New York City

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Oh Calcutta! Opens in Long Island City and Other NYC Restaurant News

      by

      Oh! Calcutta opens in Long Island City; Grand Brasserie fills Vanderbilt Hall with Parisian flair and more restaurant news.OpeningOh! CalcuttaThe louche collection of sketches by the critic Kenneth Tynan that opened Off Broadway in 1969 has inspired the name of this new restaurant in Queens. Ruhel Amin, who has Indian restaurants in Harlem and Williamsburg, presents dishes from Kolkata, including a Lake Market fish fry, vegetable cutlet, chapli kebab with minced lamb, and kosha mangsho, a goat curry here. Workhorses like butter chicken, rogan josh and saag paneer are also on the menu. The chefs are Sharmeen Rahman and Lisha Khondoka; both women have worked in Mr. Amin’s other restaurants.10-57 Jackson Avenue (50th Avenue), Long Island City, Queens, 718-532-0017, ohcalcuttanyc.com. Grand BrasserieRick Blatstein, having sold OTG, his airport restaurant company with hundreds of outlets, continues to think big. His new company, Vizz Group, has taken over the landmark Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal, previously run by City Winery, and the adjacent dining room, formerly Cornelius. Grand Brasserie is an airy 400-seat restaurant and bar, open during the terminal’s hours. The Rockwell Group’s design with Art Deco and Beaux Arts accents and splashes of scarlet on tabletops and seats reflect the style of many Parisian brasseries and railway terminals. (Opens Sunday) 89 East 42nd Street.TzikiSouvlaki and gyro are the featured players in this Greek spot with counter service from the restaurateur Harry Nicolaou and the chef Alexandros Gkoutsi. Pork, beef, chicken and mushroom are the options sliced from pirouetting spits or strung on skewers. Homemade sourdough pita are underpinnings or wraps. The space has been decorated with the work of the artist Alexandra Manousakis, a native of Crete, including handmade ceramics. (Thursday, Sept. 5)209 Seventh Avenue (22nd Street), tzikisouvlaki.com.Mr. Baovia Mr. BaoAn uncommon specialty has come to the heart of Midtown: abalone. Empress International, a South African food company with a location in Old Tappan, N.J., imports the shellfish from South Africa. It has opened a duplex restaurant, where the entire menu is devoted to abalone, often in Asian preparations. The mollusks are farm-raised in an area just south of Cape Town. Abalone spring rolls, dumplings, skewers, stir-fried with Wagyu, fried rice, in tom yum soup and cucumber salad ($9.95 to $39.99, with a 25 percent opening discount until the end of this month) are some of the options. The company also plans restaurants in Chinatown and Long Island City, Queens. It’s not connected to the Mr. Bao chain of fast casual spots.110 West 40th Street, 929-302-3551, mrbaous.com.Joo OKA freight elevator whisks guests to the 16th floor of the building where the setting replicates a traditional Korean home or hanok. Original industrial elements share the space with Korean art. The chef, Chang ho Shim, is opening his New York restaurant for the prolific Hand Hospitality restaurant group. He seeks local ingredients for an upscale menu in the works, which could include items like shrimp and vegetables with pine nut sauce, mollusks and pickled quail egg with homemade perilla oil, and seafood with smoked soy sauce. (Tuesday, Sept. 3)22 West 32nd Street No. 16, 646-410-0332, joo-ok.com.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      U.S. Open: What You Need to Know

      by

      The tournament runs Aug. 26 to Sept. 8 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City.For much of the year, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York, is mostly quiet. But for two weeks late in the summer, the place becomes the center of the tennis world as thousands of fans flock to Flushing Meadows for the U.S. Open.Qualifying matches are already underway, and the main draw of the U.S. Open begins on Aug. 26. The Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon Championships and the Olympics are in the books, so this is the last chance for the world’s top tennis players to win a major title this year.A few are favored to win this year, but the U.S. Open has been known for upsets, thrilling matches that can run late into the night.Here’s what to know about this year’s tournament.Riders on the No. 7 train pass the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAll aboard the No. 7 train.From Manhattan, one of the simplest — and fastest — ways to travel to the U.S. Open is by taking an eastbound No. 7 subway train to the Mets-Willets Point station. Once you’re there, just follow the crowds to the tennis grounds.Those in Long Island or Manhattan can also take Long Island Rail Road to Mets-Willet Point. The Port Washington Branch departs Manhattan from Penn Station, with a stop at Grand Central Terminal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      AOC, Once an Outsider, Takes Center Stage at DNC

