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Nick Carr: Facebooking NY

2009-12-08T04:20:48Z

Hey everyone -

I finally got around to putting up a Facebook page for Scouting NY - if you're a fan, please befriend us by clicking here! (Or, log-in and search for "Scouting NY"). I swear, this is the only time I'll ask! I'm hoping to post pictures and stories that don't really fit on the website there, so it won't just be another boring Facebook page that never changes.

More to come soon - the current job has been taking all of my time, but I've got some good stuff in the wings. Stay tuned!

-SCOUT

Greg Hanlon: Resuscitated! Giants 31 - Cowboys 24

2009-12-08T02:05:21Z

As he pulled into the end zone at the end of his punt-return touchdown, Domenik Hixon shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skyward. That's a common celebratory sports gesture these days -- it originated when Michael Jordan hit six three-pointers in the first half of Game 1 of the 1992 NBA finals, and then shrugged in the direction of Marv Albert as if to say, "I don't know why I'm so good." I don't know what Hixon meant with his shrug, but perhaps, like Jordan, he was admitting that he was stumped by the obvious questions: Where was all this for the previous six games? And just as suddenly as we went from great to terrible in the middle of the season, can we go from terrible to great down the stretch?

What's to like:

Tom Coughlin: They played with pride for Colonel Tom. Aren't you glad he's our coach and Wade Phillips is Dallas's coach? And Andy Reid is Philly's coach, and Jim Zorn is Washington's coach, and... you really can keep going for a long time.

Bill Sheridan: After last week's game, I wrote that if the Giants defense didn't substantially improve, they should depart with their usual patient approach and fire Sheridan at season's end. Well, they substantially improved, and played with a sense of urgency that had been troublingly absent for the past six games. Maybe the reason for improvement was psychological: By replacing three starters, Sheridan conveyed that resting on the laurels of 2007 and 2008 would not help us get to the playoffs in 2009. Maybe it was schematic: Sheridan's game-plan was designed to stop the run, rush the passer with blitzes, and prevent deep passes even if it meant allowing intermediate and short gains over the middle.

So how did we do in these areas? After they rushed for 251 yards in Week 2, Dallas rushed for 45 Sunday at a clip of 2.0 yards per carry. We recorded two sacks, forced one intentional grounding penalty, and hit Romo an additional seven times. Aside from that 22-yard touchdown pass to Austin toward the end of the game and an earlier 32-yarder to Witten, we were relatively successful in preventing big plays considering the Cowboys passed 55 times.

More importantly, of the 24 points Dallas scored, seven came after a fumble deep in our territory and seven came in clock-consumption mode at the end of the game (although the defense's performance in this situation wasn't entirely forgivable). Sheridan has made a lot of appearances in the "What's not to like" column recently. I'm happy to put him here for this game.

The run-defense: The NFL is so hard to figure. How does a team go from 251 yards at 8.7 yards per carry to 45 yards at 2.0 yards per in two games against the same team? I really don't get it. Doesn't the first game show that the Cowboys are just bigger and stronger up front than we are, and wouldn't you assume that this advantage translates from game to game? Do execution and even scheme explain the discrepancy between 8.7 and 2.0?

Tackling: Maybe some answers to the above questions owe to our improved tackling. After hitting rock bottom in the Denver game, we tackled really well on Sunday. I've often felt that the term "tackling" was a little too encompassing, that what is often considered "good tackling" and "bad tackling" owes more to factors like positioning than anything else. But comparing the Denver game to this game, it's clear that players are sometimes more or less disciplined in holding onto a foot, a piece of jersey, and getting the guy to the ground.

The pass-rush: As I said before: two sacks, one intentional grounding, and seven additional hits on the quarterback.

Barry Cofield: A constant disruptive force. He made three solo tackles, two tackles for losses, and got penetration in the backfield a couple of other times to drastically alter the routes of the running backs.

Aaron Rouse: Made some great sticks in the running game, and didn't seem to be the culprit on many of those passes over the middle to Witten et al. Also had that sack of Romo on the blitz. He wound up as our leading tackler with 12, including 10 solo. Though I'm honestly not sure how many of these tackles reflect well upon him and how many do the opposite.

Jonathan Goff: Yes, he got beat on those long completions to Witten and Martellus Bennett. But the defense did get better with him in the middle than it was with Pierce or Blackburn, so give the young guy some credit.

Osi: I've made this point before, but I was once again impressed today with Osi's hand-eye coordination. He displayed it with his league-leading fourth fumble recovery like he has in the past with his forced fumbles in which he doesn't lay a finger on the quarterback. I think this guy would have been a great baseball player if he hadn't come to the States by way of Nigeria and England.

