Music Plus Movies
Posted by Declan MacManus in News on May 18th, 2009
White Plains’ best video rental store features Blu Ray discs and a well-stocked adult film department. Conveniently located at 80 Mamaroneck Ave near Main Street.
Fortunoff Going Out of Business
Posted by Declan MacManus in News on April 13th, 2009
Fortunoff is the latest retailer to fall victim to the economy. Bargains in housewares, furniture and jewelry to be found at White Plains store. Web site.
Abolish Westchester County Government
Posted by Declan MacManus in News on April 13th, 2009
Let's give him what he deserves
in front of Westchester County Court House
148 Martine Ave, White Plains - across from Macy’s
Be a part of the largest anti-tax rally in the nation. Westchester County residents pay the highest taxes in America. Join thousands of Westchester residents at the Westchester Tea Party - 20,000 bags of tea will be dumped on the steps of the County Government Office Building, 148 Martine Ave., White Plains at noon Saturday, April 25th.
LoHud.com
Yonkers Insider
NYT November 2002: If the Services Duplicate, Eliminate
Check out the County’s web page and see if there’s anything there that you’ll miss while you are spending all the extra money you’ll have.
White Plains Guide moves to WordPress
Posted by Scott Higgins in News on April 12th, 2009
The White Plains Guide website has been converted to run on WordPress 2.7 blogging software. Formerly managed by the Drupal 6.9 PHP/MySQL script, White Plains Guide authors and readers can look forward to dramatically easier posting of their stories and comments - and a fresh new look, courtesy of some custom scripting provided by Scottomatic™.
Check back often or subscribe to get all the articles as we enter our fifth year online.
More Bike Racks Needed at the Train Station
Posted by Declan MacManus in Transportation on July 23rd, 2008
Folks are getting out of their cars and riding their bikes like never before - and the city is doing everything it can to stop it! With gasoline over $4 a gallon and the dreadful consequences of global warning begining to manifest, bicycling just makes sense. What does not make sense is the paltry accommodations to bicyclists evident around town.
Take bike racks. For over a year now, the city has been tagging the bicycles parked at the White Plains Metro North Station, warning bicyclists that city employees will remove and dispose of their bikes if they are left for 48 hours. It is clear to anyone that regularly uses the bike racks that abandoned bicycles are not the problem - the problem is the amount of bike rack space. Arriving in time for the morning express to Manhattan, the bike racks are already full.
The bike rack situation is even worse downtown around the malls and the shops on Mamaroneck Ave. Recently a rack was installed inside the new City Center Parking garage and another adjacent to the Mc Donald’s restaurant in the Westchester Pavilion mall. The rack at the City Center garage quickly filled up, and a second rack was installed on the cheep - the second rack is almost useless for securing a bicycle. Whoever built it clearly doesn’t use a bike. You’re out of luck if you are looking for a convenient place to leave your bike while you shop at the Galleria, White Plains Mall or along Mamaroneck Avenue.
Venturing out on the roads in town, there are no bike lanes or accomodations made for bicyclists anywhere - it’s like the city’s traffic planners have simply chosen to ignore bicyclists in favor of cars and trucks. Best advice is to ride on the sidewalks and try to avoid pedestrians, which appears to be legal (the city police’s occasional bicycle patrols do it).
Going out of town, there are a few roads that are posted as “Bike Routes,” but this almost meaningless designation only indicates through routes where bikes are not specifically prohibited; it does not mean that any accommodations have been made in the design of the road or the programming of the stoplights. Indeed, you’re best advised to ignore stoplights altogether; the majority of them are connected to sensors which only respond to cars and trucks, not bicyclists or pedestrians.
Oh, and those “press button to cross streets” buttons - a not so secret secret - they are largely non-functional. The majority of the intersections that have the buttons have the stoplights on a timer tied into a program that optimizes the stoplight for overall car and truck traffic flow. The buttons don’t do anything - the signal will stay on timer regardless if the buttons are pressed or not. The purpose of the “signal control” buttons is psychological - they are there to discourage j-walkings (press this and wait) and give give pedestrians a sense of control - they don’t actually affect the action of the signal.
Passing Morning Shower Closes County Parks
Posted by Declan MacManus in Services on July 23rd, 2008
Saxon Woods pool
County Park Pools have been setting records this year - opening later in the season, closing earlier and shutting down for minor weather events - and are on the way to having the fewest open days ever. No one seems to remember the events which has set off the absurd excess of rules and closings that plagues recreation facilities run by the county - private clubs, which arguably face much greater risk, do not abide by the same rules. Shenorock and Lake Isle were open.
Parking Crisis in White Plains
Posted by Declan MacManus in Transportation on July 9th, 2008
Parking in White Plains has reached crisis levels. The city is ticketing, booting and towing cars at records rates - amid a slowdown in business and declining retail revenues. If you’re not mad you’re not paying attention. Why is our government abusing us?
A few of the disturbing trends of the past year include metermaids and patrolmen writing tickets on the street until 9:00 at night, writing tickets in all municipal parking lots, covered and not, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Parking fees are supposed to help all citizens by ensuring convenient parking close to local businesses so that their customers can shop with ease. Parking fees were never intended to be a significant source of municipal revenue - that’s what property tax and sales taxes are for! The administration in city hall has perverted the will of the people to serve it’s own ends and it’s got to stop! Tell your mayor and council that you want an end to reckless, ill-considered parking fees!