      by

      Four years ago, Democrats allotted Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York a scant 90 seconds to speak at their convention. She used it to symbolically nominate Senator Bernie Sanders for president and never mentioned Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s name.So when Ms. Ocasio-Cortez took the convention stage on Monday night in Chicago shortly before Hillary Clinton, her prime-time speaking slot offered a vivid display of how far the Democratic Party and the leader of its progressive wing have moved to embrace each other since 2020.Greeted with chants of “A-O-C,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist who made her name by taking on the Democratic establishment, delivered an affectionate tribute to Mr. Biden, laced into Donald J. Trump and forcefully endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as a champion of working Americans.“We know Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing palms of his Wall Street friends,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.”She added: “The truth is, Don, you cannot love this country if you only fight for the wealthy and big business.”The thunderous applause that followed would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. At their last convention, Democrats seemed more comfortable spotlighting Republicans supporting Mr. Biden than a young leftist like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, whose policies and rhetoric they feared would alienate moderate swing voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Judge Finds Flaws in New York City’s Cannabis Enforcement Efforts

      by

      The city has appealed the judge’s ruling in favor of a convenience store in Queens that could have broader implications for enforcement.A state judge has ordered New York City to allow a convenience store in Queens to reopen after it was accused of selling cannabis illegally, a decision that could significantly affect the city’s effort to wipe out thousands of unlicensed sellers.The city quickly appealed the ruling issued Wednesday by Justice Kevin J. Kerrigan. He found that the city sheriff’s office had no legal reason to keep the store at 35-12 Bell Boulevard padlocked because the underlying summons had been dismissed after the city could not prove it had delivered it to the right person. The sheriff’s office issued the summons during an inspection in June, charging the store with selling cannabis without a license.After the summons was dismissed on procedural grounds, that should have been the end to the case, Justice Kerrigan wrote in his decision.Instead, the hearing officer, a lawyer who assumes the role of a judge in the case, went on to recommend that the sheriff’s office keep the business closed because she believed illegal activity was taking place at the store. She also concluded that she did not need to determine whether the illegal activity was more than minimal in making her recommendation, he said.The sheriff’s office accepted the hearing officer’s recommendations. The hearing officer’s guidance was wrong, Justice Kerrigan ruled.The series of decisions, he wrote, resulted in “a clear violation of due process under the 1aw.”“The court acknowledges that the unlicensed sale of cannabis within the City of New York represents an enormous public health concern,” he added. “However, summarily shuttering businesses prior to taking the necessary steps to determine whether a violation has occurred stands against the cornerstone of American democracy and procedural due process.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Columbia President Nemat Shafik Resigns After Israel-Hamas War Turmoil

      by

      Nemat Shafik is the third Ivy League president to resign in the wake of turbulent congressional appearances and strife connected to the Israel-Hamas war. Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, resigned on Wednesday after months of far-reaching fury over her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and questions over her management of a bitterly divided campus.She was the third leader of an Ivy League university to resign in about eight months following maligned appearances before Congress about antisemitism on their campuses.Dr. Shafik, an economist who spent much of her career in London, said in a letter to the Columbia community that while she felt the campus had made progress in some important areas, it had also been a period of turmoil “where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,” wrote Dr. Shafik, who goes by the name Minouche. “Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.”She added that her resignation was effective immediately, and that she would be taking a job with Britain’s foreign secretary to lead a review of the government’s approach to international development.The university’s board of trustees named Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, a medical doctor who has been the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center and dean of its medical school since 2022, as the interim president. The board did not immediately announce a timeline for appointing a permanent leader.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      An Artist Faces Climate Disaster With Hard Data and Ancient Wisdom