Most of all, I'm just happy for Osi, an all-time great Giant who has had a rough time this year (and yes, I've criticized him too, I think justifiably). Osi could have gone into the tank and pouted. Instead, he made plays and smiled all game. And after the game, when asked if it hurt to have been demoted from the starting lineup, he said this:

It hurt. For a little while it was extremely painful to be honest with you, man, because I'm a man with tremendous pride or whatever. But I woke up in the morning, this morning, I talked to a great friend of mine, LaVar Arrington. And I realized, man, I'm alive! You know, I'm making a great living, and I get to still go out there and play football, which is something I love to do. So, you know, no matter what happens, man, I can never let my joy get taken away from me because of that, man. And I love this team, I love this organization, and whatever I can do to help this team win, I'm all for it, man. And obviously it worked, we went out there and won the game. And I'm happy for those guys, I'm happy for myself, I'm happy for the team.

Eli: If he were a pitcher, we'd label his performance a "gritty effort." He didn't have his best stuff but he battled and made enough of the throws that he needed to. Sure, his numbers would have looked entirely different if it weren't for the 74-yard pass to Jacobs (He had a strange statistical day: 11/25, 241 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 88.9 RAT.) But give him credit for bouncing back from a 2/8 start on the first three series to finish 9/17. And consider this: his numbers would've looked a lot better had Smith not dropped three passes including one sure touchdown.

As if often the case, Eli's brilliance was highly concentrated and manifested itself when we needed it. From the moment the Giants took over down 10-0 with 3:14 remaining in the half until they had a 1st and goal at the 1 on the verge of taking a 14-10 lead, Eli went 4/4 for 64-yards, plus that flip to Boss. That's Eli. He perks up when he needs to.

Ahmad Bradshaw: Another "gritty" performance. The fumble was bad, but we finally saw some flashes of the old Ahmad, although it's clear that his ankles are bothering him. Still, he finished with 47 yards on seven carries for a very Ahmadian 6.7 yards per. It had been a rough stretch for him -- I mentioned in my game preview that he had been averaging 2.7 yards per carry since the Oakland game. Pray that he's back to something resembling his early season and early career form. Then pray that he stays healthy. He's clearly our best back and represents the only hope that we'll have a well-rounded offense down the stretch.

Hakeem Nicks: On his touchdown catch, he showcased both his ability to use his body to shield defenders and his big hands to pluck the ball out of the air. He had only two catches for 37 yards, but as Mike Garafolo of the Star-Ledger pointed out, he also made two really nice blocks on our first touchdown drive. On that drive, Nicks also helped get us going with a 16-yard catch.

Steve Smith: What to make of Smith's day? Let's just think about what it would have looked like had he not dropped those three passes (yes, one of them was deflected). We'll give Smith a break on the drops because it's not a recurring problem. You know what the best description for Smith is? A "wonderful player."

Run-blocking: Our running backs carried the ball 20 times for 86 yards, an average of 4.3 yards per. Not spectacular, but solid. I'll take it.

Pass-blocking: One sack, five hits on Eli. Again, I'll take it.

Domenik Hixon: Man we needed that. It's hard to discern who gets the credit/blame for kick returns, but it wasn't hard to notice that the Giants return units had done nothing since the Saints game. Maybe Sunday's return restores Hixon's confidence and enables him to return to 2007-2008 form, when he was a legitimate threat. Also, credit to Terrell Thomas and Derek Hagan for some excellent hustle-blocks on the play.

Flozell Adams: The Giants had been getting pushed around a lot over the past few weeks, a period that included most of the first half against Dallas. But then the Giants scored a quick 14 points. And then Flozell shoved Tuck. And the Giants saw to it that they wouldn't get pushed around again on Sunday. Thanks, Dirtbag.

What's not to like:

Coverage of their tight ends: I'm not sure who to blame this on, but it must be pointed out that Cowboys tight ends caught 18 balls for 184 yards. Yes it was a good win, but that stat is simply staggering.

Bruce Johnson: Yikes. He's the latest in the succession of Will Allen/Kevin Dockery-types: Short corners who are often in position to make a play, but are both too short and too lost in space to do so. By my unofficial count, he allowed three big completions on plays where he was well-positioned, including the tip-up to Witten. He also fell down on a play late in the game on which Roy Williams was wide open for a touchdown, but Romo overthrew Williams. It's true that Johnson has been pretty shaky, but think of it this way: Can't you make the case that his pick-six in the first Dallas game singlehandedly cancels out all the bad things he's done since then?

Corey Webster: Webster actually did some really good things: He made a great play on an end zone fade to Roy Williams earlier in the game (later, he got toasted on an end zone fade to Williams). He made nice stops on an outside run by Jones and then a screen to Jones, and then he broke up a third down pass to Williams in the third quarter. Troy Aikman said Webster should have been called for interference because he had his arm around Williams's waist, but I thought it was pretty minimal contact and was just a nice play on the ball. I disagreed with Aikman in that case, but I agreed with him in his characterization of Webster's coverage on Austin's 22-yard fourth quarter touchdown as "lazy." You can't let a guy get behind you in that situation. The egregiousness of that play, combined with the fact that it was the second touchdown pass Webster had given up, lands him in this column.

