Deal Reached to Avert New York Teacher Layoffs by Fernanda Santos - NYTimes.com

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The threatened layoffs of 4,100 teachers in New York’s public schools were averted under a deal that the Bloomberg administration, the City Council and the teachers’ union reached on Friday night.

Details were still being worked out, but the agreement calls for concessions from the United Federation of Teachers and money from the Council.

Under the deal, the union would agree to suspend teacher sabbaticals for a year and permit teachers without a permanent assignment to be used more regularly as classroom substitutes. In addition, the Bloomberg administration would concede that 2,600 teachers would be lost to attrition, 600 more than estimated, saving additional jobs. On one hand, the resolution spares Mr. Bloomberg from becoming the first mayor in nearly 40 years to impose mass teacher layoffs. On the other hand, though, it threatens to undermine his credibility, given that he has declared for two consecutive years that layoffs were inevitable, only to see them averted in a budget deal.

The budget plan also allows the Council to keep open 20 fire companies that the mayor had ordered closed, and it may be able to restore at least some of the cuts he planned for day care services and librarians.

Still, it appeared that up to 1,000 city workers — many of them in health care jobs — would be laid off.

In a news conference at the Education Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan on Friday night, Mr. Bloomberg said he was disappointed he could not avoid all layoffs. Still, he said, “this is a budget that will keep our city strong, but it is also a budget that faces fiscal reality.”

Asked whether he thought his credibility had been hurt, the mayor defended his approach, saying the city faced extremely bleak and unpredictable economic circumstances.

The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, standing by the mayor’s side, praised the deal. “New Yorkers can rest easy tonight knowing that our children will still have great teachers,” she said.

Mr. Bloomberg had taken an aggressive posture during the negotiations, emboldened over the past days by the victories scored in Albany and Trenton against public-sector unions and becoming more emphatic about his demands. But in the end, he and the teachers’ union, one of his most vociferous opponents, had to reach an agreement, helping to balance a $66 billion budget that had a $4.6 billion gap.

A different rescue proposal fell apart on Thursday, after the city rejected an offer from the Municipal Labor Committee, a group representing roughly 100 municipal unions, for $262 million to be taken from a health care reserve fund they jointly manage. By then, Ms. Quinn and the teachers’ union president, Michael Mulgrew, had been secretly meeting for days.

Once the other deal collapsed, talks between Ms. Quinn and Mr. Mulgrew moved into overdrive.

On Friday morning, officials of the city’s Education Department made their way to the union’s headquarters to determine what would and would not be on the table. By late afternoon, the two sides had come to an agreement.

Ms. Quinn, meanwhile, worked to sell the plan to Mr. Bloomberg, emerging as the crucial figure in the process.

The budget must be approved by the full Council by Thursday.

Javier C. Hernandez contributed reporting

Weiner Is Said to Be Planning to Seek Treatment by Raymond Hernandez and Thomas Kaplan - NYTimes.com

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Members of the news media surrounded Representative Anthony D. Weiner near his apartment in Queens on Saturday.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner planned to check himself into a treatment center on Saturday after House Democratic leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, called on him to resign and suggested he needed psychiatric counseling.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Weiner said he would request a leave of absence from the House and seek treatment, but provided no further details.

“Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person,” said the spokeswoman, Risa Heller. “In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from the House of Representatives so that he can get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well.

“Congressman Weiner takes the views of his colleagues very seriously and has determined that he needs this time to get healthy and make the best decision possible for himself, his family and his constituents.”

Ms. Pelosi, the minority leader, was joined in her call for Mr. Weiner to step down by other leading Democrats, including the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida; and the leader of the House Democrats’ re-election efforts, Representative Steve J. Israel of New York. Their calls underscored the growing concern that his online exchanges with women had become a distraction for the party.

“Congressman Weiner has the love of his family, the confidence of his constituents, and the recognition that he needs help,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement. “I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a member of Congress.”

Ms. Wasserman Schultz called Mr. Weiner’s online exchanges a “sordid affair” that had become an “unacceptable distraction” for the congressman, his constituents and the House, according to The Associated Press.

“The behavior he has exhibited is indefensible and Rep. Weiner’s continued service in Congress is untenable,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said.

The calls by Ms. Pelosi and the other top Democrats, who issued their statements within minutes of one another Saturday afternoon, were the culmination of a tumultuous week that began when Mr. Weiner admitted to having inappropriate conversations with at least six women online, after nearly a week of denying any wrongdoing.

The leaders’ statements reflected the panic within Democratic circles that Mr. Weiner would return to Washington this week, after a Congressional recess, and bring yet another round of controversy and distraction to House Democrats.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Israel called Mr. Weiner, a New York Democrat, to let him know that Mr. Weiner’s situation had become politically untenable and that he would be calling on him publicly to step down. On Friday, Mr. Weiner acknowledged he had exchanged at least five private messages on Twitter with a 17-year-old Delaware girl, but indicated that the messages were “neither explicit nor indecent.”

