NYC Sentinel

Show lights up Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central became the intersection of transportation and holiday spirit Monday morning as the annual holiday show season kicked off.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chairman Jay Walder and television health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz flipped the switch on the Grand Central Holiday Laser Light Show, bringing dancing snowflakes, virtual mistletoe and a  dizzying spinning Pegasus to [...]

Fake MTA tweets rile, amuse

As Twitter increasingly becomes the playground for snarky commentary, fake media personas are emerging. One new account is @FakeMTA, joining other fake personalities including @FakeAPSytlebook and @BalloonedBoy.
Transit officials are not impressed.
It’s not surprising considering the mocking tone of the tweets. A few recent tweets include:

“Today in Transit History: 1898-Subway adopts F.R. Sneed’s newly patented [...]

Council grills NYPD, MTA on sexual harassment on subways

Council member Darlene Mealy has been groped on the subway. She has been touched and rubbed against.
“I am still traumatized by it,” said the Brooklyn Democrat, chair of the Women’s Issues Committee, about her trips across town in the early 1990s.
“You have to think about what women go through everyday. It should be better than [...]

Classical Latin America

Anyone who believes that classical music is the sole province of old Europe, think again. Or better yet, just listen to Polly Ferman play the piano.
Ferman, 65, grew up a precocious pianist in Uruguay. She started playing at age three, gave her first concert when she was seven, and by 11 had played with a [...]

123 Sesame Street, New York, New York

On November 10, 1969, Ernie and Bert had their first sketch and Gordon took a girl named Sally on a tour of the neighborhood. The 8-foot-2-inch Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Susan and Bob all entered the scene, and the numbers two and three, the letter W and how milk is made [...]

Awards drive bus service to increase speed, reliability

If today’s Pokey, Trekkie and Schleppie Awards ceremony is any indication, rapid transit is a misnomer in the world of New York City buses.
The awards, given annually by the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, honor the slowest bus, the most unreliable bus and the bus with the longest scheduled running time in New York City. This year’s [...]

Writing for those he left behind

For all the hand-wringing about the financial woes of the journalism industry, a free press remains a sacrosanct component of American democracy. While American journalists are worrying about losing their jobs, some foreign journalists have much more at stake when they go to report a story.
Habtamu Dugo has lived in New York with asylee status [...]

DA’s office, Verizon team up for victims of abuse

Domestic violence hits close to home for Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes. He grew up with an alcoholic father who frequently used Hynes’ mother as a punching bag.
“I will never forget the first time I saw my father beat up my mother,” Hynes said. “I was just 5.”
This past made Hynes particularly proud to [...]

First drink at the “Blind Bar”

“This place is kinda packed for a Wednesday.” Lavar Phillips ushers his friend Shoniqua Hamilton into a midtown dive-bar. Hamilton turned 21 a few months ago, and this is her first visit to such an establishment.
The Limerick Pub near 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue is an Irish pub full of all the clichés. Four-leaf clovers [...]

Organizing Action: Disabled in Action monthly meeting

There was a certain informality, bordering on disorganization, about the monthly Disabled in Action meeting held in the first floor auditorium of Selis Manor in Chelsea on Sept. 13. Although chairs had been put out, many members rolled their wheelchairs right up to circular tables arranged around the room. By 1:30 p.m., the meeting had [...]