Mario Manningham: I really like this guy, but he seems like a player who needs to have his balls busted for little things. So I'm gonna take him to task for three little things he did in this game, in order of egregiousness: 1) On that second quarter fly pattern that came on a "free play," Manningham ran one of the laziest routes I've ever seen. He was in single coverage on the outside, but he drifted practically out of bounds so that Eli had no choice but to throw the ball out of bounds. 2) On Mike Jenkins' interception, Manningham gave a poor effort breaking up the pass. And 3) There was a play early on where he easily should have just picked up the first down by going forward, but he made one hop-back move too many and almost lost it. Coughlin chewed him out after that one.

All of these plays constitute minor mental lapses that can potentially keep a player like Manningham from making the leap from "dangerous" to "truly good." You get the feeling that these lapses are not unrelated to Manningham's dropped passes. So I'm gonna bust his balls. And I bet the Giants coaching staff is too.

Roy Williams: When he does the "Hook 'em horns!" salute after he scores a touchdown, isn't he admitting that he peaked in college? Just sayin'. Also, the guy seems pretty vocal and demonstrative for someone who should be embarrassed by the turn his career has taken. Also just sayin'.

M. Slavin & Sons Fish Market Charged With Groping Employees' Butts, Sticking Fish Hooks In Them

2009-12-08T00:24:03Z

Something stinks at M. Slavin & Sons fish market, and it's not just the fish.

According to a complaint filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, owners and managers of the retail and wholesale fish market created "a hostile work environment for male employees," especially black workers. Employees allege that their bosses would grope their buttocks as well as put "fish hooks into their buttocks."

The complaint also charges that the owners and managers made racist and obscene sexual comments, calling black employees the N-word and rubbing up against employees' bodies while passing by them.

The government's press release is below:

NEW YORK - M. Slavin & Sons, a retail and wholesale fish market, violated federal law by creating a hostile work environment for male employees, including physical and verbal sexual harassment and offensive and degrading comments based on race and national origin, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed today.

According to the EEOC's suit, some of the owners and managers of M. Slavin & Sons subjected male employees, particularly black employees, including both black Americans and at least one immigrant from Africa, to ongoing harassment. The misconduct included groping their buttocks, putting fish hooks into their buttocks and unnecessarily rubbing their bodies into the employees when passing them by. The owners and managers also made numerous crude, obscene sexual and/or racist comments. One owner used the term "n----r" and another manager made comments such as "African b-----d" and "Let me see you run like you are in Africa."

In addition to the Brooklyn location which was the focus of the EEOC charge and investigation, the company operates other locations, including Hunts Point Market in the Bronx, Rhode Island and Virginia. The original complainant, the named harassers and the class of claimants all worked at the Brooklyn location.

The lawsuit also alleges that employees left these positions because of the harassment and that the man who originally complained faced retaliation. To punish him for complaining, the EEOC said, managers instructed other employees not to speak to him, yelled at him when he spoke to others, assigned him more frequently to garbage duty and sent him home when he did speak to others.

All this alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment or pregnancy) or national origin and protects employees who complain about such offenses from retaliation. The EEOC filed suit, CV 09-5330, in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, only after attempting to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement.

Sunu P. Chandy, a senior trial attorney in the EEOC's New York office, said, "The stunning facts of this case remind us of an ugly time in our nation's history. The actions of these white owners, who subjected particularly men of color to horrendous physical sexual harassment and racial comments, must be challenged. When the employees said that they would fight back against the abuse, the owners consistently told them that no one would listen to their complaints and that no one would believe them. This suit shows the owners were wrong."

Spencer H. Lewis, Jr., director of the EEOC New York District Office, said, "The EEOC is determined to stop sexual harassment whether faced by men or by women. The objectives of this lawsuit will be to obtain fair compensation for those employees who suffered harassment and to implement policies that will help prevent discrimination."

The EEOC is the federal government agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. Further information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.

Joseph Bruno Guilty: Former New York Senate Leader Convicted Of Corruption

2009-12-07T23:45:49Z

ALBANY, N.Y. — A federal jury has convicted former New York Senate leader Joseph Bruno on two counts of corruption and acquitted him on five others.

The jurors also tell U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe that they can't come to a decision on an eighth count.

Bruno, once one of the state's most powerful politicians, was accused of denying New Yorkers his honest services while enriching himself in the amount of $3.2 million by using his state influence.

The trial exposed Albany's practice of influence-peddling by lawmakers. Bruno consulted for three businessmen and solicited union pension investments from labor unions on behalf of two companies.

Prosecutors argued that Bruno was required to publicly disclose his business interests and associates.

Albert Imperato: The Ice Storm, One Year Later

2009-12-07T23:33:44Z

This weekend, the snow came down gently throughout the afternoon and evening, leaving a beautiful blanket of comforting soft white all around us in our weekend hideaway in bucolic Columbia County. One of my best friends calls our area "The Shire," a reference both to its rolling green hills and general coziness. Our vacation home is near the town of Hudson, an Amtrak stop that lies two hours directly north of NYC. Here's a shot of the pines in front of our house when the snow first started falling:

But it was almost exactly a year ago that Mother Nature gave us a very different gift: the worst ice storm that this area of the Hudson Valley had seen in the past quarter century.

