Here's the release we got on Wednesday:

[Alleged victim], a 25 year-old graduate student who lives in Manhattan was attacked yesterday (Tuesday, July 15th, 2008) at 8.30 P.M. outside of the 14th St.-Union Square subway station. ["Victim"], who was at the time listening to music with her iPod, was wearing a pink t-shirt bearing the slogan "Obama Is My Slave". Four African-American female teenagers approached her and one of them started to curse her because of her t-shirt, screaming at her, and then push her. ["Victim"], who was shocked, started to walk away from the group but was followed by the girls. The same one who cursed her, pulled her earphones and another girl spat on her face. ["Victim"] ran away from them and called the "[Bad designer]" store on [LES] where she had purchased her t-shirt and complained about the attack to the employee who was working in the shop at that time. The employee agreed to give ["victim"] the owner's, [bad designer's], cell phone number and the still shocked ["victim"] told him about the attack and informed him she was thinking of suing him "for all he's got". [Bad designer] in return told her that he was very sorry she had been attacked, but that she could not blame him because as he told her "No one made you buy the t-shirt". ["Victim"] said that she would come the following day and demand a refund for the t-shirt, which cost her $69. [Bad designer] told her that he doesn't give refunds because it is against his store policy. This made her even more agitated and she started to scream at him saying that he should be "ashamed of himself". [Bad designer] asked her for her phone number saying that he would speak to his lawyer and call her back. Yesterday at 10 PM when I, his publicist, called ["victim"] she was extremely upset and told me that she had spoken to her parents and decided to take [bad designer] to court.

* To speak with [alleged victim] about the incident, you can reach her at phone number: [redacted]
* To speak with [Bad designer] aka [prick], you can reach him at phone number: [redacted].
* A picture of [Bad designer] aka [prick] wearing the "Obama Is My Slave" t-shirt can be found at: [Hell]

Sincerely,

Lauren Levy
[Bad designer's] Publicist.

What's wrong with this picture? The guy is supposedly getting sued, and his own flack blasts out a press release with all the alleged dirty details, including the contact info of the girl who is supposedly suing him. Any reporter who's ever seen a press release related to a lawsuit knows that there's no way on earth one side will be happily passing out the other side's contact info and encouraging journalists to call them. And Metro says the "victim" didn't return any of their calls. Which didn't stop them from putting this on the front page.

There are only two possibilities: Either this whole thing is a hoax; or, the girl did get assaulted, and the bad designer and his creepy flack decided that this race-baiting was just the thing to get his face in the paper. Either way, what a bunch of scuzzballs.

Metro: you fools.

[Radar]

Old-school reporter Willaim Rashbaum broke the Spitzer story. This is a guy whose voicemail directs to a pager number — the 90s really are back — and who's been covering generally unsexy court papers for nine years. But even if the Times's star player doesn't have a BlackBerry, the metro editors realized the internet appeal of this scoop. One reporter wanted to hold the story for Tuesday's paper, saying, "If you break everything from the Web, don't you take away something from the newspaper?" (Um, is that a joke?) By going online first, the Times owned the story, and became the go-to source for Spitzer's "weighing" through our "expecting" to the "where the fuck is the resignation" tease.

Joe Sexton, the Metro editor since 2006, wanted to bring back shoe leather reporting while the Times (and readers) wanted more lifestyle pieces. With the death of Heath Ledger, another story the Times owned, and this prostitution scandal, the metro section did old-fashioned reporting on sexy stories, which is basically what us "print is dead" bloggers are always saying newspapers should be doing. The Times rocked it. Team Metro Section!

The Touchable [NYO]

From 1950 to 2000, 800,000 homes and apartments were created—while the number of residents only increased by just fewer than 120,000 people. In 1950, only 7% of New Yorkers 25 and older had attended four years or more years of college.

By 2000, the fastest-growing group of jobs in New York City paid less than $25,000 a year. A man calling himself Christopher Rockefeller fleeced Hamptonites out of more than $900,000 over the summer. H&M began its New York invasion. Hillary Clinton "inadvertently" solicited donations from a White House visitors list. 15,000 people rallied for Ralph Nader's presidential campaign. Trump World Tower grew over the U.N.