Raymond Hernandez reported from Washington, and Thomas Kaplan from New York.

The Hands That Steer Are Building the Bikes by Sean Patrick Farrell - NYTimes.com

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Like thousands of other New Yorkers, Jason Henkle throws a leg over a bicycle every day and pedals to work. Unlike most of his fellow riders, Mr. Henkle built his understated single-speed bike by hand.

Mr. Henkle is among a small group of dedicated New York cyclists who have begun building their own bicycle frames. Their hand-constructed cycles are often custom made for a tailored fit and sometimes include personal touches like the small metal pi symbol Mr. Henkle affixes to his machines.

“They’re pi-cycles,” said Mr. Henkle, making the kind of pun befitting his job as a high school math teacher. He keeps two of his bikes in his living room and often spends his evenings and weekends in a tight storage room he has converted into a frame building shop in his apartment building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

A recent Saturday afternoon found him methodically filing steel tubes for a precise fit on a road frame that’s half-finished. “It’s a nice combination of an athletic activity, craft, science and engineering all balled up into one,” said Mr. Henkle, 30, who figures it takes him about 80 hours to complete a frame.

Some people, like Mr. Henkle, treat the craft as a hobby, building bikes for themselves and a few friends. But a growing number of shops are building made-to-measure frames for customers.

“I got to chat with some of the pros,” he said. “I was definitely able to walk away with some good info.”Many other cyclists in New York and the rest of the country have taken up files, torches and even bamboo and glue to build their own bikes. The North American Handmade Bicycle Show, which started in 2005 with 23 frame builders exhibiting their wares, has grown into a Concours d’Elegance for two-wheelers, featuring more than 160 microbike exhibitors. Mr. Henkle attended the 2011 show last week in Austin, Tex., to learn the latest techniques.

Anchoring the scene is Johnny Coast, a 35-year-old with seven years of frame building and, by his count, 200 to 300 frames under his belt. Mr. Coast’s frames, which are highly regarded for their classic lines and elegant lugs — the often-decorative joints that join tubes — start at $2,250.

Mr. Coast and many builders embrace the small imperfections that are less likely to be spotted in mass-produced machine-built bikes.

“I think people like seeing the hand of the builder,” he said. “You see a little file mark, you see a human made this.”

Like many hobby builders, Lance Mercado, 35, began by making bicycle frames for himself and friends. He has been building custom steel frames professionally since 2007, after taking a popular course in Oregon, and is the owner of SquareBuilt, a shop in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that specializes in single-speed and track bikes.

“I basically was going to buy a bike one day and saw the ad to learn to build a bike,” he said. “So I went, and people started asking me to build them one, too.” He eventually dropped his job as a waiter to pursue the business.

Krista Ciminera learning the craft with help from Lance Mercado. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times 

Mr. Mercado’s shop has become a nexus of the frame-building community. Krista Ciminera, 27, a messenger, is building a frame for herself and learning the craft at SquareBuilt.

“I really like making stuff with my hands,” Ms. Ciminera said, “and it feels good to be at these machines with sparks flying.”

Recently, Mr. Henkle stopped into SquareBuilt for help on a problem with a lug on his current project. Mr. Mercado welcomes the growing interest.

“The more builders there are in New York, the better for everyone to learn off each other,” Mr. Mercado said.

The city has long been a bike-building center. For more than a century Worksman Cycles in Queens has been making durable utility bicycles and tricycles, and Brooklyn Machine Works has been creating BMX and downhill bikes for more than 15 years. But the community of smaller shops, especially in Brooklyn, continues to broaden. Horse Cycles is a one-man custom-steel shop in Williamsburg, and Bamboo Bike Studio in Red Hook offers a two-day frame-building course using bamboo.

“You can make a bike and make it just as good as any other bike,” said Marty Odlin, 29, who started Bamboo Bike Studio in 2009 and has since expanded to San Francisco. A basic frame-building class costs $632, and proceeds go toward projects to supply bicycles to people in the developing world.

The studio has taught more than 250 people — from 12-year-olds to riders in their 70s — to make the distinctive frames. “They’re beautiful, and they’re really beautiful to the people who build them,” Mr. Odlin said, referring to the bamboo bikes but echoing the thoughts of many hand builders. “There’s a pride thing.”

Most New York Graduates Are Ill Prepared, Data Show by Sharon Otterman - NYTimes.com

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New York State education officials released a new set of graduation statistics on Monday that show fewer than half of students in the state are leaving high school prepared for college and well-paying careers.

The new statistics, part of a push to realign state standards with college performance, show that only 23 percent of students in New York City graduated ready for college or careers in 2009, not counting special-education students. That is well under half the current graduation rate of 64 percent, a number often promoted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as evidence that his education policies are working.

But New York City is still doing better than the state’s other large urban districts. In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, less than 17 percent of students met the proposed standards, including just 5 percent in Rochester.

The Board of Regents, which sets the state’s education policies, met on Monday to begin discussing what to do with this data, and will most likely issue a decision in March. One option is to make schools and districts place an asterisk next to the current graduation rate, or have them report both the current graduation rate and the college ready rate, said Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents.

