Newark

EAST RUTHERFORD—Newark Mayor Cory Booker is predicting record Newark voter turnout, and high attendance throughout the state.

"We've got another upset coming on Tuesday," he said. (The Super Bowl metaphors are not gonna stop allllll day!) "We're back here not to rock the sports world like the Giants just did, we're here to rock the world!"

"We're going to be hitting hard as soon as the polls open," he said.  read more »

After Thursday's Port Authority board vote to take over Stewart International Airport, reporters asked no less than four times whether it would make Newark, Kennedy or LaGuardia any less congested.

Reporter: When will passengers expect the--you know, the delays that we are famous for nationwide--when will those delays change or will there be no change?

Answer (sort of) after the jump.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman

• Donald Trump Jr. went on a murderous rampage, slaughtering the cruel members of the Trump Plaza condominium (who recently kicked him off the board there). He then buried the skeletal remains at 246 Spring Street, the site of the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Soho. Not really, though. [The Real Deal]
• After work-stop orders and leaked files, plans for the quadruple "Edge" towers in Williamsburg reveal that 108 units have been cut away. Don't worry, hipsters: there are still 892 edgy waterfront condos to snatch up. [Curbed]
• Forbes rounds up the glamorous year in high-end real estate with a lengthy dose of nostalgia. Apparently, the past owner of the freshly sold Harkness Mansion used to play ping-pong beneath the atrium. Who knew? [Forbes]
• So much for hot Jersey City. We sadly share the news that "after 80 Years, the Manischewitz Plant in Jersey City will close all manufacturing [and] move to Newark." But not before the most kick-ass Matzo bash the world has ever seen. L'chaim! [More after the jump]
- Max Abelson  read more »
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Grégoire Bouillier is a writer from Paris, and on Monday, Oct.  read more »

LAURIE:

Dear Josh:

I have been alone in Barcelona for about eight hours, the last three of which were spent sleeping in my little hotel room. It's 8:30 P.M. and the sun is still fairly high in the sky, thanks to the absence of daylight savings time. My room overlooks a paved and red-painted play yard. Right now there are several teenage girls on old-school rollerskates out there, practicing their moves and wearing identical blue skating skirts. It's really warm here. Those fleece-lined track pants felt so right in the Sam Adams bar at Newark, but became so wrong at the Barcelona taxi stand.

I was sick on the flight from Newark to Frankfurt. Which part of whiskey, Ambien, gin and red wine do you think was the problem?  read more »

Young men and women in Barcelona have made a real commitment to the mullet. It's hard to say whether they're being ironic or earnest.

It's going to be an eventful weekend for Al Sharpton.

First, he'll be urging black leaders to coalesce in support of a single black candidate in the Congressional 11th, where Rock Hackshaw says Charles Barron is taking an interest as well.

And on Sunday, I'm told, Sharpton will be speaking at the church of his new ally Cory Booker in Newark, where the Reverend helped five-term mayor Sharpe James turn away a challenge from Booker four years ago.

-- Josh Benson

It's a New York political blog, but it's worth diverting your attention for a moment to the sweet-smelling state across the river to ponder what Cory Booker managed to do yesterday.

He carried carried six of six council candidates to victory yesterday in Newark's runoff elections, ensuring that his allies will be sitting in each of the council's nine seats when he takes office on July 1.

It's a pretty amazing political accomplishment. Although Booker had a multi-million dollar financial advantage over his opponents, it wasn't as if the candidates who lost yesterday were nobodies. Several well-known incumbents went down, including Ras Baraka - the son of 9/11 conspiracy theorist and former state poet laureate Amiri Baraka. And another surprise loser was John James, the son of the city's domineering five-term Mayor Sharpe James.

The guy's a media monster. My guess is he's going to get more coverage in New York over the next few years than all but a handful of city and state officials.

The challenges Booker's going to be grappling with in one of the country's poorest cities makes for a compelling story, whether he succeeds or fails. (A documentary about his first, unsuccessful bid for mayor was nominated for an Oscar last year.)

And he's going to attract national attention for some of his more controversial ideas. He's a Democrat, for example, but has made himself a hero to national conservatives (and an enemy of the local teachers union) by proselytizing for school vouchers.

My Baghdad-bound former colleague Damien Cave has the wrap-up.

-- Josh Benson

The Times reports the Cory Booker has won a mandate in Newark.

Hillary Clinton opens a debate on family planning.

