Whitney in 7h09

<i>An article I wrote on <a href="http://whitney.org/About/NewBuilding">Renzo Piano's Whitney Museum of American Art</a> (under construction in New York City's Meatpacking District and set to open in 2015) is published in the latest <a href="http://www.7h09.fr/home">7h09</a>, a publication out of France that focuses on a different city with each issue. The first issue presented <a href="http://www.7h09.fr/barcelone-1">Barcelona</a>, and the second one crosses the Atlantic to <a href="http://www.7h09.fr/new-york-2">New York City</a>. The issue is entirely in French, but my original English article is presented below, accompanied by my own photos (not in the print edition, which has better illustrations). Many thanks to editor Delphine Minotti for having me contribute and for allowing me to post the English text. </i><br /><br />“Third time's the charm” is how the saying goes. But for the Whitney Museum of American Art it is four. On three unsuccessful attempts the Whitney tried to expand its home at Madison and East 75th Street in New York City’s tony Upper East Side, eventually abandoning those plans for a move to the popular Meatpacking District.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/9180796728/" title="Whitney Hard Hat Tour by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Whitney Hard Hat Tour" height="800" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2814/9180796728_3d8cd3180c_c.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />[The New Whitney under construction in June 2013 | All photographs by John Hill]<br /><br />In three decades the Whitney unveiled three additions to its granite-clad building designed by Marcel Breuer in 1966. First came Michael Graves’s postmodern behemoth in 1989, which was lambasted by critics like Michael Sorkin, who tried to stop its realization by promoting the landmarking of adjacent brownstones that the scheme would have demolished. Next came the 2001 scheme by Rem Koolhaas, which maintained the subsequently landmarked brownstones with a concrete volume that aggressively rose from them and leaned over the Breuer building. Renzo Piano came closest to success on the Upper East Side with his 2004 design, unveiled when his addition to the Morgan Library and Museum was under construction two miles south of the Whitney. Yet even Piano’s relatively conservative scheme proved difficult in gaining city approval and overcoming community opposition. So two years later the Whitney announced it would realize a new building designed by Piano at the base of the then future High Line park at Gansevoort Street near the Hudson River.<br /><br />When the Whitney’s new building opens in 2015, it will be the institution’s fourth location—apparently four is the magic number for the museum in more ways than one. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor, founded the museum in 1930 to display her growing art collection that focused on “artists whose work had been disregarded by the traditional academies,” per the institution’s history. A year later the Whitney, the first museum dedicated to 20th-century American art, opened in four adjacent townhouses in Greenwich Village near her studio. In 1954 the Whitney moved into a new building on West 54th Street overlooking the Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture garden. It quickly outgrew that Midtown space, announcing in 1963 it would be moving to 75th and Madison, a move that took place three years later when the Breuer building was completed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/7074408401/" title="Whitney Studio by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Whitney Studio" height="800" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5075/7074408401_36ce62305e_c.jpg" width="553" /></a><br />[The Whitney's 1966's Breuer building]<br /><br />While focused on an impressive, ever-growing collection of American art, the Whitney is synonymous with the Whitney Biennial, which started in 1973 but extends to 1932 in the form of annual exhibitions that, for awhile at least, alternated between painting and sculpture. The Whitney Biennial is inherently aimed at the new, given that the curators choose art produced in the two-year window after the previous show. It continues to serve as an influential marker for contemporary art trends. The last Biennial in the Breuer building will take place in 2014, under the direction of three curators from outside the Whitney who will each be given one floor of the museum.<br /><br />While the Biennial defines many people’s attitudes toward the Whitney, the museum is also strongly linked with the Brutalist masterpiece designed by Marcel Breuer with Hamilton Smith. From the entry bridge traversing the sunken court under the “inverted ziggurat,” as it’s been described, to the spacious galleries capped by open grids of precast concrete and the angular windows that are abstract art in themselves, Breuer’s Whitney building is a memorable experience shaped by concrete, stone, and wood.<br /><br />A sign of the impending move can be found in the stacked shipping containers fitted into the sunken court north of the bridge. These reused industrial structures, designed by LOT-EK and housing the Whitney’s educational programs, are an uneasy fit with the granite mass above it, but their presence makes it clear the institution has outgrown its 1966 home.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/6928325900/" title="Whitney Studio by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Whitney Studio" height="800" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7255/6928325900_a1fdc11617_c.jpg" width="526" /></a><br />[LOT-EK's containers tucked into the subterranean space in front of the 1966 Whitney]<br /><br />Before construction began on the Whitney’s new building in 2011, on a site previously slated for the Dia Art Foundation (they backed out in 2006), the museum was still considering it a satellite to the Breuer building. But in May of that year the Whitney announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would take over their longtime home in 2015 (operating it, not buying it, for an 8-year period); ironically, the Met had turned down Gertrude Whitney's endowment of more than 500 works in 1929, leading her to create the eponymous institution. This decision raises a number of questions, namely: how will Renzo Piano’s design define the Whitney’s identity?<br /><br />While following the trajectory of ever-increasing size and scale across the Whitney’s 8-decade history (the collection grew from 500 at its inception to 2,000 in 1966, currently standing at over 19,000 works), the new building has more in common with Renzo Piano’s previous museums than its predecessor at 75th and Madison. When the Italian architect was chosen to add to the Breuer building, his firm was responsible for a large number of high-profile 21st-century museums in the United States: the already mentioned Morgan, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, the Kimbell Art Museum expansion in nearby Fort Worth, the High Museum of Art expansion in Atlanta, the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) expansion, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Needless to say, Piano has been the go-to architect for museums decades after he designed the Centre Georges Pompidou with Richard Rogers in the 1970s.<br /><br />Piano’s 21st-century museums—in the United States and elsewhere—are defined by simple, white-box galleries situated under custom skylight roofs that only allow indirect daylight to enter; he had first explored this approach in the De Menil Collection in Houston, completed in 1986. Simple yet carefully bespoke exteriors of metal, glass, and sometimes stone wrap the skylit galleries, making Piano’s museum’s increasingly recognizable as his own, even as they respond to the particularities of each location and collection.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/9180806550/" title="Whitney Hard Hat Tour by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Whitney Hard Hat Tour" height="480" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5503/9180806550_d23b30b077_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />[Top-floor gallery in the new building during a hard-hat tour in June 2013]<br /><br />The exact location of the Whitney’s new building is on Gansevoort Street, spanning from the southern tip of the High Line park on the east to the West Side Highway and the Hudson River beyond on the west; the High Line’s headquarters building, also designed by Piano and expected to be complete in 2013, sits just to the north. At nine stories, the new Whitney is three stories higher than the Breuer building. This verticality means that only the top floor is skylit—a gallery for large-scale art and a cafe.<br /><br />More importantly, the nine-story building is a considerable mass next to the High Line, something that Piano addresses by terracing the building away from the elevated park—the antithesis of Breuer’s inverted ziggurat where floors get larger as one ascends the building. The new Whitney’s galleries get smaller as they rise above the huge fifth-floor space for temporary exhibitions, what is billed as the largest column-free gallery space in New York City. In addition to letting more sunlight hit the park, a benefit of this stepping is the creation of terraces that the Whitney will use to display sculptures overlooking the High Line.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/9180797526/" title="Whitney Hard Hat Tour by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Whitney Hard Hat Tour" height="800" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7428/9180797526_c0367060f1_c.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />[Sidewalk-level view of new building] <br /><br />Unlike the Breuer building’s granite facade, most of the new building is covered in metal panels with selective window openings. This includes four floors of galleries (doubling the exhibition area of the 1966 design), a couple floors containing offices and a 170-seat theater, and a volume on the north side of the building that stacks a study center, conservation lab, research library, and classrooms. Below the metal-panel bulk of the building is the glassy ground floor that rises in height toward the High Line. This is an inviting gesture at Gansevoort Street that acknowledges the park even as its tries to lure people away from it, into the lobby, restaurant, and museum store behind the glass walls.<br /><br />Architecturally, the building’s form is an assemblage of the museum’s inner workings—the tiered galleries, the stacked north volume, the office floors, and the transparent ground floor. It is an uneasy combination of parts that does not congeal into a cohesive form like Breuer’s granite mass. Yet, just as criticism has been directed at Piano’s design before its realization (in May 2011, New York magazine called it “a missed opportunity of majestic proportions”), Breuer’s design was derided by critics and the public when it opened, only to become a beloved modern gem in New York City. Perhaps time and attendance figures may give the Whitney’s new building a similar future. Architectural viewpoints aside, the new Whitney is sited to open up the museum’s extensive collection of 20th- and 21st-century American art to a wider and younger audience.