The move parallels a decision by the Regents last year to make standardized tests for third through eighth graders more difficult to pass, saying that the old passing rates did not correlate to high school success.

“With three through eight, we ripped the Band-Aid off,” Dr. Tisch said in an interview last week. “The thing we said then, in looking at the business world, is that if you sit on this, you become the Enron of test scores, the Enron of graduation rates. We need to indicate exactly what it all means, especially since we’ve already said that college-ready should be the indicator of high school completion.”

State and city education officials have known for years that graduating from a public high school does not indicate that a student is ready for college, and have been slowly moving to raise standards. But the political will to acknowledge openly the chasm between graduation requirements and college or job needs is new, Dr. Tisch; David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner; and John King, the deputy state education commissioner, said in interviews last week.

With President Obama making college readiness and international competitiveness a top national goal, and federal and philanthropic money pouring into finding ways to raise national education standards, that equation is changing, they said. “It is a national crisis,” Dr. Steiner said.

Statewide, 77 percent of students graduate from high school. Currently, a student needs to score a 65 on four of the state’s five required Regents exams to graduate, and beginning next year, they will need a 65 on all five.

Using data collected by state and community colleges, testing experts on a state committee determined last year that a 75 on the English Regents and a 80 on the math Regents roughly predicted that students would get at least a C in a college-level course in the same subject. Scores below that meant students had to often take remediation classes before they could do college-level work. Only 41 percent of New York State graduates in 2009 achieved those scores.

In the wealthier districts across the state, the news is better: 72 percent of students in “low need” districts are graduating ready for college or careers. But even that is well under the 95 percent of students in those districts who are now graduating.

The data also cast new doubt on the ability of charter schools to outperform their traditional school peers. Statewide, only 10 percent of students at charters graduated in 2009 at college-ready standards, though 49 percent received diplomas. The state has not yet calculated results for every district and school.

State officials have also begun a series of meetings in local districts to introduce this data and ask local officials what they want to do about it. A common reaction, Dr. Tisch said, is shock and hesitancy. There are fears of plummeting real estate values, as well as disagreement, particularly in rural areas, with the idea that all students need to be prepared for college.

Jean-Claude Brizard, the schools superintendent in Rochester for the past three years, said that while he was surprised by the data, he welcomed the effort to move the conversation away from simply graduating. In an effort to improve, Rochester has closed half its high schools and opened new schools, including its first high school that allows students to earn credits at several local colleges.

“We are behind the eight-ball a bit, but we are pushing,” he said. “It’s shocking, I know. It’s low. But for me, it is going to support my initiatives.”

In New York City, roughly 75 percent of public high school students who enroll in community colleges need to take remedial math or English courses before they can begin college-level work. City education officials said the 23 percent college-ready rate was not a fair measure of how the city would do if graduation requirements were raised to a higher standard, because students would work harder to meet that new bar.

While it has not gone so far as to calculate an alternative to graduation rates, the city has already begun tracking how each high school’s students fare in college, and in 2012 it will begin holding principals accountable for it. “Last year, well before the state announced this plan, we told schools we would begin including robust college readiness metrics in school progress reports,” said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer.

One thing that is helping districts get over their shock, Dr. Tisch said, is the opening of a broad discussion about how to improve things. On their tour, which has visited Albany, Buffalo and Rochester and will visit New York City, Westchester County and Long Island in the coming weeks, officials are presenting a menu of options.

One idea is to simply report a college-ready graduation rate as an aspirational standard and leave it at that. Another is to impose tougher graduation standards — like requiring that all students in the state take four years of math and science, or permanently raising the passing score on high school Regents exams to 75 in English and 80 in math.

But they are also discussing increased flexibility for districts and students, so that they can spend more time on the subjects they are interested in. For example, students might be permitted to choose at least one of the Regents exams they must pass to graduate — currently all students have to pass math, English, science, global history and American history. Students might be able to substitute foreign language, economics or art for one of the five. Or students could replace one Regents with a vocational skills test in an area like carpentry or plumbing.

Alternatively, the state could grant flexibility to districts to give credits based not on how many hours students sit in a classroom — currently 54 hours per semester per credit — but on whether students show competency, based on examination or online course work.

To press their case, state officials said they hoped to get political support from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The political environment was particularly challenging now, because the state will roll out a new system in July to evaluate teachers that has the potential of strong opposition from teachers’ unions.

“I would consider it irresponsible, quite frankly, to hold back information at this point, considering that we have already moved in that direction on the three through eight,” Dr. Tisch said, adding, “The obligation at the end of the day is to make sure that when youngsters graduate, that graduation means something from New York State.”

Mayor and State Reach Deal on Schools Chancellor Cathleen P. Black by Javier C. Hernandez - NYTimes.com

David Steiner sells out parents for Bloomturd...Deal in works to place the unqualified Cathie Black as Schools Chancellor...The King of NYC is proven once again to be above the law...

