"There it was, the Rome, the Paris, the London of the twentieth century," Sherman McCoy thinks in Bonfire of the Vanities, eulogizing Manhattan from the Triborough Bridge. That was quoted in yesterday's kinda pointless Times piece about the 20th anniversary of the Tom Wolfe novel and how New York is no longer that…
The Para Transit Drivers and Mechanics of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181-1061, who drive those Access-a-Ride buses for disabled and elderly residents, are on strike. And if you really want to be a dick you could claim that's why you were late for work today. [NYDN]
Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has proclaimed itself to be "firmly behind" the contract ironed out yesterday with producers and Broadway theater owners: Broadway will be reopened and the new contract for stagehands is likely to be ratified in a few weeks. While the pay rate for…
You bastard stagehands! You're making little kids sad with your selfish demands! These precocious youngsters are forced to sing on streetcorners, as seen in this NY1 story featuring interviews with the sad children, the producer of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, and B-roll footage of some lazy…
Should striking WGA members really be writing on the internet over at HuffPo—in other words providing free content for new media? We say no, mostly because the majority of the striking writers blogging over there are so God-awful boring compared to the drama on the streets of Hollywood. [HuffPo]
The rage of the creative underclass has bubbled over 1930s-style on the streets of New York and LA—the Writers Guild of America is on strike! Josh Brolin is sympathetic and John Malkovich, according to "Early Today," doesn't really know why they're asking him about it! Tina Fey is picketing! She will come up with no…
When we posted earlier about the angry union thespians hassling junior doll enthusiasts at the American Girl store in midtown, we had no idea we could later provide not one, but two hard-hitting investigative video pieces from the scene. Above, thrill to our own house flava videographer Richard Blakeley, focusing…
This wonderful photo brought to you by today's Actors' Equity strike versus American Girl Place, the store that sells the dolls the fearful girl clutches here. There's also a theater of some kind in the store, and management is supposedly playing hardball with the actors who want to unionize. Hence the picket line and…
A lady who lunches informs us that Noho eateries Five Points and Noho Star are closed for lunch due to the immigration strike — anyone know of any other venues suffering because of headstrong laborers? We called Five Points to confirm and received the following explanation: "You know, because most of the kitchen…
The doormen and the building owners reportedly reached a tentative deal at the last minute last night. So a strike won't happen. Nor will our plan of sneaking into 740 Park for a look-see. Alas.
Meantime, on the West Side, overworked cliches at the NY1 headquarters are considering a walkout of their own.
This forwarded-a-bit email made it into our inboxes a little while ago:
Well, yes, Paris is, as it were, burning — or, at least, the poor suburbs around the city are — but The Wall Street Journal, bless its capitalist heart, has found a much more pressing Parisian problem to bring to our attention.