Whitney in 7h09

An article I wrote on Renzo Piano's Whitney Museum of American Art (under construction in New York City's Meatpacking District and ...

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Fwd: New York City to Restrict Powerful Prescription Drugs in Public Hospitals’ Emergency Rooms - NYTimes.com

<nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City's 11 public hospitals, Mayor <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloomberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Michael R. Bloomberg." class="meta-per" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: initial;">Michael R. Bloomberg</a> said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days' worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all. And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">City officials said the policy was aimed at reducing the growing dependency on painkillers and preventing excess amounts of drugs from being taken out of medicine chests and sold on the street or abused by teenagers and others who want to get high.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">"Abuse of prescription painkillers in our city has increased alarmingly," Mr. Bloomberg said in announcing the new policy at Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital in Queens. Over 250,000 New Yorkers over age 12 are abusing prescription painkillers, he said, leading to rising hospital admissions for overdoses and deaths, Medicare fraud by doctors who write false prescriptions and violent crime like "holdups at neighborhood pharmacies."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">But some critics said that poor and uninsured patients sometimes used the emergency room as their primary source of medical care. The restrictions, they said, could deprive doctors in the public hospital system — whose mission it is to treat poor people — of the flexibility that they need to respond to patients.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">"Here is my problem with legislative medicine," said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. "It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">While someone could fake a toothache to get painkillers, he said, another patient might have legitimate pain and not be able to get an appointment at a dental clinic for days. Or, he said, a patient with a hand injury may need more than three days of pain relief until the swelling goes down and an operation could be scheduled.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Dr. Rosenau said that the college of emergency physicians had not developed an official position on the prescribing of painkillers in emergency rooms and that he appreciated Mr. Bloomberg's activism in the face of a serious public health problem. But he said pain clinics in states like Florida and California, states where prescription drug abuse is rampant, as well as the household medicine cabinet, were probably a more common source of unneeded painkillers than emergency rooms.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">City health officials said the guidelines would not apply to patients who need prescriptions for cancer pain or palliative care, and drugs would still be available outside the emergency room. They said that in this era of patient-satisfaction surveys, doctors were often afraid to make patients unhappy by refusing drugs when they are requested, and the rules would give those doctors some support when they suspected that a patient might be faking pain to get drugs.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">"There will be no chance that the patients who need pain relief will not get pain relief," said Dr. Ross Wilson, senior vice president and chief medical officer of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the city's public hospitals.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Similar rules have been adopted in Washington State and Utah. Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city's health commissioner, said opioid painkillers were not much different from highly addictive and more taboo street drugs like heroin. He called them "heroin in pill form."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">More than two million prescriptions for opioid painkillers are written in New York City each year, the equivalent of a quarter of the city's population, Dr. Farley said, and about 40,000 New Yorkers are already dependent on painkillers and need treatment. Painkillers were involved in 173 accidental overdose deaths in New York City in 2010, a 30 percent rise from five years earlier.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Officials could not say how many prescriptions were written at emergency rooms. Libby Holman, a spokeswoman for Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin, declined to comment.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Dr. Farley said the city lacked the regulatory authority to impose the new guidelines on its 50 or so private hospitals. But several private hospitals, including NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan and Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, said they would adopt them voluntarily.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px;">Dr. Hillary Cohen, medical director of emergency medicine at Maimonides, said that even now, OxyContin was rarely prescribed in the emergency room.</p></div></nyt_text><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyregion/new-york-city-to-restrict-powerful-prescription-drugs-in-public-hospitals-emergency-rooms.html?hp&_r=1&&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/nyregion/new-york-city-to-restrict-powerful-prescription-drugs-in-public-hospitals-emergency-rooms.html?hp&_r=1&&pagewanted=print</a>

Fwd: New York City to Restrict Powerful Prescription Drugs in Public Hospitals’ Emergency Rooms - NYTimes.com

Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New Yo...

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Severe Weather Advisory In Effect For NYC

