Free Republic

Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials denouncing “poor door” entrances for subsidized tenants in luxury buildings actually voted in favor of a measure that made such separation possible, a Post review found. When the lengthy text of a zoning resolution was amended by the City Council in July 2009, then-Councilman de Blasio — who arrived late to the meeting — was among the majority who voted “Aye.” One provision said developers of market-rate condos could include affordable units on site, instead of off site, while allowing for the separation of a number of services that included the entrances. But...

Mayor Bill de Blasio, facing his first significant test in trying to improve relations between police and minority communities, said Monday that he believes the troubles stem from racial tension that defined his predecessor’s 12 years in office.He did not specifically say he thought race played a role in the recent death of a black asthmatic father of six who died after being put in apparent chokehold by a white officer, an encounter that was caught on video. He did say that more trust was needed between police and residents. “If you talk about the last decade or so in...

Bel Kaufman, a former New York City schoolteacher whose classic first novel, “Up the Down Staircase” — shot through with despair and hopefulness, violence and levity, all manner of bureaucratic inanity and a blizzard of official memorandums so mind-bendingly illogical as to seem almost Kafkaesque — was hailed as a stunningly accurate portrait of life in a gritty urban school when it was published in 1965, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 103.

The crowd of 500 included grandmothers and small children, Chinese immigrants and the president of a local Republican club, all shouting that the mayor had trampled their rights. The source of their anger? The 180 homeless families the city had moved into the defunct Pan American Hotel in Elmhurst, Queens. The residents felt nervous around the new arrivals, they said. There were reports of shoplifting from the Good Fortune Supermarket, public urination and panhandling – all things, they said, that had been unheard-of in their neighborhood until now. During the protest on Tuesday night, one of the organizers spoke through...

Over the weekend, New York City, defying those who think such a move is insulting to the poor, approved a move by the developer Extell to build a separate entrance at an Upper West Side condominium for its affordable housing tenants.

In 2004, 7-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English. For two years, he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents — a cook and a factory worker — and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.” When he was in sixth grade, he took the subway downtown from his parents’ small...

Tumbling rocks north of New York City have damaged a stretch of train tracks in the nation's second-largest commuter rail system, suspending service and leaving hundreds of passengers without rides. ... The rock slide is the latest headache for a railroad recovering from two major accidents and myriad service disruptions. In December, a Metro-North Hudson Line train derailed in the Bronx, killing four passengers and injuring more than 70 others. In May 2013, a train heading east from New York City to New Haven derailed and was hit by a westbound train outside Bridgeport

Roughly 50 people lined up in front of Hobby Lobby’s new Totowa store Saturday to protest the company’s role in a recent Supreme Court decision that says the company can choose not to cover contraception for its employees through the Affordable Care Act.The Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain is owned by a Christian family that says it tries to run the business applying its religious beliefs. One of the parties in the decision by the high court, the family had argued that the Obamacare requirement that all contraception be covered violated a 1993 federal law that protects religious...

Test Yourself Are you smart enough to get into private kindergarten? Take this test from Bright Kids NYC and find out how you fare on AABL practice questions. Question 1 of 5 Which flag completes the pattern? MANHATTAN — Some of the city's most elite private schools will soon require 4-year-olds to take a new, harder admissions test given on an iPad and designed to assess math and literacy skills. The educational services company ERB's Admission Assessment for Beginning Learners (AABL) will be given for the first time in October and is a significant departure from the previous, IQ-like test most New York...

One thing we know about Mayor de Blasio is that he’s serious about creating affordable, quality housing for all New Yorkers. “This is literally the largest and most ambitious affordable-housing program initiated by any city in this country in the history of the United States of America,” de Blasio declared when he announced his “five-borough, 10-year plan” in May. “It is the largest, fastest affordable-housing plan ever attempted at a local level,” he added, vowing to “change the face of this city forever.” Hear that kids? Your rent worries will soon ease. Great news! I wonder if the new promise...

