New Jersey and New York might not agree on a lot of things, but they now agree on what age people should purchase tobacco.

New Jersey legislators will also attempt to raise the minimum age requirement to buy tobacco products from 19 to 21, as New York lawmakers promised to do last month.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said preventing youth smoking is now “a regional effort.”

New Jersey state senator Richard J. Codey, who will sponsor the bill, said the joint effort would make it impossible to cross state lines to purchase cigarettes underage.

“Neighboring states need to work together and that is what we are doing today,” he said.

About 14 percent of New Jersey high school students smoke, according to a 2010 study. In New York, the youth smoking rate has been at 8.5 percent since 2007.

“I am grateful that New Jersey is taking our proposal a step further to protect youth from the harmful health effects of smoking,” Quinn said.

The Council is expected to approve the bill this summer, officials said.

The post New Jersey will also raise tobacco purchase age to 21 appeared first on Metro.us.

The $1 fee imposed by the MTA to encourage riders to reuse their MetroCards is producing an unexpected amount of extra revenue for the transit agency.

The so-called “green” MetroCard was supposed to reduce the number of used MetroCards that end up in the garbage, but a transit executive said last week that more riders are paying the $1 fee for a new card than expected, The Daily News reports.

If the fee continues to produce extra cash for the MTA, the agency will exceed the $20 million in new revenues and savings that it anticipated when drafting the budget, the executive said.

The $1 surcharge, imposed in March, was expected to generate an estimated $18 million in revenue this year. Printing fewer cards and reducing cleanup costs was expected to save an additional $2 million.

The extra revenue will likely put pressure on the agency to make system improvements and service restorations, the News reports.

The post MTA’s $1 ‘green’ MetroCard produces more revenue than expected appeared first on Metro.us.

The NYPD is partnering with the Seal Beach Police Department in a joint investigation to track down a man who is suspected of scamming an 86-year-old widow in Seal Beach, California out of $30,000.

• 
  View Slideshow

  Man suspected of scamming grandmother out of $30,000

On February 18, 2013, the suspect called the elderly victim claiming to be her grandson “Randy.” The caller told her that he was in a Mexican jail and needed money in order to be released.

Cops said the caller, pretending to be the victim’s grandson, asked her to send $15,000 in cash to an address in New York City, addressed to Matthew Jones.

The victim sent the cash the next day. The following day, she received another call from the same person asking for an additional $15,000 addressed to Matthew Jones at the same address. The grandmother, afraid for her grandson’s safety, sent the money that day, cops said.

The address was later identified as a FedEx business office in a Sheraton Hotel downtown. Cops say the suspect used a fake Canadian driver’s license to pick up the packages from the FedEx. 

The suspect, as seen in photos provided by the Seal Beach Police Department and the NYPD, is described as a white man, medium to heavy build, who looks to be in his mid to late 30s. In surveillance photos and the photo on the fake driver’s license, he appears to have a very distinctive goatee braided into two plaits, known as a “sparrow” style beard, cops said.

Anyone with information about the man pictured in the surveillance photos from the FedEx is asked to call or e-mail Seal Beach Police Detective Mary Martinez at 562-799-4100 extension 1110 or mmartinez@sealbeachca.gov.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post East and west coast cops partner to nab scam artist appeared first on Metro.us.

To hear Youngblood Hawke’s Sam Martin talk, you might imagine him some kind of environmentalist, rather than the frontman of a swiftly rising indie-pop outfit. “I think it’s important to conserve nature and take care of our earth, because we’re blessed and fortunate to have it,” he says. “I feel like one day we’re going to look, and it’s going to disappear on us, and we’re going to wish that we had lived a little bit differently.”

He’s talking about the inspiration for the music video for the band’s single “We Come Running,” which was filmed entirely underwater and features the band members swimming alongside live sharks. “At the time there were a lot of shark attacks in California and we wanted to shed light on these animals because they were getting slaughtered by the millions,” he says. “We wanted to show people that they weren’t these man eating killers. They attack surfers occasionally because they think they’re fish … but once they know what you are, they’re not evil manhunters. We can’t keep slaughtering these animals at the rate we’re doing it because we’re going to completely wipe them out. And the ocean would die.”

Indeed, Martin says that if he weren’t making music he’d probably be working in the great outdoors, “maybe a tour guide in a national park or something.” Luckily for Martin (if not visitors to Yellowstone) he’s otherwise employed — making infectious, up-tempo electro-rock with one of his best college buds, producer Simon Katz.

Martin and Katz have been collaborating musically ever since the two decided to move from their college town of Boulder, Colo., to L.A. and start their first band, Iglu & Hartly. The band enjoyed moderate success, scoring a Top 5 hit in Europe, before dissolving suddenly — and painfully, says Martin — due to strained relationships with the other band members. “Simon and I felt like we didn’t really have a voice in the project … and it wasn’t a happy environment for us to be in anymore,” he says. “When you’re making music, but it’s not the music you want to make, there’s really no point. We felt like we could no longer express ourselves, and everything just fell apart.”

The two took the considerable angst of that loss and channeled it into the songs that would become Youngblood Hawke’s debut album, “Wake Up.” “We were really in a dark place and I think, looking back, we really wrote these songs to cheer ourselves up,” he reflects. “We were sitting in our living rooms, dead broke, trying to figure out what to do with our lives. We’d invested eight to 10 years of our lives [in Iglu & Hartly] and then one day it was completely gone. I think it was important to lift ourselves up, I think it was a cathartic experience. We were writing to make ourselves feel better. Definitely the songs have kind of an upbeat feel but I think that if you listen to the lyrics it gets really dark at points.”

When asked to describe the band’s sound, Martin hesitates. “I feel like describing music is like trying to describe a color,” he says. “There’s rock, there’s dance, there’s definitely synth, and there’s some pop elements to it, definitely. But I think what separates us is that we have some weirder lyrics that we balance out with the pop choruses.”

Martin might find their genre difficult to define, but he clearly articulates the band’s unofficial mission statement. “We’re all kind of excited about life,” he says. “In a live show we just like to give people a great experience. I feel like, they come to a show and buy a ticket, they should walk away feeling like we gave all of our effort to entertain them. We walk offstage and we have nothing left. We like to leave it all on the stage for the audience.”

When asked if he ever fears the specter of the one-hit wonder, a fate that befalls many young bands who burst onto the scene with that one catchy hit single and just as quickly fade away, he’s quick to dismiss it. “I feel confident in our album and our songwriting abilities. I think we’re just fortunate to be in this position right now, we’re taking it one day at a time,” he says. “Some bands don’t even get a song. We’re going to continue to write and evolve and get better, so I don’t think that’s something that really freaks me out at all.”

Youngblood Hawke stops in Boston and New York on a club tour before hitting the festival circuit this summer.

NEW YORK
May 13, 8 p.m
Santos Party House
96 Lafayette St., New York
$13-$15
ticketweb.com

BOSTON
May 14, 9 p.m.
Brighton Music Hall
158 Brighton Ave., Allston
$12
ticketmaster.com

The post Youngblood Hawke soars high and swims in the deep appeared first on Metro.us.

We’re suckers for a good photobomb.  And we’re even bigger suckers when it’s awesomely irreverent Jennifer Lawrence doing the bombing. Add Sarah Jessica Parker in a ridiculous freaking hat (that’s not “punk,” by the way. We’re talking to you, Sarah Jessica Parker’s stylist) to this frothy potion of awesome photobombery at last night’s Met Gala in NYC and we. are. SO INTO IT.

One of our fave celebs who just DGAF, Lawrence did her best to blow the feathers off of SJP’s misguided headgear at the punk-themed gala — an event that, in our opinion, far too many celebs take far too seriously. Not this gal. (Check out how much Marion Cotillard over there, stage left, is digging this.)