From August to October, Silicon Alley dot-coms laid off 3000 workers. In November: "Many companies have been forced to devise generous benefits to lure the top candidates to the metropolitan region." Investment banks and insurance companies grab for office space while dot-coms disappear. On November 8th, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate. By November 25th, the Williamsburg Domino Sugar plant workers had been on strike for a year and a half.

82 substantiated complaints of abuse by the NYPD got disappeared. Unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5%.

"Deliverymen who often earn just $2 an hour lugging bags of groceries to apartments up and down Manhattan for the Food Emporium supermarket chain will receive $3 million in back pay under a settlement announced yesterday."

Developers promise to rebuild West Side Rail Yards!

"[W]hat appears to be fashionable for some of the French these days is to pack up one's life in Paris and relocate to the East Village."

December 29: "A federal judge has upheld a Giuliani administration policy that allows police officers to arrest homeless people for sleeping in cardboard boxes in public." Boo.com wins the right in court to sell off their Silicon Alley lease.

From "1992 to 2000 there had been a gain of 35,200 jobs for securities and commodities brokers, whose average salary in 2001 was $147,867."

"The number of New York adults who have a problem speaking English increased by 30 percent between 1990 and 2000, to more than 1.5 million throughout the city."

25-year-old Battery Park City, tasked with building 60,000 units of affordable housing, has only provided a bit more than 1500. The Earth Liberation Front claims they have burned down several houses being built in Long Island on farmland. NewsCorp. lays off hundreds of online staff and closes its internet division offices. New York Times Digital lays off 70 employees. The Giuliani administration is forced to pay out at least $50-million for illegally strip-searching tens of thousands of people in 1996 and 1997.

It is found that the U.S. government had enough evidence to indict Osama bin Laden before the killings of Americans in Somalia in 1993. January 16, 2001: "Manhattan's skyrocketing apartment rental market has turned around and started drifting back toward earth." The U.S. Justice Department declined to file charges against the 4 cops who were acquitted in state court in the shooting of Amadou Diallo. February 7, 2001: "The number of homeless people lodging nightly in the New York City shelter system this winter has risen above 25,000, the most since the late 1980's, city figures show, with the largest increases coming among women and children over the last few years."

Giuliani creates a "Decency Panel" after being outraged by a Renee Cox photograph that depicted a naked black lady Jesus.February 23, 2001: "The World Trade Center, which was derided as a 110-story, 10 million-square-foot example of government excess when it opened in the 1970's, is being handed over to a giant company in the largest real estate deal ever involving a single office complex." The Domino Sugar plant strike ended in a "complete loss" for the strikers.

February 27, 2001:

Perhaps nothing epitomizes what the World Trade Center has become since the bombing more than the visitors desks in its lobbies. That is where 5,000 people wait in line each day to be entered into a computer, photographed and given the plastic ID card that will allow them to enter the elevators. Everyone must be considered a security risk, yet treated with concierge cool."

In the last four years, New York State had not spent more than half of the $1.9 billion allocated for antipoverty programs. May 7, 2001: Twilo shut down. Donna Hanover had her lawyers bar Judith Nathan, Mayor Giuliani's lover, from Gracie Mansion. Mike Bloomberg, a businessman thinking about becoming mayor, buys up nobloomberg.org and ihatebloomberg.com. In May, 2001, New York City began seeing a rise in hotel vacancies and signs of an economic downturn. Restaurants saw a decline in patrons when the Sopranos aired. Then Giuliani had his wife fired as first lady.

On May 30, 2001, a suspect that may have been a serial killer of gay men is taken into custody.

May 31, 2001:

"Before the embassy bombings trial, Osama bin Laden loomed large in the American psyche, a villain of unimaginable evil and sophisticated reach. It was an image fed by destruction done and by American law enforcement eager to drive home the reality of his threat. In some ways, though, it was an image created because so little was known about how he worked.

But the trial, which left many of the details of the bombings uncontested, made clear that while Mr. bin Laden may be a global menace, his group, Al Qaeda, was at times slipshod, torn by inner strife, betrayal, greed and the banalities of life that one might find in any office."

A group would like to landmark the Meatpacking District, where "the streets, paved with nubby Belgian blocks, splay at awkward angles to the waterfront. The sidewalks run with rivulets of greasy blood, and prostitutes pick their way around discarded chunks of fat."

