Note to NYC: San Francisco’s secret to supreme park-friendliness is spending

The new “apple green” taxis. [via Kristen Artz/ Azi’s morning briefing]

Mayor Mike Bloomberg and transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at the Municipal Arts Society Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal Awards dinner. [Kirsten Artz / Azi’s morning briefing]

It’s true!

“If anybody looks at my schedule and sees what I’m doing, it’s not under the radar by any stretch of the imagination,” said Thompson on Friday night, at a party that its host, a political consultant named Steve Kramer, advertised as “the greatest party you will go to in Williamsburg in April this year.”

Would you vote for him?

DRINKING IN THE SPRINGTIME: New art on our homepage (and on this Tumblr) by the lovely Alex Citrin, who is on Tumblr!

View a larger version of this illustration here.

Steve Vaccaro, an attorney at Rankin & Taylor, one of the city’s most aggressively pro-bicycle law firms, has argued that the definition of recklessness should be reevaluated.

“I’ve had cyclists come to me with charges of criminal mischief because they rapped on a person’s vehicles while the driver was backing into a bike lane,” Vaccaro told Capital in an interview. “If a driver drives into you and kills or injures you, that’s criminal negligence. There are different classifications. Killing someone is more serious than criminal mischief. The NYPD makes excuses.

“There’s an understanding for a driver who is unaware of his surroundings and people around him. But the cyclist who is rapping on a person’s vehicle can be charged with criminal mischief. The difference is that a cyclist knows he’s touching a car and a driver doesn’t know he’s hitting or running over a cyclist. And it’s not just the police. It’s judges who have that perspective. And that affects what charges district attorneys brings.

On the trail of ‘ghost bikes,’ families and friends of cyclists killed on the streets of New York rally for more police action | by Aaron Short | Capital New York

“In New York City, there are very real concerns about the cost of living, and whether we are creating a city so dense and so expensive that it will repel diversity, both ethnic and economic. That diversity is vital, and correct, particularly as the city contemplates ways to accommodate a population boom over the next ten years.

But the rest is just nostalgia. We New Yorkers are thought of as a nostalgic bunch, but that’s not quite right. We archive and study the past because we know here in a way that they can’t quite know in Mayberry that things change all the time, and we want to remember all of it. We want to understand all of it, and here, nothing lasts long enough to be understood in its actual lifetime.

When it comes to ‘knowing’ New York City, the line that I think of is Chaucer’s version of one of the oldest proverbs of antiquity: ‘The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.’”

- Tom McGeveran in our newsletter. Have you signed up yet?

What the heck is a bioswale? And how does it help New York City’s water flow? Find out here at Capital New York!

Christine Quinn for NYC mayor in 2013? She tops a (very) hypothetical field of candidates in the latest Q-poll. Thoughts?

Sidewalk couch reading in New York City. [via Azi’s morning news briefing]

Here’s what the new South Street Seaport is slated to look like. What do you think?

Read more about the plans at Capital New York.

lizarnold:

redeyednblue:

In the spring of 2013, the Water Tank Project will work with talented artists, as well as local students, to transform New York City’s many water towers into public art installations to raise awareness about water conservation. Learn more at their website, or suggest a water tower in your hood that you’d like to see get a makeover!

Water Tower Art, 2013

I feel like these artist kids can do better than painting W. A. T. E. R. on some water towers, no? Use that suggest link!

This photo is real. (via NYC Parks’ Facebook page)