Daily Transom | The New York Observer

Today in Local Sports Coverage: A Fifty Thousand Dollar Finger

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:34:33 -0500

Fifty thousand dollars. That's what Rex Ryan owes the Jets for displaying his middle finger to some taunting Dolphins fans in Miami.

Mike Vaccaro declines to take the high road on this one.

I have to be honest: I think I probably flip someone the bird in that spot, but then I’ve never been guided by the better angels of my nature nearly as often as Sister Mary McCauley would have liked. Maybe that means I...

Today in Local Sports Coverage: 'They're Mark's Knees'

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:45:03 -0500

Bad news for the Jets? Mark Sanchez looks like he's going under the knife for arthroscopic surgery on what we thought was his good knee.

The Daily News says he's "becoming more like Joe Namath every day," and says the procedure isn't yet for certain because it's "elective."

"Nothing has been finalized," [Mike] Tannenbaum said at a news conference to wrap up the just-completed season. "They're Mark's knees, not mine. He has to make that final...

Today in Local Sports Coverage: Damon Walks

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:36:00 -0500

Johnny Damon gets a farewell back cover from your tabloids this morning.

The consensus seems to be that neither side won when the Yankees signed Damon's discount replacement, Randy Winn.

He might have chased a few extra bucks and left behind a Stadium that ideally fit his swing and a winning, big-market club that fit his outsized personality. Of course, the Yankees, too, are losing that Stadium swing and imperturbable personality, and are replacing Damon with...

Today in Local Sports Coverage: A Startlingly Good Changeup

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:02:58 -0500

Get ready for six months without Rex Ryan. Three days after the Jets' surprise season ended in Indy, both back covers belong to Johan Santana, who threw 25 pitches to an 18-year old catcher in Florida yesterday. The Daily News was there:

The ace howled in delight after one...

Anywhere but Downtown!

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:51:15 -0500

In his nearly 24 years as president of the powerful Real Estate Board of New York, Steven Spinola has rarely seen his members so riled up. "They're saying to me, 'You've got to stop this, you can't let it happen.'"

The commotion: the Obama administration's plan to hold its 9/11 terror trial in the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

Pleading with any and every elected and government official with potential influence on...

The Man Who Closed Times Square to Traffic

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:50:41 -0500

Standing along a busy downtown Manhattan street, Mark Gorton lamented all the traffic.

"It's not that cars are inevitable; it's that we've tried really hard to jam these cars in here," said the founder of The Open Planning Project (TOPP), a nonprofit dedicated to transportation reform. On a wall of the nonprofit's office, just north of the vehicular chaos of Canal Street, sprawls a map of Manhattan. To Mr. Gorton, it represents...

Janklows' Greenwich Village Townhouse Sells for $15.35 M.

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:53:23 -0500

According to city records filed Monday morning, Lucas Janklow and soon-to-be ex-wife, Julie, shed their Greenwich Village townhouse for $15.35 million. The New York Post's Jennifer Gould Kiel broke news of the closing earlier this month but at that point only the asking price was known, $17.9 million. The five-bedroom townhouse at 16 West 12th Street is one of several architectural gems on the coveted downtown block.

Lucas Janklow, the curly-haired adonis who put...

REBNY’s Independence Party Funds

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:37:20 -0500

The $700,000 or so in funds the Real Estate Board of New York raised to win elections with the Independence Party are now public, displaying the names behind the real estate industry's nascent push to bring a stronger business voice in state politics and counter the Working Families Party.

The money last fall went to a set of individual Council campaigns, in which the party funded mailers and field operations to push voters to...

Speyers Throw In the Towel, Hand Stuy Town to Lenders

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:03:57 -0500

More than three years after it began, real estate giant Tishman Speyer's ambitious and high-priced quest to control a chunk of the East Side of Manhattan has come to a close.

Early Monday morning, Tishman Speyer and partner BlackRock issued a statement saying they intend to transfer control of the 11,200-unit Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village to their creditors. (The decision was first reported late last night by the Wall Street Journal.)

And so ends the bumpy...

Swig Shutters Helmsley Spear Brokerage

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:23:55 -0500

Kent Swig is shutting down the Helmsley Spear brokerage, according to a broker who attended a Friday meeting at about 3 p.m., at which the announcement was made.

Steven Kerschenbaum, executive vice president of Swig Equities, Mr. Swig's property investment and management firm, made the announcement, while Mr. Swig toyed with his PDA, according to our source.

"What really bothers me, really bothers me, is that the women here, the support staff, haven't gotten paid in three weeks, and won't know when they...

REBNY's Big Apple Circus and the Mystery of the Cash Bar

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:53:46 -0500

Real Estate Board of New York President Steven Spinola escorted Governor David Paterson through the cocktail reception before REBNY's 114th annual banquet on Thursday evening at the Midtown Hilton. "This is Sandy Lindenbaum," Mr. Spinola said, introducing the governor to the legendary real estate lawyer (interviewed in November by The Commercial Observer). "He's one of our honorees tonight."

"Oh, congratulations," the governor said. Mr. Lindenbaum nodded and was on his way as were...

Sander, Former M.T.A. Chief, to Chair Regional Plan Association

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:24:39 -0500

Lee Sander is back in the advocacy world.

Executive director of the M.T.A. between 2007 and mid-2009, Mr. Sander Thursday was elected chairman of the Regional Plan Association, the prominent advocacy organization that pushes for greater transit investment and rational urban planning.

Mr. Sander, pushed from his M.T.A. job amid a restructuring by Governor Paterson, with whom he never had a close relationship (Governor Spitzer appointed Mr. Sander), used to work closely with...

Today in Local Sports Coverage: Mangini Feels Like Fifth Beatle

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:57:04 -0500

Your sports reporters rolled through their Rolodexes yesterday, making for a couple of beefy tabloids this morning.

Gary Myers gets a solid quote from Eric Mangini, who was apparently at Disney World with his kids. (If I were Bill Simmons, I'd make the "Eric Mangini, where are you going now that you've finished 5-11?" joke.)

Mangini said his brother-in-law, a high school football coach, came up with the Beatles comparison. "He said, I'm Pete Best and...

Whither the Ugly Sidewalk Shed, Slayer of Urban Vitality?

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:39:04 -0500

One of the more pernicious byproducts of building renovations in this city may be getting less noxious.

Sidewalk sheds—the ugly one-story scaffolds that line every mid-sized or tall building in the city at one time or another during renovation, inspection and construction—can now take another form. The Bloomberg administration announced Thursday the winner of its sidewalk shed design competition, with the winner being Young-Hwan Choi, a first-year architecture student at Penn who designed...

Today in Local Sports Coverage: The Face Time

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:15:53 -0500

It's Thursday, so you know it's a Mark Sanchez morning in your local papers. He appeared for his Wednesday chat with the media sporting a four-week beard.

Mike Vaccaro has decided the beard is covering the Face of the franchise, and in a somewhat creepy column, takes to just calling him The Face.

The Face of the franchise, the Face of the future, is screaming at you from the cover of Sports Illustrated, a football in...