June 8, 2001:

Jack Newfield, the most liberal voice at The New York Post, was fired today along with Stuart Marques and Marc Kalech, two of its three managing editors. Three other people were dismissed, including two of the five editors on the newspaper's city desk, according to The Post's spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein. The firings come six weeks after the arrival of The Post's new editor, Col Allan.

August 31, 2001: "The booming late 1990's appear to have left the middle class in the New York region and California no better off than it was a decade before, an analysis of Census Bureau data suggests. The poor got a little poorer, the rich got a lot richer and the large group in the middle emerged slightly worse off than when the decade began."

September 4, 2001: A huge slump seen in high-end restaurant business. Two commercial airliners were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center. New York's secret CIA headquarters were destroyed. September 12, 2001: "Bush Vows to Avenge Attacks." September 14, 2001: "Some of Wall Street's biggest names are signing leases for new office space far from Lower Manhattan." September 15, 2001: "Bush Warns That Coming Conflict Will Not Be Short."

September 20, 2001: "While it was unlikely just two weeks ago that many people outside the five boroughs were terribly interested in glimpsing the soul of Rudolph W. Giuliani, it is now undeniable that the mayor has become an international celebrity."

Tom Brokaw's assistant tests positive for anthrax. The child of an ABC news producer tests positive for anthrax. Governor Pataki evacuates his midtown office after anthrax found. A CBS producer and a postal worker test positive for anthrax. 12 firefighters arrested in Ground Zero fight with police. November 21, 2001: a fifth woman has died of anthrax. Conrad Black and other backers plan launch of new daily paper, the Sun. 10 people murdered in New York in one weekend.

Michael Bloomberg spent $96.20 for each vote received to be elected mayor. Dick Parsons made CEO of AOL Time Warner. Five hundred cops get armed with MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 assault rifles.

Chartering of private jets goes up 10% after 9/11.

Jim McGreevey becomes governor of New Jersey, issues "an inaugural address notable for its absence of specific program proposals." Crystal meth's invasion of New York begins in earnest. 7000 police turn out to handle maybe a few thousand anti-World Economic forum protestors. Buddhism becomes suddenly unfashionable. New York City has racked up $42 billion dollars in debt.

March 1, 2002: Century 21 reopens.

March 13, 2002:

Despite predictions of a real estate recession in Manhattan after Sept. 11, co-op and condominium sales have rebounded strongly in the last two months, with the number of sales up and prices gradually rising — in some cases even surpassing those of a year ago, when the sales market was still hot.

Open houses are full to bursting, and the agents say they are awash with bids and bidding wars. Even the town house and luxury markets, hit hard by weak Wall Street bonuses at the end of 2001 and a general fear to commit, are starting to move, agents say.

Alfred Taubman, the head of Sotheby's, gets a sentence of a year and a day for price-fixing with Christie's.

April 29, 2002: "Starbucks shops have sprouted all over Manhattan, with 124 at last count and four more on the way." Is Times Square clean? "Packs of streetwalkers" still descend after dark! The grounds of the Statue of Liberty are equipped with face recognition software to recognize terrorists. Woody Allen sues producer; city mildly turns on him. Dee Dee O.D.s.

20-year-old Britney Spears opens a Manhattan restaurant called Nyla. Mayor Bloomberg raises taxes on cigarettes for a total cost of $7 a pack.

July 11, 2001: Rudy Giuliani's marriage finally ends, with a $6.8 million payment to Donna Hanover—plus legal fees and $22,000 a month in child support and an apartment.

A family talking loudly in Malayalam and pointing out the window of an airplane at notable landmarks caused two fighter jets to be dispatched to accompany the plane into La Guardia. The Russian Tea Room closed.

The Citigroup Center begins making secret fortifications. 167 apartments are turned over to squatters. Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty to charges stemming from having run down 16 people at a Hamptons nightclub. The test run of the AirTrain to JFK airport derails, killing one. Giuliani publishes his Miramax book "Leadership," says that New York City was "well-prepared" for 9/11.

October 7, 2002: "Several thousand people filled the East Meadow on Sunday afternoon to protest a United States invasion of Iraq." Jam Master Jay shot.

Joel Klein, the new School Chancellor, begins to lay off 550 workers to save schools $200 million. The City Council raises property taxes 18%. Jim McGreevey apologizes for billing a $70,000 week-long trip to Ireland to New Jersey—including his $16,000 cellphone bill.

