Free Parking for Hybrids!

One of the best green ideas this year comes from Council Member Hiram Monserrate who wants to give free parking for a year to owners of hybrid cars. If the legislation passes, drivers with hybrids can apply for permits granting them the right to free use of parking meters for a year after their initial purchase.

Free Parking for Hybrid Cars Is Proposed
By BENJAMIN SARLIN
http://www.nysun.com/article/72530

According to Mr. Monserrate, the advantages of such a move would not be limited to the environment.

“It might help in a small way to activate new car sales, which I think is good for the economy. And no one can deny that it would be good for car dealers and the workers at the plants,” he said.

While the cost of the proposal was not immediately clear, Mr. Monserrate said tax revenue from increased car purchases could help pay for it.

“Whatever the city loses on a few quarters, we will gain in the city tax portion of purchasing a new vehicle,” he said.

Along with this free parking proposal, Monserrate is also asking for tax incentives for New Yorkers who get hybrid. He is also suggestion a $100 tax credit on top of that.  If these resolutions pass, it will definitely be time to go green with a hybrid in the Big Apple.

Looking for a place? Got a spare $3.4 Billion?

If you do, then you can be the proud owner of the GM Building. This white marble masterpiece even comes with an Apple Store in your plaza! Along with the glass cube wonder of exciting products, your fellow tenants include hedge funds and law firms. I am sure you will need them to float this puppy.

But maybe that’s not a great idea, because that’s why its for sale in the first place.

HARRY’S HELPLINE
By Lois Weiss
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03072008/business/harrys_helpline_100876.htm

March 7, 2008 — Harry Macklowe moved a step closer toward selling his venerable GM Building, receiving what one source described as “several bids” worth more than $3 billion.

However, at least two big-name suitors chose to sit out a second round of bidding for the 50-story tower at 767 Fifth Ave.

The debt-laden Macklowe has been hoping to sell the GM Building for at least $3.4 billion in order to pay off debt held by Deutsche Bank and hedge fund Fortress Investment Group.

However, there were doubts earlier this week whether he’d be able to get $3 billion, let alone $3.4 billion. And anything short of the $3.4 billion Macklowe wants raises the chances that he would have to sell other assets in order to meet his debt obligations.

So the dude needs money, and he needs it fast. Come on, it’s right on Central Park! Just $3.4 Billion and it’s yours. To bad the NY Times bought that clunker of a building last year, this would have been choice for the Grey Lady.

Looking to Score at Scores Costs Scores Its Liquor License

An owner of Scores West vowed last night to take his case to the state. He is bemoaning the fact that his strip club’s liquor license has been taken all because his dancers were selling sexual favors. See, dancing for dollars is one thing, running a house of ill repute is quite another.

The owner also said it was politically motivated, which is pretty comical since politicians are some of his best clients. HE also said Bill Clinton had affairs in the White House, and they didn’t close the White House. Really, he did!

So soon party goes at the Scores West strip club might not be able to spend $20 dollars on a single drink. Instead they might have to drink somewhere where the beer prices are logical.  And as watered down as they maybe, it is not more watered down than Scores stock. Yes, they are publically traded.

Scores East and Scores West were unable to pay $3.4 million owed Scores Holding Co. Inc. last year “because of increased legal costs incurred during investigations together with revenue shortfalls,” documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission say.

Stock in Scores Holding Co. Inc. was trading at 0.0085, less than a penny a share, at Thursday’s market close.

Great Reservations about new hotel gossip book.

If the walls of most hotels could talk, I am not sure you could show their stories on network tv. Oh the stories they must be able to tell, especially if celebrities and all their antics come to stay. Well, looks like the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago will finally get its say.

Two former concierges to five-star hotels have written a book called, “Great Reservations”. Abigail Hart and Nancy Joyce Callahan pen tales of some their more demanding visitors:

Overnight sensations: a hotel tell-all
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/

For a mere 12-hour stay, assistants for Nicole Kidman shipped a set of pink, 800-thread-count Italian sheets to the hotel ahead of her visit – along with diagrams and pages of instructions on how to make the bed. The then-Mrs. Tom Cruise never actually arrived.

