•
There has been growing concern about bottled water recently. A little while ago there were reports that the plastic that bottled water was packaged in was leaching into the water itself which isn’t great. Next there is the environmental impact the disposed of bottles have.
Well, the NY Post is reporting that some New York restaurants are addressing this issue and ‘banning’ bottled water at their locations. so far 12 are on board with the ban (including the Waverly Inn, Del Posto, Gemma, Bobo, Gusto Organics and Broadway East). Apparently the issue has become big enough that even the Park Slope Food Co-op will be voting later this month on whether they will continue to sell bottled waters.
According to the NY Post article, it takes 41 million barrels of oil a year to produce, transport and store bottled water. In place of bottles like Pellegrino you will have the option of free tap water (as you always did) or specially filtered tap water that will run you about $5 a glass. Of course at places like Per Se all non-alcoholic drinks are free of charge (they offer both bottled water and filtered water).
•
Earlier in the week there were a few news stories around that caught my eye, but I was hesitant to post them. ‘Why?’ you ask, well it was April 1st and I tend to take any news that comes out on April 1st with a grain of salt. Since there hasn’t been any retraction of these stories they get the full posting treatment.
The Recording Industry Association of America just received some bad news. A New York Federal Judge has made a ruling that is going to greatly effect most of their lawsuits against file sharers. According to Judge Kenneth Karas making a copyrighted file available for download does not necessarily violate the law. Instead it now needs to be proven that the file was actually downloaded or intended to be downloaded.
This is kind off a complex issue and this ruling will actually influence a lot of future download cases (NY courts are apparently known for how well they handle copyright issues). Essentially what this case ruling means (or can mean) is that the RIAA needs to show that some one had the intention of sharing copyrighted materials just having copyrighted materials available for download is not illegal. It is a complicated issue, I am sure complicated more with P2P file sharing programs. CNET has some decent coverage on the issue with explanations better then I can provide here.
This doesn’t really mean that anyone is going to get off scott-free in any of the pending lawsuits, but it does mean the RIAA is going to have to do a bit more legwork to prove that individuals were working to intentionally share copyrighted files.
•
Apparently, even though New York is the Big Apple, that isn’t an official nickname of the city. In fact, New York City doesn’t have any official nicknames.
While this may seem rather shocking that no nickname was ever attached to the city, Queens City Councilman Hiram Monserrate is looking to fix this by officially linking up New York as Gotham City. Monserrate feels that with this summer’s release of Batman : The Dark Knight, the city would be able to launch into an all-out campaign with “Come visit the real Gotham City.”
Of course the Gotham City depicted in Batman’s world is dark, gritty and filled with crime and supervillians, which, to some extent is actually kind of fitting for New York (sans the Supervillians). Not exactly the right message to be sending about New York, is it? Especially when you ate trying to lure in tourists. Read more »
•
So, it is obvious we are fans of New York Magazine. We’ve used their content (usually crediting them). They’ve used our content (sometimes crediting us).
Any-hoo, it just came across my inbox that they are doing a website re-design which will probably launch next Friday. If you’d like to see a little preview of what the new New York Magazine homepage will look like, check it out here.
According to their announcement: “the new homepage has a more consistent organization—now you’ll always know where to find whichever type of news you’re looking for, and you’ll be able to search our restaurant listings, runway galleries, and product guides more easily.”
•
Although we have previously mentioned that the sandwich shop formerly known as Zozo’s was going to be replaced with a noodle shop on the corner of Orchard and Stanton, there is now a banner up so we know that it will be called “Noodle Bar - Lower East Side.”
If you thought this might not be the ideal location for a new noodle shop with Open Sesame up the block on Orchard, Kampuchea just two blocks away on Allen and Rivington and a plethora of other spots on 1st avenue (including Momofuku), well apparently you’d be wrong.
Not only did Noodle Bar - Lower East Side think this would be a good location, but not even half a block away on Stanton (next to Epstein’s bar) another new noodle shop will be opening. Slurp has all of its signage up and for a while even had its tables set and looked like it was ready to open…before they had to go back in and do some more work (new work permit signs went up on the door just last week).
It looks like this is going to be the Spring of Noodle Soups for the Lower East Side. If either one of them ever opens maybe we will even go and write a review.
