If you live in New York, and you’ve picked up a newspaper, you’ve no doubt read about the New York City Police Department’s pesky problem of stop-and-frisks, the tactic used by police to…randomly stop-and-frisk whoever they feel may or may not be carrying something on them that makes them worth arresting. Does it help? Is it racial profiling? It is a total, outright, so-blatant-as-to-be-downright-impressive-in-scale violation of every fundamental civil liberty you assumed most people to have had but are now coming to realize simply don’t? Read More

Air Force One was headed to Minnesota today, where the president was unveiling a new jobs program for veterans, but en route, the press office revealed that when President Obama visits New York in two weeks, the World Trade Center will be among his stops.

During a press gaggle on the flight, deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the visit was scheduled to coincide with Flag Day. (Not mentioned: It would also coincide with a fundraiser that night at Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s West Village townhouse.) Read More

Last night The Observer cornered Manhattan Media CEO and mayoral candidate Tom Allon at an apartment on Spring Street, where the savvy New Yorker was managing to combine his special day with some work stuff.

We had arrived in the middle of one woman’s speech about why Mr. Allon’s views on teachers was inspiring. (Mr. Allon had taught English at Stuyvesant High School after graduating from Columbia, after all.)

After the woman had tearfully finished, we approached Mr. Allon. “As someone who has to balance a media and political career, who is your inspiration?”

“Boris Johnson,” he said, laughing. And to clarify: “Wait, I’m just kidding!” Read More

The Observer got an alarmed email from a reader, whose thoughtful daughter sent her our article on the proposed bike helmet legislation, which the reader does not like one bit. Her email, cleverly titled “Will mom opt for civil disobedience?,” expresses some serious concerns about the possibilities of being forced to wear a helmet, and the reason such legislation does not make sense.
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At the Pier 15 party last night, after discussing the beauty of the pier itself, as well as SHoP’s work further up the East River Esplanade, particularly the new Pier 35, which Amanda Burden described as “fantastic,” the City Planning Commission chair shared her thoughts, however brief, about  NYU’s upcoming expansion. The commission will be voting on the plan come Wednesday.

“It’s perfectly balanced between the needs of the community and the needs of the university,” she said. Read More

Politico enraged much of the media this morning when it published an article accusing top competitors The New York Times and The Washington Post of biased campaign coverage, favoring President Barack Obama.

To us, it seemed like a shameless beat-sweetener. Signal to the G.O.P. that you think the other guys were unfair, the thinking goes, and then watch the Mitt Romney exclusives roll in. Read More

City Councilman David Greenfield is introducing a bill today to require every New York City cyclist to wear a bike helmet.

It is an intriguing proposal on a number of levels.

Currently, only children 13 and younger are required to wear a bike helmet. Think of the last time you saw a cyclist cruising by—were they wearing a helmet? Through highly unscientific personal observation, this reporter would say odds are evenly split for and against helmets. Maybe it’s a little higher, hopefully, so this is simply a safety measure, and a warranted one, like seat belt laws.

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Yesterday, The Journal (rightly) complained the lack of progress at two major affordable housing projects, Hudson Yards and Willets Point. This got The Observer wondering about another, though: whatever happened to Hunters Point South, which was approved the same day almost four years ago as the Willets Point project.

Things are moving along quite nicely, it turns out.

It may seem as though there has been limited tangible progress since Related Companies was tapped to develop the project in February of last year, but that is because most of the work is being done below the surface—with on the banks of the East River and the banks of housing finance. Read More

A note to our colleagues: Now may be a good time to stop sleeping in the office. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had The Observer on his mind yesterday at the Friends of the Hudson River Park’s sping gala, reminding partygoers that FOHRP board chair Douglas Durst ranked fifth on The Commercial Observer’s Real Estate Power 100, Read More

It’s the kind of mistake that’s irresistible to social media wits: an iPhone app for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign misspells the word America. The app lets users take photos and it currently superimposes the legend “A Better Amercia (sic)” over them. While the Romney campaign is seeking to have the app corrected and replaced in the iTunes store as soon as possible, jokes about the screw-up spread like wildfire across Twitter Tuesday night. It is tempting to run down a catalogue of wisecracks but one tweet represents the general tone pretty well: Read More