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The state’s education commissioner, David M. Steiner, and the Bloomberg administration have reached a deal that will allow Cathleen P. Black, a media executive, to become the next schools chief.

A top education official in the city’s schools system, Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief accountability officer, will be named the chief academic officer to serve as the No. 2 to Ms. Black, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement between the state and the city.

In return, Dr. Steiner on Monday will grant Ms. Black a waiver from the state law requiring the chancellor to have certain education credentials that Ms. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazine, lacks.

Mr. Steiner had expressed reservations about granting Ms. Black an exemption and had made the appointment of a chief academic officer a condition for considering her nomination.

The move is a major concession from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg who typically resists any intrusion into his management of city agencies.

The Main Course Had an Unhappy Face by Ariel Kaminer - NYTimes.com

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She was a beautiful bird, a Bourbon Red turkey whose rich brown feathers were flecked with white, and she had spent her days roaming free around an organic farm that overlooked the Hudson River. But as I stood watching her, she did not seem happy. Instead, with her almond eyes downcast, her subdued manner suggested a kind of forbearance.

Perhaps she sensed I was not there to make friends. In truth, I was there to kill her.

We were standing in Madani Halal, a family-run slaughterhouse in Ozone Park, Queens, that follows Islamic dietary strictures. Many of the small New York State farms that bring their livestock there are drawn, however, by something more basic: the slaughterhouse’s commitment to minimizing the animals’ discomfort.

Its staff is also committed to the idea that people should know what they are eating, which is why Madani, along with a small but significant number of farms, allows customers to choose their animals, to witness their slaughter and even, for those so inclined, to wield the sharpened knife. It’s all part of the broader cultural effort to escape the climate-controlled, linoleum-lined artificiality of supermarket shopping, in which meat magically appears all ready for your oven and animals are characters in children’s storybooks.

Still, there’s a big difference between shopping at a greenmarket and actually dragging a blade across the throat of a living creature.

Out of view of the other birds (so as not to scare them), Imran Uddin, the guy to see at Madani Halal, turned my turkey upside down and placed her, head first, in one of the inverted cones that lined a long stainless-steel table. She seemed calm. I was scared. Scared that I would fail — that at the moment of truth I would hesitate, and thereby hurt the bird, and scared that I would succeed and end up with blood on my hands, literally and figuratively. So I asked Mr. Uddin to hold the knife with me.

Taking the turkey’s head with his other hand, he pronounced, “Bismillah Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “In the name of Allah the great.” Then, in one swift movement, we cut her throat.

The bird’s body went slack, and her head — still attached — sank slowly into the blood-lined tray beneath. After a few moments, she roused again for a quick bout of flapping, but at last came to rest, head curled to one side, wings tucked around herself, and a single foot pointing straight up in the air.

Stepping out of the slaughterhouse and squinting at the light, I didn’t feel brave. I didn’t feel idealistic. I felt crummy.

That feeling is a modern carnivore’s ultimate luxury, a measure of how much distance lies between us and our food sources, and how much comfort we take from it. Slaughtering a turkey felt shocking to me, but for most human beings it would have been routine; if you want meat, you kill it, end of story.

Stone and Thistle Farm, in upstate New York, is another place that encourages people to get involved with the slaughtering process. Every year before Thanksgiving, said Denise Warren, one half of the husband-and-wife team that runs the farm, people come up to help, and no one is allowed to play the role of innocent bystander.

Ms. Warren said the motivations vary: people trying to work their way to a turkey they could not otherwise afford, vegetarians looking to test their beliefs and some drawn by the hearty farm table lunches she serves. “I think they get the true experience that we’ve lost,” she says, “that Thanksgiving used to be a celebration of our harvest.”

Stone and Thistle charges $3.75 per pound for its turkeys, the standard broadbreasted whites and bronzes.

For my Bourbon Red, a heritage breed, I paid $7 a pound and hauled it home on the subway in a black plastic bag. And then what? The only turkeys I had ever cooked were Schwarzeneggerian giants, their exaggerated pectorals bursting forth from their plastic wrapping. This heritage bird, however, was eight pounds, a mere starling by comparison. No recipe I found was of any use. So I contacted the next of kin — Hart Perry, the farmer who raised her at Southwood farm, outside Hudson, N.Y.

He seemed untroubled at the thought of an amateur having ended the bird’s life, and he was resolute on the best way to cook her. “We heritage Bourbon Reds are very tasty,” he wrote in an e-mail, slipping into character, “and require no seasoning since that would interfere with our inherent deliciousness. Just salt and pepper.” Against the advice of two chefs, I did as he said, setting the oven to 350 degrees; it was the most flavorful turkey I had ever had.

For those carnivores who are truly at one with the world, killing your own meat might feel almost like a spiritual act, a way to participate in every step of the life cycle. That’s not how it went for me. I found it upsetting and, on some very basic level, gross.

I won’t be doing it every time I need a chicken to roast. But it is a strong corrective to dislocation and alienation of our industrial food system, a chance for once to understand what we are eating and where it came from.