The destruction we found in the area when we arrived in our car late Friday night a year ago is still fresh in my mind: trees down everywhere, power lines twisted and undone from their moorings, and no one else on the road except a few emergency vehicles as we drove the last couple of miles to our house.

And everywhere, there was the thick ice -- inches thick quite literally on every outside surface, particularly the trees, many of which snapped like thin twigs from the enormous weight of the ice. Our home was spared direct damage: yes, the power lines were pulled from the house, but no trees fell on it. And like everyone else in the area we wouldn't have power for at least a week. It could have been worse.

A week ago we got around to cleaning up the final remnants of the storm. We hired a tree-maintenance company to go around the property and chop down the trees that clearly wouldn't recover.

But the memory of the ice storm won't go away anytime soon, and I've been shocked at how unsettling and depressing the experience has been for me -- even now. One of the defining characteristics of our property is an expansive western view of the valley to the Catskills across the unseen Hudson River. Underlining that stunning view is the tree line of the woods behind our house. For the first six years that we lived there the rounded bloom of the treetops was the picture of perfection, each branch in its place in perfect order. Here's what it looked like last October, eight weeks or so before the ice storm:

But after the ice storm a multitude of snapped limbs hang limp like useless appendages.

There are times when the sight of those now imperfect trees reminds me of a Tim Burton film; their shapes suggest a surreal, otherworldly landscape inhabited by strange creatures. On other days, however, the associations in my mind take a much darker and more haunting turn. Perhaps because I've been listening lately to John Adams's orchestral work The Wound-Dresser in preparation for a performance of it by two of the artists my company works with (baritone Thomas Hampson, who will sing it with the New York Philharmonic and its music director Alan Gilbert here in the city on January 14-16, before taking it on tour to Europe), the sight of those broken tree limbs remind me of the kinds of maimed soldiers described by Walt Whitman in so many of his poems about the Civil War (The Wound-Dresser is one of Whitman's most famous on the subject).

I suspect that a few summers of growth will eventually make the damage done to the trees seem less pervasive, but for me I'm afraid they will last as a symbol of not only nature's random destructive power, but also, sadly, of something else. One of my neighbors told me that one of the effects of global warming will be that our area will likely experience more frequent ice storms. Whether this comment is scientifically true doesn't really matter, because I realize too well that the kind of simple, lyrical beauty of nature is not something we will ever be able to take for granted again. Nature cannot fully recover from the onslaught of industrialized man. As we poison the air with carbon dioxide, and wantonly clear the forests, we also heat up the oceans (bye-bye choral reefs), and melt away the polar ice caps. Clearly man's destructive powers rival nature's at its worst, but man doesn't have -- or care to have -- something approaching nature's regenerative and restorative instincts.

Sinking deep into depressing thoughts about all of this the other night, I put on the TV in the hopes that David Letterman's show would cheer me up. It was a re-run, which wasn't the real problem. The problem was that Dave's guest was Al Gore, who was promoting his new book Our Choice. Geez. Al tried to give Dave and his audience something positive to hold on to, but despite his good intentions in writing the book -- to encourage people to take definitive action and seek a happy ending for the planet -- my spirits only sank further. I guess there really is no rest for the weary. Perhaps the poor little tree on the front of our property, pictured below, feels the same.

Mara Gibbs: Everybody Eats Where? Le Caprice

2009-12-07T22:36:17Z

The reservation is hard to get, but that is because the people behind NY's elegant outpost of the London restaurant Le Caprice at the newly renovated Pierre Hotel know how to properly run a restaurant. They decided to limit the reservations for the first three months so they could get their feet on the ground. Frankly, Marco Fazzina, the captain of the ship, has smoothly steered this beautiful new restaurant through the rough waters of New York City so that each and every time I have dined there, from the first week back in October to the present, the food and the service has been exceptional. The well dressed and charming Allan Basaran, the former Maitre d' of the over-priced Madison Avenue restaurant Nello's, is thankfully now at Le Caprice where he meticulously choreographs each days seating chart and handles with grace anything that may occur.

The debonair Richard Caring who along with Le Caprice owns some of London's best including The Ivy, Annabel's, Cecconi's and the Soho House. Cecconi's coincidentally opened a branch in the former home of my brother's restaurant Mortons in Los Angeles. It is apparent that Caring has a true passion for the world of restaurants. I see it through the eyes of his dedicated and very loyal employees some who came over from London to open both Cecconi's and Le Caprice.

Le Caprice, the favorite haunt of the late Princess Diana, was originally opened in London in 1947 by Mario Gallati, a former Maitre d' of London's The Ivy in the theater district. It went through many changes but the contemporary black and white decor, David Bailey photographs and long bar remain. The New York restaurant was designed with flair by the talented Martin Brudnizki. Among his other accomplishments in the restaurant world are Scotts, J Skeekey Oyster Bar, and the club at The Ivy. I walked in before the doors were officially open, accompanied by one of New York's great interior designers, Sam Blount, and the first words out of his mouth were, "this place is drop dead gorgeous!"