Radiation patients set off detectors on subways and at tunnels. December 13, 2002: "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday offered his vision of the future of Lower Manhattan: a collection of neighborhoods stitched together by large parks and broad pedestrian walkways, with a direct mass transit link to Kennedy Airport via a new tunnel under the East River."

New York State passes, after 31 years of lobbying, a gay rights bill. Smoking is banned in bars and restaurants. Unemployment in New York City is 8%; the national average is 6%.

December 30, 2002:

Less than a quarter of the federal government's financial aid promise to New York City and the region has been realized.

A California group that pays drug addicts to get sterilized sets up shop in Brooklyn. The Greenwich Village Balducci's closes. Mayor Bloomberg plans to save the city by issuing another 1.7 million parking tickets a year. February 18, 2003: Blizzard!

New York City is in a recession.

Daniel Libeskind's design chosen for Ground Zero: it features an "open pit."

Income disparity in adjoining neighborhoods has become more pronounced, as rich people buy in poor neighborhoods:

Now the city has dozens of census tracts — clusters of just a few thousand people — in which the average household income in the top fifth of the income spectrum is at least 24 times the average in the bottom fifth, according to an analysis of census data done for The New York Times. In 15 of those tracts, the average at the top is at least 40 times that at the bottom.

May 13, 2003: The New York City Rent Guidelines Board allows rent increases of 8.5% on two-year leases and 5.5% for one-year leases for the city's one million rent-stabilized apartments. (The city has around three million housing units; two million of them are rentals; 350,000 are rent-controlled. The remaining 650,000 are subject to no guidelines.) More than 100,000 apartments have been removed from rent limitations between 1994 and 2002.

May, 2003: Mayor Bloomberg presides over the wedding of Rudy Giuliani to Judith Nathan before Henry Kissinger and Donald Trump.Housing court cases up 6% over last year. Sales tax goes from 8.25% to 8.625%. The two top-ranking editors of the New York Times step down over one reporter's fabrications and "management style."

Albany passes a bill that will allow market rents in New York City for as many as 300,000 formerly regulated apartments in the decade to come. 38,000 people live in homeless shelters in New York City—16,500 children—with a new surge coming.

The Board of Ed building is sold, to become luxury apartments.

The average sale price of a Manhattan apartment is $864,860; the median price is $575,000.

September 8, 2003:

More than a third of the emergency grant money intended to help small businesses in Lower Manhattan survive after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack went to investment firms, financial traders and lawyers.

In the third quarter of 2003, the average sale price for a Manhattan apartment had climbed to $919,959. The Concorde took its last flight.

October 29: New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is so unpopular that fellow Democrats running for office won't appear with him—or even mention him.

Jay-Z and Mike Bloomberg turn out to support the unveiling of Bruce Ratner's Nets arena for downtown Brooklyn.

December 19, 2003: The 1776-foot World Trade Center tower might be "the world's tallest building upon completion in 2008 or 2009"!

"Dr. Howard Grossman, one of the city's best-known AIDS specialists, said more than half the men who test positive in his private practice blamed methamphetamine." The Time Warner Center opened. Larry Silverstein took to the courts to decide the question: are two planes crashing into two buildings one incident or two? (The difference is $7 billion.)

February 16, 2004:

The 57,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews living in Williamsburg are alarmed that their neighborhood is being invaded by artists who will drive up rent costs.

After they stopped spraying the city with pesticides, birth weight suddenly went up! Taxicabs have their first fare increase in 8 years—26%.

April 15, 2004: Average Manhattan apartment prices are 32% higher than a year ago; average price,$1,001,000. Bloomberg, once the most-disliked mayor, makes major gains in approval ratings. An independent federal commission announces that 9/11 rescue work was "undermined by poor planning, inadequate equipment, faulty communication and generations-old interagency rivalries." Giuliani testified that "some terrible mistakes were made." New York City proposes a ban on photography and film on the subways.

May 24, 2004:

"The Police Department," said the commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, "practically alone, is defending New York's people, its corporate assets and its infrastructure from another terrorist attack."

Rubenstein Associates celebrated their 50 years in public relations:

He also talked to us about his great uncle, BEN MARDEN, who he said ran with MEYER LANSKY.