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img alt="2013_01_winterwarningsnow.jpg" src="http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2013_01_winterwarningsnow.jpg" /><br /><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg briefing reporters at a Department of Sanitation facility on the West Side of Manhattan by <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCSanitation/status/299612998148947968/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Opens in a new window">DSNY</a></i><br />From:http://gothamist.com<br /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">With the Nemo Blizzard Warning <a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/02/07/what_time_is_it_going_to_start_snow.php" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">beginning at 6 a.m.</a> on Friday, preceded by cellphone carriers sending out<a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/02/07/emergency_alert_about_snow_blizzard.php" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">emergency alerts to customers in New York</a>, New York city and state officials really are battening down the hatches <a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/02/07/major_winter_storm_expected_tomorro.php" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">for the coming snow</a>. Mayor Bloomberg issued a "Severe Weather Advisory" earlier tonight: "At the direction of the Mayor, the public is hereby advised that significant snowfall has been forecast starting tomorrow afternoon through Saturday morning. The public is urged to avoid all unnecessary driving during the duration of the storm and, until further directed, to use public transportation wherever possible." (Public transportation has<a href="http://gothamist.com/2013/02/07/heres_how_the_mta_will_stare_this_b.php#photo-1" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">snow-fighting machinery at the ready</a>!)</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bloomberg also said, "As New Yorkers are making their commuting plans for tomorrow, they should be aware that driving conditions will be difficult. If you must drive, use extreme caution." His advisory continues:</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><blockquote style="background-repeat: no-repeat repeat; border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; quotes: ''; vertical-align: baseline;">The MTA has advised of potential service disruptions, and information about any service changes to public transportation is available on the MTA website at http://www.mta.info/.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />Any vehicle found to be blocking roadways or impeding the ability to plow streets shall be subject to towing at the owner’s expense.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />Alternate side parking is suspended citywide through Sunday. Due to anticipated high winds the Staten Island Ferry will be operating on a modified schedule beginning tomorrow afternoon.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />The Emergency Management, Fire, Police, Sanitation, and Transportation Commissioners will be taking all appropriate and necessary steps to preserve public safety and to render all required and available assistance to protect the security, well-being and health of the residents of the City.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />City government and public schools are open tomorrow. Afterschool programs are subject to cancellation.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />Due to potential power outages and transportation difficulties, New Yorkers are advised to stock up on potential supplies, including medicine.</blockquote>Earlier, the Mayor's office Tweeted, "We're ready for #Nemo: we have 250,000+ tons of salt on hand, 350 salt spreaders & plows ready to be put on 1,800 Sanitation trucks."<div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Governor Cuomo is also activating the NY State Emergency Operations Center Friday at noon to monitor the storm and response efforts. He said, "I urge New Yorkers to closely watch local news reports for weather updates and adjust their travel plans accordingly, including avoiding non-essential travel during and directly after the storm since roads will be icy with blizzard conditions in some places."</div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Here's the Governor's press release:</div><blockquote style="background-repeat: no-repeat repeat; border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; quotes: ''; vertical-align: baseline;">Beginning Friday morning and lasting through Saturday afternoon, significant snow and wind are forecasted to affect the metro-New York City and Long Island areas, as well the Hudson Valley. New Yorkers could see potentially significant and prolonged transportation disruptions, power outages and other impacts. The greatest concern for the Long Island area is the possibility for high winds. Gusts of up to 50 mph are expected, which could cause downed power lines, power outages, downed trees, beach erosion, battering waves, and coastal flooding. Minor widespread coastal flooding with local, moderate coastal flooding is also expected.<div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Representatives from state agencies will be present at the State EOC to coordinate storm response efforts, including Office of Emergency Management, Department of Environmental Conservation, Office of Fire Prevention and Control, Office of General Services, Department of Health, Division of Military and Naval Affairs, Public Service Commission, National Grid, Division of State Police, Thruway Authority, Department of Transportation and the American Red Cross.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York City, and Nassau and Suffolk counties report that they will activate their respective Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) on Friday; counties in the Hudson Valley, Catskill, Capital District, and Northern New York regions continue to monitor the storm.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Governor advises drivers to take extra caution and only travel when necessary during the storm. Some of the most important tips for safe winter driving include:<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Never follow a snowplow too closely or attempt to pass one. Remember that the highway ahead of the plow is usually snow-covered; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Adjust speed for road conditions and maintain a safe distance from other vehicles; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Schedule extra time for winter travel and be patient during ice and snow removal operations; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Assume that bridge surfaces are slippery, as they freeze more quickly than road surfaces; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Watch for black ice, which can be difficult to see but makes conditions slippery when pavement temperatures are below freezing; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Have a cell phone handy, if possible, but do not text while driving; distracted driving is illegal and becomes even more dangerous during storm events; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Never venture from your vehicle if snowbound; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Equip your car with emergency supplies including sand, shovel, flares, booster cables, rope, ice scraper, portable radio, flashlight, blankets and extra warm clothes; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Inform a responsible person of your destination, intended route, and estimated time of arrival; and <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Keep calm and do not panic in case of a vehicle breakdown, accident, or if you become snowbound.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">The State has taken the following steps to ensure readiness:</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Power:</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· National Grid: The Governor’s office has been communicating to National Grid that they need to be ready with advance preparations and response plans. Earlier today National Grid announced that it is taking a series of advance steps to prepare for an incoming storm and the outages it may cause on Long Island, including securing hundreds of extra work crews, adding Call Center personnel and arranging schedules to allow extended coverage, and preparing all restoration equipment and inventories and pre-stocking strategic locations across the Island with wires, transformers, and additional restoration equipment. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Public Service Commission: PSC Chairman Garry Brown has contacted the CEOs of all the major utilities to confirm storm preparation efforts. National Grid's gas operations (Long Island and New York City) are preparing for potential coastal impacts.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The New York Power Authority: NYPA’s statewide generation and transmission facilities are fully prepared for the forecast winter storm. All the required resources, including personnel, equipment and vehicles, have been put in place and are available to be called upon. NYPA will coordinate with state and local emergency management agencies, as necessary. Specific preparatory actions at the various NYPA facilities include:<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Extra personnel on shift during the storm<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Snow removal equipment fueled up, tested and ready to be utilized<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Emergency generators fueled and ready<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Supplies of diesel fuel and gasoline available at sites<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o NYPA line crews are prepared for dispatch</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Thruway Authority:</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· All equipment has been prepared for the storm including: 197 seven-ton snow plows, 142 medium-duty snow plows, 53 front end loaders, three large truck mounted snow blowers and one large front end loader mounted snow blower <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· 105,989 tons of salt on hand <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Approximately 600 maintenance staff dedicated to snow and ice operations <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· All 21 Highway Maintenance Sections will be fully staffed around the clock for the duration of the storm <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Authority will be providing staff to support the activation of the State Office of Emergency Management <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Thruway’s Emergency Operations Center is scheduled to be activated jointly with State Police Troop T on Friday afternoon <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Thruway’s Statewide Operations Center will have additional staff to handle increased call volume typical of significant weather events <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Troop T operated ATVs and snowmobiles are prepped <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Troop T will be adding additional patrols during the storm <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Due to colder temperatures and sufficient residual salt on the pavement from recent storms widespread pavement pretreatment is not required in upstate New York. Further south where temperatures are expected to be warmer, approximately 40 miles of critical ramps along with the Tappan Zee Bridge will be pre-treated.