Wouldn't it figure that the first person to take over this stylish and ready for it's close-up restaurant was Anna Wintour, the Queen of chic and Editor in Chief of Vogue magazine. Following in her foot steps through the revolving doors, Brits Alan Cummings and Sienna Miller, Jennifer Lopez, fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, and many other bold faced names.

The restaurant is open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and brunch on Sunday where you will find roast rib of beef and yorkshire pudding on the menu. I haven't yet tried breakfast because I am not an early morning person. Although I am tempted to roll out of bed or at least stay out all night to come in and try the "Le Caprice Breakfast," which is a traditional English breakfast plate of eggs any style served with pork sausage, bacon, black pudding, grilled tomato and portabello mushrooms.

The menu for lunch and dinner is similar to the original in London with some additions and a few subtractions. The aromatic Thai-baked sea bass with fragrant basmati rice made the trip overseas as did the salmon fishcake with buttered spinach and sorrel sauce, and fish and chips, the latter being a favorite of mine as well as my friends. It is light, crunchy and served with English minted pea puree and a tartar sauce made for French fry dipping. On the dessert menu, the Scandinavian iced berries with hot white chocolate, a popular item in London, relocated for it's American audience.

Some of my other favorites are the tomato and basil galette with buffalo mozzarella, the lobster, avocado and baby gem salad, the wild mushroom risotto which they have managed to perfectly cook every time I tried it, and the grilled veal chop with sauteed chanterelles and cipolini onions.

All the desserts are worth trying but don't miss the berries and the bramley apple pie. Bravo to chef Michael Hartnell!

The wine list has some terrific French burgundies and I was surprised to find some hard to get California wines like the Peter Michael Winery's 'Belle Cote' Chardonnay. They also have some lovely wines and champagnes by the glass.

If you can't manage to get a table, I strongly suggest eating at the sleek, long black bar. Each place setting is lit by its own lamp and you will eat off elegant white linen place mats and napkins. The bartenders are warm and friendly so service is of course not a problem. You also have the best view of the restaurant and who comes and goes. I personally love eating at the bars of restaurants because you never know who you may meet.

There is a piano player in the evenings, so drop by for a drink and check it out.

Le Caprice is located at The Pierre Hotel
795 Fifth Ave
212 940-8195

John Petro: New York City Must Act Like a Global Leader on Climate Change

2009-12-07T20:28:19Z

On a day when global leaders have assembled in Copenhagen to address climate change -- to ask the citizens and industries of every nation to share in the responsibility of reducing carbon emissions -- Mayor Bloomberg is backing away from a key component of a plan that would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from the city's buildings.

The New York Times reported that Mayor Bloomberg is changing course because of intense opposition from building owners in the city. It seems that owners, whose buildings are responsible for 80 percent of citywide carbon emissions, do not feel that they should have to contribute to the global effort to avert a climate catastrophe.

"It's another unfunded mandate, and this is just not the time for it," said Stuart Saft, chairman of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums.

Earlier this year, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a wide-reaching package of legislation that would have been the most ambitious effort of any state or local government in the U.S. to retrofit older buildings to be more energy efficient. While many cities across the U.S. regulate the energy efficiency of new buildings, New York was targeting emissions from its relatively old building stock. Forty-three percent of the city's buildings were constructed before 1939, and significant energy savings -- $750 million dollars a year -- could be realized city-wide if these buildings were retrofitted with the newest energy efficient windows, boilers, appliances, and lighting fixtures.

The package of legislation, to be voted on this week, still contains important provisions that will result in a greener city. However, it is disappointing that the most ambitious proposal, and the proposal that would likely create the most impact, will be abandoned. The legislation will still require building owners to undergo energy audits. These audits will identify which types of improvements will reap the most savings. The legislation originally included a provision that would require building owners to make any improvements that would pay for themselves in five years through lower energy bills. This is the piece of legislation that would have had the most impact and created the most green jobs. With the opposition of building owners, this provision has been abandoned.

As a result, there is no guarantee that building owners will do what is ultimately in their best interest. It seems that even with energy costs projected to continue rising, building owners do not want to make the types of investments that will lead to lower energy costs in the future.

The chairman of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums summed up building owners' short-sightedness: '"In this climate? Zero chance," Mr. Saft said. "No one wants to raise the operating costs of the building."'

The city could gain the support of building owners if it can lower the cost of the initial investment, and one way of doing this is to lower the cost of borrowing. Berkeley, California has pioneered a new approach to financing energy efficiency improvements. By using the city's authority to issue bonds, Berkeley has lowered the cost of borrowing for property owners who undergo green retrofits or install solar power panels, making these improvements much more attractive to property owners.

Another issue is the fact that many building owners will not enjoy all of the cost savings associated with retrofitting their building. These savings will be enjoyed by both the tenants, who will see lower electricity bills, and the owners, who will realize lower heating bills. However, only the owner will need to make the initial investment.

