Tuesday, July 3, 2018

EVG Etc.: NYCHA's staggering repair bill; CitiBike's new owner


[Sunset and shadows on St. Mark's Place]

The NYCHA needs $32 BILLION for repairs over the next five years (Curbed) More than 800 kids tainted by lead in NYCHA buildings, city says (Daily News)

Why Gabrielle Hamilton, chef/owner of Prune on First Street, would want to team up with an accused sex harasser (The Post)

Lyft buys CitiBike (Gothamist)

Should you worry about falling window A/C units? (Curbed)

Q-and-A with writer/DJ/goth scholar Andi Harriman (Flaming Pablum)

Grand/Clinton Street gridlock update (The Lo-Down)

Opening a fire hydrant is a long city summer tradition (Ephemeral New York)

The business success of Luke's Lobster, which got its start on 7th Street in 2009 (CNBC)

1986 Tonya Harding doc "Sharp Edges" gets a 1-week run starting Friday (City Cinemas Village East ... and background here)

U.S. premiere of the documentary "A Skin So Soft" begins on Friday (Anthology Film Archives)

About that cartoon video for Richard Hell's "The Kid With the Replaceable Head" (Dangerous Minds)

NYC’s first bike counter is at the base of the Manhattan Bridge (Streetsblog)

There's a special breakfast-taco menu tomorrow from 6:30-11 a.m. at Superiority Burger on Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...


An EVG reader shared this photo ... showing that GoLocker has set up shop at 508 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B in a building owned by the Kushner Companies.



The Brooklyn-based company, which launched in 2014, delivers parcels to lockers stored in neighborhood businesses. There was a set of GoLockers in the back of the Gentle Wash Laundromat on Avenue A, though those were recently removed.

... and EVG reader Andy Reynolds reports that an equipment truck for "The Deuce" shoot on Seventh Street this week took out a nice-sized branch near Second Avenue...



4 comments:

Giovanni said...

The headline should read “Lyft Buys Citibike In Preparation In Last DItch Attemot to Make it Profitable.” The companies that run Citibike (the first one went bankrupt, the second one just got sold to Lyft for less than half of what Fox paid for MySpace) has never made money (and neither has Lyft) but Lyft has lots of money to spend (for now) and they probably won’t want to spend it by expanding a money loser like Citibike, at least not in its current form.

Dockless Pedal assist bikeshares and electric scooters have put the brakes on bike shares that require docks, so Lyft will probably buy a few more companies and offer a wider array of vehicle options. This will allow them to either shrink Citibike’s footprint and/or expand service using other types of dockless shares in other areas.

The good news is that this is forward progress for a company that desperately needed deep pockets and expertise in new forms of transportation and technology. They will eventually drop the Citibike name as well in order to roll out the Lyft Bike brand nationwide.

Now if only Uber would buy the MTA, this city might finally figure out how to run its transportation system.

JQ LLC said...

The "people" working on these film shoots are getting more reckless and defiantly more arrogant. What's really demented about this is that nobody watches "the deuce", I am surprised this show is still on considering the similar lack of viewers for their other bullshit ny nostalgia show "vinyl". And now a living tree got butchered because of this.

I am very disappointed at David Simon most of all, this is the guy who made "the wire" but it seems he's gotten a bit crass and oblivious himself recently with this incident and the witness complaints in the last post and how he vouched for his fellow writer for this show off on charges related to a drug overdose death.

https://nypost.com/2017/08/03/wire-creator-vouches-for-hbo-producer-in-docs-fatal-overdose/

Giovanni said...

@JQLLC. Totally agree. No one should be surprised at the arrogant behavior of these TV and movie show crews. What do the show creators care about a butchered tree when one of their own is sitting in jail for being an accessory after the fact in the death of a woman he was doing drugs with in Chelsea?

It was one of the show’s co-producers who was sentenced to jail time for dragging a dying woman out of his drug dealers apartment in Chelsea and leaving her body in the vestibule. David Simon said he wouldn't have vouched for his friend had he not called 911, to which the Judge said had he not wasted time by dragging her body out of the building, and then first calling another friend before calling 911, she might still be alive. For that depravity the guy got less than a year in jail. This event was more even depraved and sordid than anything that actually happens on The Deuce, which is about as sordid as any show on HBO since OZ.

But remember, this was all before the #MeToo movement, when apparently it was still OK to drag an overdosed woman’s body into a lobby vestibule before calling another friend and the finally calling 911. Imagine what HBO would have been forced to do with the show had it happened now?

As for Vinyl, perhaps not coincidentally that was also about a drug crazed music producer named Richie Finestra, who did wild and crazy things back in the 70’s, constantly bellowing how “It’s all about the muuusic, maaaan!” while snorting coke and crashing his car, killing his best friend and unborn baby in under the Cyclone in Coney Island one fine summer evening, only to have a Buddy Holly lookalike emerge from the smoke to serenade the bloody, dying corpses.

That moment was quite possibly the worst scene in the history of television. What a trainwreck of a show Vinyl was. I doubt they will ever let Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger produce a show together again. It seems that HBO only puts big bucks into shows which provide a sensory overload full of unnecessary violence (Westworld) sex, drugs and Rock & Roll (Vinyl) and utter depravity (The Deuce). At least we still have Game of Thrones, a nice little family show that everyone can enjoy.

JQ LLC said...

@giovanni

I think the only reason Vinyl existed is so Mick could get his son a job. Great synopsis on HBO's bundle of overrated dreck. I still can't believe Scorcese was responsible for that, but I think he just put his name on it to garner interest.

I am so sorry you and the rest of the readers of this blog living in E.V. have to endure this persistent movie studio bullshit.

Nothing is going to save the MTA by the way. 9 minutes to midnight for the Canarsie Tunnel.

https://impunitycity.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/just-walk-away-from-the-mta-transit-president-andy-byford/