Results tagged “publishing”

The NY Times reports that the Star-Ledger, NJ's largest paper (15th largest in the country, with a daily circulation of 345,000), "will cut its newsroom staff about 40 percent by year’s end, one of the largest reductions in a single move by a major American paper." This comes after grim talk from its publisher, Advance Publications, saying that the newspaper would fold if there were not a number of concessions made from staff and unions. The unions agreed to new deals and the Times explains that buyouts will be given to "about 150 news employees who requested them." A memo said that many employees applied for buyouts and some will be turned down. Some employees said It's possible that the paper will hire new employees, too.

There have been worries that NJ's biggest paper, the Star-Ledger, will close, as it has been losing $30-40 million a year. The publisher outlined that it could stay opened if 200 buyouts are accepted by staff and union concession are met. Last week, its mailers union agreed to a new deal and yesterday the deliverers union reached a deal with Advance. Now all that's left is finding 200 employees willing to take buyouts, but Advance president Donald Newhouse said, "We're very hopeful that everything will fall into place."

The NY Sun reports that Jones received a $40K advance for her booked titled, "Untitled Novel" and Marchand received $75K for hers, called "Broken Silence" -- the former is four years late, and the latter is two years overdue. C'mon ladies, even 50 Cent turned in a manuscript for the publishing house! However, maybe they should be cut some slack since they each did some jail time when they (or a ghost writer) could have been laying down some ink about their lives. And besides, Kim was busy writing her other book, The Price of Loyalty, due out later this year through St. Martin's Press.

Martial arts master and star of movies and television, Chuck Norris, is suing a New York publishing company along with a Brown University student who established an Internet site that passes along purported facts about him. The Norris-facts phenomena is a longtime Internet meme and the actor says that he doesn't mind when sites continue it as long as they are non-commercial. Ian Roberts, the Brown student who operates one Norris-facts site, teamed up with Penguin publishing to market a book compiling the humorous two-liners. According to a separate site, the following are the most popular facts about Chuck Norris.

Former New York City Mayor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is finding that his campaign for highest office is foundering in Florida--the state that his campaign has identified as a crucial crucible. The primary vote in the Sunshine State will occur on Jan. 29, and with approximately six weeks to go, Rudy's trailing competitors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. According to a survey conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen, Romney is tallying 27% support, followed by Huckabee with 23%, and then Giuliani with 19%. Giuliani's organization dismissed the results of the Rasmussen poll as unreliable.

With street-side Christmas trees going for more each year and the average apartment size decreasing, we propose the adoption of a new holiday standard: Enjoy your Christmas Tree in a highball glass. To wit: Clear Creek Distillery’s Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir, 375 milliliters of pine flavored brandy, found at Red Hook booze and esoteric spirits emporium LeNell’s. This small, $45 bottle is cheaper and has a lesser environmental impact than deforestation, and will definitely last longer than most trees (at least if used sparingly). Made in Oregon from the actual buds of Douglas Fir trees, the Eau de Vie has a faint green color that’s not surprisingly “all natural.” Sample cocktail: Substitute some Douglas Fir brandy for half the amount of rum called for in a traditional mojito recipe. Keep the mint and the lime, and call it a Tannenbaum. Start a new household tradition today, but enjoy responsibly – this tree could burn your liver down.

Resumes are being accepted to fill a sudden vacuum in the self-proclaimed “drug ring” that is Gawker. On Friday afternoon, at the end of a long Gawker post about palling around with the n + 1 crowd – who happen to be publishing a long think-piece on Gawker in their new issue – editor and cewebrity Emily Gould abruptly announced that managing editor Choire Sicha was to resign. And she would be joining him....

Edward Albee’s 1958 play The Zoo Story was a watershed moment in American theater, despite being ignored for two years by New York producers. Though the riveting two character play marked the arrival of a significant new American voice, it first premiered in Germany; not until 1960 was The Zoo Story performed in the U.S, and then not even in New York, where it’s set. Albee’s breakthrough one-act concerns a random, ultimately violent encounter between...

Controversial publisher Judith Regan dropped a 70-page lawsuit on her old bosses at Harper Collins and News Corp yesterday. The $100 million defamation suit claims she was the victim of a smear campaign in order to protect Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid (read: Rupert Murdoch's political agenda). She states they asked her to lie to federal investigators about her one-time lover and former police commish, Bernard Kerik (who at the time was working with Regan on...

