Fire At The Roseland Ballroom

Last night a two-alarm fire damaged Manhattan's Roseland Ballroom, home to next week's Black Party. Six firefighters were injured and the blaze was declared under control an hour after the first report. Little is presently known about the extent of damage.

CENSUS: No Italians Left In Little Italy

According to the U.S. Census, the number of Italian-born residents of Manhattan's Little Italy is now zero.

A census survey released in December determined that the proportion of Italian-Americans among the 8,600 residents in the same two-dozen-square-block area of Lower Manhattan had shrunk to about 5 percent. And, incredibly, the census could not find a single resident who had been born in Italy. Little Italy is becoming Littler Italy. The encroachment that began decades ago as Chinatown bulged north, SoHo expanded from the west, and other tracts were rebranded more fashionably as NoLIta (for north of Little Italy) and NoHo seems almost complete. The Little Italy that was once the heart of Italian-American life in the city exists mostly as a nostalgic memory or in the minds of tourists who still make it a must-see on their New York itinerary.

Next month the city will create the Chinatown Business Improvement District, which will include all but two square blocks of Little Italy's 50 square blocks. According to the above-linked story, 89% of the foreign-born residents of Little Italy now hail from Asian countries.

42nd Street: Then & Now

The New York Times says that with this week's opening of a new 40-story tower at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, the 30-year remodel of Times Square is finally over.

The plan, to radically make over 13 acres, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, primarily fronting 42nd Street, outlived three mayors, four governors, two real estate booms and two recessions. It faced widespread derision in the beginning from jaded New Yorkers who were wise to grand plans. It faces occasional derision today from New Yorkers who speak of the old Times Square with newfound fondness. It embodied both the hubris of urban master planning and its possibilities, and showed the value of ripping up blueprints and starting over in midstream. And it has been a touchstone experience for a city that is now building, or trying to build, several multibillion-dollar projects, including ground zero, the Atlantic Yards, Willets Point and the Hudson Yards. “So often, people say New York can’t build large-scale projects anymore,” said Lynne B. Sagalynn, a professor of real estate finance at Columbia University and the author of “Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon.” But, Professor Sagalynn said, “Times Square is an example of how a city was able to think on a grand scale and carry it out.”

There's a cool interactive slideshow thingy in the above-linked story.

Morning View - The Ugly Sister

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment: There Is No Ground Zero Mosque

Summer Streets Of Manhattan

Yesterday was the first of three consecutive Saturdays in Manhattan's new Summer Streets program in which roads are closed to cars in a route from the Brooklyn Bridge up to Park Avenue at 72nd Street. It was like Critical Mass, only without the assholes. (Above: Farmboy C at Park & 60th.)The Farmboyz and I turned the day into one of our epic day-long bike rides, starting up by my place on the UES, then down the ghostly and beautifully empty Park Avenue, where we were allowed the unprecedented pleasure of biking the Helmsley tunnel and the ramps around Grand Central (above) and then into the Murray Hill Tunnel (below). Way cool.Next stop was down in the Bowery at our favorite brunch place, Great Jones. After that we headed into the Village to search for Log Cabin Republicans at their supposed street fair, where we found nuttin' but the usual tube socks, pashminas, and counterfeit sunglasses. Not one Cabinette in sight.We rewarded ourselves for enduring the fair by taking a break at the gay beach on the Christopher Street Pier (above) where the Farmboyz had an uncomfortable looking nap in the shade (below).Next we headed up the Hudson River Park and toured most of the piers along the way. At Pier 64 we discovered a funky two-tiered open air pub (below), but it was pretty much frat boy central, so we didn't stay for a drink.Across from the new Chinese Consulate at 44th Street we ran into the usual Tibetan protesters (below), ten of whom were arrested there on Friday.After a couple of frozen drinks at a pal's new place in Midtown, we detoured into Lincoln Center where we ran into a free concert by Dulsori, the Korean "wild beat" percussion group. Delightfully strange.About nine hours door-to-door, it was pretty much the perfect Manhattan day. Along the route, we were interviewed by a TV crew documenting Summer Streets, where we offered our thanks to Mayor Bloomberg for the event. Summer Streets continues its trial run over the next two Saturdays. Check it out yourselves and maybe we can get this thing turned into a Saturday standard.

Where Will Law & Order Find New Stories?

Manhattan is headed for the lowest annual number of murders since records first began being kept in 1937. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced that this year's 65 murders (so far) represent a 40% drop from last year alone.

When Morgenthau first became DA in 1975, there were 648 murders in Manhattan. With more time on their hands, Manhattan's 500 prosecutors have been able to focus more on white collar crime, aiming in particular at Wall Street's stock and banking swindlers.

The irony here is that that gentrification, one of the things that appears to be making Manhattan so much safer, is at the top of most people's list of complaints about the city, as they wring their hands bemoaning the loss of their gritty, dangerous town. (I'm one of those people, sometimes.) Manhattan can now be seen as little more than an 11 mile long floating luxury mall, but we've also got about 600 fewer chalk outlines every year. But even though the so-called "abortion benefit" to the crime rate has been debunked by some, I'm still buying that theory as part of the mix.