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">State Bridge Authority</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Bridge Authority has the Bear Mountain, Newford Beacon, Mid-Hudson, Kingston-Rhinecliff, and Rip Van Winkle bridges staffed 24-7 until the storm is over.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· They expect the bridges to be fully functional throughout the storm, weather permitting.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Bridge Authority has staged 14 large plow vehicles, 16 small plow vehicles, and other loaders and vehicles necessary to maintain continuous operations.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Metropolitan Transportation Authority</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· MTA New York City Transit's Department of Subways is mobilizing its fleet of snow and ice-busting equipment designed to keep outdoor tracks and the third rail clear of snow and ice during harsh winter weather. The fleet includes super-powered snow throwers, 10 jet-powered snow-blowers, and five specially-built de-icing cars, all designed to keep service moving. Diesel fleet trains are also being made available to clear snow from the right of way—while not carrying passengers. Forecasts of accumulating snow may also require NYC Transit to shift the storage locations of subway cars indoors. The outdoor steps at subway stations will shoveled and salted along with the platforms on the outdoor segments of lines.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Department of Buses has and is deploying its own fleet of snow fighting equipment, including 28 salt-spreading trucks equipped with plows assigned to each depot to maintain the flow of buses. They work in cooperation with the Department of Sanitation to keep bus routes clear and passable. Buses will be equipped when necessary with weather-appropriate tire chains.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road will deploy fleets of snow and ice-busting equipment to keep outdoor tracks, third rails and catenary wires clear of snow and ice during harsh winter weather. Track switches will be treated with antifreeze and switch heaters will be turned on to keep switches moving freely so trains can continue to be routed from one track to another. Outdoor steps at all commuter rail stations will be pretreated to prevent snow and ice build-up and shoveled as necessary. More than 3,000 staff will be on call, ready to operate equipment from snow blowers and chainsaws to heavy trucks and front-end loaders. Equipment includes jet engines mounted on rail cars to blow snow from tracks at high speeds. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· MTA Bridges & Tunnels is fitting plows onto regular maintenance trucks and salt domes are being filled with tons of deicer. The fleet also includes 45 trucks that have special ground temperature sensors, which provide information about roadway conditions on entrance and exit ramps and other areas that are not covered by embedded roadway sensors. Above-ground atmospheric sensors are also used to help gather real-time information on wind velocity, wind direction, humidity and precipitation via wireless communication. In addition, the scheduled weekend-long closure at the Queens Midtown Tunnel for post-Sandy construction work has been cancelled due to the impending storm.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />In addition, Bridges and Tunnels has on hand:<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Nearly 7,500 tons of deicer on hand;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Fleet of 98 snow and ice-fighting vehicles;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Fleet comprised of vehicles that do double-duty, serving as regular maintenance trucks during normal weather and snow plows and conveyors when in snow fighting mode;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Some 45 vehicles equipped with ground temperature sensors that tell personnel if the roadway is in danger of freezing. The operator then spreads additional deicer where it is needed and;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o MTA crossings also have imbedded roadway sensors and above-ground atmospheric sensors that deliver real-time information on wind velocity, wind direction, humidity and precipitation. These sensors record data used to determine if speed restrictions are necessary to keep the nearly 800,000 vehicles that use the MTA’s 7 bridges and 2 tunnels daily. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Some 175 additional staff on duty throughout the storm.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Port Authority</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Port Authority is putting steps in place in preparation for the first major winter snowstorm of the year. The agency is deploying extra personnel at its facilities and assembling snow equipment in advance of the wintry conditions expected to hit the region on Friday and into Saturday morning.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Port Authority will deploy additional staff at its airports, seaports, tunnels, bridges PATH system and bus terminals. Key personnel are already on notice to work overnight to monitor conditions at each of the agency’s facilities. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Preparations for the approaching storm include fueling all vehicles, ensuring fully stocked salt supplies, and having snowplows, shovels and other snow equipment at the ready. The Port Authority’s winter weather arsenal includes:<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o More than 200 snow and ice equipment at its airports, including melters that can liquefy up to 500 tons of snow an hour and plows that can clear snow at 40 mph;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Approximately 60 pieces of snow equipment at the bridges and tunnels, including 28 trucks equipped with plows and spreaders at the George Washington Bridge, the world’s busiest vehicular crossing; <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o More than 2,000 tons of salt and more than 1,500 tons of sand for airport roads and parking lots, plus more than 2,000 tons of salt for the bridges and tunnels, specifically 500 tons of salt at the George Washington Bridge and 200 tons at the Holland Tunnel;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Approximately 300,000 gallons of liquid anti-icer chemicals at the airports, which prevent snow and ice from bonding to runways and taxiways, plus approximately 1,700 tons of solid de-icers, which break up snow and ice already on the ground;<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Plow-equipped trains, liquid snow-melting agent trains and a “jet engine” plow to remove snow from tracks, and snow blowers. Plows and spreaders to clear station entrances, roads that serve PATH’s 13 stations, and various support facilities; and<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />o Approximately 1,000 staff members and contractors with years of specialized training and professional experience in handling severe winter weather at transportation facilities.<br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The Port Authority urges travelers to check with their carriers before going to the airport or bus terminals to confirm departure times. The agency also may impose speed restrictions on its crossings if weather conditions warrant.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Department of Transportation:</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· NYSDOT has more than 1,270 plow trucks and 1,582 drivers standing by to pre-treat roadways with salt brine in advance of the storm and clear snow and ice once precipitation begins. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· NYSDOT also has 366,500 tons of road salt on hand. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· Travelers are encouraged to check conditions before venturing out by accessing NYSDOT’s free 511NY traffic and travel information system, which provides real-time travel information, by calling 511 or visiting www.511NY.org. The website features a winter travel advisory system, with real-time travel reports and a color-coded map indicating which state roads are snow covered, ice covered, wet, dry, or closed to help drivers determine if travel is advisable. The system provides real-time snow and ice conditions for interstates and other heavily traveled roads, as reported by snowplow operators.</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">State Police</strong><br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· The New York State Police have a full complement of troopers and supervisors assigned to all shifts in preparation of a winter storm approaching the region. Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit and Traffic Incident Management team members will be used to supplement normal patrol coverage. <br style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />· State Police are working closely and coordinating with local County Emergency Operations Centers across the state as needed and are prepared for the potential increase in service calls for evacuations and medical emergencies.</div></blockquote><br /></div>