One way of addressing this concern is to come up with a city-wide certification system for green apartment units or office space. If an apartment unit is rated as meeting energy efficiency requirements, it will make the apartment unit more marketable to prospective tenants. These tenants will learn how much they can expect to pay per month in electricity and compare yearly energy costs with other, less efficient apartments.

However, in the end, if long-term sustainability is really a priority for New York City elected officials, and for city residents, what will likely be required is regulation. With an issue like climate change, where short-term costs are necessary for long-term gain, regulation is often the only effective means to enact real change. This is why President Obama is traveling to Copenhagen to call for global regulation of carbon emissions. With New York's status as a global city, it is vital that our elected officials act like global leaders and make the tough choices that will lead to a sustainable future.

US Airways Cutting 250 Jobs At La Guardia Airport

2009-12-07T19:44:43Z

Over the strenuous objections of its pilots, US Airways is proceeding with its plan to eliminate more than 250 jobs at La Guardia Airport, which has long been the nexus of the airline's shuttle service in the Northeast.

Ivonne Hernandez Trial: Yankees Fan Charged With Killing Man After Red Sox Crowd Taunted Her (VIDEO)

2009-12-07T19:16:43Z

NASHUA, N.H. — A murder trial has begun for a New Hampshire woman accused of killing a man with her car after a group of people allegedly taunted her for having a New York Yankees decal on the vehicle.

Ivonne Hernandez's trial started Monday in Nashua. Jurors spent the morning viewing the crime scene. Opening statements began in the afternoon.

The May 2008 crash killed 29-year-old Matthew Beaudoin.

Hernandez claimed that a group of people had been taunting her because of the Yankees decal. Police said the dispute had started as an exchange about the Yankees and Red Sox.

Hernandez has said she drove toward the group with her car to scare them.

She is charged with second-degree murder.

WATCH LIVE PROCEEDINGS:

Stuart Appelbaum: The Mayor's Legacy Dilemma

2009-12-07T18:26:19Z

Great political legacies are decided less by a leader's public policies than their response to crises. As he begins his third and final term, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has the chance to address one of the greatest economic and job crisis in New York's history and, in doing so, decide his own place in City Hall history.

Faced with record unemployment and a collapsing middle-class, the mayor must focus his last term on the monumental task of rebuilding the city's sputtering economy. He must also begin to recognize that real prosperity doesn't trickle from the top down; rather it is methodically and carefully built from the grassroots up. The battle over the permanent retail and other jobs planned for the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Plan in the Bronx is his first challenge.

Over the course of this decade the fastest growing source of private sector jobs in New York has been in the retail industry, but it is also one of the worst paying. An alarming 44 percent of retail workers earn less than $10 an hour. The implications of this aren't only staggering for the low-wage worker, but for taxpayers who foot the bill for the social services they need for their families to survive.

To guarantee good paychecks at Kingsbridge, last year an alliance pioneered by a coalition of labor, community, and faith-based organizations, have been pressing the developer of Kingsbridge, the Related Companies, to sign a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). The agreement would insure that in return for public support and monies, Related Companies must sign a contract ensuring its tenants will pay the retail and building workers a living wage and maintain neutrality during union organizing drives. The CBA would serve as a legally enforceable contract, and would offer an equitable approach for the low-income community of Kingsbridge so they too can benefit from the economic stimulus of this neighborhood development.

So far, and not surprisingly, Related has refused to sign the CBA. Many of our elected leaders believe, as do most New Yorkers, that when a private corporation receives public support, the public has the right to expect something in return. Unfortunately, one New Yorker, the one at the top, has publicly taken the opposite position. Mayor Bloomberg revealed this opposition when he told the Daily News this week, "The city is not in the business of guaranteeing people's wages."

New York once had another three-term mayor who was faced the crisis of soaring unemployment and chronically low wages, but instead of standing back he recognized that government had a duty to intervene, and do something for those who were struggling. That mayor was Fiorella La Guardia and his great legacy was the infrastructure that made New York America's first modern city. Ironically, one of Mayor La Guardia's other great legacies was the passage of the Norris-La Guardia Act, which ended the yellow dog contacts and allowed workers the freedom to join unions.

Now it is up to Mike Bloomberg to determine his mayoral legacy. He can be the mayor who helped rebuild the city's middle-class to make us great again. Or he can be remembered as the mayor who only built up the wishes of wealthy CEOs and developers. Time will tell. Let's hope Mayor LaGuardia's spirit of humanity and passion for the working people of New York City is lurking somewhere in City Hall still today.

Stuart Appelbaum is president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

Charla Nash Attack: Sandra Herold Won't Be Charged In Chimp Attack

2009-12-07T18:19:54Z

STAMFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut woman who owned a chimpanzee that mauled and blinded a woman won't be charged because there's no evidence she knowingly disregarded any risk the animal posed, a prosecutor said Monday.

State's Attorney David Cohen said it wasn't evident that Sandra Herold of Stamford had been deliberately reckless in handling the animal. He said state officials did not share their safety concerns about the chimpanzee with Herold and did not enforce a permitting requirement.

