by Yori Yanover
Used to be you crossed an Hell’s Angel, he and his buddies would beat the stuffing out of you. Nowadays you’re more likely to hear from their lawyer, most likely Ron Kuby. WNBC reports: The attorney for a member of the Hells Angels promised a federal lawsuit Tuesday against police over the biker’s alleged wrongful arrest after a woman was found unconscious outside the club’s Manhattan headquarters. There was “absolutely no evidence” linking Richard West to the incident, said Ronald Kuby, lawyer for the motorcycle club. Kuby said West, who joined him at a news conference outside the Angels’ Lower East side headquarters, would sue the NYPD. He says West was taken into custody hours after Roberta Shalaby, 52, was found unconscious outside the building late Sunday with a head injury and bruising around the eyes.

by Tibi Z. Singer
Community groups including Transportation Alternatives, civil liberties advocates including Norman Siegel, and members of New York City Council including Rosie Mendez will rally today at 12:00 noon outside One Police Plaza to protest New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly’s most recent attempt to chill the exercise of free speech and gatherings in public places. On Friday Jan. 26, the NYPD promulgated new rules dictating when and by whom parade permits must be obtained.

by Yori Yanover
Had enough location shooting on your block? Brace for this note from the New Yorker: Even by local standards, last Tuesday’s shoot, for “I Am Legend,” a forthcoming Will Smith disaster movie, was remarkable. Since shooting began, in October, “Legend” has been establishing a new precedent for the aggressive takeover of public space. The movie camped out in Washington Square Park for weeks in October and November, restricting access for most of that time, and occasionally setting off loud explosions in the wee hours. Tuesday night was the first of six night shoots on Dover Street, near the Seaport.

by Yori Yanover
The commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, Iris Weinshall, will resign her post to accept a position at the City University of New York, according to the Sun. Ms. Weinshall, the wife of Senator Schumer, has been appointed vice chancellor for facilities planning, construction, and management at CUNY, where she will oversee a capital construction budget of more than $3 billion. Our corner of Grand Street and the FDR Drive was recently afflicted with Weinshall’s special flair for arbitrary street design mixed with just a touch of arrogance (the median death trap and the traffic-choking bike lanes). Can’t wait to see what’s in store for CUNY…

by Don Cruise
The city’s first robotic parking opens next month on the corner of Baxter and Hester Streets in Chinatown. The only other public robotic garage in the United States has been troublesome, dropping vehicles and trapping cars because of technical glitches. Nonetheless, the developers of the Chinatown garage are confident with the technology and are counting on it to squeeze 67 cars in an apartment-building basement…

by Yori Yanover
We, Benny’s passengers, cringe in fear, presuming correctly that we, too, may be treated to the same fate if Benny doesn’t obey those exceptionally vociferous orders. But Benny is nobody’s bitch…

by Don Cruise
As a little child on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I wondered about the Jewish world that existed side by side with our Puerto Rican one in the late ’50s and ’60s. I was raised Roman Catholic by Puerto Rican immigrants who arrived in the mid-’50s…

by Don Cruise
In October, the New York City Housing Authority came up with a plan to cover the deficit, but it has outraged advocates. City Council Member Rosie Mendez sharply questioned the agency’s general manager about the plan at a recent public hearing, which was overflowing with angry tenants and advocates. But she emphasized that the answer to the housing authority’s problem lie outside of the room. “We’ve been lobbying as legislators” for the state to restore its operating subsidy, she said during a break. “We’re hopeful that finally the state will step up…”

by Jonathan Slaff
A child uprooted from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, separated from her grandfather during her rescue and whisked off to distant relatives in New York, finds herself in a strange new world. Laurel Hessing’s verse play with music for young audiences tells the experience of dislocation as an animal story…

by Don Cruise
A new, over-the-top bar is like an itch in the unmentionables: even if it’s not your style, you’re still curious what all the fuss is about. Here’s their website, which plays a non-stop salute to anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti. Later this week, the fuss will be about GoldBar. We don’t know much, because the owners are cagey and neighborhood kids stole our lockpick set, but here’s what we’ve got…

by Gayle Snible
There are 59 construction projects occurring simultaneously in just one square mile of Lower Manhattan. These projects will transform the area over the next few years. To provide the public with a view of the neighborhood’s future, The New York Public Library is presenting Lower Manhattan 2010. It runs through September 15, 2007…

by Julie Muller Stahl
This ensemble of multi-disciplined performers produces bold, moving theatre that engages topics from African American culture to Muslim American identity, from HIV/AIDS to race and gender relations, from academia to pop-culture, exploring the social concerns of today’s young adult generation…

by Yori Yanover
Last night the East River Park became winter wonderland – it’s amazing how far this park can stretch one inch of snow… After shul I took my bike down to the track at 10th Street and was gratified to discover only a handful of nuts with parklust similar to mine.

by Pat Arnow
An Officer Nicholas is at the front desk of the police station on Delancey and Pitt. The woman describes what happened. The officer wants to know what race the kids were. Black. (She’s white.) How old? About 15. Did they demand money? No. Did they touch you? No. Officer Nicholas says it doesn’t sound like a report needed to be filed. “They just politely asked for money,” he says…

by Joe Soldevere
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14) is touting legislation she recently reintroduced (H.R. 435) that would help ensure that the federal government uses the most accurate methods to collect royalties on natural resources taken by oil and gas companies from taxpayer-owned land…

by Don Cruise
Built about 1829 at 281 East Broadway, as one of a group of three for Isaac Ludlam, a New York City surveyor, the house occupies a twenty-foot wide lot on the south side of the street. Two-and-a-half stories high and three bays wide, the house has characteristic features of the Federal style including Flemish bond brickwork, brownstone lintels and sills at the window openings, and a sloping roof with two pedimented dormers containing arched window openings…

by Melissa D. DeRosa
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez introduced H.R. 655, “The Pathway to Preservation Act,” to make it easier for local governments to purchase HUD-owned buildings that are slated for foreclosure, preserving affordable housing opportunities for low income families in the city and across the nation…

by Don Cruise
On Thursday, January 25, the coldest airmass of the season has gripped New York City, bringing sub-zero wind chills and temperatures in the teens. OEM reminds New Yorkers to dress warmly when they must go outside — layer clothes to capture warm air, wear mittens, scarves and hats, and keep clothes dry…

by Don Cruise
A Lower East Side con man copped a plea to ripping off hundreds of thousand of dollars from more than 60 priests around the country by claiming he needed the money to get his mother out of a desperate situation. Robert Riggio ‘fessed up to wire-fraud charges for giving his lucrative sob story to clergy members he cold-called after finding their numbers in a directory at the New York Public Library…

by Tibi Z. Singer
It used to be an Orthodox synagogue, on Allen Street near East Broadway. Now it’s a temple, not sure if Buddhist. Also not sure what is it, exactly, that they’re selling for 99 cents?

by Don Cruise
The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it’s people, instead of sleds, it’s shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it’s New York City. The fourth annual event happens January 27, 2007. Teams of five will race for cash prizes and glory…