Category: Linked

Macy’s is moving their East River fireworks display to the Hudson River – for this year. Seems some Englishman sailed up the Hudson 400 years ago. I guess I’ll have to wait until 2010 to see if I still have a view of the fireworks from my roof – the waterfront condos (who won’t have a courtside view this summer) have pretty much cut me off.

I wonder if there are generations of artificial siding salesmen out there – Ernest Tilley hawking aluminum in the 1950s and 60s, his son vinyl in the 70s and 80s. If so, his grandson has been very busy with “California stucco”. Can we make them stop?

Jake Mooney of the Times on Henry Miller and Fillmore Place. On May 12, the Landmarks Commission is expected to formally designated Fillmore Place and Miller’s childhood home (which is on Driggs, not Fillmore as the photo caption in the article says).

Not to toot my own horn, but, well – beep, beep.

To be fair, the rumored solution described by Brooklyn Paper does improve on the idea I put forward five and a half months ago, in that it keeps commercial traffic off of Wythe Avenue (which I thought was the only way out, but what do I know – I’m not a transportation planner). [UPDATE: The discussion of Wythe Avenue comes in the comments, not the article itself. The commenter states that southbound traffic would be routed to Union Avenue, which is already a truck route.] As I said when this latest rumor first surfaced last week, the key to solving the problem was to do some actual planning, not just shift the burden a block to the east. And it seems like actual planning was involved, and that what is proposed might be a comprehensive solution.

Of course, the most important thing is that peace is restored to the kingdom. (Actually, the really important thing is that businesses regain access to their curbsides.)

[Corrected, as above.]

Bottom line: white evangelicals and Catholics are far more likely to endorse torture; mainline Protestants and “unaffiliated” (aka godless heathens?) are more likely to oppose it. Godless heathens are the most likely to oppose torture. And going to church generally correlates with support of torture.

Still, just about any way you look at it, a plurality of Americans believe torture can be justified at least some of the time.

A sad end to Monday’s hit and run on Manhattan Avenue.

Kudos for the “mostly nameless Metropolitan taco cart”:

When compared to their peers on Bedford (the mostly regrettable Endless Summer Truck at North 6th and mostly depressing L.A. Burrito at South 1st), these tacos are a true standout in Mexican flavor.

Mostly depressing? How about utterly and completely? We long ago dubbed L.A. Burrito “Blando Burrito” – a name they have never failed to live up to.

[via Serious Eats]

Aaron Short says so.

Possibly related – the joint Transportation/Waterfront Committee scheduled for this evening has been cancelled (replaced by Transportation only). Reason for the cancellation? DOT was supposed to attend to talk about Kent Avenue, but backed out.

Design Glut, which is two young Bushwick designers, contend that there is a “gluttony” of design out there – “so many objects… and so little of it [has] a reason to exist”.

My first reaction was to was to say “No” and show a snarky photo. But on second thought, they might have a point:

Surely not news, but GM today confirmed that it is shutting down its Pontiac division.

Putting aside for the moment that GM’s entire lineup has been crap for a couple of decades, why Pontiac? Its a youth-oriented marque that has produced some of the most storied vehicles from GM’s past. Look around Williamsburg – a statistically significant percentage of the hot vintage cars you see are probably Pontiacs. Put another way, why not add Buick to the ash heap of history (along with Oldsmobile) – neither bring anything to the table that isn’t already covered the rest of the GM line up (and yeah, both made great cars in the past, but does an aging boomer demographic really need Caddy, Olds and Buick?). Drop the old-folks cars, make Pontiac the performance division, keep Chevy (which will no longer be siphoned off by Pontiac, Buick and Olds), and keep Caddy as the luxury division (but lose the Karl Fischer designs).

GM is also looking to sell Saturn. Brand-wise it was never that well defined, but its the only GM line that doesn’t make typical GM cars. And considering where “typical GM cars” have led the company, maybe they want to be keeping Saturn.

Saab, on the other hand, makes sense to sell off. It was a good company with a distinctive product. GM has only managed to homogenize all the character out of Saab.