The 200-pound chimpanzee went berserk in February after Herold asked Charla Nash to help lure him back into her house. The animal ripped off Nash's hands, nose, lips and eyelids.

Cohen said that there was no record of the animal attacking anyone previously, and that it had interacted with Nash many times before the attack.

The decision not to file charges "does not in any way minimize the horror that we all feel with what occurred and with the horrendous injuries suffered by Ms. Nash," Cohen said. "Our prayers go out to her and her family."

Nash, who revealed her heavily disfigured face last month on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," remains in stable condition at the Cleveland Clinic.

Nash's family said they understood the decision and are "at peace" with it. They said it does not affect the civil lawsuits that are pending.

"A criminal prosecution could not undo what happened to Charla nor would it provide any measure of relief or assistance to her," the family said in a statement issued through their attorney, Matt Newman. "The family remains focused on what is most important, and that is the continued care and rehabilitation of Charla."

Herold welcomed the decision. She said her ownership of Travis complied with state and local laws.

"Ms. Herold maintains that the tragic events that took place on February 16, 2009, were unforeseeable to her," her attorney, Robert Golger, said in a statement. "She wishes the best for Charla and her family."

Nash's family is suing Herold for $50 million and wants to sue the state for $150 million. Nash's family has said Herold was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control "a wild animal with violent propensities."

A biologist for the state Department of Environmental Protection warned officials before the attack that Travis could seriously hurt someone if he felt threatened, noting that he was large and strong.

But Cohen said Monday there's no evidence those concerns were conveyed to Herold. "She was thus never made aware of the danger posed by keeping the chimpanzee in a residential area," he said.

He also said DEP did not enforce a permit required after the law was changed in 2004 that limited exemptions to primates not weighing more than 50 pounds.

"I am making no judgment as to the actions of DEP," Cohen said. "If there was confusion and lack of communication by the very agency tasked with enforcing the laws concerning the possession of wild mammals, it would be difficult to prove that Mrs. Herold possessed the requisite knowledge of the risk posed and that she consciously chose to disregard it."

DEP officials declined to comment, citing pending legal claims.

Herold's attorney has called the attack work-related and said her family's case should be treated like a workers' compensation claim. The strategy, if successful, would limit potential damages in the case and insulate the chimp owner from personal liability.

Test results showed that Travis had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in his system. Cohen said it is impossible to say what effect, if any, the drug had on the animal.

The chimp, which was shot and killed by police, had also escaped in 2003 from his owner's car and led police on a chase for hours in downtown Stamford. No one was injured.

Records obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show the state began receiving warnings immediately after that event.

Nash's attorney has said the environmental department had information for at least five years that would have allowed the agency to remove Travis from the home.

Environmental protection officials have said that during the 13 years Travis was with Herold, the agency received only a few inquiries about the chimp among thousands in general about possession of wild animals.

They said the memo from the biologist underscored the need for a clear, new law that would forbid ownership of potentially dangerous animals as pets and impose stiff penalties for those possessing them, and they blamed the failure to act on a communications problem and a lack of expertise in exotic animals at the agency.

Fern Siegel: Stage Door: A Streetcar Named Desire

2009-12-07T17:53:09Z

"A woman's charms are 50% illusion," says Blanche DuBois in the classic play A Streetcar Named Desire. But Cate Blanchett's bravura performance of the fragile, overdramatic Southern belle in Tennessee Williams' masterpiece is the real deal. The current revival at BAM, through Dec. 20, is a shattering production, stripped to essentials.

The part of Blanche is the role of a lifetime -- and most of us know her from watching the Oscar-winning Vivien Leigh battle Marlon Brando as her brutish brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski. However, each generation renews its poetry and despair and this production, which originated at the Sydney Theatre Company, where Blanchett and husband Andrew Upton are the artistic directors, is notable on two fronts.

First, this is Blanchett's show. From the moment she steps on stage, her nerves shot, her dignity held together by fierce illusion, our eyes never leave her. Director Liv Ullmann keeps the focus on Blanche -- even when the action shifts elsewhere.

Second, while the setting is post-war New Orleans, it's sans the ornate latticework or other symbols of a decaying French Quarter. Ralph Myers' design and Nick Schlieper's lighting are reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting; the sickly pink walls of sister Stella (Robin McLeavy) and Stanley's (Joel Edgerton) apartment evoke American poverty, rather than fading Southern gentility.

And fading is the operative notion here.

Blanche and Stella, heirs to Belle Reve, the family's Mississippi plantation, have lost their inheritance due to male debauchery and illness. Stella, who left home years ago, has, like Stanley, chosen lust over tenderness, animal instincts over artistic pursuits. By contrast, Blanche, a former English teacher, exclaims: "I don't want realism. I want magic!" But no conjurer can quell her loneliness or return the first bloom of youthful allure. She's acutely aware that her fabled sexual prowess is aging -- and survival depends on finding any suitable man to rescue her.

Unlike Stella, Blanche mourns the loss of civility and the family home, which, alongside dodgy liaisons, have forced her to the French Quarter. Here, in the two-room flat of her "executioner," streetwise Stanley and a slatternly Stella grunt out their existence, enduring blows and brutal desire in equal measure.