NEW YORK — As Congress remains gridlocked by the partisan wrangling over the issue of illegal immigration, New York City this week approved two separate plans that advocates say could signal a sea change in the ways cities handle undocumented workers and their families. On Wednesday, the New York City Council earmarked $4.9 million of the city budget to give legal assistance to foreign-born New York residents facing deportation. This makes New York the first city in the US to provide lawyers for low-income immigrants detained by federal authorities. The city will provide such aid both for undocumented immigrants and...

Poor New York City immigrants who otherwise would have faced the complicated immigration system with its threat of deportation on their own will now get legal representation to help them in a program advocates say is the first of its kind in the country and one they hope the federal government will ultimately take on. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project will cover all eligible immigrant city residents detained in the system and appearing in immigration courts in New York City or the New Jersey cities of Elizabeth and Newark. Lawmakers approved $4.9 million for the initiative as part...

From the In My Backyard Desk, some sensational news, via The Brooklyn Eagle: The Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, will ordain 13 men to the priesthood on Saturday, June 28. This group of men, who have served for the past year as transitional deacons, composes the largest class of new priests in the United States. The diocese is thus helping to reverse a long decline in vocations that has led to a shortage of priests within the Roman Catholic Church.The ordination liturgy will take place at the Brooklyn DioceseÂ’s newly renovated...

Hillary Clinton is still riffing off her claim that she and Bill aren't really that rich, and now daughter Chelsea is also insisting she is so selfless that she just can't dredge up enough interest to "care" about money.

More at Reaganite Republican...

Subway rider: I helped take perv down after being sexually assaulted on train Nicola Briggs recounts how a man exposed himself and rubbed against her in a packed subway train — and how she called on other passengers to help detain and shame him until he was arrested. Briggs, whose confrontation with the man went viral on YouTube, says the shame of sex abuse should be put back on the shoulders of the perpetrators. WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE IN VIDEO. I was on a southbound No. 4 train en route to Chinatown, where I was going to meet a friend for...

One by one, the children at Public School 30 on Staten Island dumped their uneaten bananas into a bin in the back of their raucous cafeteria, each greenish-yellow missile landing with a thud. Thud. Thud. John Sullivan, 9, a fourth grader, said bananas “make my stomach hurt.” Julianna Delloso, 6, a first grader, said “they taste funny.” And Joseph Incardone, 7, also in first grade, was almost gleeful as he explained why he, too, had chucked his unpeeled banana. “I didn’t like it,” he said. The sad voyage of fruits and vegetables from lunch lady to landfill has frustrated parents,...

In 2012, the average New York Jew looks a little less like Jerry Seinfeld and a little more like Tevye the Milkman. New York’s Jews are poorer, less educated and more religious than they were 10 years ago, according to a landmark new study of the city’s Jewish population. They’re also less liberal: More than half of the Jews in New York City live in Orthodox or Russian-speaking homes, both of which lean heavily conservative. The study, conducted by UJA-Federation of New York, counted 1.5 million Jews in New York City, Long Island and Westchester, up from 1.4 million just...

Bill Bratton has destroyed his reputation in a short amount of time by becoming a mouthpiece for Bill de Blasio. Taking the job was a poor idea since crime rates had dropped so low that they were bound to rebound, especially under a pro-criminal mayor like De Blasio. All that Bratton had done is set himself up to take the blame and join the ranks of failed NYPD commissioners like Lee Brown who did what a liberal mayor wanted instead of fighting crime. So now it’s time to pander to Islam.

Controversial billionaire Chen Guangbiao placed a full-page advertisement in Monday’s New York Times and a half-page advertisement in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, inviting 1,000 underprivileged Americans to dine with him. “I want to spread the message in the US that there are good philanthropists in China and not all are crazy spenders on luxury goods”. Chen said he was “teaming up with a famous American charity to host a charity luncheon for 1,000 poor and destitute Americans, who each will receive 300 dollars”. The underprivileged will be invited to the Boat House restaurant in New York’s Central Park, where Chen...