Whatever the time of year, that chance is a reason to give thanks.

E-mail: citycritic@nytimes.com

Rangel Violated Numerous House Ethics Rules, Panel Finds - NY Times

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A House ethics panel has found that Representative Charles B.Rangel committed multiple ethical violations. He had been accused of bringing dishonor to Congress by accepting rent-stabilized apartments from a Manhattan developer, failing to pay taxes on a rental income from his Dominican villa and raising charitable donations from companies and corporate executives who had business before the committee he led.

A House ethics panel has convicted Representative Charles B. Rangel of 12 of the 13 ethics violations he faced, ranging from accepting rent-stabilized apartments from a Manhattan developer to failing to pay taxes on a rental income from his Dominican villa to raising charitable donations from companies and corporate executives who had business before the committee he led.

The convictions cast a cloud over the half-century political career of Mr. Rangel, an 80-year-old Democrat who was recently reelected to a 21st term representing Harlem and who was the longtime head of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, chairwoman of the adjudicatory subcommittee of the House ethics committee, announced the subcommittee’s verdicts Tuesday morning just before noon. The matter now goes to the full House committee for action.

Ethics experts say the committee is likely to issue Mr. Rangel only a letter of reprimand or a formal censure. While the committee has the power to expel, that has happened only rarely and is considered highly unlikely.

Breaking News - U.S. Arrests Connecticut Man in Times Square Bomb Plot by William K. Rashbaum, Mark Mazzetti and Peter Baker - NY Times

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A Connecticut woman said she sold the S.U.V. used in the failed bombing to a man she described as Middle Eastern or Hispanic.

Federal agents and police detectives Monday night arrested a Connecticut man, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing on Saturday night, two people briefed on the investigation said.

The man, whose name was not immediately released, was believed to be the one who recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was found loaded with gasoline, propane, fireworks and fertilizer in the heart of Times Square, the people said. Charges against the man, who had returned recently from a trip to Pakistan, were not announced.

The authorities began focusing on him after they tracked the vehicle to its previously registered owner in Bridgeport, Conn., who had advertised it for sale on several websites. He paid cash, and the sale was handled without any formal paperwork.

The former owner told investigators that the buyer was of Middle Eastern or Hispanic descent, but could not recall his name. It was unclear how agents from the Joint Terrorist Task Force identified him. Federal authorities Monday night provided few details about the arrest, the suspect, or the scope of any conspiracy in the failed attack.

The authorities have been exploring whether the man or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials. The investigation was shifted on Monday to the control of the international terrorism branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency group led by the Justice Departmenthttp, according to two federal officials.

Officials cautioned that the investigation of possible international contacts did not mean there was a connection to a known terrorist group, but they said they were exploring all possibilities.

"It's a prominent lead that they're following, the international association," said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. "But there's still a lot of information being gathered."

On Monday, there was a sweeping response to the attempted attack in the tourist-packed city-within-a-city of Times Square — including an increased police presence, vehicle inspections and a touch of panic from veteran New Yorkers when a manhole fire flared five blocks from the scene of the failed bombing. Consolidated Edison blamed faulty wiring for the fire.

The recent sale of the Pathfinder began online. An advertisement that appears to be for the vehicle, which had 141,000 miles on the odometer and was listed for sale at $1,300 on at least two Web sites, emphasized that it was in good condition — “CLEAN inside and out!!” — with a recently repaired alternator and a new gas pump, distributor and front tires. “It does have some rust as you can see in the picture,” the seller allowed on NothingButCars.net, “but other than that, it runs great.” The other advertisement appeared on Craigslist.

In Bridgeport, the seller refused to answer questions. “You can’t interview her,” said an unidentified man at the woman’s two-story, white clapboard house. “She already talked to the F.B.I.”

The police continued sifting through footage from 82 city cameras mounted from 34th Street to 51st Street between Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue, and from untold number of business and tourist cameras.

But investigators appeared to have begun to assign less significance to a man who appeared to be in his 40s who was seen on one video. That man was seen walking away from the area where the Pathfinder was parked and through Shubert Alley, which runs between 44th and 45th Streets. He looked over his shoulder at least twice and pulled off a shirt, revealing a red T-shirt underneath.

The New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said investigators still wanted to speak to that man, but acknowledged that he might not be connected to the failed bombing. Paul J. Browne, the department’s top spokesman, said the police had stopped looking for additional video in the area that might have tracked the man’s movements.

“It may turn out that he was just somebody in the area, but not connected with the car bomb,” Mr. Browne said.

The police, though, said they might release footage of a man running north on Broadway at the time that a fire broke out in the Pathfinder, Mr. Kelly said.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seemed optimistic in comments he made Monday morning. “I think that we have made really substantial progress,” he told reporters in Washington. “We have some good leads.”

The materials found in the Pathfinder were to be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for analysis, the police said. “They’ve got the top laboratory in the world to do these sorts of examinations, and we’ll keep some samples here,” Mr. Kelly said.

Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said on the “Today” show on NBC that it was premature to label any person or group as suspect. “Right now, every lead has to be pursued,” she said. “I caution against premature decisions one way or the other.” But the White House made clear that it considered the effort an act of terrorism, whoever its authors were. “I think anybody that has the type of material that they had in a car in Times Square, I would say that that was intended to terrorize, absolutely,” said the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs.

Michael Wilson contributed reporting.

Preservation Groups Find Bargains in Housing Bust by Leslie Kaufman- NYTimes.com

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The Trust for Public Land is helping to purchase this 46-acre property in Little Egg Harbor, N.J., for $3.5 million. It will become part of the adjacent Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Kathy Haake/The Trust for Public Land

From the Florida Everglades to the bluffs overlooking the Deschutes River in Oregon, conservationists are snapping up prime property for preservation, often at a fraction of what the asking price was at the real estate market’s height.

On Wednesday, the threatened bog turtle got a reprieve when conservationists scooped up 166 acres of marshland in Frankford Township in northern New Jersey, where developers had planned to build luxury homes. Hours later, city officials and environmentalists in Boise, Idaho, were rejoicing as they closed a deal to protect 1,300 acres of wooded foothills beloved by local hikers.

The victories reveal a green lining of sorts in a credit crisis that has depressed real estate prices, prompted foreclosures and derailed development projects across the nation.

The purchases by conservationists and state and local governments assure that thousands of acres will be put aside in perpetuity for parks, watershed protection or simply preservation of open space.

“We are getting a second bite at properties that never should have been developed in the first place,” said Will Rogers, president of the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit group that buys land for preservation. “We are working on dozens of these deals across the country, and I know other land trusts are as well.”

Although the real estate bubble burst in 2008, it was only in the last 6 to 12 months that many developers and banks became desperate enough to slash prices deeply enough for the trusts, Mr. Rogers and several other conservationists said.

Suki Molina, vice president of the Foothills Conservation Advisory Committee, which joined with the City of Boise in spending $10 million to preserve open space, said her group noticed a change in the way local landowners were approaching the committee early this year.

“The prices were lower,” Ms. Molina said, “but what has really changed is the attitude of the developers — they want to get out. Before this year, they would call, say they had a great piece of land and wanted top dollar. Now, they just want to sell.”

So what seemed like dream property forever out of their reach — including waterfront sites near cities or land bordering untouchable parks — is suddenly attainable.

In Little Egg Harbor, N.J., north of Atlantic City, Mr. Rogers’s group is buying 46 acres covered with pine scrub and marshes for $3.5 million. A year ago, it was priced at $6.2 million after its developer dropped plans for 73 single-family homes as part of a development called the Landings. Now it will become part of the adjacent Edwin Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.

Similarly, officials in New York City announced on Tuesday that a park would be created on a site in Jamaica Bay, Queens, where 21 two-story attached houses with views of water had been planned only a year ago. The bay is polluted yet nutrient-rich, and buffering wetlands are needed there for bird and wildlife protection.

And in Portland, Ore., 27 acres of grassy and wooded hills at the city’s southeastern end that were to become a residential subdivision are now open for hiking, picnicking and dog walking.

The land has been added to a city park called Clatsop Butte. It sold for $4.4 million when the market collapsed, down from its estimated worth of $5 million a few months earlier.

In many cases, the preservation deals are negotiated with banks that have foreclosed on property and are eager to get bad assets off the books.

Bill Eshenbaugh, a real estate broker in Florida who goes by the promotional moniker the Dirt Dog, said the trusts’ endowments often allowed them to pay cash, which banks now require in such cases.

In 2009, “we did over $60 million in land deals, and not one penny financed,” Mr. Eshenbaugh said. “It was all cash. The trusts can come up with the cash, and cash is what it’s all about.”

Still, while the trusts see more opportunities, they have also been taking in fewer donations since the economic downturn. Local and state governments enlisted to cover part of a purchase or to maintain donated land are usually struggling as well.

Keith Fountain, director of land acquisition for the Florida chapter of the nonprofit Nature Conservancy, which focuses on preserving large swaths of undeveloped land to protect ecosystems, said the past year’s offerings were the best in the 17 years he had pursued properties, among them 500,000 acres that protect rivers feeding the Everglades.

But this year, for the first time in two decades, shortfalls led the State of Florida not to budget its annual $300 million for land conservation. Previously, the conservancy had put together deals and the state put up the cash. As a result, Mr. Fountain said, the conservancy has had to pass up some gems.

When a preservation purchase succeeds, not every municipality is necessarily happy. Towns may mourn the loss of development that could have generated revenue.

Officials in Albemarle County, Va., for example, are frustrated that Forest Lodge L.L.C., a local developer that had permits to build 3,100 houses and apartments on 800 acres of meadows and forest, gave that land and 400 acres more to the state for a park this week in return for tax credits.

