Gawker: the bronx

Bloomberg to Make it Easier to Park the Car You Live In Now

Pareene — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:05:57 EDT

What is our billionaire Mayor-for-life up to, today? Oh, he has some great ideas for parking! He will make it so easy to park in New York, if you just give him one more term. Parking will be his legacy.

"How would you like to use your mobile device to see a map of available parking spaces in your neighborhood," Mayor Bloomberg asks in a Daily News op-ed, "and also use it to pay your meter?" That would be amazing, if we had a car. (Though we don't think people should be using their "mobile devices" while driving around our neighborhoods maybe?)

Then Bloomberg promises to get rid of the dreaded alternate-side parking in the nicer Brooklyn neighborhoods, and announces that "soon, we'll begin a pilot program in the Riverdale section of the Bronx."

Oh, good. A pilot cell-phone parking meter project will begin soon, in the Bronx.

Man, that reminds us, what were we just reading about the Bronx again? Oh, right, it remains America's poorest urban county with more than a quarter of the population living below the poverty line. And that is not counting the homeless!

"Last year, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, there were more than 110,000 people who spent at least one night in a shelter," said Joel Berg of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

The report also found 26 percent of Hispanics are at poverty level — the highest of any ethnic group in the city. The Bronx and Queens are the only boroughs that saw the overall number of poor go up between 2007 and 2008. The Bronx came in with nearly 22,000 people.

"One of the reasons that is, is poor people are being pushed out of places like Manhattan and forced to relocate to the Bronx," Berg said.

Well, hopefully the 2009 numbers will show the effects of Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious, poverty-fighting "mobile device parking meter pilot program."

Birthplace Of Hip Hop Is A Future Tourist Attraction

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:08:31 EST

Good news, hip hop fans! It looks like the City of New York is going to save the building at 1520 Sedgwick in the Bronx, a.k.a. Sedgwick and Cedar, a.k.a the BIRTHPLACE OF HIP HOP, from destruction [NYT]. It's where DJ Kool Herc first started throwing parties and cutting records in 1973, leading eventually to those sweet, sweet hip hop sounds. Bad news, hip hop fans: a nightclub in Kips Bay just agreed to pay a $35,000 fine for keeping out black patrons in "urban wear" clothing, but letting in white people in the same clothes. When will the struggle for equality in crappy nightclub admissions end? Below, a documentary clip on Herc and the founding of hip hop in the building. Do the knowledge, yall.

You know how when people are like, "There...

Choire — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:30:15 EST

You know how when people are like, "There are systems in place in this world to endlessly screw the poor!" everyone gets all eye-rolley and like, "This isn't the 60s, you hippie, and now everyone is just either rich or poor but it's no biggie"? Well, do enjoy this story about how for more than a year the Bronx Family Court hasn't had full elevator service and folks miss their custody and child welfare hearings because they're waiting outside for hours just to get in the building. Poor little poors! [NYT]

Are Erin and Louis Cicalese Growing Up Too Fast?

Emily Gould — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:50:05 EDT

Erin and Louis Cicalese were sick of "the post-college flophouse apartment life," and at 26 and 27, respectively, they felt it was time to stop eating off their coffee table in their "tiny" Park Slope 2 bedrooom. So they hunted around for an apartment they could afford, and eventually found one in the Bronx. "Now, Ms. Cicalese drives to work, no longer returning each evening in a bad mood. The two have an actual dining table for meals. Even their cat, Dottie, with room to run, has become more playful. Though they will probably move to a bigger, more permanent place at some point, they feel they have at last moved on from post-college mode, into a real home, one that 'makes having a future family feasible,' Mr. Cicalese said." This is depressing for so many reasons. Well, two. 1) Do we all have to move to the Bronx? 2) Is there some class in being an adult that these people went to and we all skipped? Wait—you guys all took it too???

Moving On From Post-College Mode [NYT]

There Are Some Places Even A Doody-Making Dominatrix Will Not Go

abalk2 — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:00:23 EST

Recent news from upstate indicates that, despite the citywide reduction in crime, certain boroughs may still carry a dangerous reputation:

In X-rated testimony as graphic as a porno flick, a former dominatrix yesterday described a bizarre sexual encounter in the woods she claims to have had with a town police officer.
"He wanted to go to a motel in the Bronx where I would defecate on him, but I told him I was uncomfortable going to the Bronx," testified the dominatrix, Gina Pane, 31, buttoned up in an olive-gray suit with her black hair pulled back in a bun. "I suggested that we go into a woody area. He was very excited."

This seems to be a case of misplaced priorities, but maybe we're out of touch. So, quick poll:

Be sure to read the whole piece for the classic line, "Among the evidence the prosecutor presented was the dominatrix's own feces, which was tested in a lab."

'Dominatrix' alleges bizarre sexcapade with cop [Journal News]