And, incidentally, not Joshua Jackson a/k/a Pacey from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ a/k/a one teen actor who grew up into a major babe. He had a photobomb of his own:

WE ARE ALL FOR THIS. Sorry, sorry — we know Anne Hathaway is a totally legitimate actress and totally killed it in Les Miz and is most likely a totally pleasant and likable gal, a peach even — but she really just irks us. Ruffles our headfeathers, you might say. (See what we did there?)

Bravo, you two. Y’all should get together and make beautiful photobombing babies.

The post Jennifer Lawrence photobombs SJP at Met Gala, reaffirms awesomeness appeared first on Metro.us.

As weather warms, you might be itching to get out of city limits and somewhere where honking is replaced by the gurgling of a river or, simply, the silence of a sparkling lake. So set your GPS for the Finger Lakes, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo just this week called a state tourism “treasure.”  Whether you want a light hike or a great waterside wine, a few hours’ drive will deliver you into a weekend in the sun. Their warm weather is just beginning, so book your trip during their super-quick summer season.

Hike

For a quick hike you can wedge in between wine tastings, head to Grimes Glen in Naples, N.Y., where you hear water gurgling as you step outside the car. This is perfect for a packed itinerary — squeeze it in and get as close as time allows to a beautiful waterfall. Prepare to get shoes muddy or even wet – you may pick your way along large rocks in the creek. Relax after at the famed Monica’s Pies, where locals insist you must try a grape pie.

Ride

Take in the scenery by horseback in the 22-acre land around Painted Bar Stables in Burdett, N.Y., where the owner will select among dozens of horses for you, whether beginner or a practiced rider. The stable offers rides from 45 minutes to overnight, rain or shine, and by moonlight. Right now is the perfect time to swing by — a few horses are expecting foals, and you might glimpse a wobbling baby horse

Explore

Watkins Glen, N.Y., is a great town to use your walking shoes. Explore the quaint downtown and then head to the nearby Watkins Glen State Park to hike.

Watkins Glen State Park is a must-see in this area, boasting 19 waterfalls along trails that wind along the natural wonders and overlook a magnificent gorge. A stream in the glen descends 400 feet, passing 200-foot cliffs that park officials promise will leave you spellbound.

After the hike, stop by the Seneca Lake General Store downtown, which sells breakfast sandwiches in the morning, pastries and candy out of barrels. Nearby, the Village Variety Bookstore is a taste of the past: they have everything from old records to yellowed John Grisham novels and current DVDs, and the owners might share with you what is happening in the Jimmy Stewart movie they’re watching by the cash register.

Sip

Belhurst Castle in Geneva, N.Y., is a property fit for a king — or you, feeling like a queen or king as you sip wine in a chair on the back terrace. Like many wineries dotting Route 14, it overlooks serene Seneca Lake, the deepest of the Finger Lakes and which seems to change color with the clouds. Despite the lavish surroundings, wine tastings are only 50 cents a try, and the Castle is also one of the few wineries open later than 5 p.m. in case you arrive late in the day.

If you are more of a liquor fan, stop by Finger Lakes Distilling on the opposite side of the lake in Burdett, N.Y. The modern, window-paned building has views of the lake from the tasting room. The owners are often nearby for a tasting recommendation, like the rich, aged McKenzie bourbon whiskey or the maple jack liqueur.

To drink with locals, order a beer at Two Goats Brewing in Hector, N.Y. This brewery’s wraparound porch has nearly 360-degree views of the water. Inside, the pointed wooden roof is covered with dollar bills — customers compete to see who can send one sailing with a tack. Brews will only set you back a couple bucks, ranging from cream ales to what one bartender called an IPA “on steroids.” If you’re hungry, you have one option – they only sell roast beef sandwiches, with a verbal warning about the hot sauce.

Eat

After a long day outdoors, reward yourself with dinner.

In the Finger Lakes, farm-to-table isn’t a trend – it’s what has made sense for years already. Spots like Leaf Kitchen in Geneva, N.Y., get everything, and they mean everything, from local sources. You can taste it in the freshness of the pasta (from Flour City Pasta in nearby Pittsford, N.Y.) and the cilantro in the black bean dip. The manager is an East Harlem native, and she and her fiancée (the chef, who makes everything himself) have created a homey atmosphere, literally: the restaurant’s in a refurbished home.

For waterside dining, you can’t beat Seneca Harbor Station in Watkins Glen, N.Y., right alongside Seneca Lake. Tables are covered with white linen napkins, but the casual atmosphere leaves you comfortable enough to dig into your pulled pork sandwich. Another option? Meal cruises that leave out of the station.

For a local fine dining experience, try Stonecat, crafted out of a former farm market. Entrees feature pasture-raised chicken with chipotle-cider barbeque sauce, and local wines are suggested for each. Live music filters out of the different dining rooms, and on a recent weekend celebrating their spring reopening, the place was packed.

Where to stay

If you have your eye on wineries, the Ramada Geneva Lakefront in Geneva, N.Y., is just a quick drive from a string of wineries that flanks the west side of the lake. The hotel is right on the water, and many rooms showcase the views.

For a rich bed-and-breakfast experience, reserve at The Idlwilde Inn in Watkins Glen, N.Y., a gorgeous Victorian mansion. This bed-and-breakfast sits on a hill above Seneca Lake, and you can take in the impressive view from the wraparound porch. The owners retained as much of the original home as possible, and their loving restoration shows, literally, in staircase photos.

If you go

Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival
Begins May 29
Showcases musical theater throughout the summer, beginning with “Singin’ In The Rain”

GlassFest
May 23 through 26
Four-day celebration including glass sculptures at region’s Corning Museum of Glass

Finger Lakes Wine Festival
July 12 to 14
Boasts the largest showing of state wines with more than 90 wineries

The post For an outdoor adventure, head to the Finger Lakes appeared first on Metro.us.

The Olms will perform as part of the Live From Home benefit concert series at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, a not-for-profit organization providing healthcare, housing, advocacy and other services to homeless and formerly homeless people with HIV and AIDS, on June 7th.

Event Venue : Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

Event Date : June 7

Event Time : 8:00 PM

Call : 212-334-3324

Event Price : $15.00 and Fee-$1.82

For bookings click here

The post The Olms benefit show at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe appeared first on Metro.us.

It’s that time again, folks. Come Saturday, a fleet of the best and brightest food truckers culled from Boston and New York City will set up camp on the Greenway and go head-to-head in this spring’s Food Truck Throwdown. Admission is free, and if last October’s star-studded bout was any indication, the chance to chow down en masse should by no means be missed.

“Both cities have some fantastic trucks,” says Mei Mei Street Kitchen co-founder Irene Li. “Not only do we get to eat each others’ food, but we also get a little time to talk, compare notes and learn from one another.”  

• 
  View Slideshow

  PHOTOS: Food trucks around town

The sibling-run Mei Mei Street Kitchen joins a roster of trucks armed to the teeth with talent — outdoor lunchers can count on appearances by favorites Bon Me, KickAss Cupcakes, Chubby Chickpea, and Roxy’s Grilled Cheese, among others.

“The last Throwdown feels like it happened ages ago,” Li says. “We’ve put dozens of new items on the menu since then, so we really tried to look at all of our dishes and pick the ones that are the most streamline-able and the most delicious.”

“Plus, we started making bacon,” she adds. “Expect lots of bacon.”

Included in a judging panel packed with local culinary luminaries and enthusiasts is Jamie Bissonnette, chef and owner of Toro and Coppa.