It's here that Blanche's madness will manifest, though Stella's marriage is viewed as a form of madness by Blanche. Williams has erected a striking polarity: Stanley and his "apes" will survive; Blanche, sorely in need of understanding and help, will be devoured by their cruelty and blindness. Even Mitch (Tim Richards), Blanche's seemingly sweet but pawing beau, will fail her at the critical hour.

Blanche can only "depend on the kindness of strangers," another illusion in Williams' arsenal of betrayals. In this brave new American world, might makes right. Streetcar is the playwright's eulogy for ravaged beauty -- and while it takes Ullmann time to locate, her cast rises to the challenge. Edgerton's beefy Stanley has a menacing, occasionally magnetic presence, while McLeavy's Stella is competent rather than noteworthy. Still, this is Blanchett's moment -- and she makes the most of it.

Sasha J. Blair-Goldensohn Suing City For Central Park Tree Limb Injury

2009-12-07T17:42:30Z

Sasha J. Blair-Goldensohn, a 33-year-old computer scientist, who suffered brain and spinal injuries in July when a heavy limb fell from a tree in Central Park and struck him has sued the city and the Central Park Conservancy for negligence.

DesignLine Buses Cut Down On Noise

2009-12-07T17:16:32Z

The newest addition to New York City's formidable bus fleet -- an experimental turbine hybrid known as the DesignLine -- is notable mainly for a feature it does not have: noise.

Gwen Davis: The Fall of Bedford Falls

2009-12-07T17:02:21Z

A mild wind, chill around the edges, blew alongside the structure at 221 West 57th Street, beneath those big metal rods that hold up buildings that await demolition. And with that wind, papers blew, used cups and candy wrappers, notes that people had written each other when people still wrote on paper instead of texting, receipts and unpaid bills part of the blowy debris. A black man, I think I am still allowed to call him, listlessly swept up some of the mess. I asked him what had been there, and he said 'The Hard Rock Cafe.' The whole scene, dreary as it was, viewed after coming from a performance of David Mamet's ''Oleanna", seemed particularly desolate, like the part of "It's a Wonderful Life" when the angel showed Jimmy Stewart what it would be like if he'd never been born. I know there are many who regard that movie as mawkish, but I believe Frank Capra represented what was uplifting in the American spirit, and he is gone gone gone, as is the country he loved, and what we are become is Pottersville.

You can take the temperature of the country by what is happening on Broadway, although the Sarah Palin part of it, the "real America" would insist on opting out, if they knew what opting was. The play I saw this afternoon was an agony, unpleasant to begin with because that was David Mamet then, (I look forward to seeing where he is now, which is coming any day) and probably caused quite a stir at the time, the student bitch with her own feminist agenda, looking to bring down a harried professor with the charge of sexual harassment. Today's matinee was particularly uncomfortable, because everybody knows it's closing early, the cast in pain because they have to soldier on, the audience, fractionally filled, probably mostly paper, resistant to what is for openers a difficult and contentious play, with its unlikable non-heroine (Julia Stiles) triumphing over the good guy (Bill Pullman). I have a personal soft spot for Mr. Pullman because we were once in the lost luggage department of an airline at the same time, and children were climbing on him, and I saw the decent human being he was managing to stay in spite of being a successful new young actor in movies. To have suffered through the audience restlessness (and in a few cases, leaving)must have been as discomfiting as not knowing where your bags had been sent by mistake or if you would ever get them back, and there were no tiny tots clambering up his legs to reassure him that life would go on. The whole experience was shadowed even grayer by today's piece in The New York Times about what's working(Wicked, over the roof--go know, somebody tell me why) and what's struggling (Finian's Rainbow, the most joyful, witty score, lyrics especially, by my once mentor and wonderful friend, Yip Harburg, the true poet among songwriters) and what I know to be closing, Superior Donuts, the best play I have seen on Broadway in a long time.

It is all about more than Broadway, and I think I know why. Everybody is afraid, whether or not they admit it. No one knows where we are going, or if, and rather than examine that scary scenario, they want to be entertained. No thought, please, we're tourists. Stores are empty, or closing, except for Apple, where a constant stream of customers, 15,000 a day on Fifth Avenue (and there's a new one where Circuit City went out of business on Upper Broadway) stand on line to buy pricey Ipod Nanos(that'll keep you from thinking) or iPhones, so they can twitter what they are doing to keep themselves mindless, which is nothing.

I would venture, as a retired optimist, that what we need is Jimmy Stewart, except I think we had him for a few months before reality started bringing him down, and he became a politician instead of a hero. (You may remember Mr. Smith goes to Washington, the idealist who becomes a senator.) So the wind blows, hauntingly, beside deserted cafes where once were noisy, spendthrift revelers. Good God, the evil banker has triumphed. Greed and money have trumped what was, once, an ideal place to live, and cast-off candy wrappers remind us of what was sweet that we didn't pay enough attention to, and are now specters of a happier time.