New York honored as one of nation’s most bike-friendly cities

It may surprise some cyclists, but New York City has been honored as one of the nation’s most bike-friendly cities.

New York rode away with a bronze medal from the League of American Bicyclists, which recently put the city on par with the college town of Davis, Calif.

The nod comes as Mayor Bloomberg works to promote cycling – installing 400 to 500 bike racks a year, and setting aside 400 miles of bike lanes and paths by 2009.

CON ED ‘PAPER’ RIPPED

NEW YORK, NY — Con Ed charges the highest rates of any major U.S. electric utility, yet rotting paper wrapped around aging high-voltage wires is all that separates the city from its next blackout.

For years, the state Public Service Commission has been after Con Ed to replace its 10,000-volt paper-insulated cables, some of which failed during the 1999 Washington Heights blackout and last year’s nine-day Astoria and Long Island City outage.

Con Ed concedes that the underground cables have a higher failure rate than newer ones, but it has no plan to replace them all before 2024.

Police Commish Meets with Local Shliach, Politicians

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn [CHI] — This morning New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly joined Israel’s Foreign Minster Tzipi Livni on the steps of Cong. Binei Avarham in Brooklyn Heights, where last week a swastika was found spray-painted just days before Sukkos.

The rabbi of the Shul, Chabad Shliach Rabbi Ari Raskin took the opportunity to do Mivtza Lulav with Tzipi Livni on site where the swastika once was.

More pictures in the Extended Article.

Student With Rifle Arrested On St John’s Campus

QUEENS, NY — One person carrying a gun in a bag was arrested on the St. John’s Queens campus Wednesday afternoon, police said.

The man had a President Bush mask and an old-style single-shot .50-caliber rifle, according to law enforcement officials. No injuries were reported.

Police sources said the man is a student of Guyanese descent who lived in a campus dorm. Sources said the student takes medicines for psychiatric issues and that police were investigating whether he had gone off his meds.

9/11 – 6 Years

Today, 9/11/07 marks 6 years to the terror attacks on our country, the attacks that claimed 2,974 lives.

The official city commemoration schedule, city street closures, along with resource links can be found in the Extended Article.

Police To Step Up Patrols During Jewish High Holidays

Click Here for a newscast of the story (NY1)

The NYPD is taking steps to protect the city’s Jewish community from terrorism during the upcoming High Holidays.

Commissioner Ray Kelly said Wednesday that there is no reason to believe an attack is in the works, but they are stepping up police presence to be prepared, as they have in years past.

Civil Rights Advocates: NYPD Undermines Review Board

NEW YORK, NY — The New York Police Department has short-circuited a civilian oversight panel formed in the early 1990s by being blatantly dismissive of the panel’s investigations of wayward officers, according to a new study.

An analysis of the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s performance in recent years “allows for no other conclusion than this: The city’s civilian oversight system has failed,” the report says. ”It has been subverted and co-opted by the police department.”

Both police and CCRB officials called the findings released Wednesday by the New York Civil Liberties Union unfair and too reliant on outdated statistics.

‘TRIP’ SUITS VS. CITY IN A FREEFALL

NEW YORK, NY — Sidewalk trip-and-fall cases aren’t all they were once cracked up to be.

The number of claims filed against the city has been dropping dramatically over the past years, a phenomena alternately credited on good law – and good luck.

In fiscal year 2007 there were 2,536 claims filed against the city for personal injuries related to broken sidewalks – the lowest number in a decade, according to preliminary numbers from the city Comptroller’s Office.

On This Day in History: August 22 – Eastern Parkway Designated Landmark

BROOKLYN, NY — On August 22, 1978, Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway was designated a scenic landmark. Stretching from Grand Army Plaza through Crown Heights to Ralph Avenue, this parkway introduced some of the advanced urban planning concepts of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the designers of Central and Prospect Parks.

It was planned in 1866 as one of a complex of boulevards emanating from Prospect Park, with a central artery for through traffic and side roads for local use, separated by landscaped malls.

More in the Extended Article!

NYC BOGUS TICKET BUST

CHI Ed: The most hated city employees give reason to hate even more

New York, NY — Four NYPD traffic agents were busted yesterday after they were caught writing bogus summonses in Manhattan, police said.

Davey Griffin, 30, Raheem King, 26, Julian Fisher, 24, and Gregory Baird, 56, were slapped with a slew of charges, including forgery, official misconduct, falsifying business records and offering a false instrument, police said.

Section 8 Program Gets a New Lease on Life

Brooklyn, NY — Back in the early 1980s, this reporter worked as a housing assistant, or management assistant, on the “Brooklyn Team” of the New York City Housing Authority’s Section 8 program, a federally sponsored program in which the authority pays part of the rent for low-income tenants in private housing.

In those days, the place was hopping — tenants and prospective tenants came in every day, check after check was sent to landlords, new staff were added constantly out of necessity. Our tenant base had many immigrants, especially from Russia; many minority groups, especially Caribbean and Hispanic; and many, many seniors. Among the “big” Section 8 areas were Flatbush, Bed-Stuy, Coney Island, East New York, Borough Park, Bensonhurst and Brighton Beach.

Con Ed Urges Brooklyn Residents to Curb Power Usage

Con Edison is urging all customers in Crown Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush and Ocean Hill-Brownsville in Brooklyn to discontinue their use of nonessential electrical appliances and devices until problems on electrical equipment can be resolved.

The utility is experiencing difficulties in this area and customer cooperation will help ensure uninterrupted electric service, officials say.

B&H Photo Emerges as a NY Institution

New York, NY — Carl Redding, a chef who owns the Harlem soul food restaurant Amy Ruth’s, has a routine that takes him out of the kitchen one afternoon every week. Mr. Redding, who works on the side as a freelance photojournalist, makes a trip to Midtown to stock up on a few hundred dollars’ worth of photography supplies at B &H Photo, the large photo and video store on Manhattan’s West Side.

“They have the best prices, and whatever I’m looking for is almost guaranteed to be in stock,” Mr. Redding said.

Crown Heights Gets More Cops

Crown Heights, Brooklyn — An additional 36 graduates assigned to Brooklyn South were sent to an impact zone in the 71st Precinct in Crown Heights, where two police officers were shot — one fatally — on July 9.

For the year, the 71st Precinct has reported seven murders and 899 total felonies.

Click here to download the 71st Precinct Crime Stat Sheet (PDF)

Steam Pipe Explosion Jolts Midtown

A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.

Shhhh: New NYC Noise Code to Take Effect

New York, NY — At a busy Manhattan corner, a cabbie lays on the horn as he struggles through rush-hour traffic. A few blocks away, sirens blare as an ambulance races down the street. In the subway below, trains screech to a halt and an amateur dance troupe blasts hip-hop music on the platform.

New York can be earsplitting.

But city officials say Gotham is about to get a little quieter when new regulations governing jackhammers, barking dogs, barroom music and other auditory menaces take effect July 1.