NYC Severe Weather Advisory In Effect For NYC

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg briefing reporters at a Department of Sanitation facility on the West Side of Manhattan by  DSNY From:http://g...

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What Tuesday's election results really mean

<div class="imgon2"><img alt="Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)" border="0" height="181" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/article_imgs10/010711-robert-reich-092813.jpg" title="Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)" width="400" /> <br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein)</b></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b><b></b></span></span><br /><div class="txtimg"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b><b></b></span></span><br /><div class="txtauthor"></div><div class="txtauthor"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>06 November 13 </b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="http://www.readersupportednews.org/">readersupportednews.org</a></b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><img border="0" src="http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-P.jpg" />undits who are already describing the victories of Terry McAuliffe in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey as a "return to the center" of American politics are confusing the "center" with big business and Wall Street.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A few decades ago McAuliffe would be viewed as a right-wing Democrat and Christie as a right-wing Republican. Both garnered their major support from corporate America, and both will reliably govern as fiscal conservatives who won't raise taxes on the wealthy.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Both look moderate only by contrast with the Tea Partiers to their extreme right.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The biggest game-changer, though, is Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect of New York City, who campaigned against the corporatist legacy of Michael Bloomberg - promising to raise taxes on the wealthy and use the revenues for pre-school and after-school programs for the children of New York's burdened middle class and poor.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Those who dismiss his victory as an aberration confined to New York are overlooking three big new things:</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>First, the new demographic reality of America gives every swing state at least one large city whose inhabitants resemble those of New York.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Second, de Blasio won notwithstanding New York's position as the epicenter of big business and Wall Street, whose money couldn't stop him.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Third, Americans are catching on to the scourge of the nation's raging inequality, and its baleful consequences for our economy and democracy.</b></span></span></div></div>

GOOD NEWS NATIONAL NEWS OPINION SIGN OF THE TIMES What Tuesday's election results really mean

Economist, professor, author and political commentator Robert Reich. (photo: Richard Morgenstein) By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog ...

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06-Nov-2013 03:58

Obama administration says health website improving - Courierpress/news/gleaner/ :: <a href="http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/nov/05/obama-administration-says-health-website/">http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/nov/05/obama-administration-says-health-website/</a><br /><br><br /><br>Illinois Sends Bill Allowing Gay Marriage to Governor - New York Times :: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/illinois-sends-bill-allowing-gay-marriage-to-governor.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/illinois-sends-bill-allowing-gay-marriage-to-governor.html</a><br /><br><br /><br>Details emerge of masterpieces in Nazi art trove - Los Angeles Times :: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-germany-looted-art-20131106,0,5856847.story">http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-germany-looted-art-20131106,0,5856847.story</a><br /><br><br /><br>Boise man confronts Anonymous rally on Capitol steps - The Idaho Statesman :: <a href="http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/11/05/2853174/boise-man-confronts-anonymous.html">http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/11/05/2853174/boise-man-confronts-anonymous.html</a><br /><br><br /><br>De Blasio Is Elected New York City Mayor, Exit Polls Show - New York Times :: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/nyregion/de-blasio-is-elected-new-york-city-mayor.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/nyregion/de-blasio-is-elected-new-york-city-mayor.html</a><br /><br><br /><br>RPT-Explosions reported in north China city of Taiyuan - Xinhua - Reuters :: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/06/china-explosions-idUSL3N0IR0H620131106">http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/06/china-explosions-idUSL3N0IR0H620131106</a><br /><br><br /><br>Suicide Ends Long Night Of Chaos Inside Mall - New York Times :: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/nyregion/mall-shooting-garden-state-plaza-paramus-new-jersey.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/nyregion/mall-shooting-garden-state-plaza-paramus-new-jersey.html</a><br /><br><br /><br>Doug Ford's broadside at police board member seen as calculated strike on a ... - The Globe and Mail :: <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/police-board-member-andy-pringle-dismisses-ford-allegation-that-he-is-in-conflict-of-interest/article15272759/">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/police-board-member-andy-pringle-dismisses-ford-allegation-that-he-is-in-conflict-of-interest/article15272759/</a><br /><br><br /><br>Christie wins re-election; seen as prelude to 2016 - USA TODAY :: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/05/chrsitie-new-jersey-governor-buono/3444479/">http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/05/chrsitie-new-jersey-governor-buono/3444479/</a><br /><br><br /><br>Democrat Terry McAuliffe projected to win Va. governor's race - Fox News :: <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/05/democrat-terry-mcauliffe-projected-to-win-va-governor-race-in-surprisingly/">http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/05/democrat-terry-mcauliffe-projected-to-win-va-governor-race-in-surprisingly/</a>