Routine Maintenance Knocks White Plains Offline for 9 Hours
Posted by Declan MacManus in Services on June 18th, 2008
Routine maintenance at the Cablevision network nodes in Westchester County caused an unplanned outage in Cablevision Optimum Online broadband service for White Plains from 1:17AM to 10:12AM June 18th. When asked to comment on what caused such a long outage and why it took Cablevision Network Operations so long to detect and correct it, a spokesman for Cablevision asked us to unplug Cablevision’s modem and recable our premises.
Garrison Art Center Hosts CURRENT: A Sculpture Tour
Posted by Cindy Beer-Fouhy in News, Visual Art on February 28th, 2008
Garrison, NY: Building on the successful premiere launch of their outdoor summer exhibition last year, Garrison Art Center will host their second expanded annual summer sculpture exhibition, CURRENT: A Sculpture Tour, on view June 1st through August 11th. The exhibition, which last year was set at four landmark Garrison sites, will include a fifth site and exhibit artwork from regional artists as well as artists of national and international notoriety selected by a jury of three distinguished art authorities. The Garrison exhibition offers visitors access to five breathtaking vista sites including: the riverfront grounds of Boscobel; the woodland paths of the historic former home of designer Russel Wright at Manitoga; the meadows of the Desmond-Fish Library; the riverbanks of Garrison’s Landing, home to Garrison Art Center; and the riverfront park and pier in Cold Spring. All exhibits are free and open to the public. A trolley is available to accommodate visitors from the Metro North parking lot to Boscobel and down Main Street in Cold Spring. For information call 845-424-3960, e-mail gac@highlands.com or log onto www.garrisonartcenter.org.
In addition the exhibit, to benefit the Garrison Art Center’s Gillette Scholarship Fund, GAC will host a Meet the Artists preview Tour and Party May 31st 2:00 at 6:00PM. The price to attend the party is $50.00 per person. For reservations to attend CURRENT: A Sculpture Tour Preview and Party, please contact www.garrisonartcenter.org. 100% of proceeds from the Preview Party event and from the sale of artwork endow GAC’s scholarship fund. Call 845.424.3960 for additional information, hours and parking. Co-chairs for CURRENT 2008 are Maryann Syrek and Carinda Swann.
Tour maps will be available at all sites throughout the exhibition. House tours at Boscobel (845.265.3638) and Manitoga (845.424.3812) are not a part of the tour, but can be arranged by contacting those organizations directly.
The jury for CURRENT 2008 includes: Merrill Falkenberg, curator of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT; artist Edward Smith, a Guggenheim Fellow in sculpture and drawing and a distinguished professor of art; and Grace Knowlton, an artist of international renown primarily known for her sculpture but equally accomplished as a two-dimensional artist.
According to Libby Turnock, Executive Director of GAC, In keeping with GAC’s continuing goal of fostering the arts and of community outreach, the purpose of this exhibition is to host a community-wide collaboration that brings artists’ works of national and international notoriety to our own doorstep and to raise monies for GAC’s Gillette Scholarship Fund.
Preview Party May 31st 2:00 at 6:00pm
To raise monies for the Gillette Scholarship Fund, GAC will again host a The Preview and Party on Saturday, May 31, 2008. After a self-guided tour of the sites and artwork, guests will join the artists at Garrison’s Landing on the banks of the Hudson River for a festive afternoon and evening of lively music and casual dining. 100% of the proceeds from the Preview and Party event and from the sale of artwork will endow the scholarship fund.
The Gillette Scholarship Fund
The Gillette Scholarship Fund is available to deserving artists of any age for classes and workshops, including the Summer Arts on the Hudson for children age 6 through 13 and the Summer Art Institute, an immersion program for high school students. Selection of recipients is need based. GAC is proud to be able to offer this opportunity to art students and emerging and established artists. To inquire about scholarships please contact Garrison Art Center 845.424.3960.
Garrison Art Center is a not for profit cultural and educational center which has been celebrating art for 41 years. GAC opens the door to artistic inquiry and expression and fosters an appreciation of the arts in the community. GAC receives public funds from New York State Council on the Arts. Garrison Art Center is located at 23 Garrison’s Landing, Garrison NY 10524. For information call 845-424-3960, e-mail gac@highlands.com or log onto http://www.garrisonartcenter.org
Garrison Art Center Hosts CURRENT: A Sculpture Tour - 2nd Annual Outdoor Juried Exhibition at Five Garrison Landmark Locations, June 1st at August 10th Free and Open to the Public. To benefit the GAC Gillette Scholarship Fund. May 31st 2:00 at 6:00pm Meet the Artists Preview Tour and Party
Internet Stream Line Radio Watches As You Dance to the Music
Posted by Adrienne Pincus in News on September 26th, 2007
AS I sat reading the New York Times near my bay window while listening to internet radio in the privacy of my home on Sunday, I learned that the operator of the streamlined music station I was listening to could zoom in on my actions.
I’ve posted the New York Times article which alerted me to the big brother capability of internet radio for your review on this site. What was most infringing to me about the article we that the Internet radio producer interviewed in the article described how he was able to zoom into a home in Greenwich, Conn, and learned how many hours the user was listening to his streamlined radio broadcast.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/arts/music/23assa.html?ex=1348200000&en=72732feed35837b2&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
This invasion of my privacy truly scares me. Does it not scare the listener who prefers political commentary or explosive warped humor? Why is it that the cell phone companies with billions of dollars invested in infrastructure signal can’t find a person broken down in a car on a highway, but a small internet radio broadcaster without the billions get a birds eye view of my reading habits through my window?