"They were beyond the mob,'' David Blaine said admiringly. "They were the brains behind it.''

But didn't they do some unsavory things?

"They were doing what Rubenstein is doing now, but illegally,'' Mr. Blaine said. "Rubenstein controls everything legally.''

Ooops. We'd better trot over to Mr. Rubenstein's mouthpiece, for a rebuttal.

"Ach,'' Howard Rubenstein said slowly, a little put off. Then he laughed. "O.K.,'' he said. "I don't know what he means, but O.K. At least I'm treading on the right side of the street.''

"[K]araoke is suddenly enjoying a second wave of popularity." New Jersey real estate developer and Jim McGreevey supporter Charles Kushner was charged with "obstructing a federal investigation into his business dealings and political contributions by hiring prostitutes to try to seduce two men he believed were cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case. One of the prostitutes succeeded in the seduction plan and the result was a videotape, which federal investigators said Mr. Kushner and his co-conspirators secretly made, then mailed to the man's wife—Mr. Kushner's sister Esther."

Bloomberg denies Central Park to 250,000 people planning on protesting the Republican convention. "[B]reak dancing, known on the street as b-boying, is enjoying a full-blown revival."

Jim Mcgreevey announced that he would resign as New Jersey governor, and that he is gay. July 2004: Martha Stewart sentenced to five months in prison. A Williamsburg hipster fell in love and rented out his loft. August 30, 2004: "A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington." Home Depot opened on 23rd Street. The Bush administration proposes to put the Section 8 rent cap for 110,000 New York City families at $1,286 a month.

35 of the 51 centers that help high school dropouts prepare for the GED are shuttered. "There is scarcely a New York neighborhood that is not on an upswing."

"More than one-third of the 226 criminal cases of bias or hatred filed this year have involved the swastika."

"There are no official gauges of the sex industry, but if the Manhattan Yellow Pages is any guide, it is thriving, with more than 30 pages under the heading 'escorts.'" The $858-million MoMA reopens.

Rupert Murdoch sets records by purchasing a $44-million penthouse, the most expensive private residence in New York. More than 25,000 housing units had been built in New York City in 2004. A wheaten terrier was given a "bark mitvah."

December 24, 2004:

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

33% of residential sales over the year were for prices over $500,000. In 2000, just 10% of sales were that high.

New York's recession could be declared over; unemployment was at its lowest since 2000, tourism was beginning to rise again—but it wasn't because of Wall Street, though big '04 bonuses were good for the city's tax income. Of the 60,000 jobs lost in finance from early 2001 through mid-2003, only 500 have been recovered.

Minimum wage rose to $6 an hour; Manhattan apartment sale average stabilized around $1 million for the last nine months. Food became 5.5% more expensive.

George Pataki's new budget proposal would cut $1 billion in health spending, which means "reducing benefits" for 340,000 working poor; George Bush's new budget proposal would slash daycare, literacy programs, elderly services, housing.

For no known reason, Department of Health officials invent the idea of super-HIV.

HIP, which provides insurance to 1.1 million New York City metro area people, begins a transition from non-profit to for-profit. Unemployment drops to 5.1%—but strong gains are in the unstable retail workforce. The financial district becomes residential. The city has a $3.6 billion surplus; Bloomberg's approval ratings have doubled since 2001, and he personally gives $20 million to non-profits, his largest donation yet.

Bruce Ratner announces he plans to ring his new Nets stadium in Brooklyn with 17 buildings, "creating a dense urban skyline reminiscent of Houston or Dallas."The design of the World Trade Center's "Freedom Tower" is tossed out and started from scratch.

"In the fiscal year ended July 1, New York City took in $2.2 billion in real estate transfer taxes, generated in large part from the sale of existing real estate but also from new homes. By comparison, in the 2000 fiscal year, the city took in a $875 million."

Snakeheads found in Queens! August 10, 2005:

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

The city sells off its last remaining 248 vacant lots to developers.

September 4, 2005:

The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia.... In 1980, the top fifth of earners made 21 times what the bottom fifth made in Manhattan, which ranked 17th among the nation's counties in income disparity.

By 1990, Manhattan ranked second behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony.... The rich in Manhattan made 32 times the average of the poor then, or $174,486 versus $5,435.

