Tag Archives: NYC

The New York Times reports: About 40,000 New York area residents learned on Thursday that they had won two tickets in a city-sponsored lottery to watch Pope Francis’ procession through Central Park on Sept. 25. A day later, many of them had been moved by the spirit of capitalism to offer those tickets on eBay and Craigslist, in some cases …

New York City news outlets and blogs are lighting up today after a ferocious pit bull attack in the Bronx left two men hospitalized. The attack has spurred renewed calls for the city to ban the breed. The New York Daily News reports: A Bronx woman ordered her two pit bulls to viciously attack a 62-year-old man Friday morning as …

Even though baby boys continue to contract herpes from their rabbis, yesterday the New York City Board Of Health repealed its requirement that Ultra Orthodox parents sign a Bloomberg-era consent form which warns them about a controversial circumcision ritual. Gothamist rants: After a few years of toothless bureaucracy and a minimal amount of government involvement, New York City is a …

Back in December 2013 then-NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg rode the 1.5-mile extension of the 7 line from Times Square to Hudson Yards and held an “opening ceremony” in the new station. More than 18 months later after numerous issues and a $400M overrun on the $2B budget, the station will finally open this Sunday.  Allegedly. Crain’s Business reports: The subway …

Yesterday dozens of activists demonstrated outside the federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn in protest against the raid on Rentboy.com headquarters. The New York Daily News reports: Chanting “Keep your laws off my body,” gay activists marched Thursday outside Brooklyn Federal Court demanding that prosecutors drop prostitution charges against seven employees of the Rentboy.com website. About 70 protesters — men and …

From the Facebook event page: LGBT and Civil Liberties Advocates Denounce Arrests of Rentboy.com Staff, Call for Dropping Charges and Decriminalization of Sex Work. RALLY: Thurs., Sept. 3rd, Noon, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn LGBT activists, civil rights organizations, the HookUp Collaborative and supporters will hold a demonstration this Thursday, Sept. 3rd, at Noon at …

The editorial board of the New York Times is “baffled” by Homeland Security’s raid on Rentboy.com.  An excerpt: The criminal complaint is so saturated with sexually explicit details, it’s hard not to interpret it as an indictment of gay men as being sexually promiscuous. “Based on my investigation,” Susan Ruiz, a Homeland Security special agent, wrote in the complaint, “I …

Breaking news from New York City’s NBC affiliate: Federal agents raided the Manhattan headquarters of RentBoy.com as part of a money laundering and state prostitution investigation Tuesday, law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York. Seven people, including a high-ranking executive, were arrested as part of the RentBoy.com raid at the offices on 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, the sources …

Stroll through Times Square on any warm day and you’ll encounter two dozen or more topless women who will pose for photographs, sometimes as male companions stand at the ready should any tourist not fork over the demanded $10 or $20 tip. Such performance art, as it is reluctantly classified by the city, is completely legal and officials say they …

NBC News reports: Police say a Queens man has been arrested in connection with a bias attack on a gay couple at a Manhattan bodega. Thomas Clabough was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault and attempted assault as a hate crime in the attack in the store in SoHo on Aug. 2. The victims were Daniel Lennox-Choate and his husband, …

During the Great Chicken Uproar of 2012, then-NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn demanded that the NYU cafeteria close its tiny walk-up Chick-Fil-A window, which was the chain’s sole outpost in the nation’s largest city. NYU declined to act. A few months ago I reported that Chick-Fil-A had signed a deal to open a megastore near Manhattan’s Herald Square. This week …

“Don’t listen to the crazies. For some reason there is a group of ‘activists’ that insists on maintaining their prime importance and participation during this riot. Unfortunately there seems no one left alive to say ‘it wasn’t that way at all,’ or ‘who are or where the fuck were you.’ As with so much history there is no way to …

Variety reports: “A historically accurate film about the Stonewall Riots would center the stories of queer and gender-noncomforming people of color like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson,” a MoveOn petition reads. “Not relegate them to background characters in the service of a white cis-male fictional protagonist.” The trailer for Roland Emmerich’s film about the 1969 Stonewall riots just debuted …

Via the New York Times: An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the South Bronx has claimed three more lives, bringing the death toll to seven, New York City officials said on Monday amid calls for tighter regulation of water-cooling towers, which are thought to be the origin of the illness. Of the 17 cooling towers officials examined in the South …

Via NBC New York: The landmark Empire State Building, known for its stunning light displays, shined brightly with digital light projections of the world’s endangered species Saturday evening. The show was billed as a first-of-its-kind live video projection and aimed to raise awareness about animals at risk of being lost forever. The display, a project conceived by “The Cove” filmmaker …

CNN reports: The number of deaths in the New York City Legionnaires’ disease outbreak is up to four. Seventy-one cases of the flu-like disease have been reported since mid-July in the South Bronx, up from 31 on Thursday, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Sunday. Legionnaires’ disease is a respiratory bacterial infection usually spread through mist that …

Via Laughing Squid: New Zealand street artist Owen Dippie, the incredible mind behind the Renaissance Mutant Ninja Turtles mural, recently created “The Radiant Madonna“, a giant mural that features the Virgin Mary cradling a distinctive Keith Haring figure on the side of a Brooklyn building. Dippie explained the concept behind the mural, which was done in cooperation with the Bushwick …

Hate preacher James David Manning wants to build an “anti-sodomite monument” across 125th Street to defy the “bleaching of Harlem.”