      by

      Research meets poetry in Imani Jacqueline Brown’s exploration of oil extraction and its consequences for her native New Orleans — and for the planet.Every Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the members of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang emerge onto the streets of the Tremé neighborhood in a dawn ritual that dates back more than 200 years. Clad in black-and-white skeleton suits and ornamented papier-mâché masks, they wake the city to the sound of drums and bells summoning the ancestors.Their ritual carries deep significance, even lessons for the whole planet, said the artist and activist Imani Jacqueline Brown, who filmed the procession this year. “They’re breaching the divide between the world of the spirits and the world of the living,” she said. “They are singing to us that we’ve got to live today because tomorrow we might die.”Brown, 36, grew up in New Orleans; she now lives in London, a member of the research and visual investigations group Forensic Architecture. An exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in Manhattan through Aug. 31 combines her research chops with the poetry and spirituality that she sees in the grass-roots culture in her hometown.Les Cenelles, a contemporary string ensemble from New Orleans, performed at the opening of Brown’s show, in late June.via Imani Jacqueline Brown, Storefront for Art and Architecture; Hatnim LeeThe show, titled “Gulf,” is written with a strike-through and pronounced “Strike Gulf.” Its central focus is the impact of the oil and gas industry on South Louisiana. But the more sources Brown mines — including core samples of deep-sea drilling by geologists in the Gulf of Mexico and archives of oil boycott campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, along with her own footage from New Orleans — the broader the scope of her project becomes. It reaches back into geological time while linking to the climate emergency today.The resulting works bring some welcome lyricism to the field of “research art.” The exhibition includes a video installation in which the Skull and Bone Gang procession, bathed in bluish light, is overlaid on footage she made at the city’s aquarium, where sharks and rays float around a model of an offshore rig in a display about the Gulf of Mexico that is sponsored by oil corporations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Mayor Adams Expected to Name Robert Tucker as New Fire Commissioner

      by

      Mr. Tucker will succeed Laura Kavanagh as leader of the Fire Department of New York City. A longtime supporter of the department, he has worked for 25 years in law enforcement and private security.Mayor Eric Adams is expected to name Robert S. Tucker as the new commissioner of the New York Fire Department, making him the 35th person to lead the agency, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.Mr. Adams is expected to make the announcement at a news conference on Monday.Mr. Tucker will take over leadership of the department from Laura Kavanagh, who stepped down last week after announcing in July that she would resign. Joseph Pfeifer, who served as first deputy commissioner under Ms. Kavanagh, briefly served as acting commissioner after her departure.As commissioner, Mr. Tucker will oversee a department of 17,000 employees, including firefighters and emergency medical workers.The appointment of Mr. Tucker was first reported by The Daily News on Sunday night.Like his predecessor, Mr. Tucker has never been a member of a fire company. He has, however, maintained longtime connections to the Fire Department and to law enforcement circles in the region.Mr. Tucker is on the board of directors of the FDNY Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the department. He also serves on the board of trustees for the New York City Police Foundation and as a police board commissioner for the Westchester County Police Department. Mr. Tucker was appointed in late 2021 to serve on Mr. Adams’s mayoral transition team, working on the Public Safety and Justice Committee.Mr. Tucker’s appointment is “a good thing” for the department, said Daniel A. Nigro, who served as fire commissioner for eight years before retiring in February 2022. Mr. Nigro, reached by phone Saturday in anticipation of Mr. Adams’s announcement, said he got to know Mr. Tucker through the FDNY Foundation and that he was a “highly intelligent” person who “knows his way around New York.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Adams Blocks Law That Bans Solitary Confinement in New York Jails

      by

      Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in New York City jails and suspended parts of a law banning solitary confinement, a day before it was to take effect.Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in New York City jails on Saturday and issued an executive order that blocked key parts of a local law that would have banned solitary confinement in the jails.The order, one of three Mr. Adams issued on Saturday that pertained to the jails, was an unusual step that came only one day before the law was set to go into effect. It was the latest move in a protracted battle over the legislation between the City Council and the mayor, a former police captain who ran for office on a public safety message. After Mr. Adams vetoed the bill in January, arguing that it would make jail staff and detainees less safe, the Council issued a rare override of his veto.The law would have banned solitary confinement for detainees who were accused of breaking jail rules, beyond a four-hour “de-escalation period” during an emergency. It would also have limited the use of handcuffs or shackles to restrain detainees riding in Correction Department vehicles.“The Department of Correction has been laser focused on reducing violence in our jails to protect both the people in our care and correctional staff who boldly serve our city,” Amaris Cockfield, a City Hall spokeswoman, said in a statement, noting that the federal monitor who oversees the jails had raised concerns about the law.The state of emergency is expected to remain in effect for 30 days, though Mr. Adams can extend it for additional 30-day periods. He has declared states of emergency before, including in response to the migrant crisis and the outbreak of monkeypox, but Ms. Cockfield noted that the mayor has never before issued an emergency executive order in response to newly passed legislation.It was unclear on Sunday what steps the Council would take in response. Emergency executive orders can only be challenged through the court system. But the mayor’s actions were attacked by elected officials who had backed the bill, including Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, who called the decision an “abuse of power.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More