The maples syrup smell came and went. The low-income housing and office jobs disappeared from the Forest City Ratner plan for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. 240 Park and Essex House were bought by the royal family of Dubai for more than $1.1 billion. In the first six months of 2005, permits were given for 15,870 housing units; "A large proportion of the newest units are being marketed as 'luxury' apartments."

MTA workers go on strike—the workers balked at a pension proposal that would have saved the MTA less than $20 million over three years. The NYPD has been secretly infiltrating anti-war demonstrations.

"A former cabdriver who struck it rich in Russian oil and went on to invest in Manhattan real estate has signed a contract to buy a Fifth Avenue mansion for $40 million." Bloomberg has ditched his Boston accent.

More than half of the tax cuts and rebates in Governor Pataki's proposed budget were geared to benefit New Yorkers who earn more than $100,000, about 10% of the population. "In Manhattan, real wages—earnings adjusted for inflation—rose 5.4 percent between the first quarters of 2002 and 2005... but in the rest of the city, those wages fell at least 2.9 percent." The last heavy-machinery dealer departed from downtown. "Officials no longer put any stock in a 2008 completion date for the 'Freedom Tower' of the World Trade Center."

Larry Silverstein gets out of the way so rebuilding can perhaps begin at Ground Zero. New York State property takes have grown 60% in the last ten years. 3/4s of all households in Manhattan are renters; the apartment vacancy rate was 3.8% in 2002, 1.5% in 2005, and .075 percent in March of 2006. June 16, 2006:

The number of New York City apartments considered affordable to hundreds of thousands of moderate-income households... plunged by 17 percent between 2002 and 2005.... [T]he median rent for unsubsidized apartments jumped to $900 from $750 — a 20 percent increase in three years — the median household income in the city shrank to $40,000 from $42,700.

The 110-building, 11,200 unit, 25,000-resident Stuytown/Peter Cooper complex went on the market and sold in October, in the largest American real estate deal to date; 3/4s of its apartments had been rent-regulated. The concrete and metal barriers that went up all over New York a few years back mostly get dismantled, as they are useless or worse. Several thousand people line up for candy store jobs that pay $10.75 an hour. Half a million people are stopped and searched on the street over the year, half of them black.

"The 280,000 workers in the finance industry collect more than half of all the wages paid in Manhattan..... For all of the 1.8 million jobs in Manhattan, the average weekly salary in the first quarter of this year was slightly more than $2,500."

Buoyed almost entirely by real estate transfer taxes, the city is projected to have a $3.9 billion surplus. Bloomberg's homelessness plan fails, with more than 35,000 people in shelters and family homelessness at a record high since 1978—though home ownership is at 33%, a record high. The NYPD had infiltrated groups all around the country before the 2004 Republican convention.

In the first quarter of 2007, "The wealthiest New Yorkers paid 20 percent more for apartments with four or more bedrooms than they did in the first quarter a year ago."

The Department of Health become circumcision advocates. The sex ratio in Lower Manhattan "increased to 126 men per 100 women in 2005, from 101 men per 100 women in 2000. In the rest of Manhattan, and in the city over all, there were only 90 men for every 100 women."

Mike Bloomberg suddenly reveals himself to be fluent in Spanish. The Irish start to buy midtown. The 10,000 cases of respiratory illnesses related to 9/11 do not impinge on Giuliani's reputation.

JP Morgan Chase will build a 42-story tower near Ground Zero—in exchange for $100 million in corporate welfare. Bloomberg ditches the Republican party—and is driven to the subway for his daily commute.

Five parking spaces go on sale for on 17th Street for $225,000. A tornado strikes Brooklyn and syphilis returns! Giuliani seriously recasts his financial record as mayor in political ads.

August 29, 2007: "The wealthiest 20 percent of Manhattanites made nearly 40 times more than the poorest 20 percent — $351,333, on average, compared with $8,855, a bigger gap than in any other county." 9/11 memorial fatigue sets in, even as lawsuits against airlines finally go forward and the area around Ground Zero fills with baby carriages. The Canadian dollar catches up with the American one.

"So far this year, 324 buyers purchased Manhattan apartments worth more than $5 million." 42,404 jobs at financial services were eliminated from January to October, nearly as many as were eliminated in 2001. But if everything goes well today, New York this year will have had fewer than 100 people murdered by strangers, so happy New Year.

