslim sensibilities, in which pigs are viewed are profoundly unclean. The Iron Horse, a bar located at 32...
The scene in July, 2015, when the Iron Horse bar partnered with the Wounded Warriors Project to close Cliff Street for a pig roast.

Rowing Across the Atlantic

Here’s his latest posting: Monday 23rd May, 8th day, position 2am 40 28.6 N, 070 54,7 W “One week gone, 8th day at sea, not one I want to have too many of. It rained while the wind and waves increased and became quite a gale yesterday. Difficult to sleep while sliding about and worrying about...
Dr. Stein Hoff began his attempt rowing across the Atlantic last week the Battery in his rowboat named FOX II, 120 years after George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen.

May 24

1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt. 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan. 1830 – “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale is published. 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail,...
The Brooklyn Bridge

Schilling Opens on Washington Street

The lower sections of Washington Street and Greenwich Street below the World Trade Center have long been ignored. On these streets was once a neighborhood of immigrants finding the American dream, but a generation or two later were displaced by the construction of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. And on September 11th, these streets were where...
Michelin-starred chef Eduard Frauneder at his new bistro Schilling