“Eighteen trucks… daunting. I am afraid I’ll miss something,” he says of the challenges that arise when faced with a Greenway littered with gourmet fare. “Judging this will be more about the cohesiveness of the foods, styles and overall flavor.”

Roxy’s Grilled Cheese founder James DiSabatino, the winner of last year’s Best Truck Design, is more than ready for the influx of meals on wheels. “The city didn’t allow food trucks three years ago, and now we have trucks from other cities visiting. That’s really cool in my book,” he says. “But, we still plan on kicking their a—es in the Throwdown.”

Last fall’s event fed more than 1,000 hungry city-dwellers, a wave that nearly brought the Roxy’s team to their knees. Not this year, DiSabatino assures. To boot, the grilled cheese experts will be offering a category dedicated to one event sponsor: Maker’s Mark. According to DiSabatino, “it’s going to knock some socks off.”

“It’s a food revolution. It’s changing the way people dine in urban areas,” he continues. “It had to happen.”

2013 Food Truck Throwdown
Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
The Greenway (between State and India streets), Boston
Free admission
foodtruckthrowdown.com

The post Food Fight! Boston vs. New York Food Truck Throwdown is back appeared first on Metro.us.

Six months after Hurricane Sandy ripped into the East Coast and triggered one of the worst energy crises in decades, there is scattered evidence companies and state agencies have moved to strengthen complex fuel supply networks against future storms.

But the measures taken by energy firms in New York and New Jersey are uneven, state initiatives remain on paper for now, and in the absence of an industry-wide response it’s unclear the region would fare much better should there be a next time.

Hurricane Sandy unleashed a record storm surge that exposed the surprising fragility of New York Harbor’s fuel supply chain – the largest, most varied trading and distribution hub in the world – serving America’s most populous urban area.

The industry suffered crippling blows at almost every link. Foreign oil tankers were halted by water debris, refineries were flooded and shut, pipelines and storage depots were idled by power cuts and tanker trucks were commandeered by emergency agencies.

At the end of that chain, two-thirds of the region’s service stations were unable to dispense gasoline due to power outages, while the rest struggled to procure scarce fuel. Only state-imposed rationing, the first since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s, eventually tempered the crisis – it took months to fully restore the interdependent web of supply.

Half a year later and some action has been taken. But the measures remain worryingly incomplete, according to interviews with two dozen officials, industry groups and oil firms.

“We would, in essence, be in the same situation minus some additional gasoline stations still having power thanks to backup generators,” said Robert Sinclair Jr., spokesman for AAA New York in Garden City, Long Island.

LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE

Sandy claimed more than 130 lives in the United States and Canada, inflicted tens of billions of dollars worth of damage and left 8.6 million homes and businesses in darkness.

In the following days, two problems emerged with the fuel supply: flooding, which shut down two refineries and numerous terminals; and power outages, which disabled gas stations and the area’s biggest pipeline. The problem was not so much a lack of gasoline as an inability to transport it to the right place.

At least a few of the companies at the heart of the supply chain – the storage depots and terminals where bulk deliveries of gasoline, diesel or heating oil are stored then loaded onto tanker trucks for retail outlets – are taking action.

Nustar, whose fuel terminal in Linden, New Jersey, was shut for days, has raised the barriers, or berms, around its tanks, elevated critical cables off the ground to avoid water contact and shifted its office further inland, the company says.

The surge during Sandy led to water overflowing several operators’ berms and in some cases lifted partially filled tanks off their foundations, leading to fuel spills.

Coast Guard Commander Linda Sturgis, who oversees emergency prevention at the Port of New York and frequently discusses emergency plans with energy industry players, said several companies were working on improvements including higher berms.

“It takes considerable investment,” Sturgis said. “Nobody thought, at the time, that they would need 15-foot berms.”

But it is unclear how many of the 57 refined products terminals hit by the storm have taken action.

Motiva, a Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco joint venture, had to scramble to clean up 380,000 gallons of diesel from its Sewaren, New Jersey, facility, most of which spilled into the thin strip of water between New Jersey and Staten Island.

Shell declined to name specific measures taken since the storm, saying it has “robust emergency response plans that are reviewed and updated in preparation for every hurricane season.”

Hess Corp said it regularly updates its emergency plans. Magellan Midstream Partners said its emergency planning was followed safely and operations resumed promptly after Sandy. CITGO and IMTT declined to comment. Together with Nustar, the seven companies are the main terminal operators in New Jersey.

“WE’D DO IT THE SAME WAY”

Sandy also disrupted the flow of refined fuels into the New York area, shutting down Phillips 66′s 238,000-bpd Bayway refinery – now the region’s lone plant – for a month and halting for three days the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline bringing refined products from the U.S. Gulf Coast.

These facilities are more critical than ever after the closure of several East Coast refineries – including a small plant in nearby Port Reading, which operator Hess moved to shut down permanently just months after Sandy.

Some additional safeguards are being put in place.

“We’ve…made some physical improvements to the Bayway refinery to help better withstand future major storm events, such as elevating electrical equipment,” Phillips 66 spokesman Rich Johnson said, declining to say whether the refinery’s 11-foot berm would be raised after Sandy’s 14-foot storm surge.

Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ (PES) 335,000-bpd refinery, which shut down or slowed some units as a precaution during Sandy but ultimately missed the brunt of the storm, sees less reason to protect against what was deemed a 100-year event.

“We came through that storm in superb shape…For three or four weeks afterwards we were supplying 50 percent of the market,” PES CEO Philip Rinaldi said. “There’s not a lot we would do differently. We’d do it the same way.”

PLUGS WITHOUT GENERATORS?

The most definitive government response comes from New York state, in the form of a provision in the 2013-2014 budget that will require gasoline stations on key populous routes to have the necessary wiring for an emergency power generator.

The state will grant $10,000-$13,000 for each station and also requires them to have an emergency generator or be part of a pool from which generators can be leased. But the $17 million program is contingent on New York securing federal mitigation funds and it is unclear whether and when this will happen.

For the majority of stations that are owned by small independent franchise operators, the bigger question is the total cost and availability of generators in an emergency.

“We still aren’t sure how much the rental on the generators will cost or how effective that system will work,” said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also wants to create a Strategic Fuel Reserve, with the help of federal funding. But the proposal is at an early stage, with the state agency responsible, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), still seeking expert comments.

That agency will also check terminals’ back-up power capabilities and resilience against flooding before this year’s hurricane season, it said. However it does not have the power to force companies to act on its findings.

A report from a New York City agency set up in Sandy’s wake to investigate how the city can become more resilient to future extreme weather may offer more proposals next month.

In New Jersey, a working group appointed to look into ways to improve fuel infrastructure has not made any recommendations as yet, and no legislation has been proposed by the administration.

DRIVERS LEARNED A LESSON

For some in the industry, the best thing the government could do is worry more about demand and less about supply.

Local industry officials say New York should be better prepared to move to rationing that would help contain panic. New Jersey imposed even/odd rationing five days after Sandy and New York ten days after, a period which retailers said was too long.

As the crisis deepened, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) commandeered commercial trucks to deliver fuel to critical services such as emergency responders, but promises of free fuel drops went unfulfilled.

“The effect was confusion,” says Eric DeGesero, Executive Vice President of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey.

Mike Scott, deputy director of the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) which coordinated much of the effort, said Sandy was an “absolute success” for the agency, though it was looking at ways to strengthen the system.

Many drivers, at least, seem to have learned their lesson.

This past February, as a massive snowstorm loomed over the Northeast, motorists rushed to fill up their tanks far earlier than usual, and in greater number, says Brian Fioretti, vice-president at Island Transportation, one of the area’s biggest retail tanker-truck distributors.

“Everyone knows you’re supposed to go out before a storm and get food, water and gas, but it was taken for granted,” he said. “Sandy has changed people’s perspective.”