Supervisors had anticipated $38 million in commitments for public improvements from Forest Lodge. What is more, said Dennis Rooker, a member of the board of supervisors, the county spent more than $200,000 in staff time to hammer out that plan.

But in the long run, said Mr. Rogers of the Trust for Public Land, even developers recognize that newly protected lands can have a positive effect on real estate prices.

“Developers have long seen that conserved land next to a development adds value,” he said. “There are genuine economic benefits for everyone that will come out of this.”

Forest Park Seuffert Bandshell Sign Update...

Click on image to enlarge...

Evidently someone at the Parks Department must read the local blogs...The previously reported incorrect sign at the Forest Park Seuffert Bandshell which combined the first name of the present City Council member, Elizabeth Crowley with the last name of disgraced former City Council member Dennis Gallagher for a sign which read "Elizabeth Gallagher" was removed today...The Parks Dept mistake was posted on this blog on Decemeber 26th and cross-posted on Queens Crap (Dec 28th) and the NYTimes City Room blog (Dec 28th) just a few short days ago...I would accredit the quick attention by the Parks Dept to this matter as an acknowledgment that the new media and blogs on the internet are making a difference...The Power of the New Media..!

Photo by Manny...

Lover of Backyard Pigeons Is Dealt a Setback in Court by Cara Buckley - NYTimes.com

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A man whose devout feeding of pigeons in his Queens backyard resulted in fines was told by a State Supreme Court judge on Thursday that he had failed to abide by all the proper legal avenues before filing a lawsuit against the city.

The Queens man, Cecil Pitts, who has been feeding pigeons for 50 of his 66 years, was cited by the health department last year for causing a nuisance because his daily feedings caused excessive waste. He was also cited for failing to show proof that one of his dogs had been vaccinated for rabies.

One of Mr. Pitts’s neighbors had complained about the birds, calling 311 to report an “unsanitary pigeon condition” at Mr. Pitts’s modest three-story home in South Ozone Park.

After learning that he faced $500 in fines, Mr. Pitts, who lives on $450 a month from Social Security, decided that his only option was to sue the city. Unable to afford a lawyer, he represented himself, and claimed that the health inspector trespassed without a court document, gave no warning of the inspection and overstated the number of pigeons that were there (the inspector put the bird count at 150 that day). He wanted the city to pay him $1,000 in damages and to have the fines waived.

But Justice Charles J. Markey of State Supreme Court in Queens denied Mr. Pitts’s claim, saying that he had not filed an appeal with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene before suing the city.

In February of this year, Judge Markey froze the late fees and penalties on the fines that Mr. Pitts owed, but lifted that stay on Thursday.

Mr. Pitts did not answer calls to his home.

Democrats Are Poised to Control Albany by Nicholas Confessore and Danny Hakim - NYTimes.com

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State Senator Serphin R. Maltese at his campaign headquarters in Queens Tuesday night. The Republican senator, a 10-term incumbent, lost to Joseph Addabbo Jr., a Queens city councilman. Photo: Uli Seit for The New York Times

Propelled by a surge of new voters, Democrats won a majority in the New York State Senate on Tuesday, putting the party in control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office for the first time since the New Deal.

State Senator Serphin R. Maltese at his campaign headquarters in Queens Tuesday night. The Republican senator, a 10-term incumbent, lost to Joseph Addabbo Jr., a Queens city councilman.

Democrats turned out in historic numbers from Buffalo to Long Island, overcoming a vaunted Republican political machine to oust two senators whose combined years in office spanned more than half a century.

According to unofficial results, Democrats captured 32 out of the 62 seats in the Senate. The shift marks the end of an era for New York Republicans, whose control of the Senate had come to depend on a bloc of senators, some in their 70s and 80s, who had put off retirement to help preserve the party’s majority.

In Suffolk County, Brian X. Foley, a Democratic town supervisor in Brookhaven, delivers a victory speech after defeating Senator Caesar Trunzo, a Republican who has held office since 1972. Photo: Melanie Fidler for The New York Times

On Long Island, Senator Caesar Trunzo, 82, who has held office since Richard Nixon was president, lost by 17 percentage points to a Democrat, Brian X. Foley, the son of a candidate whom Mr. Trunzo beat in the early 1980s.

In a poignant appearance in a small hotel ballroom in Holtsville, N.Y., Mr. Trunzo received a standing ovation from his fellow Republicans, many of whom have never known a time when he did not dominate the local political scene.

“I’m very proud of my record, I’m very proud of all that I have done,” Mr. Trunzo said. “The people have spoken.”

One of Mr. Trunzo’s colleagues, Senator Serphin R. Maltese of Queens, 75, conceded defeat to Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., 44, a Democratic city councilman, in one of the most expensive and contentious state legislative races this year.

But the elation felt by party leaders Tuesday night was tempered by lingering questions about the allegiance of four Democratic senators from New York City who have so far refused to rule out crossing party lines to support Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Nassau County Republican, as Senate majority leader.

The four Democrats — Pedro Espada Jr. and Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn and Hiram Monserrate of Queens — have said they might not back Mr. Smith.