NYU—administration there is terribly excited about the project, BTW, and also coincidentally they own everything surrounding the park—will hold its commencement at a baseball stadium during the renovation and undercover cops posing as drug dealers will be relocated to Tompkins Square.

The renovation "could begin as soon as the end of this month and is projected to last two or three years," according to NYU's Washington Square News. We're pretty sure the reason neighborhood activists lost is because they have the ugliest website we have ever seen.

No word yet on how the renovation will affect the "creepy" southwestern corner of the park that NYU students are afraid to walk through and where a woman was found dead yesterday.

(We'll see you at the tree-lighting tonight!)

Preserve Washington Square Park
Wash. Sq. Park Renovations OK'd [WSN]
Body Found In Washington Square Park [NYDN]

So they complained to the city, and the city responded by filling socks with pine-scented air freshener and placing them in sewer drains, a solution that was sure to please residents who huff household cleaners and live out of their cars.

But the air freshener thing has, shockingly, made the situation even worse for neighbors with functioning olfactory nerves, so the city promises to fill even more socks with even more Pine-Sol. BUT WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Fred Birkenfelv, 73, who attends the senior center at St. John's Church on the street, said he worries the odor could be unhealthy.

"The smell is worse than nauseating," the retired Texaco driver said.

"We walk by and it may just make us gag, but there are mothers pushing baby carriages. If a little one gets a whiff of that, who knows what damage it could do?"

DEP dumps pine deodorizer to cover smell from Brooklyn pipe project [NYDN]

First, you'll want to know what is actually being voted on. These off-year general elections can be tricky! And for some reason none of the local papers have any useful information about the ballots or what is on them. Thankfully, the Board of Elections has, on their terrible website, a downloadable candidate list and the always-exciting Amendment Ballot Proposal list.

Basically if you know a lot about judges and potential district Supreme Court justices, this is the election for you.

If you live in the Bronx, you get to vote for District Attorney, just like on Law & Order!

Hey, Queens is electing one of those too!

Hint: write in "Fred Thompson."

There is one ballot proposal and it is about a lake in the Adironidacks and though it's probably some corrupt Chinatown shit we cannot make heads nor tails of it, so vote NO. VOTE NO LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. Adirondacks for the Adirondackians!

Candidates List [Board of Elections in the City of New York]

"You, like, a reporter, huh?" asked the owner. "You met Joey*, the big guy sittin' at the bar? Yeah, he works for the Daily News. In here all da time."

Alcoholic regulars line the bar in front of the stage. A lone Hasid in a backwards baseball cap sat in the back. He said his name is Joe and he's a student of the Torah.

"Are you married? My wife would kill me if she knew I was here," he said. "She's very conservative!" He sounded afraid.

In the ladies' restroom, which is single-occupancy, a dancer pounded on the door. "Let me in, I'm insane!" she said. "I'll slit my wrists, I'm known for it!"

Her stage name is the Spanish word for "crazy" and she asked if she could ask a question. "I don't want to offend you," she said. "I just want to know if you sniff." She pulled a baggie of cocaine out of her purse and scooped up a bump with the long, square nail on her pinkie.

Actually, I don't! She nodded sympathetically, removing a giant pill bottle from her purse. "I know what you mean," she said, rattling the bottle. "Are you on Prozac? Cause I can get you some?"

"I just got outta the psych ward," she said. "And since I'm insane? They can't lock me up if I do anything bad again. They'll just send me to Bellevue. Did I tell you what I did? I stabbed this girl. I stabbed her in the stomach and cut her uterus out. I carved it out with a knife."

She paused. "It's because she threw a plate of spaghetti at me, and the plate, it had tomato sauce on it and shit," she said.

*Not his real name!

Let's take a quick look at the many sciencey sleep stories about the science of sleeping, scientifically:

• You might actually remember shit if you slept once in a while!
• Ha ha those overpriced drugs you're taking are basically $3.50 sugar pills, except one of them will make you sleep-drive sometimes, which is kinda cool.
• As you get old and sick, you will have even less satisfactory sleep, and you will complain about it all the damn time, to sleep researchers, who are now the only ones still willing to listen to you.
• Don't worry! Your unimaginably horrific nightmares are normal! After all, "as a host of studies have shown, most of our dreams are bad." Just like our jobs and lives!
• Uh, something about birds.
• And narcoleptic fish??
• Bartlett's has the following quotations related to "sleep"...
• You have not been getting enough sleep since you were like three years old, you poor depressed sucker.
• You have a stupid, needy baby and you are an immoral weakling for allowing it to sleep with you.