(Additional reporting by Selam Gebrekidan, Cezary Podkul, Josh Schneyer, Jeanine Prezioso, Scott DiSavina, Robert Gibbons, Jonathan Leff; Writing by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

The post Analysis: Six months after Sandy, New York fuel supply chain still vulnerable appeared first on Metro.us.

Horse-drawn carriage rides have been an attraction in Central Park for many years, but an activist group is pushing to replace them with electric cars that recall another bygone era: the Roaring Twenties.

Exotic car designer Jason Wenig is working with New Yorkers for Safe, Clean and Livable Streets (NYCLASS) to build a $450,000 prototype of the horseless carriage. If the pilot project goes forward, the car could arrive in Central Park within a year.

“Passengers will feel like they are being transformed into the ‘Great Gatsby’ era in a modern car,” said Allie Feldman, an organizer for NYClass.

The ultimate goal, according to the advocacy group, is to completely eliminate the use of horse-drawn carriages in the city—a practice they say is inhumane, pointing to the animals’ long work hours and lack of pasture time.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has voiced opposition to the idea, saying the Central Park Conservancy had concerns about the project.

The post Animal lovers push for horseless carriages in Central Park appeared first on Metro.us.

Bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were allegedly en route to set off six bombs in New York City’s Times Square after their attack on the Boston Marathon, but the plan fell through due to last Thursday’s shootout with police.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a press conference today that the Tsarnaev brothers’ made a “spontaneous decision” to hijack a car in Cambridge last Thursday and drive to the tourist destination and detonate explosives. They had one pressure cooker bomb and five pipe bombs in their possession.

“If God forbid they’d arrived in New York City and arrived in Times Square, they would have seen not only the police presence but an extensive network of cameras” meant to identify suspicious packages, Bloomberg said.

The plan was apparently not well thought out. According to officials, the Mercedes SUV the brothers hijacked was low on gas, and the brothers stopped at an ATM to get cash.

The abducted driver escaped when the car pulled into a gas station and both brothers got out, one to pump the gas and the other to pay for it at the station’s night cashier, according to what Dzhokhar reportedly told investigators during a bedside interrogation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The driver then called police and a shootout with the bombing suspects began, eventually leading to the killing of older brother Tamerlan, 26, and the arrest of Dzhokhar, 19, in Watertown. Police later said the pair threw explosive devices out of the car window.

Before these developments, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday the men wanted to drive to New York to “party.”

“The information that we received said something about partying or having a party,” Kelly told reporters yesterday, adding that the NYPD has no information that the brothers had plotted a terror attack in the city.

Kelly said that authorities are inclined to believe last night’s confession over the previous statement because Tsarnaev was reportedly “more lucid” during the second questioning.

Today, Kelly suggested the bombs could have caused extensive damage in the bustling New York City hub.

“Look at what the bomb did in Boston and you (can)… speculate on what it could do in Times Square. There are clubs, bars… I wouldn’t want to guess, but clearly, you saw the power for the bombs in Boston … you can give a ‘guestimate’ as to what they (would do) in New York City.”

Bloomberg and Kelly pointed to the large role surveillance camera footage played in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings, asserting that shows how crucial surveillance is to New Yorkers’ security.

The NYPD already uses a vehicle that takes 360-degree photos along the route of major events, like marathons, but Kelly said they want to expand the numbers of cameras around the city generally.

In particular, he said, they would like to increase the number of “smart cameras” they use, which use video analytics to conduct real-time facial recognition.

Bloomberg agreed that cameras are an integral part of the city’s security measures, noting that they work as a deterrent because “you’re never going to know where all our cameras are.”

The brothers are accused of detonating two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264. The brothers were identified by the FBI as suspects from pictures and video at the scene.

Prosecutors formally charged Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the bombings in a hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge in his hospital room on Monday, accusing him of crimes that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

Tsarnaev has spoken to FBI investigators, however today reports surfaced that suggest he has stopped answering questions.

Danielle Tcholakian contributed to this article from New York.

Follow Morgan Rousseau on Twitter: @MetroMorgan
Follow Metro Boston on Twitter: @MetroBOS

The post Marathon bombing suspects planned to take Copley terror to Times Square appeared first on Metro.us.

As if Suffolk County, home of the Hamptons and playground of the rich and famous on New York’s Long Island, didn’t have enough financial problems already.

A regulatory filing on behalf of the county dated April 16 shows it accidentally missed an interest payment on some of its debt, including $76.1 million of public improvement bonds, putting the county technically in default. Oops.

The county is wealthy with income per capita well above the national average but it has run into difficulty recently, declaring a fiscal emergency last year after an independent task force predicted a three-year deficit of $530 million.

The county could have a budget shortfall of as much as $250 million by the end of next year, local officials said last month.

The error is more of an embarrassing glitch than anything else. The missed payment — just $722.65 — would be small change for many of the county’s residents.

That will buy you fewer than 20 butter-poached lobster rolls (not the most expensive thing on the menu) at Dave’s Grill in Montauk, a quaint fishing village on the island’s northern tip, or just 10 bottles of Merry Edwards Sauvignon Blanc Russian River 2009 at La Plage in Wading River. A mere picnic.

The mistake was pointed out by the Depository Trust Company, a clearing firm, the day after it was missed and the filing says the error was the fault of the county’s escrow agent, M&T Bank.

“The county informed M&T of its error and the escrow agent immediately wired the $722.65 payment to DTC,” the regulatory filing said.

So what went wrong? The county was making the first payment in a complicated arrangement that uses $17 million in state HEAL grants for medical costs, primarily related to the Foley Nursing home, said Richard Tortora, president of Capital Markets Advisors, the county’s financial adviser.

The $722.65, part of a debt payment of more than $1 million, was the portion of the payment from the HEAL grants. The $17 million is being held in an escrow account at M&T.

“M&T for reasons we can’t fathom just blew it: ‘Oops it wasn’t in our system, we missed it,’” said Tortora, president of Capital Markets Advisors. Tortora said missing the payment and having to make a regulatory filing with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board was frustrating after months spent putting the arrangement together for the county.

M&T Bank was not immediately available for comment.

Fitch Ratings, the credit ratings agency, downgraded Suffolk County’s general obligation bond rating to A from A-plus last month, affecting about $1.4 billion of debt. General obligation bonds have the full faith and credit of the issuer and are the best gauge of how risky investors think the county is.

Fitch said it had concerns about the county’s ability to become financially stable, let alone reduce its big deficit.

The post N.Y.’s Suffolk County accidentally defaults on debt appeared first on Metro.us.

The delays “will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather,” the agency said in a statement.

“Staffing challenges” exist at facilities controlling airports in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth and Jacksonville, Florida, the agency said. Because of budget cuts, there are fewer air traffic controllers, and planes must fly farther apart, causing delays for passengers, the FAA said.

“The FAA is working with the airlines throughout the day to try and minimize delays for travelers,” it said, adding that travelers should ask airlines and visit fly.faa.gov for information on delays.

The post FAA says furlough delays affecting New York appeared first on Metro.us.

The Tsarnaev brothers, the alleged suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, were reportedly on their way to New York when they hijacked a car late Thursday night, according to the New York Times.

As details of the original plan emerged, Boston police Commissioner Edward Davis said authorities believe the brothers had plans for more attacks.

When the brothers stole a Mercedes-Benz sports utility vehicle, they kept the driver hostage while they drove around attempting to use the driver’s ATM card to withdraw cash.

The suspects reportedly told the driver they were going to go to New York, a senior United States official reportedly said on Sunday, though it was unclear if they told the driver what they planned to do once they arrived.