In a statement issued late Tuesday night, Mr. Skelos stopped short of admitting defeat, suggesting that he and his fellow Republicans would make an aggressive play to the wavering Democrats.

“While our numbers will be fewer, our voice will grow louder, and we will continue our fight to maintain balance and ensure an accountable government that represents all of the people throughout every region of the state,” Mr. Skelos said.

But Senator Malcolm A. Smith, the Senate Democratic leader, declared victory nonetheless and pledged he and his colleagues will get to work immediately.

“After 40 years in the wilderness, we are now in charge of the New York State Senate,” Mr. Smith said at a party in Midtown Manhattan.

Losing the Senate deprives Republicans of their last outpost of power in New York and marks a profound shift in political power away from rural areas and Long Island and toward New York City, Buffalo and other cities where Democrats dominate. If Mr. Smith is elected majority leader, then all of Albany’s “three men in a room”— the governor and the Senate and Assembly leaders — would hail from New York City.

Another long-serving Republican previously thought to be safe, Senator Frank Padavan of Queens, remained locked in a surprisingly tight race with his Democratic challenger and could face a recount or court challenge.

Republicans held on to an open seat in the Buffalo suburbs, where hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent by the two parties, unions and independent groups. But elsewhere upstate, two Democrats considered vulnerable, Senator Darrel J. Aubertine and William T. Stachowski, won by small but comfortable margins.

All around the country, Democrats turned out in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate. That appears to have bolstered Democrats in relatively obscure State Senate races, where Democratic workers had spent weeks calling voters to remind them to vote all the way down the ballot.

The Democrats last won a majority in the Senate in 1964, but held it for only a single fractious year. Many Senate Republicans have only known life in the majority, and some may choose to retire rather than serve in the minority. Political donations of special interest groups will swing heavily to the new majority caucus, and unless Republicans retake the chamber in 2010, Democrats would control the redrawing of district lines.

"If the Democrats control redistricting, the Republicans are in the wilderness for decades," said Gerald Benjamin, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

But the Democratic victory on Tuesday will complicate the coming budget negotiations. Gov. David A. Paterson has called a special session of the Legislature for Nov. 18 to help close an estimated $1.5 billion budget shortfall for the current fiscal year and get an early start on next year’s budget.

Even before Tuesday, Republicans had suggested that they were digging in for a fight over state aid to schools and other budget items, refusing Mr. Paterson’s request for a list of proposed cuts to spending. But as a lame-duck majority, they would have little incentive to agree to painful cuts now, when they could easily pass the buck to Democrats after the Senate is reorganized early next year.

With the Democrats winning control of the Senate, some of them acknowledged Tuesday night that their party will bear sole responsibility for the heavy burden of taming and running New York’s traditionally dysfunctional state government.

“There will be no excuses,” said Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. “We’re going be expected to take all those ideas we’ve talked about and make them happen. People are expecting us to change paradigms.”

Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.

Editorial - For New York State Senate - NYTimes.com

NY Times Endorses Joe Addabbo and Jim Gennaro for State Senate

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One of the excuses New York’s legislators give for the abysmal way they operate is that the Assembly is run by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans. If one side wants X. The other wants Y. And Zero happens.

This year voters can take away that excuse since a Democrat is in the governor’s office and the Republicans hold the Senate by one seat. Real campaign finance reform and fixing the lobbying and ethics commission are a must. But the most important reform is to create a nonpartisan independent redistricting commission that would draw legislative districts fairly, rather than ensure the re-election of incumbents.

Reform will take real leadership, which neither Gov. David Paterson nor Sheldon Silver, the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, have shown in this area. But running in close downstate races this year are three Democrats who are committed to the kind of change that Albany needs, including a truly independent redistricting commission.

Third State Senate District on Long Island: Voters have a good choice in the Democratic challenger, Brian Foley, the town supervisor of Brookhaven. Mr. Foley has managed to restore the town’s good name after decades of rotten Republican rule. The incumbent, Caesar Trunzo, was elected in the Nixon era. His core argument for re-election has boiled down to his pride in being a major conduit for pork. Long ago, he became a living monument to the inertia in Albany. We endorse Brian Foley.

State Senate District 11 in Queens: Frank Padavan, a veteran Republican who has served in this district since 1972, has done some good in all those years. He has opposed gambling, for example, and human trafficking. But his views on women’s reproductive rights and immigration are backward, even dangerous. James Gennaro, a member of City Council, offers a passionate contrast, not only on those issues but on the environment. He has been fighting to protect New York City’s reservoirs. We endorse James Gennaro.

State Senate District 15 in Queens: Serphin Maltese, the incumbent Republican, is a well-established Albany hand who has routed plenty of money to his mostly Democratic district. After 20 years, however, it is time for someone like Joseph Addabbo to try his hand. Mr. Addabbo, a member of City Council, has said that if Democrats take over, they will not force the same Draconian rules on Republicans that now exist to punish Democrats. That is a good start. We endorse Mr. Addabbo.