Salon.com > Ula Ilnytzky

Decades late, FDR memorial park is opening in NYC

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 16:31:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City memorial park honoring President Franklin Roosevelt has been completed 40 years after the original design.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park is located on the southern tip of 2-mile-long Roosevelt Island in the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. It's being dedicated Wednesday in a ceremony to be attended by dignitaries including former President Bill Clinton.

The triangular park is named after Roosevelt's State of the Union address famously known as the Four Freedoms Speech. He delivered it on Jan. 6, 1941.

The park has a colossal bust of the 32nd president and an open-air granite plaza with excerpts of the speech etched into the stone.

The park will open to the public once arrangements for its operation and maintenance are final.

Photographer of iconic burning monk photo dies

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:24:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) -- The phone calls went out from Saigon's Xa-Loi Buddhist pagoda to chosen members of the foreign news corps. The message: Be at a certain location tomorrow for a "very important" happening.

The next morning, June 11, 1963, an elderly monk named Thich Quang Duc, clad in a brown robe and sandals, assumed the lotus position on a cushion in a blocked-off street intersection. Aides drenched him with aviation fuel, and the monk calmly lit a match and set himself ablaze.

Of the foreign journalists who had been alerted to the shocking political protest against South Vietnam's U.S.-supported government, only one, Malcolm Browne of The Associated Press, showed up.

The photos he took appeared on front pages around the globe and sent shudders all the way to the White House, prompting President John F. Kennedy to order a re-evaluation of his administration's Vietnam policy.

"We have to do something about that regime," Kennedy told Henry Cabot Lodge, who was about to become U.S. ambassador to Saigon.

Browne, who died Monday at a New Hampshire hospital at age 81, recalled in a 1998 interview that that was the beginning of the rebellion, which led to U.S.-backed South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem being overthrown and murdered, along with his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, the national security chief.

NYC movie, pin-up collection slated for auction

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:08:39 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Movie Star News amassed a staggering amount of film stills, posters and negatives over the past 73 years — nearly 3 million, including 1,500 prints of Bettie Page, known as the queen of pin-ups. But last week, the once-lively store in lower Manhattan was lifeless. The classic movie posters that once covered its narrow 2,000-square-foot space were rolled up or covered in cellophane, its bins and racks empty. Everything was packed up in cardboard boxes that lined the floor.

The legendary Manhattan store credited with creating pin-up art had sold its entire inventory to a Las Vegas collectibles company.

The collection, regarded as one of the largest of its kind, is headed for the auction block. It will be sold in a series of sales slated to begin next year. The bulk of the collection covers the years 1939 to 1979; 11,500 movies and 5,000 actors are represented.

"This is the most important photo archive of Hollywood in existence. There are tens of thousands of negatives that have never been reproduced," said Stuart Scheinman, co-owner of Entertainment Collectibles, which bought the collection. "There are images here that have never been seen by the public."

Storm strands buses, planes, trains on East Coast

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:21:00 +0000

A powerful East Coast blizzard marooned thousands of would-be air, rail and road travelers Monday, shutting down major airports and rail lines for a second day, stranding buses on buried highways, and forcing New York City subway riders to spend a cold night in unheated trains.

Officials urged anyone who did not have to drive to stay off roads in the region, where high winds pushed snow into deep drifts across streets, railroads and runways. More than two feet of snow had fallen in some areas by Monday morning.

The New York area took the brunt of a storm that meandered across the country over the Christmas weekend before plowing up the East Coast. States of emergency were declared in at least six states from the Carolinas on north. Jets got snowed in on the tarmac or never left the gate.

"People are exhausted. ... They want to get home," said Eric Schorr, 22, who was trying to get from New York City to Tel Aviv on Sunday night but ended up spending about nine hours stuck on the tarmac at Kennedy Airport, finally ending back in the airport around 3 a.m. His flight was rescheduled for 7 p.m.

Similar delays have produced outrage in the past, but Schorr said he and his fellow travelers were "as comfortable as you can be on a plane," with the crew passing out drinks and serving dinner.

Blizzard stalls NYC, East Coast

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:59:00 +0000

A powerful East Coast blizzard menaced would-be travelers by air, rail and highway Monday, leaving thousands without a way to get home after the holidays and shutting down major airports and rail lines for a second day.

In Monmouth County, N.J., state troopers carried water and food to diabetics marooned on two passenger buses carrying about 50 people on the Garden State Parkway, where stranded cars cluttering ramps stymied snow plows and ambulances, state police spokesman Steve Jones told NBC's "Today" show. One bus was freed by 7 a.m. and the other was expected to be out soon, he said.

"Most of the people are pretty calm, but they are getting antsy," said New Jersey State Police Trooper Chris Menello, who along with his fellow troopers raided their personal stash of food to bring to the passengers.

Menello said the traffic jam started around 5 p.m. Sunday evening with a woman who went into labor.

"She and her husband had three small children in the car all under the age of 5," he said.

NYU artist gets camera surgically implanted in head

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:53:13 +0000

A tiny camera has been surgically implanted to the back of a New York University professor's head -- all in the name of art.

Visual artist Wafaa Bilal teaches at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He had the surgery for a project called "The 3rd I." It's been commissioned by a new museum in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar that opens Dec. 30.

The Iraqi-born artist will wear the camera for a year and capture images at one-minute intervals that will be transmitted to monitors at the museum. He says details of the project will be revealed at a Dec. 15 preview at the museum.

NYU is concerned about how the artwork will impact students. It says it's talking with Bilal how best to protect privacy.

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Online:

http://www.mathaf.org

Ted Koppel’s son, 40, found dead in NYC apartment

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:40:00 +0000

The 40-year-old son of former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel was found dead in an apartment in upper Manhattan after a day of bar hopping with a man he met at a watering hole, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

Andrew Koppel was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Monday in the apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood, Detective John Sweeney said. The cause of death has not been determined, but no evidence so far indicates criminality.

Koppel had been drinking heavily for hours with Russell Wimberly, whom he met at a bar, according to a law enforcement official. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation into the death was not completed.

Koppel started drinking at Smith's Bar and Restaurant in Manhattan and went to several other locations with the man, the official said.

Wimberly told the New York Post that Koppel drank whiskey, and that neither man had anything to eat all day. He said they drank into the night.

"He had a straw hat on, and I had one on, and he said, 'Nice hat, man,'" the drinking partner, Wimberly, told the newspaper. "We got to talking, and he started buying me drinks."