Authorities recovered four firearms they believe the suspects used, and discovered the suspects had made at least five pipe bombs.

An M-4 carbine rifle, commonly used by American forces in Afghanistan, was found in the boat where the younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured Friday night.

Boston mayor Thomas Menino told ABC News he believed the brothers acted on their own, and were not part of any larger network.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Boston bombing brothers may have been en route to New York appeared first on Metro.us.

New York utility regulators approved the construction of three power transmission lines needed to keep the state’s electric system reliable in case the giant Indian Point nuclear power plant shuts at the end of 2015.

There is no certainty that Indian Point will close.

Entergy Corp, the plant’s owner, wants to keep Indian Point’s reactors running and has filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to renew the plant’s operating licenses for another 20 years.

The two reactors at the 2,037-megawatt plant provide about a quarter of the power used in New York City. The reactors’ operating licenses expire in 2013 and 2015.

The three transmission lines are part of a proposal filed by New York power provider Consolidated Edison Inc and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) at the request of the New York Public Service Commission (PSC). The NYPA is a state-owned generation company.

Because of the importance of Indian Point to the state’s power grid, the PSC approved the start of work on the three power lines but only authorized the electric companies to spend up to $10 million at this time.

In response to the PSC’s decision, Entergy said it believes the best reliability contingency plan would be for New York to support the continued operation of Indian Point and not spread the cost of transmission upgrades to ratepayers across the state.

But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he wants Indian Point to shut when its licenses expire, in part, because it is located just 40 miles north of Manhattan.

Concerns about nuclear safety, especially in densely populated metropolitan areas, have risen since the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011.

The NRC, which regulates the country’s nuclear power plants, has said repeatedly that Indian Point is safe.

In November 2012, the PSC asked Con Edison and the NYPA to develop contingency plans in case Indian Point were to shut at the end of 2015.

Con Edison and NYPA filed a three-part proposal in February.

The first part, which the PSC approved in March, was for NYPA to seek proposals for about 1,350 MW of generation or transmission that could be online by June 2016.

NYPA issued a request for proposals in March with bids due by May 20. U.S. power company NRG Energy Inc and others have said they would offer proposals.

The second and third parts of the Con Edison/NYPA proposal were for about 100 MW of energy efficiency and the three transmission lines, which the PSC approved on Thursday.

WHO PAYS?

The PSC staff said they would conduct cost and recovery studies to determine what the various proposals will cost, who will benefit and who should pay, and produce a recommendation to the PSC commissioners over the summer.

That will allow the commissioners to make a final decision in September on which transmission and generation proposals the state should allow to go forward.

The proposals allow the state to stop the projects if they are deemed unnecessary if, for example, the NRC renews the Indian Point operating licenses.

In its proposal, Con Edison and NYPA said the three transmission lines would cost about $511 million and could enter service by the summer of 2016.

The PSC staff said it was premature to estimate the cost of the lines or say who would pay for their construction.

The three lines are located in the Ramapo area just north of New Jersey, on Staten Island and in upstate New York.

The post New York OKs transmission upgrades to replace Indian Point Nuclear Plant appeared first on Metro.us.

For a night, the most famed rivalry in sports was put on hold.

The Yankees honored the Red Sox and the city of Boston following Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon by playing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” after the third inning of their Tuesday night game against the Diamondbacks. The Red Sox have a tradition of playing the song, written about President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, in the middle of the eighth inning of each home game at Fenway Park.

The gesture by the Yankees was reminiscent of the Red Sox playing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” during September 2001 home games following the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

• 
  View Video

  Yankees honor Boston with ‘Sweet Caroline’ at Stadium

• 
  View Slideshow

  PHOTOS: Acts of kindness and heroism at the Boston Marathon

• 
  View Slideshow

  PHOTOS: Front page news headlines from Boston Marathon coverage

The post Yankees honor Boston with ‘Sweet Caroline’ at Stadium appeared first on Metro.us.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Some of America’s favorite stoners appeared first on Metro.us.

When Attorney Preet Bharara brought two corruption cases against New York state politicians this week, accusing some of selling their votes and another of trying to bribe his way onto the ballot, he challenged the political class to clean up the system.

Some political veterans worry any reforms are destined to fail, and that only a federal prosecutor like Bharara can crack down on crookedness.

Asked if this week’s cases could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in the state capital Albany, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was quick to respond: “No, this camel’s very strong.”

Over the last seven years, 31 New York state office holders have been convicted, censured, or otherwise accused of wrong-doing, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

“There need to be enough cases made so that people realize the likelihood of being caught increases,” Spitzer, also a former state attorney general whose political rise was tied to his challenges of Wall Street corruption, told Reuters. “And that at the end of the day is going to be what changes the system.”

In 2006, Spitzer captured the governor’s mansion in a landslide victory after campaigning that “Day One, Everything Changes.” His aggressive efforts at reform were cut short two years later, when he resigned amid a prostitution scandal.

Citizens Union Executive Director Dick Dadey said there was a “crime wave of corruption” in Albany and in New York City but he is hopeful the cases will lead to reforms.

“I very much hope that this is the thread that is being pulled out of the sweater and will unravel everything,” said Dadey, whose group has long pushed for more transparency.

Bharara, the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan, brought charges against state Senator Malcolm Smith on Tuesday, accusing him of a plot to buy a spot on New York City’s mayoral ballot. New York City Councilman Daniel Halloran was charged with accepting bribes to set up meetings between Smith and two Republican party leaders, who were also charged.

Lawyers for both men said they will fight the charges.

Two days later, Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was charged with accepting more than $22,000 in bribes in exchange for helping four businessmen establish a network of senior daycare centers in the Bronx. He too plans to fight the charges, his lawyer said.

“Federal prosecutors and federal agents are doing everything we can to proactively attack the corruption problem. And it’s time for others to step up also,” Bharara said.

Experts worry reformers will step back, not up.

“The state government really breeds a culture where it’s all about the money,” said Bill Mahoney of the New York Public Interest Research Project.

“Every single week in Albany there’s a dozen fundraisers within a block of the state capitol, and as soon as legislators finish voting on a bill, they walk over to a fundraiser and get checks from the people who told them to vote a certain way on that,” said Mahoney.

“A LACK OF WILL”

While Illinois and Louisiana may have the greater reputation for corruption, New York has its own colorful history, best exemplified by William “Boss” Tweed, who built a Democratic Party political machine in mid-19th Century New York City that held power until Republican Fiorello La Guardia was elected mayor in 1933.

The culture of Tweed’s Tammany Hall machine persists. State lawmakers are now more likely to be ousted from office because of criminal or ethical issues than defeated in a general election, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Advocates of reform also cite weak campaign finance laws and limitations on prosecutors as impediments. New York has the highest contribution limits of those states that set limits, for example allowing an individual donation per election cycle of almost $17,000 to a state senator.

This week, Citizens Union released a series of reform proposals including giving the state attorney general the power to pursue public corruption and election law violations, rather than leaving such enforcement to local law enforcement. The group also called for instituting nonpartisan elections in city races and passage of comprehensive campaign finance reform.

Bharara said corruption was to be expected given “a lack of transparency, a lack of self-disclosure, a lack of self policing, a lack of will, and a failure of leadership.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo – the former state attorney general who came into office in 2011 on a reform platform – has said he intends to take up a campaign finance reform bill this year.

Cuomo won plaudits for an ethics reform bill passed in his first year, but was criticized for declining to wield his veto power after state lawmakers drew up self-serving electoral boundaries during the once-a-decade redistricting process.

This week’s charges could encourage bold action from a shamed legislature said Larry Norden, deputy director at the Brennan Center. “Politically, I think this has the potential to have an impact in a way that previous scandals have not.”