06-Nov-2013 03:58

Obama administration says health website improving - Courierpress/news/gleaner/ :: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/nov/05/obama-admin...

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Book Review: All the Buildings in New York

<a href="http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780789324672"><b><i>All the Buildings in New York: That I've Drawn So Far</i></b></a> by James Gulliver Hancock<br />Universe, 2013<br />Hardcover, 64 pages<br /><script src="http://insight.randomhouse.com/widget/viewer.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /><script type="text/javascript">new InsightBookReader('single', '9780789324672', 'All%20the%20Buildings%20in%20New%20York', 'James%20Gulliver%20Hancock', '0', '', 'http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780789324672&v=online');</script><br /><br />New York City is a great subject for just about any type of book: architecture, art, children's books, and guidebooks, to name a few. Australian illustrator James Gulliver Hancock manages to meld at least these four subjects in the first published collection of the sketches he's been amassing and sharing <a href="http://allthebuildingsinnewyork.com/">on his blog</a>. The book documents many of the city's famous architectural icons, making it an architectural guide of sorts, but it also includes many fairly anonymous buildings, which goes along with his unrealistic yet endearing goal to draw all of the buildings in New York. His style also bridges art and a children's picture book; his skewed perspectives, exaggerated details and playful compositions lean to the latter, but his abilities as an artist are clear. Some of the best depictions meld architectural perspectives with two-dimensional paintings, such as the <a href="http://allthebuildingsinnewyork.com/new/manhattan/the-guggenheim-museum">patterned abstraction</a> he uses for the addition to the Guggenheim.<br /><br />At only 64 pages the book just scratches the surface of the reportedly 900,000 buildings in New York City; one estimate is 500 buildings in the book (some sketches group multiple buildings), making it about one half of one percent of the total. It's an interesting mix of iconic buildings and what many people call background buildings, the ones that even tourists hardly recognize when walking around the city. It's clear that Hancock does not play favorites. A group of three buildings in the Lower East Side is drawn with as much attention to detail and color as the nearby New Museum; if anything the former actually gives a stronger sense of place than the latter, since the New Museum is missing its neighbors. Ultimately the book is a peek into Hancock's mind more than it is an architecture book or a guidebook. His playful and colorful style also make the book suitable for people of any age.<br /><br /><b>US: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789324679/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0789324679&linkCode=as2&tag=aweeklydoseof-20" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan.gif" /></a> CA: <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0789324679/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0789324679&linkCode=as2&tag=aweeklydoseof-20" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.ca" border="0" height="28" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan-ca.gif" width="90" /></a> UK: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0789324679/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0789324679&linkCode=as2&tag=aweeklydoseof-20" target="_blank"><img alt="Buy from Amazon.co.uk" border="0" height="28" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/buy-from-tan-uk.gif" width="90" /></a></b>

Book Review: All the Buildings in New York

All the Buildings in New York: That I've Drawn So Far by James Gulliver Hancock Universe, 2013 Hardcover, 64 pages New York City is a g...

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NEW YORK ELECTRIC GRID CRASHED FROM ERASMUS OF AMERICA - NOV. 9, 2013