Gary Busey pitched a screaming tantrum when he spotted a potted palm in his hallway. “I want that tree in my room!” he’s said to have ordered. The staff obliged him, and gave him the nickname “Abuse-y.”

Diva Diana Ross informed the staff no one was to make eye contact with her. Maids also discovered a black, tumbleweed-like object on the floor of her room; it turned out to be her wig.

John Cusack mistook the Four Seasons for his mom’s house, shipping his dirty laundry to the hotel before he checked in so they could wash it, according to the authors. They also claim he left his discarded underwear around his room to be collected, laundered and mailed to him after he checked out. “Not accurate,” Cusack’s rep tells us. “That’s not John at all. He also hasn’t stayed there in a decade.”

There are also dishes on Anthony Hopkins, Elton John, Madonna and more. The hotel has no comment, but you can read it all April 15.

Sports: Marbury Somehow to Make Knicks Worse Tonight

Under a gag order and banned from home games, Marbury broke both restraints placed on him by coach/president Isiah Thomas. This playground feud has been boiling over for months, fought out in public for the entire city to see just how unprofessional our professional basketball team has become.

Thomas is mad because Marbury is a drama queen who is prone to walking out on his team if he doesn’t get his way.

Marbury is mad Thomas wanted him to continue playing on his bad ankle, even though it clearly needed surgery.

The city, and probably fellow teammates, are made these two are acting like two year olds in front of everybody. They love to play he said/she said in the press, and passively aggressively attack each other through friends.

So tonight, Marbury has vowed to sit with his “team” no matter what Thomas says.

At least that will be entertaining, because Knicks basketball definitely is not.

Life in the City: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Some say Staten Island is the borough that time forgot. It is like a snapshot of the golden era of America: spectacular lush lawns, hedges and front porches with swings. And now it seems they have gone so far back in time there is a witch hunt.

Seriously.

For Annadale Wiccan family, tensions brew with neighbors
Family that follows the ancient religion rooted in witchcraft says threats and vandalisim are proof of religious persecution
Sunday, March 02, 2008
By ALLISON RIVERA
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/

Ivy Colmer Vanderborgh, her husband and her mother live in one half of a duplex on Oceanview Avenue.

Their Annadale neighbors say they are disrupting the neighborhood.

But the Colmer Vanderborgh family claims those same neighbors are persecuting them because of their religion.

Ms. Colmer Vanderborgh and her mother, Marlene Colmer, both practice Wicca. They contend that since their appearance on a Staten Island Community Television show about their religion in June 2006, neighbors have they have been verbally harassed, their car has been vandalized, their property damaged and their dog poisoned.

“This is a witch hunt,” said Marlene Colmer.

“This is like what you see on TV, and it’s scary,” said Ivy Colmer Vanderborgh. “I am afraid.”

This is what you see on TV, but usually it is Sunday afternoon and an incredibly bad movie is playing. Neighbors are scared the mother/daughter team is casting spells and sending spirits into their houses.

Yes, it is still 2008 in Staten Island, the locals just have not noticed.

The family claims the dog was killed after eating rat poison-tainted meatball that had been tossed into their yard. After the incident, neighbors reported finding fliers in their mailboxes saying that Buffy had been killed, and that justice would be served.

The family now blames Castano for the dog’s death and the other acts of vandalism.

Castano claims he knew nothing about the incident until he received one of the fliers.

The situation came to a boil last Sept. 11.

What is with New Yorkers and September 11?

Another neighbor said it he’s not sure whether the Colmer Vanderborghs damaged their own property during one of their loud arguments. The neighbor, who declined to be identified, said he routinely hears loud “fighting and screaming” coming from their house in the middle of the night, even though he lives more than 100 feet away.

“They’re pretty strange, they’re pretty loud, pretty disruptive,” the neighbor said. “We just basically stay away from them.”

