Arun Venugopal

Here's news we can use more of: According to Mayor B, while people stopped buying as much stuff, attendance at cultural institutions actually rose five to eight percent last year. He cited a study by NYC Arts that I can't find anywhere, but is validated by this survey by The Art Newspaper. And at least with the Museum of Modern Art, the study rang true. Attendance for the fiscal year ending in June, 2009, was at a record high of 2.8 million.

Last week a friend sent me this long piece in New York magazine, "Brooklyn Killed Manhattan, and is Dead Itself."

"A nice take on a tired topic," is how he put it.

The city is trying to make the local film industry a bit more racially diverse.

New York, NY —

The city is trying to make the local film industry a bit more racially diverse. A new program will use city funding to train people of color for jobs on set, including positions for gaffers, riggers, and dolly grips.

An existing program to train minority production ...

It may seem a bit behind the times to say that independent bloggers are just as legit as their peers in the mainstream media, but in the real world of covering crime, or disasters, or the mayor of New York, that's not the case. Independent bloggers can't get press credentials, nor the special access those credentials bring, such as crossing police lines or a seat at certain mayoral events. That gives reporters with traditional media outlets a disproportionate amount of influence when it comes to covering local politics and city affairs. And it means that City Hall can manage a limited set of reporters as it tries to shape the news.

No longer.

New York, NY —

The city is set to shrink its sprawling IT infrastructure. Commissioner Carole Post of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications says that by consolidating the data systems used by 40-plus agencies, the city can reduce costs and improve services.

Speaking at a data center in ...

New York, NY —

Two New York lawmakers are moving to prevent the governor's office from abusing access to the state police. State Sen. Eric Adams says he and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are proposing an investigation because of revelations that the Paterson administration may have inappropriately turned to state ...

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

What's a food vendor to do when he or she has use the bathroom? Most of them slip into a cafe or restaurant lavatory and try to return to work quickly. But one ...

I swung by the auditions for the Brooklyn Ballet's first Summer Intensive, on Sunday. This is a program for young, hardcore ballet aspirants. BB's hope is that they can take its arabesques and changment de plieds to the farthest reaches of the borough, not just in traditional spaces but in storefronts, community centers, and parks -- i.e., not just where the gentry congregate. The best part was watching the kids in the picture above do their moves. Also, talking to the teenagers who sweat it out daily in hopes of getting to the American Ballet Theatre. You can listen to a few of them here. For a waffly guy like myself, it's hard to believe that youth and determination can be so clearly united. These kids know what they want.

New York, NY —

As of last month, when New Jersey signed it into law, there are 14 states that allow the use of medical marijuana. Some people think New York could be No. 15, and are watching as a bill winds its way through the state Senate and ...

What constitutes an act of terrorism? Is it enough to fly an airplane into an important building, in an effort to make a bold political statement against the U.S. government?

Interesting little item on OpenSecrets.org today, noting that it's now legal to carry guns into national parks. Sidenote:

Gun control advocates, meanwhile, spent a relative pittance in 2009 on federal lobbying efforts -- $180,000. Most of that came from a single organization: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The decline in gun control advocates' lobbying power is striking: In 2001, the special interest area spent more than $2.1 million on federal lobbying efforts.

Friday was a busy day. Continued with my Oscar viewing blitz: 'An Education,' followed by 'Inglorious Basterds,' with a little MoMA and Gabriel Orozco sandwiched in. 'An Education' is a really good movie - they would do right to hand Carey Mulligan the Best Actress award. 'Inglorious,' was a different matter. It felt good and cathartic at the time - Jews kick Nazi tail - but there were so many holes in the film, and it felt so 'B-movie' in its ambitions that I'm inclined to think Tarantino's tittering over his many nominations.

... is not some hot Broadway production, nor the latest offering from the Met Opera. This past weekend, at least, it was the Bollywood blockbuster 'My Name is Khan,' starring Shahrukh Khan. This is meant to be the definitive non-Hollywood take on 9/11 and its aftermath, and the buildup to the film's release around the world has been intense (Shahrukh made a big worldwide stink when he was detained at Newark airport, last year -- great advance hype). It showed at just 120 theaters in the US, but earned more than $2 million over the 3-day weekend, making its per-screen average of $16,158 the highest of any release.

Immigration reform has been on the back burner in Congress but a group of New Yorkers wants to end that with a road trip.

New York, NY —

Immigration reform has been on the back burner in Congress but a group of New Yorkers wants to end that with a road trip. The group plans to visit towns across the state and pressure politicians to join in their cause. Kevin Kwok is one ...

Is it worth signing up for Notify NYC? That would be the city service that sends out email and text-message alerts (and Tweets!) whenever an emergency's afoot. It might be a public health alert, a nearby fire, or something decidedly mundane, like no street cleaning. I signed up a few weeks ago, after covering an event at which the Dept of Education announced the system would extend to school-related alerts.

'This is War. This is Brooklyn.'

This is a film with Ethan Hawke AND Richard Gere. That's some mean streets.

Having worked in the Indian media, I know how hard it can be to get hard data on smaller populations in the US. There's a lot about newer immigrant groups that stays at the anecdotal level - regarding health issues, social problems, political preferences - which have been quantified and updated for decades in the broader population.

New York, NY —

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pushing back against reports questioning the integrity of the NYPD's crime reporting system, CompStat. The mayor challenges the accuracy of a recent survey in which former police officers said CompStat statistics were manipulated to maintain the impression of record low crime ...