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div><span style="font-family: arial black,sans-serif; font-size: medium;">NEW YORK ELECTRIC GRID CRASHED FROM ERASMUS OF AMERICA - NOV. 9, 2013</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">"THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!" - SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     A single faulty relay at the Sir Adam Beck Station no. 2 in Ontario, Canada failed and on Nov. 9, 1965, the entire Northeast area of the United States and large parts of Canada went dark. A more complete account of what happened is reprinted below. And it is a warning what can happen to us today! With a deliberate sabotage of the electric grid system today, it would not be back on running for maybe some while after that. With enough sabotage, maybe America thrown into a modernized version of "The Dark Ages!"</span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     I see on the internet both denials that the electric grid will be cut off and confirmations that it will be cut off but claimed for a brief time. What is so deadly in this situation is that I quietly picked up references from various sources that a "November Surprise" was to be set up for the American people. This is C.I.A. code meaning that they are planning a staged incident on up to overthrow of the government, etc. In this case, the obvious "November Surprise" they would be referring to would be a serious collapse of the electrical grid of America while under the front of a "national test" of the national electric grid. This could collapse the economy of America and give Obama the opening to stage a military coup and take over America as intended dictator for life. By exposure of serious evidence and testimony pointing to a conspiracy of high treason now going on from the White House under Obama, I hopefully have put too much heat on them in my national reports so they judge the risk is too great to try a collapse of America and military takeover of America. In case traitors try to make an attempt to overthrow the United States of America, I will declare that the location of Roanoke County, Virginia will be the starting location to set up a new national government for America. As for permanent location, that can be decided later. There are reasons for this choice of location. Also, I already have legal authority to set up a new national government for the 50 states of America if necessary and this will stand up as valid under international law. There were secret moves made to give America an alternative national government in case a high treason traitor like Obama arose in Wash., D.C. In fact one of the British Commonwealth Parliaments had already legally recognized our authority as valid under international law and so stated in writing! Hopefully a trade off occurs then of passing our proposed Omni Law instead of forcing us to play our trump card of legal authority will be adequate to force the claimed government in Wash., D.C. to start obeying the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Bill of Rights again as the national law of America. We won't let Obama become the planned dictator of America!</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     With the giant typhoon they say may be the biggest in history heading towards Vietnam and scheduled to hit it on Sunday, it is likely that Vietnam will want an immediate RV of its currency and China being its big patron will want this worldwide RV of currencies then to help the economy of Vietnam right after being hit with this super giant typhoon. It would likely provoke the living daylights out of China and many other foreign nations if Obama tried an electrical grid collapse in America  at the same basic time so this messed up the worldwide RV of foreign currencies. Hopefully Obama will recognize the immense pressure building against him not to try a collapse of the electrical grid of America and with the American people already warned what he might try, propaganda won't trick the people if he tries this. If this electrical grid collapse occurs, all the nation is going to want to hang Obama and any associates alive for high treason, etc.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     Now changing the subject. One woman sent us an email which we answered yesterday if she could send us some of her Iraqi currency and we could use it to help finance the Omni Law after the RV. We said yes and would give her full credit in the Omni Law Loan Program for the final figure we get back then with an exchange of currencies. She asked where to send the Iraqi currency. We said send to our postal address of NIFI, P.O. Box 1465, Seneca, SC 29679. She could use probably Priority Mail with delivery confirmation or certified mail either way should work fine. We would allow this for either the Iraqi Dinar currency or else that of the Vietnam Dong. We have the right banking connections, so foresee no problem in exchanges when the right time comes for an RV. We felt it not right if we allowed her this special option and did not also allow it to others who have backed us or wish to at this stage.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">      Just walking it through a moment. Money we receive for the Omni Law Loan Program, we treat as loan money to help pass the proposed Omni Law which is posted on our national website. When the Omni Law is passed and when the time is ready, we expect we will have the leverage to get very quick passage of the Omni Law, then the loan program continues. We have $100 trillion in legal claims against Wash., D.C. and in large part due to criminal acts Obama had tried on us attempting to block this national drive. I am good at law and have engineered legal upsets before because I understand how law works. I plan for us to divert this $100 trillion in legal claims to money owed to Wash., D.C. which is apparently many times bigger than $100 trillion. We collect on $100 trillion of it and those who backed us through the Omni Law Loan Program will get divided pro-rata between them 10% of the net cash figure we collect. Any federal land turned over to us which will be used for the Camelot Project will not be part of this 10% royalty plan for the settlement plan. Really they are already in a legal trap on this land angle as I already have legal claim to this land if I push the alternative authority for a national government of America which I have legal grant to already from valid authorities. If the rest of the world is allowed to RV foreign currencies and Wash., D.C. is trying to say that Americans cannot do the same, I would consider this high treason and get ready to set up the new national government of America and arrest the traitors in Wash., D.C. once all states back us with their resolutions and authority to do this!</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     By the way, I have an offer still standing until the end of Nov. 14. My family once made a fortune in mining gold and an old mine of the family which was flooded out and could not be reopened then was checked out by me years ago and it looks like it can be reopened now. If all checks out now, I will try to reopen this old family gold mining site and an old engineering report on it I found by accident indicated it might have the largest gold vein in America. Those backing the Omni Law Loan Program, I will also have as a bonus through the end of Nov. 14 of you having a future option of a pro-rata share of 10% of the net profits from this or other gold site or sites due to family claims I have the right to open up. The options will give you a low priced way to get a pro-rata share of 10% of the net profits from at least one of these sites if they prove to be worth the effort to open up now. I had planned this all along as a hidden backup angle how to finance the building of my proposed Camelot Project once the time was right. If I have one effective gold site, that is all I am committed to give anyone being given one of these bonus options when they put loan money or RV currency equivalent through Nov. 14, 2013. More terms were discussed in a previous report.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">Also, those with $25 credits(bookkeeping units used in the loan program) in the Omni Law Loan Program will also get for 30 years 10% divided pro-rata between the credit holders in the Omni Law Loan Program of net profits from the worldwide food industry I will establish based upon my father's Vatican endorsed industrial food process which is a family trade secret how it works. Pope Pius XII thought this so important to world health that he indicated it was potentially the greatest news for mankind since the coming of Christ since it could potentially solve the twin problems of starvation and malnutrition in the world.   </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     We are dealing with some very evil sources in Wash., D.C. and if they try to use cunning to try and ruin the American people, then we will use more powerful cunning to save the American people from ruin by them. </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     By the way, interesting note on Obamacare. A retired business woman who is living on a tight budget and has nothing left over to put into bank account reserves or a savings account just got her packet of some sort to explain Obamacare to her. She will doublecheck with some social worker, but it sounds like they want to take much new money from her and require access to her bank account so they can take heavy new money from her where she was previously covered by Medicaid. If she understands correctly, they will totally bankrupt her under Obamacare and she is enraged at Obama for doing this to her. She commented that she will lose her only car that she is paying on with a bank and will be thrown into total bankruptcy by Obamacare as it appears now! And Obama does not give a damn for doing this to millions or many millions of poor Americans being threatened with destruction by Obamacare if they don't do what Obamacare at threat of their survival told them that they have to do or else be destroyed by Obama! And Obama dreamed up this mad scheme for Americans in order to "help all Americans!" </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;"></span> </div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">Example of what happened before with a giant electric grid collapse in America. And if this new one happens with no sure way to start up the electric grid again, this new giant electric grid collapse could be even 1,000 times worse than the one of 1965 described below for America.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">                              <wbr></wbr>                              <wbr></wbr>                              <wbr></wbr>                   </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;"><a href="">http://blackout.gmu.edu/<wbr></wbr>events/tl1965.html</a><br /><br />As early as the 1950s, the effects of increased home, office and factory power usage compelled the power industry to develop strategies to meet the growing demand. In the Northeast, the power industry established a network or power "grid" to better control the distribution of electricity. Power stations in one utility's service area were interconnected by high-voltage transmission lines with other utilities' power stations generating electricity hundreds or even thousands of miles away. The idea behind this elaborate system was to enable power suppliers to balance generation and consumption of electricity across a wide geographic region, thereby improving service to consumers. The grid allowed utilities to efficiently provide enough electricity to during periods of maximum demand ("peak load") without wasting large amounts of reserve generating capacity simply to meet this peak for a few hours each day. Two major power grids-the Ontario-New York-New England pool (formally known as the Canada-United States Eastern Interconnection, or CANUSE area) and the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland pool (the PJM interconnection)-together made up the northeast power grid, which provided a flexible network of power suppliers that could quickly meet fluctuating demands within the many parts of North America's most densely populated region. While the grid, which remains intact today, has proven to be highly effective, the night of November 9, 1965 serves as a reminder of how thoroughly our electricity-dependent lifestyles are tightly interwoven with the complex workings of a massive but often overlooked technological system.<br />At 5:27 p.m., November 9, 1965, the entire Northeast area of the United States and large parts of Canada went dark. From Buffalo to the eastern border of New Hampshire and from New York City to Ontario, a massive power outage struck without warning. Trains were stuck between subway stops. People were trapped in elevators. Failed traffic signals stopped traffic dead. And, at the height of the Cold War, many thought Armageddon had arrived. One pilot flying over a darkened New York City stated, "I thought, 'another Pearl Harbor!'" By 5:40 p.m. that evening, 80,000 square miles of the Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada, were without power, leaving 30 million people in the dark.<br />New York City was particularly hit by this blackout, due to its reliance on electricity for nearly all aspects of city life. Office workers, ready for an evening at home with their families in the suburbs, were forced to find alternative lodging, some seeking shelter in their offices or on benches in Grand Central Station. Theaters closed for the night. The "Great White Way," Times Square, usually a glimmering crossroads of light, was covered in darkness. Thousands of travelers stranded in New York were forced to sleep in hotel lobbies, leading the Times to report that the "city's hotels looked like biovac areas." Approximately ten thousand commuters were stuck on subway cars, unable to escape the darkened tunnels. By midnight, the Transit Authority began sending food and coffee to those trapped underground.<br />Despite the confusion and disarray, New Yorkers spent the night in peace. There were no riots or widespread looting. Instead, New Yorkers helped each other. Some directed traffic. Others assisted the New York fire department as they rescued stranded subway passengers. In many cases, New Yorkers just shared extra candles and flashlights with neighbors, reveling in the opportunity to get to know the people who lived across the hall.<br />By 11 o'clock, the power was restored in 75 percent of Brooklyn, and by 2 a.m., the borough was fully equipped with electric power. By midnight, much if the Bronx and Queens were lit. And, at 6:58 a.m., almost fourteen hours after the massive blackout struck New York, power was restored citywide.<br />It took six days to locate the cause. Federal Power Commission investigators found a single faulty relay at the Sir Adam Beck Station no. 2 in Ontario, Canada, which caused a key transmission line to disconnect ("open"). This small failure triggered a sequence of escalating line overloads that quickly raced down the main trunk lines of the grid, separating major generation sources from load centers and weakening the entire system with each subsequent separation. As town after town went dark throughout the northeast, power plants in the New York City area automatically shut themselves off to prevent the surging grid from overloading their turbines. Within a quarter of an hour the entire CANUSE area was down. Investigators referred to the 1965 blackout as a "cascade effect"-much like a row of dominoes falling one after another.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     ------------------</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     Promote this report nationally. The more people that know what is said in this report, the more pressure that Obama cannot pull off a collapse of the electrical grid and try to create a military takeover of America during the crash of the national economy created by him. "The boys" again don't like this report and I have a witness as to the wild stunts they were pulling to try and block this report until I found a way around their tricks! Their fear of this report frankly endorses this as must reading for all Americans! Obama must not want you to get the information in this report or else these "dirty tricks" would not be used trying to block the release of this report for America.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">     Pass this report around! Our website is<a href="">www.fastboomamericaneconomy.<wbr></wbr>com</a>  Our email is <a href="">fastboomamericaneconomy.com@<wbr></wbr>gmail.com</a>  Our mailing address for those wanting to send in an order or loan money payment by mail instead of through our website is NIFI, P.O. Box 1465, Seneca, SC 29679. Make any checks, etc. out to NIFI and tell us what the payment is for whether product or else loan money for the Omni Law Loan Program. Products also help finance the Omni Law Drive.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial Black; font-size: medium;">      Yours for God and Country, Erasmus of America (pen name for the one who gives America a choice between the evil of Obama versus the good that America was founded upon in 1776. I want you to have serious freedom and serious prosperity in America. Obama wants you to have serious slavery and serious poverty in life. Wash., D.C. pulls tricks so you are distracted from reality. They want "civil rights" laws so you won't be discriminated against for jobs, etc. The obvious answer that politicians in Wash., D.C. act like they are too dumb to understand is that if you create a booming national economy with jobs for all who want to work, businesses will be so anxious to hire workers that if you can be easily hired so long as you can do the job. And they won't worry about your race, etc.! I was in business for many years and any business owner knows exactly what I am talking about here! Politicians give you political BS so they give you words instead of results so all people in America are hired fairly and keep jobs fairly in America. "Civil rights" laws are BS laws for politicians who did not give you true full employment in America but hot air con games of politicians instead of results for America. I know how to create full employment and passage of the Omni Law makes it possible to create full employment in America and fast!)</span></div></div>