Still, reformers say that, without overwhelming pressure, lawmakers are unlikely to curb their own powers or to make it easier for investigators to monitor their activities.

For example, good government groups have long decried the existence of large pots of undefined money, set aside for infrastructure spending in the state or for local initiatives in New York City. In the cases brought this week, Halloran is said to have offered to redirect City Council member funds in exchange for money, while prosecutors say Smith boasted of money outside the budget that is “always around.”

And yet, the existence of those funds creates enormous power for leaders who can dole them out.

Watchdog groups and political analysts also hope to empower state and local prosecutors to do more.

“In a well-functioning state, this would be done at the local level and not at the federal level,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who worked under Giuliani and is now a law professor at Columbia University.

“I’m one of those who thinks that having overlapping jurisdictions, particularly for white-collar crimes, are a good thing,” Richman said. “They lead to competition.”

The post New York politics: Scared straight or ripe for reform? appeared first on Metro.us.

Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season is supposed to be one of the cherished sporting days on the calendar and no MLB team is supposedly more cherished than the 27-time World Series champion Yankees.

However, if you are a San Diego Padres fan or Kansas City Royals fan or Seattle Mariners fan and have heard time and time again about the perceived love affair with baseball in the northeast and how it’s “just different there,” you can rest easy today. Boston, Philly, New York – we all can have our Mickey Mouse sports moments. But yesterday’s Opening Day “celebration” at Yankee Stadium took the cake as one of the more JV operations we’ve seen in quite a while.

- The not-so-memorable day opened with something called a “Constantine Maroulis” singing the National Anthem, which would have been a good get for the Yankees, maybe, in say, 2005. That’s the best the most revered organization in sports can do on Opening freakin’ Day?!

- The visiting and supposedly HATED Red Sox were introduced to the humdrum crowd while the Star Wars “evil theme,” the “Imperial Death March” blared over the loud-speakers. Every other day out of the year, I’d be fine with this. But it’s Opening Day. A little decorum, please. The Red Sox, for all their faults, introduce the opposing team on Opening Day with old school organ noises (ya, know something that screams ‘this is baseball … we’re different. We’re special. Embrace the history!).

Instead, the Yankees show here that they’re no different than a small market NBA team. “Let’s show our fans how much we HATE the opponent by playing this sinister music when they come out!!!”

The Orlando Magic play this song when the Milwaukee Bucks make visits. The Yankees should be a step above this.

- Even Red Sox brass wouldn’t have had the balls to call Monday’s game a “sell-out.” Yes, Yankee Stadium is a 50,000 –seat canyon of a ballpark. And yes, it is ridiculously expensive to watch any game there. But last time I checked, there were a lot of people in New York  and there are more than a few Yankees fans in this country that make decent livings. To have an empty ballpark in the late innings on Opening Day is an embarrassment. The Yankees were down 8-2 to the Red Sox late in the game. Six runs against the Red Sox, a team that won 69 games last season? Not impossible.

Plus the folks that were at the game probably had already taken the entire day off from work. What’s the rush? Enjoy yourself. Oh and one more thing … It’s Opening Day!!!!

- To sum up the day, a stream of trash was flying all over the field in the late innings of Monday’s game. Now, there’s not much the Yankees can do about that. New York streets are, after all, filled with trash and it just happened to be a windy day. But the image on TV of a dark sky, trash whipping all over the field and thousands and thousands of empty, dark blue seats painted quite the picture. And no, that picture had nothing to do with “fresh starts,” “new beginnings,” “peanuts,” “Cracker Jacks”  and/or “spring.”

I suppose we should expect this from the Yankees and their fans at this point. They failed to sell out THREE PLAYOFF GAMES last year. Still, the New York Yankees are supposed to be a beacon in sports. Here’s guessing the Tampa Bay Rays will do it up right in their home opener Tuesday afternoon.

Matt Burke is sports editor and a columnist at Metro Boston. Follow him on Twitter @BurkeMetroBOS

The post Playing the Field: Yankee Stadium – an empty, trash-filled pit on Opening Day appeared first on Metro.us.

New York City plans to start sifting through earth and debris recovered from the World Trade Center site on Monday to look for the remains of victims from the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials said on Friday.

The city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Friday advised families of the dead about the new sifting operation, the first since 2010, a spokeswoman said in a statement.

The Medical Examiner’s office has identified remains of 1,634 people out of 2,752 killed when suicide hijackers crashed into the twin towers, leaving more than 1,000 families without any physical remains of those who died.

After the initial cleanup of the site, the city scaled back operations to search for remains, drawing criticism from families of the dead, who said they could not properly grieve. The city widened its search again in 2006.

The next search will comb through 590 cubic yards (451 cubic meters) of excavated material taken from and near the World Trade Center site, said Caswell Halloway, deputy mayor for operations, in a memo to Mayor Michael Bloomberg made public by the Medical Examiner’s office.

Much of the site known as Ground Zero is a construction zone for new skyscrapers and a memorial where the twin towers once stood.

The building under construction known as One World Trade Center has surpassed the Empire State Building as the tallest in New York and, when completed, would be the tallest in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet.

The post New York to resume search for remains from September 11 attacks appeared first on Metro.us.

A coalition of federal and local officials announced Thursday the arrest of a Gramercy doctor and his office manager.

Dr. Hector Castro and Patricia Valera are being indicted on charges of trafficking oxycodone, a highly addictive prescription painkiller, between New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

An additional 47 people were arrested this week, including major drug kingpins in Pennsylvania.

The arrests occurred as part of a 15-month investigation known as Operation Cuba Libre.

Agents and officers also seized 30 guns in a series of court-authorized searches: 28 in Pennsylvania and two in New York.

Castro is accused of funneling more than 500,000 pills into the black market, amounting to at least $10 million.

Castro, Valera and three other defendants were arrested in New York and New Jersey. Another 43 suspects are being charged in Pennsylvania.

Castro is charged with the illegal sale of 39 prescriptions for $125 each, including 28 prescriptions sold to a Special Narcotics undercover officer. He was arrested at his Midtown West home at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Valera is being charged with carrying out a forgery and “criminal diversion” scheme, stemming from 155 prescription sheets she stole from Castro and his brother, also a doctor.

Castro’s brother is not accused of any wrong-doing.

Authorities say Valera’s husband, Hector Rodriguez, was also part of the scheme. They were both arrested at their home in the Bronx Tuesday morning, and when agents searched their home, they found a loaded shotgun, approximately $8,000 in cash and blank prescription sheets in Castro’s name as well as his brother’s name.

Valera allegedly sold 155 stolen prescription sheets for $500 per sheet. Many of the sheets were purchased by competing prescription drug trafficking rings in Pennsylvania.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly commended the New York Drug Enforcement Strike Force “on their vigilance and persistent effort to prosecute prescription drug dealers and distributors who maltreat the medical profession.”

“When individuals enable and exploit others’ addictions to line their own pockets, as well as possess illegal guns, the NYPD and its partners in federal law enforcement will investigate and indict them,” Kelly vowed.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Gramercy doctor busted for interstate drug trafficking appeared first on Metro.us.

The New York State driver’s licenses set to debut in July may look old-school, but they’re the very latest in technology.

Black and white photos are designed to force ID screeners to focus on individuals’ features, rather than hair color. A hard polycarbonate card will replace the old bendable one, and an array of new features such as floating “ghost images” and laser engraving will supposedly make the new licenses nearly impossible to forge.

New York will be the second state to adopt the new technology. In Virginia, which made the switch in 2009, attempted forgeries have been largely unconvincing so far.

The new licenses will cost about a dollar more apiece to produce than the old ones, but drivers will not be responsible for the increase.