Science [NYT]

According to the Times, "Matthew Jones of Brooklyn lingered on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, gabbing with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by," and then a HERO COP arrested him for "disorderly conduct."

Jones tried to get the charge dropped, then he pleaded guilty, and now he's trying to overturn his conviction (just like Larry Craig). So far, the Court of Appeals seems receptive to his argument, which is basically that everyone else does it, though we see no reason why they shouldn't also arrest everyone else in Times Square. As Nick Confessore describes them:

Just before 5 p.m., near the corner where Mr. Jones was arrested, stood the following assemblage: a man eating clams out of a Styrofoam container; two men smoking cigarettes together; a man waiting for a woman to finish a phone call; a guy looking at a map; a young woman sending a text message; two men handing out tour brochures; and a family of five, including an infant in a stroller, who stopped to look at the brochures.

A Times Square Pedestrian Is Giving No Ground [NYT]

It is very difficult to find an apartment that you can afford to rent in New York City. You may have to rely on Craigslist and crash with friends.

Love,
The Most Obvious Article In The World

MTA To Announce Deal On Cell Service for Subway [NYS] [Image via]

Real Italians are too busy whacking people, stealing things from trucks, and sitting around in their backyards in sleeveless t-shirts drinking terrible homemade wine from a tacky gold-gilted glass that they rest on their enormous guts. They sit there and bitch about the blacks, using colorful phrases that liken black skin tones to various types of produce. They only interrupt their perorations to give their wives a sharp crack on the jaw for overcooking the meatballs. They are hardened killers whose only ambition in life is to grab as much as they can with both greasy hands. You know, just like "The Sopranos."

We still recommend a trip to the festival if you've never been, because everyone needs a "Kiss My Dago Ass" bumper sticker, but please keep the aforementioned information in mind. We wouldn't want you to be misinformed.

From: joe sexton To: [Metro] Subject: a blessed two tons of trouble Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:41:32 -0400 folks,

jodi gave birth this afternoon to twins, a girl and a boy. they were born three minutes apart at st. luke's/roosevelt. they were early, but robust, and, like their parents, full of life and fun. the boy weighed in at 4 pounds, 8 ounces; the girl at 4 pounds, 1 ounce. they both scored high on initial tests, boding well for the SATs and whatnot. the girl, no surprise, trailed the boy. but as we know, she will no doubt catch up over time and eventually shame and humiliate her brother with her intelligence and goodness.

gary, who relied on his recently published guide to comedy to get through a hectic morning, will keep us posted on all things.

don't think they have settled on names. but i believe jodi has backed off her naked effort at career advancement and decided not to go with bill and jill.

a true delight, all in all.

joe

Joey Arak covers the conflict. It seems that Brooklyn's bohemians are a little more grungy and authentic than their counterparts on the island. And the Manhattan hipsters are all about spending cash on looking flash. Says Central Village's Jeff Baum:

"Brooklyn hipsters are about the whole lifestyle. They have their own parties and events. Anyone who can afford to live in Manhattan these days and has the audacity to act poor and troubled is doing it for show.

He is simultaneously developing three of the five skyscrapers at Ground Zero, and his trio of eminent architects - Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki - are working at a blistering pace to meet his tight deadlines. His position as the World Trade Center's main developer is at last secure, after an extraordinary six years in which he fought some of the world's largest insurance companies, the New York Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the governor of New York, City Hall, headstrong architects and widespread public doubts about his motivations.

He fought hard, and he won. And now he's not wasting time.

Silverstein has fought like hell for years to prove what a lot of people knew/feared from the beginning: that his lease, 580 pages of double-spaced 12-point Times Roman, was more durable than his buildings. So it's great to see the stubborn developer getting the pop-hero treatment he's earned, complete with mentions of shirt choice, footwear and skin care. His "let's get on with it" (the article's last line) should be the "let's roll" of 2007. Where's Pataki? Danny who? Larry won.

(Okay. Now do I get to take a spin on the "Silver Shalis"?)

Cometh the tower, cometh the man [FT]
[Image: A.P.]