NEW YORK ELECTRIC GRID CRASHED FROM ERASMUS OF AMERICA - NOV. 9, 2013

NEW YORK ELECTRIC GRID CRASHED FROM ERASMUS OF AMERICA - NOV. 9, 2013   "THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!&...

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NYC mayor: 'More could have been done' on snow (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghP8k68Dk5GdCPwqJsPsXLR0Pc-jhAg8z39FIl5qiR8hgl6T-MeyUVOlNL8uQnYbUnC7IevUg2Oy66t5rlBjVWhvRzSHY08zU7M1OGK-60qZASO-x3M1Y_f0jqm3EKHjDbRnCMvPspxo/s1600/3a33f4f81c41a603490f6a7067006093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghP8k68Dk5GdCPwqJsPsXLR0Pc-jhAg8z39FIl5qiR8hgl6T-MeyUVOlNL8uQnYbUnC7IevUg2Oy66t5rlBjVWhvRzSHY08zU7M1OGK-60qZASO-x3M1Y_f0jqm3EKHjDbRnCMvPspxo/s1600/3a33f4f81c41a603490f6a7067006093.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390441625499_2489" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">NEW YORK (AP) — Northeasterners scraped and shoveled Wednesday after a snowstorm grounded flights, shuttered schools and buried roads with a surprising amount of snow, leaving biting cold in its wake. The atmosphere was particularly frosty in New York, where the new mayor acknowledged flaws in the cleanup and some residents complained that schools remained open while children elsewhere in the region stayed home.</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390441625499_2518" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio, facing one of the first flashpoints of his weeks-old tenure, initially defended what he called a "coordinated, intense, citywide response" to a storm he said caused a worse-than-expected headache when it ramped up at rush hour. And de Blasio, who campaigned on closing gaps between rich and poor city residents, at first rebuffed complaints that the effort had lagged on Manhattan's posh Upper East Side, saying "no one was treated differently."The storm stretched from Kentucky to New England but hit hardest along the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston. As much as 14 inches of snow fell in Philadelphia, with New York City seeing almost as much, and parts of Massachusetts were socked with as many as 18 inches. Temperatures were in the single digits or the teens in many places Wednesday.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">But he backtracked Wednesday evening, saying he'd determined "more could have been done to serve the Upper East Side."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Thirty more vehicles and nearly 40 more sanitation workers were sent to the area to finish the cleanup, de Blasio said in a statement that noted he still felt the citywide response, overall, "was well-executed."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">In a city where snow removal has proven a political hot potato, the flap was almost a mirror image of complaints about how de Blasio's predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, handled a 2010 blizzard. Bloomberg, who lives on the Upper East Side, faced criticism that outer boroughs had gotten short shift from plows. Brooklyn-dwelling de Blasio, then the city's public advocate, was among the critics.</div><div class="body-related" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; position: relative;"><a class="body-related-link body-related-video go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="8" data-uuid="b0d35f52-18a6-3fef-9e89-de50e8220e0a" href="http://news.yahoo.com/video/extreme-cold-follows-east-coast-092509658.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="Extreme Cold Follows East Coast Snow Storm"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;"><div class="cta-overlay" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.24s linear; font-size: 13px; height: 225px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: background-color 0.24s linear; width: 300px;"><span class="clearfix title cta-text medium" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; color: white; font-size: 16px; left: 5px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; top: 5px; transition: opacity 0.24s linear; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 270px; zoom: 1;">Extreme Cold Follows East Coast Snow Storm</span><span class="cta-text xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; bottom: 5px; color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 42px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.24s linear;">Play video</span><span class="icon-play icon-white-play-xsmall" style="background-color: #324fe1; background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; height: 23px; left: 5px; line-height: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-indent: -1000em; width: 32px; z-index: 1;"></span></div><img alt="Extreme Cold Follows East Coast Snow Storm" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="225" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/69YX7YrwlMM_b.8DMU_URQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIyNTtxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.associatedpressfree.com/24ef48f6b1015004d2ffa1518c8d7e96" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div></a></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">This time, de Blasio found himself being asked why some Upper East Side avenues still were covered in snow when a Brooklyn thoroughfare was plowed clear to the pavement.</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390441625499_2537" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Pamela Murphy Jennings' two children navigated snowy sections of tony Madison and Park avenues to get to their public schools on the Upper East Side, she said in an interview.</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390441625499_2552" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"Children have to walk to city bus stops and cross these streets to get here," she said. "Cars are sliding on roads. If there was any day to close schools, this was the day."</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">De Blasio said officials made the right call in anticipating that streets would be passable enough for students to get to school safely, adding that his own teenage son had gone, if grouchily.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Traffic and the storm's timetable complicated the cleanup, he and Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty said. The storm arrived earlier than expected Tuesday and intensified right around the evening rush, making it difficult to plow and spread salt, Doherty said.</div><div class="body-related" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; position: relative;"><a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="9" data-uuid="41f6550a-1def-320a-8613-8409578161a6" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/sun-illuminates-windblown-snow-man-walks-under-elevated-photo-151316420.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="The sun illuminates windblown snow as a man walks under&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;"><div class="cta-overlay" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.24s linear; font-size: 13px; height: 201px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: background-color 0.24s linear; width: 300px;"><span class="clearfix title cta-text medium" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; color: white; font-size: 16px; left: 5px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; top: 5px; transition: opacity 0.24s linear; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 270px; zoom: 1;"></span><span class="cta-text xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; bottom: 5px; color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 42px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.24s linear;">View gallery</span><span class="icon-slideshow icon-white-slideshow-xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.16s linear; background-color: #324fe1; background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; height: 23px; left: 5px; line-height: 0; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-indent: -1000em; transition: opacity 0.16s linear; width: 32px; z-index: 1;"></span></div><img alt="The sun illuminates windblown snow as a man walks under&nbsp;&hellip;" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="201" src="http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/yNrQUxW8XCKYiDMLbeEpOA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIwMTtxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/3a33f4f81c41a603490f6a7067006093.jpg" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div></a><div class="body-related-title photo-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: grey; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.5px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px; position: relative; width: 300px;">The sun illuminates windblown snow as a man walks under elevated train tracks, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2 …</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Citywide, 100 percent of primary streets were plowed by 6 a.m. Wednesday, along with 90 percent or more of other streets, Doherty said.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Some residents were understanding. Upper East Sider Lou Riccio agreed cleanup was a problem in his neighborhood, but he didn't see it as the mayor's fault.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"It was just the problem of a bad snowstorm coming at a bad time of the day," said Riccio, who teaches public affairs at Columbia University.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Elsewhere, the storm was blamed for at least one death — a driver was ejected from a car that fishtailed into the path of a tractor-trailer on a snow-covered Maryland road — and might have claimed more lives. Authorities were investigating three suspected weather-related deaths in Pennsylvania's Delaware County, outside Philadelphia; a preliminary investigation showed weather conditions played a role in a two-vehicle crash that killed two people in Prince George's County, Md.; and police said the storm may have factored in a deadly tractor-trailer wreck in Frederick County, Va.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Schools were closed in Boston, Philadelphia and many other places on the Eastern Seaboard. Federal workers in Washington got a two-hour delay in their work days Wednesday after a day off Tuesday because of the snow.</div><div class="body-related" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; position: relative;"><a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="10" data-uuid="9c928d43-4937-3738-aefb-12d13f9df964" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/women-walks-her-dog-past-icicles-hanging-store-photo-204526843.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="A women walks with her dog past icicles hanging from&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;"><div class="cta-overlay" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.24s linear; font-size: 13px; height: 200px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: background-color 0.24s linear; width: 300px;"><span class="clearfix title cta-text medium" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; color: white; font-size: 16px; left: 5px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; top: 5px; transition: opacity 0.24s linear; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 270px; zoom: 1;"></span><span class="cta-text xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; bottom: 5px; color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 42px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.24s linear;">View gallery</span><span class="icon-slideshow icon-white-slideshow-xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.16s linear; background-color: #324fe1; background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; height: 23px; left: 5px; line-height: 0; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-indent: -1000em; transition: opacity 0.16s linear; width: 32px; z-index: 1;"></span></div><img alt="A women walks with her dog past icicles hanging from&nbsp;&hellip;" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="200" src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/muooiFfvZzPtPeCGC.iDSQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIwMDtxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/24ee41131ce7a903490f6a706700305c.jpg" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div></a><div class="body-related-title photo-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: grey; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.5px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px; position: relative; width: 300px;">A women walks with her dog past icicles hanging from a store awning Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014, in Phi …</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">In downtown Jersey City, N.J., certified nurse's aide Kerline Celestin waited for a bus Wednesday to head home after being stuck at work overnight due to the storm. The temperature was in the single digits, with the wind chill below zero.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"I didn't want to be outside," she said.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Maintenance worker William Haskins knocked on doors in downtown Annapolis, Md., to see if anyone needed sidewalks cleaned. His 10-year-old son, Travis, out of school for a snow day, came along with his own shovel and an understanding that profits would be split evenly.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"He was up waiting for me this morning," his father said.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">On Cape Cod, a blizzard warning in effect through Wednesday afternoon kept business brisk at Aubuchon Hardware in Sandwich, where salt and snow shovels were popular.</div><div class="body-related" style="background-color: white; clear: right; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; position: relative;"><a class="body-related-link body-related-image go-to-slideshow-lightbox rapid-noclick-resp landscape onesize get-lbdata-from-dom" data-rapid_p="11" data-uuid="5b11968e-48e1-3c51-bcff-154f3f9bc92b" href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/workers-shovel-snow-off-seating-area-metlife-stadium-photo-200044735.html" style="color: #324fe1; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 300px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;" title="Workers shovel snow off the seating area at MetLife&nbsp;&hellip;"><div class="img-wrap" style="position: relative;"><div class="cta-overlay" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.24s linear; font-size: 13px; height: 200px; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: background-color 0.24s linear; width: 300px;"><span class="clearfix title cta-text medium" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; color: white; font-size: 16px; left: 5px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; top: 5px; transition: opacity 0.24s linear; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 270px; zoom: 1;"></span><span class="cta-text xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.24s linear; bottom: 5px; color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 42px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; transition: opacity 0.24s linear;">View gallery</span><span class="icon-slideshow icon-white-slideshow-xsmall" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.16s linear; background-color: #324fe1; background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: cover; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; bottom: 5px; cursor: pointer; height: 23px; left: 5px; line-height: 0; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-indent: -1000em; transition: opacity 0.16s linear; width: 32px; z-index: 1;"></span></div><img alt="Workers shovel snow off the seating area at MetLife&nbsp;&hellip;" class="body-related-thumb" data-src-2x="" height="200" src="http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/9I.foue6Xa9ZvffA_wpsKg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTIwMDtxPTc1O3c9MzAw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/c00ceca21d2aab03490f6a7067003bc5.jpg" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; display: block; opacity: 1 !important; transition: opacity 0.3333s ease 0ms; vertical-align: baseline; visibility: visible !important;" width="300" /></div></a><div class="body-related-title photo-caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: grey; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16.5px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px 5px 0px 0px; position: relative; width: 300px;">Workers shovel snow off the seating area at MetLife Stadium as crews removed snow ahead of Super Bow …</div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">"The flow of customers is pretty steady, but everyone waits until the worst of the storm to start worrying," manager Jeff Butland said.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">About 1,400 flights were canceled Wednesday into and out of some of the nation's busiest airports, including in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, according to according to Flightaware.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">The storm was a conventional one that developed off the coast and moved up the Eastern Seaboard, pulling in cold air from the Arctic. Unlike the epic freeze of two weeks ago, it was not caused by a kink in the polar vortex, the winds that circulate around the North Pole.</div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">___</div><div id="yui_3_9_1_1_1390441625499_2556" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.000001907348633px; margin-bottom: 1.1em;">Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Karen Matthews and Verena Dobnik and AP Video Journalist Ted Shaffrey in New York; Nick Tabor in Annapolis, Md.; Samantha Henry in Jersey City, N.J.; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; and Denise Lavoie in Weymouth, Mass.</div></div>

NYC mayor: 'More could have been done' on snow (BLOG)

NEW YORK (AP) — Northeasterners scraped and shoveled Wednesday after a snowstorm grounded flights, shuttered schools and buried roads with a...

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