Results tagged “orchardbeach”

It's sort of fitting that with our death sand and polluted water that our city's beach lifeguards are probably drunk and under-trained. Going to the beach is now just as adventurous as going to Tompkins Square Park after midnight in the 80s—danger lurking around every corner and no one there to save you! Anyway, the NY Post is reporting on the sad state of affairs, saying the Parks Department has launched an investigation into beer drinking at the Orchard Beach lifeguard office; which comes on the heels of the Rockaway iPod lifeguard incident.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: serious trauma at Attorney and Houston Sts. in Manhattan, a water rescue at 1st St. and Astoria Blvd. in Queens, and a gas leak on Kingsland Ave. in Brooklyn.
• The NYPD and FDNY collaborated yesterday to put divers in the dark and frigid waters off a jetty at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, in order to rescue a 14-year-old boy trapped in the rocks of the jetty as high tide encroached. They were successful and none of the rescuers was injured.
• Newark hasn't experienced a single murder in more than 30 days, the longest stretch of non-killing since 1963.
• An entire Queens family--mom, dad, son, daughter, and son-in-law--were arrested this week for running a family cocaine distribution business out of their quiet home.
• The freaks of Coney Island's past, present, and possible future.
• Joe Torre all decked out in his Dodger blue and white uniform.
• Al Sharpton digs to the root of Major League Baseball's steroid scandal and determines that it's all about criminalizing black men.
• Thanks to everyone who came out to our Movable Hype show last night at Union Hall in celebration of our 5 year anniversary. And a special thanks to Craig Wedren for deejaying and Salt & Samovar, The Forms and Pattern is Movement for playing. You can watch a clip of The Forms performance here (courtesy of Sam Horine).

Now we know what happened to the NYPD's 2003 pilot program to have some of its officers use Segways: The batteries (which were eventually recalled) would make the entire Segway stop when they were dead, so officers were fall off. Now, the NYPD has decided the newer models are up to snuff and will make like it's 2003 by having 10 Segways patrol various parts of the city starting today.

As the debate about the former Parks Commissioner rages on, Venerated newsman Gabe Pressman is cheerleading for Robert Moses. In an article posted on the WNBC web site, Pressman says that he knew the master builder.

On average, the warmest days of the year occur in the third week of July. From the 20th to the 22nd mean high temperatures are 85 degrees and the average low is 70. Starting tomorrow we are going to be well above those temperatures for several days, if not at least a week. Today’s cloud cover, and possible rain shower later in the day, will hold our temperatures down to the mid-80s. The clouds will mostly disappear tomorrow, leaving the sun to its own devices and heating us up to 90.

Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters.

Pass the Deep Woods-Off! Rog the Armchair Athlete tipped us off to an awesome experience, if you're into sleeping bags, starry skies, and NYC parks: The Parks Department's Under the Stars campout on June 24. There will be "night hikes, s'more making, campfire games and wildlife searches" in one park in each borough. The participating parks are Orchard Beach in the Bronx, Marine Park in Brooklyn, Alley Pond Park in Queens, Wolf's Pond Park in Staten Island, and the Great Hill in Central Park! Has anyone gone before? We'd imagine there's a big police/parks department presence. That and a big Porta potty presence.

We're always looking for current bike path maps. The most authoratative comes from Transportation Alternatives, but it's a 1.5MB PDF, and hasn't been updated this year. The NYC Bike Map 2006 mashup pictured above is attempting to fill in the gaps, but seems to be missing a bunch of the smaller paths. We've already featured the Secret Bike Maps page-- but still haven't taken that trip to City Island. Has anyone successfully biked up there from Manhattan? We've circled the route on the map above, but we're not sure how long it would take to get there and back, and none of our pansy-ass friends will do it without some more information.

Way back in 2003 the City started a program called "Adopt-A-Park" through which people or companies could give money to a specific park in the city, be it for a bench, a tree, or even a stone on a pathway. The program, which you can sign up for here, has been wildly successful and so today the Times takes a nice look at who's been sponsoring what in the parks.

Wi-Fi Salon is installing Wi-Fi into 10 city parks over the next few months. Central Park will have eight hot spots (including the zoo, Delacorte Theater, and Boathouse), as will Orchard Beach, Flushing Meadows, Van Cortlandt, Pelham Bay, Prospect, Riverside, Union Square, and Washington Square Parks. The Daily News says that Battery Park's hotspot, near Battery Gardens, is already running and that Wi-Fi Salon is paying the Parks Department for the right to install the network, hoping to encourage people to join its IP phone service. Whatever the reason, Gothamist can only say hurrah, because if there's one blogging goal we have, it's to live-blog monkeys throwing poo at us from the Central Park Zoo.