Newsday reports that Tom Suozzi is echoing the calls of John Faso. —Nicole Brydson

Forgive the digression, but for anyone who likes politics, it may be worthwhile to keep an eye on election results today over in Newark, where Cory Booker is attempting to shore up his thumping mayoral victory by electing a friendly majority to the city's nine-member Municipal Council.

Yes, it's a runoff council election in Newark.

But the players are kind of amazing: the champions of the old guard

And it could well determine whether Booker can build a record in office that will allow him to run for higher office anytime soon, or whether it all comes to an end amid gridlock.

My former colleague Damien has the write-up.

Forgive the digression, but for anyone who likes politics, it may be worthwhile to keep an eye on election results today over in Newark, where Cory Booker is attempting to shore up his thumping mayoral victory by electing a friendly majority to the city's nine-member Municipal Council.

Yes, it's a runoff council election in Newark.

But the players are kind of amazing: the champions of the old guard

And it could well determine whether Booker can build a record in office that will allow him to run for higher office anytime soon, or whether it all comes to an end amid gridlock.

My former colleague Damien has the write-up.

Are you still looking for the mystical sixth borough—that El Dorado of cheap rents, decent bagels  read more »

Are you still looking for the mystical sixth borough—that El Dorado of cheap rents, decent bag  read more »

Jason Horowitz contextualizes the G.O.P. free fall, and qualifies Newark as the 6th borough.

Michael McDonald thinks the Bubba bubble is gone, George Bush may be re-entering the reality based community.

Spencer Morgan catches up with Bill Clinton and finds the makings of a First Laddie.

Nicholas Von Hoffman examines Republicans and oil demand.

Mitchell Moss writes about the 'electibility index' in 2008.

Bruce Feirstein has his own version of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush.

And Quinn, Pataki and Spitzer in the editorials.  read more »

I thought Kaavya Visnawathan was tough on the Today Show this morning. Katie Couric played the strict mother; she wanted her to break down like a good 19-year-old and admit she had copied straight from Megan McCafferty. When Visnawathan didn't crack and said the dog ate my homework—yes she had read Megan's books many times over, but any resemblances are strictly coincidental—Couric said, "Why did you come on the show?" Visnawathan insisted it was to explain herself. Couric said, "Some would say you didn't explain anything."

The anchor did a good, sophisticated job. While the "writer"'s tough performance (and the media's fawning backstory to the comedown) only upped the ante. When Visnawathan said she wanted to talk to McCafferty to apologize—for what, unconsciously unintentionally lifting?—she seemed to be jumping about 10 steps ahead in the James Frey playbook. It was bogus and unearned, and will only sharpen the swords of envy.

Compare Visnawathan's heartfelt debt to McCafferty to this from the Crimson

But when The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. asked Viswanathan about the inspiration for her book last week--before the similar passages were reported--she responded, "Nothing I read gave me the inspiration."

The political blogosphere keeps growing.

We hear that before convention season starts at the end of May, the New York Times, which already has a blog following the Newark mayoral race, is expected to launch a political blog covering the races for New York Senate, Governor and Attorney General. The entire New York political staff will be contributing. A presidential blog can't be far behind.

The Daily News significantly bulked up its blog coverage this month (including bringing on former Politicker Ben Smith) and the New York Post is expected to soon follow suit in its political departments.

- Jason Horowitz

The Times reports that Rudy Giuliani stumped for Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania; and Cory Booker says Newark is missing out on millions of dollars that could be raised by selling real estate at market rate.

The Sun reports on union spots that take aim at George Pataki's budget vetos.

The Albany Times Union reports on the next step in the CFE lawsuit for city schools; and George Pataki's federal fundraising picks up.

—Nicole Brydson

The Post reports that Mark Green may be shut out of the democratic convention.

The Times reports on Cory Booker's run for mayor of Newark, and the run to replace Sherwood Boehlert.

And the Albany Times Union writes about the state budget.

—Nicole Brydson

The Post reports on a leaked internal memo from Mark Green's campaign for attorney general.

The Times reports that Sharpe James will not seek re-election as mayor of Newark, and upstate congressman Thomas M. Reynolds faces a rematch against John Davis Jr.

—Nicole Brydson

The Times launched a Newark Mayor’s race blog last week, which should be interesting for a handful of reasons. First on the merits, because the people writing it, including ex-Observerite Josh Benson, are good reporters; and what’s shaping up as a James-Booker rematch could be fascinating.

