Gawker: brooklyn bridge

Michael Lohan Safe after His Twitter Impersonator Fakes Suicide (Updated)

Azaria Jagger — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:33:04 EST

After tweeting his good-byes and threatening to leap to his death off the Brooklyn Bridge, Michael Lohan's purported Twitter account abruptly went dead early Monday morning. What just happened? (Updated)

UPDATE: Shabooty says it's not true, and that @TheMichaelLohan is in fact an impostor. Here's the email Lohan sent them:

This is not not not me. I do not have and never had a twitter and twitter's corporate office confirms that. My lawyers are investigating.

Adrian and I briefly contemplated dropping everything and rushing to the bridge for the first-ever Gawker night editor suicide intervention to save Michael, but transport to the Brooklyn Bridge from our respective apartments is sort of a bitch, and while we were haggling, @TheMichaelLohan's tweets all disappeared. Here it is before the mass tweletion, from an Allie Is Wired screengrab:

And after:

Twitter hack? Drunk texting? Honest-to-god near-death microblog experience? A few initial points of inquiry:

1. If he was en route to the bridge, why did he send the tweets "from Web," suggesting he was seated at his computer, as opposed to on his Blackberry in a car?
2. Why would he only say good-bye to Lindsay?
3. Can a user delete all their tweets at once without deleting their user page? Their simultaneous disappearance of all of Michael's tweets suggests something more drastic than individual deletions.
4. Tweeting a suicidal cry for help must be the most tragic use of 140 characters in the history of human literacy, a floundering grasp at the lonely nothingness that is the artificial comfort of virtual communities. That's not an inquiry, just a point to be made with a sigh.

Were you on the Brooklyn Bridge a little after 2AM? Are you the pipsqueak who hacked Papa Lohan's account? Tell us what you saw or know.

[AllieIsWired] [TheMichaelLohan] [Shabooty]

But Where Do They Get the Giant Tubs of Stale Popcorn?

The Cajun Boy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:44:28 EDT

Hundreds gathered in the grass of Brooklyn Bridge Park last night to watch Raising Arizona, part of the 'Movies With a View' series hosted by the Brookyln Bridge Park Conservatory, one of many NYC summer outdoor film screenings. (Chris Hondros/Getty)

A View from the Bridge

Richard Lawson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:53:00 EDT

[A view of New York from, we're guessing, the top of the Brooklyn Bridge. By photographer Sergei Yahchybekov, via Flickr]

New York City Bridges Falling Apart Or Whatever

abalk — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:34:34 EDT

In the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse, our very own Governor ordered a review of all the Empire State's spans. Guess what? Everything's falling apart! More than 2,000 are listed as "deficient," and, here in town, 16 of the 19 biggest bridges are only rated as fair or poor. Those assessments come from city inspections last year, so unless things can fix themselves, they're probably slightly worse. Among those receiving a rating of "poor" are the Tappan Zee and the Brooklyn Bridge. How bad is the city's most iconic overpass? Lori Ardito, first deputy transportation secretary, says it's not what you think.

Ms. Ardito said "poor" did not mean a structure was at risk of collapse. At the Brooklyn Bridge, the major problem is the roadway deck on the ramps, and not structures that support the roadway. She said a more complete rehabilitation was expected to start in 2010.
"The poor rating for the Brooklyn Bridge means that there's only components of the bridge that are in poor condition," she said. "They're actually the ramps leading to the bridge, not the span of the bridge."

Got it? You'll be just fine, providing you can actually make it onto the bridge. And if you're not swallowed up by collapsing ramps by 2010, everything will be perfect again! This city's seal should be a guy shrugging his shoulders with whatever the Latin is for "Whaddya gonna do?"' emblazoned across it.

In Ways Large and Small, Many Bridges Meet Definition of 'Deficient' [NYT]

Free TimesSelect Offering Greatest Hits of Casual Racism

abalk2 — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:10:45 EST

A reader writes:

I was digging through the very limited archives of the NY Times Select that Philips is so graciously sponsoring this week when I came upon an article about the Brooklyn Bridge opening.

It's a fairly standard tableau from 1883: President Chester A. Arthur attended the ceremony alongside the mayor as a lusty crowd cheered the connection of what were then two separate cities. What struck our reader was some of the detail added to the article to provide color:

Read on for more information about the swarthy dagos who toiled in the span's construction.

Two Great Cities United [NYT]