Standing at just under 2 feet tall on a "tower" display stand, and containing around 800 pages -- there's a new book in town! And it's not going to fit in many people's apartments.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unstable building at 37th Ave. and 31st St. in Queens, a stabbing on State St. and 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn, and an organ transport on the Cross Island Parkway in Queens.
• GrandOpening on the LES is following up its single-table storefront Ping Pong concept with another slice of Americana: the drive-in movie theater. $75 will secure all six passenger seats in a ragtop Ford Falcon. We recommend burning the two extra tickets for a less awkward double date.
• In what to us makes NJ Gov. Jon Corzine seem like a candidate for a "Ripley's, Believe it or Not!" segment, the reformed seatbelt wearer had 10 pounds of excess bone growth removed from his femur during surgery today. Ten pounds!
• The Times' Freakonomics blog notes that panhandlers may earn more than low-ranking NYPD cops.
• Four tales of people who just had to leave the city.
• The New York Post will soon start publishing a Page Six glossy magazine that will weigh in at almost 100 pages and come as an insert with the Sunday paper.
• Friends and family gathered today for the official naming of the block at 53rd St. and 8th Ave. as Jerry Orbach Way.

The NY Sun opens the books on Bellevue Hospital's creative output. That's right, Bellevue has been publishing literature under The Bellevue Literary Review. Perhaps it's about time the 271 year old walls began to talk.

You may know Peter Yarrow best by his first name. He was part of the '60s folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary. The group launched their career at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village in 1961 and went strong for nine years.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at Richmond Terrace and Federal Place on Staten Island, a water rescue at Chambers St. and River Terrace off Manhattan, and a homicide at Bruner and Barnes Aves. in the Bronx.
• A Connecticut doctor lost his family yesterday after two men broke into his home and held them hostage, while one family member was taken to a nearby bank to withdraw money. After killing the man's wife and two teenage daughters, the suspects set the house on fire before being apprehended at a police road block.The doctor survived a head wound and is in stable condition.
• The Weekly World News, the checkout line eye-catching tabloid that brought us Batboy, is folding in early August. There are rumors in the publishing world that Teen Vogue may follow suit.
• A stripped-down, one act version of the Broadway production Suessical will be playing at the Lucille Lortel Theater on Christopher St. this summer and all tickets are free.
• A puzzling brickwork sybmol built into a wall on Pearl St. in 1832. The building was destroyed, but the section of wall was preserved to keep the mystery alive.
• Curbed looks around the Domino Sugar plant on Brooklyn's waterfront.
• G-Unit member and rapper Tony Yayo rejected an offered plea deal that would have him serve nine months for slapping and punching a 14-year-old on 25th St. this March.
• 22-year-old Derick Phanord was arrested and charged with animal cruelty after police said he confessed to tying his dog to a tree, dousing it with clorox and then gasoline, and then setting the pitbull on fire. Phanord pleaded not guilty, but police say that in his confession, Phanord admitted he left his dog to die because it was "unfriendly."
• ConEd hasn't cornered the market on poor service. Blackouts are happening all over San Francisco today, and the servers for sites Craigslist, Live Journal, VOX are all temporarily offline.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial roof collapse on Union St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at Coney Island and Brighton Beach Aves. in Brooklyn, and a slashing at Dyckman St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
• Artie Fufkin speaks! Paul Schaffer, who was the musical director of the Blues Brothers, keyboardist for Bill Murray's lounge singer character on SNL, and the bandleader for David Letterman's "The World's Most Dangerous Band" since 1982, is publishing his memoirs. Yeah!
• A local moving company is converting a number of its trucks from diesel to biodiesel fuel in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• The producer of a Broadway show called "My First Time" is employing a mindreader to determine who gets free tickets to the show. Recipients must affirm via a psychic they are virgins.
• A 17-year-old was shot several times in the head as he lay in bed in the middle of the afternoon while visiting relatives in the Bronx.
• Juana Yolfo is a Spanish-speaking 106-year-old woman who was born in Puerto Rico before moving to Brooklyn and then settling in the Lower East Side more than 40 years ago. She's celebrating her birthday this week after more than 50 years as a NYC resident.
• Al Sharpton as Apollo Creed? The reverend is getting in shape to pummel Giuliani if there's any hope the latter's electoral prospects brighten.
• Carroll Gardens parents are in a huff about youthful neighborhood ruffians, who are disrespectul to adults and unmindful of younger children as they engage in shenanigans and otherwise behave like hooligans.