The change represents the state’s latest effort to combat a booming online market for fake IDs – popular among underage drinkers, but potentially also with more serious criminals, including terrorists.

Follow Metro New York on Twitter @metronewyork

The post New Retro-Look Driver’s Licenses Aim to Foil Forgers appeared first on Metro.us.

Former Gov. George Pataki announced on Thursday that he is endorsing John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain, in the mayoral race.

“John Catsimatidis has the skills, the vision and the courage needed to lead New York City. He’ll make a great mayor and that’s why I am endorsing him today,” Pataki said in a statement.

“John Catsimatidis isn’t a career politician,” he added.

The endorsement puts Pataki at odds with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani who has backed Joe Lhota, former MTA chairman, the New York Times reports. 

Catsimatidis’ $3 billion fortune may put him at an advantage ahead of his competitors. He has already spent $260,000 on his campaign in his first two months in the race, according to the Times.

The post Pataki endorses Gristedes mogul for mayor appeared first on Metro.us.

A motion for a preliminary injustice of the controversial Cuomo gun law was denied by a state Supreme Court judge on Wednesday, reported the Democrat and Chronicle.

The plaintiffs, numbering over 1,200, sued the state over Governor Andrew Cuomo’s use of a “message of necessity,” alleging that passage of the law on the first day of session was unconstitional.

Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara shot down the motion because he “constrained” by previous decisions of the state’s highest court, he said.

He said that the courts are not allowed to intervene with a message of necessity, as decided by previous Court of Appeals rulings.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal, and said they expect the lawsuit to go before the Court of Appeals.

The governor’s office reportedly declined to comment.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Judge rules Cuomo gun law will stand appeared first on Metro.us.

Do stories of your long commute that usually begin with the phrase “You’ll never believe what happened today on the subway…” dominate your conversations? Do you and your buddies discuss who has the hardest commute? What’s worse, taking the Staten Island Ferry to work every morning or having to switch from the N to the 7 to the G to get from Astoria to Greenpoint?

According to the Census New Yorkers take the prize for longest commute time.

WNYC released a map to help shed some light on just how long the commutes are.

The map, based on census data, is pretty much what you would expect. Residents of lower Manhattan have a fairly short commute compared to those who live in places like LIC and Bay Ridge.

Are you jealous of your Financial District friends that have a 10-15 minute commute, or would you never give up your Park Slope apartment despite having a 38 minute long commute?

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

The post Map finds average time of New Yorkers’ daily commute appeared first on Metro.us.

Jodi Bernhard is in the kitchen at Casa Pomona (507 Columbus Ave.,  212-362-3200).

Credit: Karen Bruno

Nothing feels like an afterthought at Casa Pomona, where the work cooked into each dish at the Upper West Side tapas restaurant shows. From clams with a special hot sauce that started out as an accessory to cooks’ meals in the kitchen to churros that are dangerously light and fluffy, your hardest decision will be which tapas to order. Fear not, however – if you visit for the very reasonable daily happy hour (beer and wine for $5, sangria for $4) tapas at the bar are free. For a longer meal, make sure to order a glass of the Spanish garnacha, which executive chef Jodi Bernhard recommends – it perfectly complements the fare.

How did you wind your way toward Spanish food?
There are a lot of influences I had from before. I was working with Spanish food, when I first started my career. I worked really heavily with French, then I started working with Italian chefs. Those influences intertwine so readily, the European, French and Italian especially. … It literally was the appeal of being able to cook in a fairly simple and rustic style but have elements of refinement and being ingredients-focused and seasonal and simple, the ability to take one ingredient and put it on the plate and highlight it.

You were in Connecticut before. What is different about cooking in New York City?
It’s dramatically different in that I put a lot more pressure on myself more than anything. It’s a big deal to have in your head that you’re cooking in New York City. In terms of what I’m doing with the food and the styling of the menu and the kinds of dishes I’m offering, I think I’m able to get a little more adventurous, but at the same time I don’t feel like my basic menu composition has changed that dramatically.

What is your favorite dish to cook?
Mussels en escebeche. This is a dish that was totally a “me” dish. I put it on the menu because I love them, the mussels. I’m continually surprised when I get overwhelmingly positive feedback on that, not because I don’t think it’s a great dish, I do, but they’re mussels and they’re being served cold, which is unusual. And it’s also something that doesn’t leap off the page as, “Oh, that’s definitely something I’d order.” But they have caught on.

What are you experimenting with right now?
I’ve started to focus a little bit more on seafood. That’s always a pretty prominent ingredient, of course, but I feel like I’ve just gotten to the point in the last couple of weeks where I’ve been able to feel comfortable with the core menu. Last night I pulled in some razor clams, and I made this sauce actually for internal use, for people to eat who like spicy food or if a customer asks for hot sauce. People have gone so crazy with it that I’m like, “Well I guess I should use this on a dish.” I did the razor clams with that sauce, which I call the salsa roja. It was pretty neat.

The post Hot Chef: Jodi Bernhard from Casa Pomona appeared first on Metro.us.

Running a city as large and dynamic as New York comes with a cost – sometimes that’s in the form of physical injury or in the worst cases, even death. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in December that 71 New York City workers died on the job in 2011, the highest number in . At the top of the most dangerous industries for workers were jobs in trade, transportation and utilities, followed by construction and government.

Metro examined five of the jobs where the threat of injury looms large.

In his 29 years of maintaining the third rail for MTA subway, New Jersey resident Richard Holley said that he knew one co-worker who was electrocuted and another who was struck by a train. “It happens infrequently now because of all the safety regulations put in place,” Holley, 52, said. To ensure the third rail is constantly powering subway cars, Holley and his colleagues work in shifts around the clock. But rubber mats, insulated gloves and insulated tools have not prevented the 600-volt rails from exploding and injuring workers. “You can’t put enough safety precautions there as long as we’re working on the rail live,” Holley said.

New York cab drivers are another group that often put their life at risk, from dealing with drunken passengers to regularly being robbed. Taxi driver and Queens resident Key Chun Kim was beaten into a coma on New Year’s Day after fighting with a passenger over a fare. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is currently pushing a bill to make it a felony to attack a taxi driver.

Cab driver John McDonagh said he has several safety precautions he’s learned in his years driving the city’s streets. He never double parks behind a car so he can pull out quickly when danger strikes. “I had a guy put a gun to my head once,” McDonagh, 58, said. “He wouldn’t pay through the window.” A native of Queens, McDonagh has been driving taxis since 1977. “Most of the problems happen at night,” he said. “You try to avoid insanely drunk people.” But most challenges come from passengers who pretend to have no cash, disappear into apartments to get money or use counterfeit bills. McDonagh hopes the new taxi-hailing app “Hailo” will make his job safer as users pay fares beforehand.

The Sandhogs have been blasting through the city’s bedrock since building the Brooklyn Bridge in 1870. They are now constructing the Second Avenue tunnel, which exploded at 72nd Street last August. No one was injured, but in 2011 falling concrete killed Michael P. O’Brien, 26, a Sandhog working under Park Ave. Such deaths are rare, however. “In order to construct anything people are going to get hurt,” Sandhog business manager Richard Fitzsimmons said.

Keeping New Yorkers safe puts the lives of NYPD bomb squad workers at danger as they dismantle suspicious packages, including the Times Square car bomb from 2010. Staten Island resident Detective Michael Oldmixon, 50, has been on the bomb squad for 13 years. “We had a guy with improvised hand grenades on him. We had to hold him down and cut all the stuff off,” he said of a Bronx incident in 2002. With bomb-sensing robots and dogs, injuries are few, although the risk remains.

Being an ironworker, one of the people, who build the city’s bridges and skyscrapers is in the blood for Barry Collins.

