The End?Photo: Splash NewsIn a week filled with lost causes, none was sadder than the fizzling of the congestion-pricing crusade. Mayor Bloomberg, the Saint Jude of $8 traffic fees, described State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver as having a "special type of cowardice" after he refused to bring the bill to a vote. (Hizzoner recovered enough by the following day to unveil a sunnier new cause — requiring solar panels on municipal buildings.) Hillary Clinton demoted unpopular swami Mark Penn; polls still showed her lead over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania to be slipping. Governor Paterson finally got his first budget passed, even if he was absent from Albany for much of the deal-making. The Spitzers were spotted going to the doctor together. City comptroller candidate Melinda Katz confirmed she'd undergone in vitro fertilization to become a single mom (and kept the secret really well — she's due in early June). Top cop Ray Kelly announced random steroid testing for police officers. Parents reacted toxically to reports that PCBs had been found in public schools. Borough President Marty Markowitz defended his wife after she hoarded pricey Takashi Murakami place mats from Brooklyn Museum swag bags. The first customers strolled through John Varvatos's new Bowery shop/CBGB shrine. Remy Ma planned a wedding on Rikers; apparently the bride will wear orange. Harvey Weinstein escorted his company's Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime. (NBC's Jeff Zucker sued to void the union.) 30 Rock returned after the writers' strike, reinstating Kenneth the Page's proper weekly frequency. Junot Díaz nabbed a Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Knicks legends Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley, nexus of the almost-glory years of the early nineties, were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. And Charlton Heston, who bemoaned the fate of the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes before taking up less-fictional civic pursuits, died at age 84.—Mark Adams
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Published: 2008-04-11
Provider: New York Magazine
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Hanging ToughPhoto: Getty Images Madonna pushed her relationship with the city close to the breaking point last week, claiming that New York “is not the exciting place it used to be,” others looked back to the glory days of the eighties, too. Hillary Clinton fashioned herself the protagonist of Rocky III, ready for a comeback against Barack Obama’s merciless Clubber Lang. Mario Cuomo issued a quaint, Mondale-esque proclamation that the Democratic front-runners should join forces on a unified ticket. California congressman Darrell Issa insisted that 9/11 was the city’s problem to deal with. Jamie Dimon backed up Ben Bernanke’s defense of the Bear Stearns bailout in front of Congress. The City Council finally passed Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing bill, though it appeared D.O.A. in Albany; Speaker Christine Quinn was embarrassed by revelations that her office had stashed funds in nonexistent charities for later allocation as pork. Catholic-school teachers working without contracts hinted that a strike might coincide with the arrival of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, on April 18. Sean Bell’s buddy Joseph Guzman testified that a cop looked Guzman in the eye while shooting him sixteen times. Woody Allen sued Dov Charney’s American Apparel for $10 million; the hipster clothier had used a still of him dressed as what Grammy Hall would call a “real Jew” on billboards without permission. A plan to remake Bellevue Hospital as a luxury hotel sounded just crazy enough to work. A sack of human bones was found buried in the basement of Tribeca’s Tokyo Bar. (None belonged to late broadcaster Alistair Cooke, whose daughter testified in his mortician’s skeleton-poaching trial.) As Yogi looked on, Reggie tossed the final first pitch in the House That Ruth Built. Jay-Z was reported to be on the verge of signing a $150 million album-tour-development hybrid deal with concert promoter Live Nation. And, most important, the
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Published: 2008-04-04
Provider: New York Magazine
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Remembering Bobby Van's Glory DaysThe Manhattan outpost of Bobby Van's.Photo: Jennifer MacFarlaneBobby Van, the founder of the popular eponymous restaurant chain, died earlier this week, "Page Six" reports. While his name lives on at the Bobby Van's in Bridgehampton, as well as at four steakhouse outlets in Manhattan and two in Washington, DC, Van, who had unhealthy appetite for booze and cocaine, was forced out of the business many years ago. "He was reduced to driving a cab. He was on dialysis," said a source who spent many a pleasant evening at the original East End restaurant. Van was 64. "Page Six" noted that Truman Capote often went to Van's Bridgehampton restaurant to drink his favorite drink, an "orange thingee" (four parts vodka, one part orange juice), and that James Brady, George Plimpton, and John Knowles were regulars as well. But that's not the half of it. From Here to Eternity author James Jones, Harper's editor Willie Morris, Kurt Vonnegut, Roy Lichtenstein, and William de Kooning also frequented the bar, helping to create the literary atmosphere on the East End that eventually turned into a wealthy vacation hot spot. In 2003 the Times looked back on the creative scene and spoke with Van's wife, Marina, about those glory days. Ms. Van said her former husband zealously guarded the piano bench from interlopers, rising only for visiting jazz musicians and ringers like the actor Dustin Hoffman, Ms. Van said. The music policy was strictly jazz or swing, provided Mr. Van was there to enforce it. ''I was always trying to get Bobby to put Dylan on the jukebox, or Simon and Garfunkel,'' Ms. Van said. ''Then we were living in an apartment over the restaurant. One night after I went upstairs I heard Bob Dylan singing from below.'' Thinking Mr. Van had finally relented and purchased a pop single for the jukebox, Ms. Van went downstairs to listen and found it was Mr. Dylan singing and accompanying himself on the piano. ''It was a new song, 'Catfish Hunter,''' she said. ''Bobby wasn't downstai
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Published: 2007-11-29
Provider: New York Magazine
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