Ah, so I get it now. This is your basic neighborhood squabble, where one party hides behind being accused of a witch, and the other party thinks something that just rhymes with the word.

Poor police,  once again in the middle of a witch hunt, pun intended.

City Desk – Stunt Junkie Faces Intervention

Okay, for the last time people, you are not allowed to jump off the Empire State Building!

I know this seems like common sense, and usually the dark area of people we should be saving, but glory hounds abound these days. Take knucklehead daredevil Jeb Corliss, who a few years back tried to jump off the Empire State Building in his “human wing” outfit.

The former “Stunt Junkies” host claimed he wasn’t putting anyone at risk when he attempted to jump off the 86th-floor observation desk in April 2006. Insanely, a Manhattan judge agrees! Never mind all the people below he could have landed on, or the traffic accidents he could have caused as he flew down to street level.

Common sense prevailed in the Appellate Division, in a decision made public, to overturn the previous judge’s legal hijinx. The panel said Corliss endangered building security officers, visitors on the observation deck and people on the ground when he made it onto the observation deck’s ledge by scaling a steel barrier.

Corliss said he would appeal the decision to the state level, hoping that there is a fan of his stupidity there.

“At the time of this attempted jump, there was absolutely no law on the books prohibiting him from doing this,” Heller said.

No law except basic common sense.

City Desk – Sean Bell Trial Continues

Today in the Sean Bell case, several police weapons were introduced as evidence into the trial. The guns were collected on the scene that night by Sergeant Donald Kipp, who testified interviewing the four detectives who fired the weapons. All but one of them are currently on trial.

Kipp said Detective Mike Oliver told him he fired his weapon. Of course, firing his weapon included letting off 31 shots. Oliver is currently facing manslaughter charges for his involvement in the shooting of Sean Bell.

Kipp said Detective Gescard Isnora, who also faces manslaughter charges, said he did not know if he fired his weapon. Prosecutors say Isnora fired the first shot, along with ten other shots.

Detective Cooper, who faces reckless endangerment charges, fired four shots, and told Kipp he also shot his gun that night.

Kipp also said none of the cops were intoxicated, which is a detail that the prosecution plans to hammer on. Even though Kipp says several of the officers admitted to having a few drinks in the club, he deemed them all fit for duty when the shooting of Sean Bell occurred.

“As a result of this case of course, it is now the requirement that police officers be tested after every fatal shooting,” said attorney Michael Hardy. “Had that requirement been in place at the time of this shooting, then we would have scientific evidence as to whether or not any of those officers were intoxicated.”

Kipp also stated that at the time he did not hear about the famous “fourth man” with “a gun” that the police were saying they were looking for directly after the shooting. Kipp says to this day he has never heard of such official report.

City Desk – Something Fishy in the Staten Island Tanks

A few weeks ago, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a surprise for all at the Staten Island ferry terminal, two new saltwater tanks that cost the city around $750,000 clams. Over 400 different tropical fish now great commuters as they wait for the ferry into Manhattan, well, there were 400.

It appears as if the fish are dying, and no one is sure why. The most obvious reason would be the tanks are settling, and saltwater tanks are notoriously unstable when first created. Ask any fried with this expensive hobby, and they will tell you about how hard it is to hit the exact mark to make the environment for the fish stable.

Of course, some think there is a predator fish in the tanks, taking out their rivals. Other reasons could be as simple as some arrived sick, and some fish need more room than allotted to them in the tanks.

But do not fear, the Staten Island Zoo is on the case, and hopes you come by and see tanks. They promise you will not come see all the fish, well, sleeping with the fishes.

Sports: Yankee Tickets On Sale Now!

Any Yankee fan worth their pinstripes knows this is the  last year to see The Team in the House that Ruth Built. If you want to see any games this season, you better move fast as tickets are being snatched up.

There are a few ways you can still buy tickets:

Yankee Stadium box office:
161st Street and River Avenue

By phone:
800-279-4444

Online:
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=nyy&m=3&y=2008

Any of the Yankee clubhouse shops.