But it also raises a couple of interesting questions. First, does the cachet of the New York Times bring an automatic audience to a blog? My guess is no, but we’ll see. (At least it isn’t walled off behind TimesSelect, like Chris Suellentrop’s clever but inaccessible Opinionator.)

Second, is blend of arch blogging and on-one-hand-on-the-other-hand reporting that most newspaper reporters (including this one) are used to suitable for the Newark contest? I struggle to separate sensibility from opinion on this site, and occasionally fail. But this is in the relatively calm, well-scrutinized waters of New York politics. James, in the last race, behaved like an incredible thug, throwing around flat lies and racial slurs and employing his police department to political ends. That’s the foreground to this year’s election. Can you say that on a New York Times blog? Can you not?

The Times reports that Sharpe James delivered his petitions for re-election, but has not yet declared his entrance into the race for mayor of Newark.

Also in the Times, five internal police reports are made public, bringing to light police tactics used during the RNC in 2004. The Post reports that the owners of Madison Square Garden have been fined for dining with public officials in their hospitality suite without reporting the meals to the lobbying commission.

—Nicole Brydson

The Pavilion Apartments (click photo to enlarge).

ArchNewsNow has put up a piece from dead-tree sibling Oculus about three giant Mies towers in New Jersey.

Built 46 years ago north of Newark to try to bring middle-class residents to an area of low-income buildings, the towers are ginormous and a bit brutal looking, and kind of excellent. We were saying to someone just last night how sometimes a certain kind of brutality in architecture can approach sublimity.  read more »

The author is Fred Bernstein, who has also taken "second looks" at buildings like the Tracey Towers in the Bronx, also a personal favorite of this correspondent.

Anyway, read it here. - Tom McGeveran

David Lat, the blogger behind the dishy judicial gossip site Underneath Their Robes, is moving to Washington, D.C., to be a writer for Wonkette. Mr. Lat pens the Latin-laced blog under the pseudonym "Article III Groupie" (an homage to the section of the Constitution that established the federal judiciary). In November, in an article by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker, the shoe-loving, diva-esque female narrator was unmasked as the cherubic, cardigan-wearing Filipino-American Mr. Lat, 30, an assistant U.S. attorney in Newark. The blog was immediately placed behind password-protection. "A3G" reemerged publicly on New Year's Eve, however, a day after Mr. Lat sent an email to colleagues informing them that he was leaving to pursue a job in Washington, D.C. Mr. Lat was out of the country—in India—and could not be reached for comment. —Anna Schneider-Mayerson  read more »

It’s been almost half a century since Ornette Coleman released his Atlantic records debut.  read more »

New York Press proudly announces itself as "the largest English-language paper to endorse Freddy" and promptly spoils it: "To ensure that we no longer have two New Yorks, but one grand city to rival Newark, we need Freddy Ferrer."  read more »

By the time Cory Booker lost his 2002 run for mayor of Newark, the young African-American lawyer, fo  read more »

In my article this week, I wrote about about Cory Booker's 2006 mayoral campaign in Newark, and I examined the significance of a stack of racially inflammatory, anonymous leaflets that were publicly available during a visit to the candidate's South Ward headquarters. One of them was titled "How Black Mayors Sell Our Cities to White Developers," and it accused incumbent Sharpe James of treating a local business owner like a "sharecropper."

I've posted it here.  read more »

Judging by the Cory Booker/Sharpe James matchup back in 2002, things may just be starting to heat up. This is Booker's second shot to take City Hall and, now more than ever, he's in the tough position of playing to two audiences at once: local voters in Newark, who are suspicious of his connections to "outsiders," and those "outsiders" themselves, who include moneyed Manhattanites and moderates on the national scene.

Brian Alexander, a former pilot and the lawyer who represents the largest number of air and ground v  read more »

Right-wing networker; boutique investment researcher; would-be Newark power broker; Sky Club luncher  read more »

On the morning of Feb.  read more »

Upper West Side Wants To Quiet the Skies Upper West Siders have been enjoying the relative peace and  read more »

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is talking about a deal with the City Council: He'll approve a Council bill o  read more »

In a sure sign that midlife crisis is about to put its sweaty, trembling hand on my once-youthful sh  read more »

The public school around the corner is one of those confident, serious-looking buildings we associat  read more »

The beautiful for spacious skies are not hanging over Newark Airport.I'm sure that the little rusted  read more »

The Extra Man , by Jonathan Ames.  read more »