“It’s a thrilling career,” Collins, 60, said. Since his grandfather became an ironworker in the 1920s, Collins’ father, brother and several uncles and cousins have followed suit. “It’s not an easy job. It breaks your body down,” said Collins, a long-time Yonkers resident. “Even if you don’t get seriously hurt you’re always breaking fingers.” Regularly moving steel pieces seven tons or heavier means fingers and toes are easily crushed. Trauma is another risk. “A guy falls 20 feet and he breaks his leg. It’s horrible,” Collins said. “You go to work and you pray that everybody goes home safe.”

The post Most dangerous industries in New York City appeared first on Metro.us.

(Rikard Larma/Metro)

A Northwest New Jersey volunteer ambulance driver was arrested Wednesday night after he responded to an emergency call drunk, according to police.

James Rigney Jr., 39, a member of the all-volunteer First Aid and Rescue Squad in the small town of Hackettstown in Warren County, NJ, drove to an emergency call around 9  p.m. with a blood alcohol content of .08, according to Hackettstown Police Sgt. Darren Tynan.

Tynan said an officer at the scene “noticed that the ambulance drove past where the medical call was, the ambulance then turned around at some point and then entered the wrong way into the complex.”

The officer on scene then detected an odor of alcohol on Rigney’s breath. Rigney refused to perform a field sobriety test, but officers gazed his eyes for clues.

Rigney was charged with driving while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated in a school zone and careless driving. The emergency squad is investigating the incident, but no decisions have been made, Tynan said.

Follow me on Twitter @tommyrowan

The post New Jersey ambulance driver responds to emergency call drunk appeared first on Metro.us.

The decades-long fight for women’s equal pay in New York is finally gaining traction, spearheaded by Governor Andrew Cuomo and encouraged by his supporters.

Cuomo made women’s pay equity one of the 10 goals in the Woman’s Equality Act he announced over the weekend — and a recent Quinnipiac survey showed many New Yorkers stand with him. Fifty-three percent of those polled said that equal pay for women should be the highest priority for the state legislature, with another 36 percent saying it should be a high priority. Only 10 percent considered it lower priority.

A report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in December indicates that in 2011, New York State female full-time wage and salary workers made median weekly earnings of $760 — or 85 percent — of the $894 median weekly earnings for their male counterparts.

Beverly Neufeld, the director of the Equal Pay Coalition NYC, believes now is the time for pay equity reform.

“There is talk on all state levels about economic security, understanding that women are a driving force in the economy and businesses do better when they have routine loyal and committed workers,” Neufeld said.

Elizabeth Mason, an employment lawyer in Manhattan currently represents a client who was overlooked for a promotion. Although she had as many work responsibilities and was more educated than her male co-worker, she made significantly less money.

“It was very clear from the supervisor’s comments, and even the male individual, that she was not being treated equally and fairly because of her gender,” Mason said.

This case and others got Mason thinking about the reasons pay equity hasn’t already been enacted.

“From a pragmatic standpoint, the reason why there is this feeling of unequal pay is because employers have been allowed to get away with it due to an employee’s inability to know what her co-workers are making. Until the playing field is leveled, women employees are a distinct disadvantage,” Mason said.

Women’s rights experts give a range of reasons for why women aren’t paid the same as men, including the fact that historically men have always made more, the different career paths a woman might chose to go into, whether they took time off to raise a family or not, and whether women may be less likely to ask for a raise.

Linda Hartley, 58, the vice president of New York Women’s Agenda who works full-time as the president of Hartley Consulting, said she faced pay discrimination in the 1980s when she worked at a fundraising development office. Although her boss told her she was much more effective than the man who previously held the position, a colleague told her that she was making to 20 percent less than the man when he worked there. Hartley said that after bringing the matter up with her bosses, she finally earned a significant raise, although still less than her predecessor.

Her experiences with pay inequity informed her women’s rights work today. “This isn’t something we should be talking about anymore,” she said. “We should be done. Move on. There are other things that deserve our attention.”
It hasn’t been easy to move on, but Sonia Ossorio, president of the National Organization for Women New York City, said she thinks Gov. Cuomo can make it possible.

“There are certainly very strong players in the business community that can lobby against these basic inequity reforms and there has been a lack of political wealth to fix this problem,” Ossorio said. “Our current governor appears to be making up a lot of that. If we want to see our daughters earn their fair share, we need to act now. We need to do it or we’re going to see another generation being underpaid.”

NUMBER

$74,215 Average salary for a man in New York City, according to PayScale.com, which collects salary info

$58,360 Average salary for a female in New York City

The post Equal pay for women battle gains traction in New York appeared first on Metro.us.

Must be able to fly to the Hamptons at a moment’s notice. Yachting skills a plus. And be willing to refill the refrigerator.

These are just a few of the challenges offered up by the super rich, and a new breed of domestic staffer is filling them.

Experts in the industry are chattering about the “Downton Abbey” effect – the hit British drama follows a manor’s family and their servants in World War I-era England.

And after watching stars like butler “Mr. Carson” open doors and smooth jacket shoulders, some New Yorkers want that for themselves.

Bertold Wiesner, managing director at Society Staffing, which provides British-style services, said calls increased after the show, now about four or five inquiries a week.

“There is a certain amount of glamour to the world they inhabit,” Wiesner said of the show’s allure.

Mary Jane Seymour at Chelsea-based The Butler Did It, Inc., which provides special events staffing, said New Yorkers want familiar faces, requesting the same people again and again, which resembles ‘Downton,’ where staffers live in and stay for years.

“In that sense, it is a little ‘Downton,’” she said.

Within Society Staffing’s job listings are phrases found in the show — one woman in Tribeca wants a lady’s maid to organize her seasonal wardrobe and prepare her for events.

In the show, personal maids help ladies drip in jewelry and dress lavishly for even a routine dinner at home.

And although butlers, ladies maids or valets will work in Manhattan apartments, not the sprawling English countryside, most demands remain the same, Wiesner said — unwavering loyalty and discretion.

Most clients are executives with families living on Park or Fifth Avenues, said Society Staffing CEO Robert Parry. New Yorkers are a different breed of boss.

“They know exactly what they want, so it’s always a challenge,” Parry said. “They want to have the best of everything.”

What does a Butler do?

Wiesner recently launched a “Butler for a Day” service, which lets clients try out a butler at the cost of up to $1,000, depending on services. The tasks themselves range daily, Wiesner said. Some are “mundane,” he said, like stocking the fridge or booking a car, but others may be more spontaneous or complex, like finding balloon rides for a party or specific embroidery for a garment. And getting the gig isn’t easy – New Yorkers want staffers to be college educated, fluent in at least one language – preferably French – and well traveled with a valid passport. “They must be able to travel privately, leave any time at the client’s discretion,” Parry said. Wiesner manages the company’s European offices, but he previously worked as a butler around the world for clients, including New York. One client in the Hamptons asked him to check electric dog fences surrounding the property.  “I was shocked like 38 times,” he said.

Listings on the Society Staffing site:

A Great Neck family would pay a butler/house manager more than $90,000, but a must is “providing excellent service to residents and guests alike.”

Much like the butler in Downton, they would be in charge of liaising with staff and overseeing daily meals.Another butler wanted on the Upper West Side would need to travel to the Hamptons and live in during the summer months. Pay is $80,000 plus.

A woman in Tribeca wants a lady’s maid to organize her closet and keep track of her seasonal wardrobe and prepare clothing for personal events for a salary upwards of $60,000.

Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter: @reporteralison

Follow Metro New York on Twitter: @MetroNewYork

The post Manhattan taking tips from ‘Downton Abbey’ appeared first on Metro.us.