There's a thought-provoking essay in the Observer suggesting it's time to take down the huge American flag in the heart of the terminal. The flag was placed in Grand Central soon after September 11, 2001, and MTA Metro-North spokeswoman says the flag's "nearly four stories tall" size is "basically unprecedented." (There is also a smaller, standard sized flag in the hall.)

The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting, which coordinates film and television production and issues permits around the five boroughs, is considering rules that could potentially severely restrict the ability of even amateur photographers and filmmakers to operate in New York City. The NY Times reports that the city's tentative rules include requiring any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and $1 million in liability insurance. The regulation would also apply to any group of five or more people who would be using a tripod for more than ten minutes, including the time to set up the tripod. Does the Gorillapod count?

David Rakoff is the author of the hilarious and best selling essay anthologies Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable, countless articles that have appeared in publications such as Vogue, GQ, and Salon, and has contributed to NPR's This American Life. Gothamist sat down with the writer to discuss his genesis and his moments of doubt.

In one of those weird societal flip-flops, The New York Times today reports on a group of graffiti artists who are suing to limit the expropriation of their commercial property for public display. The Tats Cru and a dozen other street artists whose work don the walls of buildings all over the city are suing the author, publisher, and an exhibitor of a book about urban murals - aka in NYC. They feel that the expropriation via public display of their work, which is rooted in a culture of communal ownership of public space, has infringed on their property rights.

The New Yorker was actually shut out, not garnering a single award for any of its nine nominations; it was the most-nominated publication in 2007. New York's five awards were for General Excellence (250,000 to 500,000 circulation), Profile Writing, Magazine Section, and Design. The magazine's online site nymag.com won an award for Interactive Feature. Other big winners last night were National Geographic and Vanity Fair, with two awards each. Rolling Stone, Wired, Foreign Policy, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were other winners of General Excellence awards. If you'd like to judge for yourself, links to all of the nominated and winning articles are available here.

The Bancroft family, who owns a controlling interest in publicly traded Dow Jones & Co., Inc., is considering an unsolicited bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase The Wall Street Journal. Trading in Dow Jones shares was halted temporarily after their price jumped 57%, or nearly $21 during the day. Murdoch is reportedly offering $60 a share for the company, which would make the total offer worth approximately $5 billion. The New York Times reported last week that he loses approximately $70 million annually running the NY Post, which seems to confirm our suspicion he secretly swims Scrooge McDuck-style in a huge vault of cash.

In the masses of offerings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, there's quite a few strong New York-centric selections both in and out of competition to seek out. Granted at $25-$14 per, tickets for the festival don't come cheap, so if you're going to see something at the fest make it a local joint.

edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Smith, to be published by Harpercollins in 2008. But that's just the beginning, as Smith is quick to point out. Gothamist chatted with Smith about his very common last name, print vs. web magazines, and why six words can be enough to tell a good story.

Randi Weingarten=Sandra Froman? Mayor Bloomberg had some fighting words for those who criticize his handling of the public schools. He compared his critics to the National Rifle Association: "You always do have the problem of a very small group of people who are single-issue focused having a disproportionate percentage of power. That's exactly the NRA." He also accused the UFT of wanting to roll back reforms:

There's the political power of people who just want to pander when they come out and they find something wrong with everything. There are the newspapers that can never find anything good enough. They're in favor of change but they've never yet in their whole publishing history seen a change that was good enough.

A recent series of essays about New York that we enjoyed is Colson Whitehead's The Colossus of New York. What are some books about New York that you like?

Today the NY Times reviews a new show at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Titled “Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X,” the exhibit explores 70 architectural magazines published in New York and elsewhere during the period. Pamphlets and building instruction manuals are included in the "little magazine" category.

Gallery-goers may have shown up at Julie Saul Gallery for last Thursday’s opening reception of Brian Ulrich’s Copia—stunning photographs that show how mass production permeates the everyday life of pop princesses and counterculture teens alike—but it was Roz Chast’s Theories of Everything series that sideswiped the show. Originally scheduled to close last month, the exhibit has been extended to February 10. And with good reason.

Have you sworn at the subway turnstile/bus display that says "Insufficient fare"? Have you suffered "Turnstile Groin" after trying to walk through with an insufficient fare Metrocard? Or do you hate the Metrocard vending machine with a secret passion?