Since 1988, access to the 19th Street Bridge over the Ostahanoc River has required drivers to make four ninety-degree turns, two entering and two exiting the span. This odd and inconvenient traffic pattern was necessitated when repair work on the original bridge caused it to collapse into the river. Rather than trying to rebuild the bridge in its original location, the city decided to save money by redesigning and reinforcing the parallel pedestrian bridge to handle vehicular traffic on one of the busiest roads in the county. Since the streets leading to the bridge could not be easily re-routed due to a thriving commercial district in the area, 19th Street was turned and extended parallel to the river, where it joined the reconfigured bridge some 15 yards to the north.

In the first few months after the ‘new’ bridge was opened, traffic mishaps were frequent. But drivers eventually acclimated themselves to the demands of negotiating the four square corners. From 1992-2008, in spite of a continual increase in traffic volume, the incidence of traffic accidents around the 19th Street Bridge area was consistently below levels recorded prior to 1988, because of lowered speeds necessitated by the sharp turns. Instead of an habitual annoyance, the zig-zag course of the bridge became one of the city’s endearing quirks, and veteran commuters tend to smirk at out-of-towners who slam on their brakes as they head for the river more than they rail against the absurdity of the span’s design.

However, one of the projects green-lighted by the city due to the influx of cash from the federal government is replacement of the 19th Street Bridge at its original location, and the restoration of the current vehicular bridge as a pedestrian crossing. This proposal has been lying dormant since 1996, when Mayor Gerald Shockley tabled the project after reviewing the data and recommendations from the city Department of Transportation. But desperate to have ‘shovel ready’ plans in place to avail themselves of the stimulus windfall, this past February Mayor Maribeth Cosgrove and the City Council submitted for funding the file of every uncompleted city construction project since 1961. Included in that cabinet-full of previously unfunded mandates was the proposal to restore the original location of the 19th Street Bridge, an act sure to find little support in 2009 from anyone outside city government or the local construction trade.

Ironically, the economic downturn that made federal funds available for the now-unpopular bridge restoration project has also rendered the relocation completely unnecessary. The commercial district that exploded along 19th Street near the river in the late 20th Century is now a virtual ghost-district of abandoned buildings and shuttered shops. It would now take far less money to straighten the road to meet the existing bridge, and add a new pedestrian bridge, than to remove the 19th Street extension and restore a vehicular bridge at its original pre-1988 location. But this alternate street-straightening proposal is currently no more than theory, perhaps 24 to 36 months from being ‘shovel ready,’ in addition to there being little public support for the loss of 19th Street’s unique ‘four corners’ curves. Sensing the public mood, Mayor Cosgrove has announced that a plan is currently being devised to use the federal funds for repairs to the existing bridge. Unfortunately, the current economic collapse cannot last forever, and a now-beloved city landmark stands to fall at the cruel hands of a general economic recovery.
- David Andrews

As a public service, The City Desk periodically offers up selected items culled from recent City police reports. (Note: More violent, standard items do not frequently show up here, as they are covered in the local papers with regularity.)

9:45 pm
Corner of Simcoe and Newbury Streets: Officers from the 27th Precinct respond to reports of shots fired. Upon investigation, officers discovered that the sound was caused by a 1973 Ford Maverick owned by Edward Willis, 22, of 1785 W. 37th Street. Willis was issued $547 worth of tickets for safety violations.

2 am
1200 block of N. Merkel Street: A 20-year-old man was treated at Nilsson Hospital for a gunshot wound to the leg. Detectives were only able to locate the scene of the shooting based upon the victim’s blood trail. There has been no arrest and no motive given.

4:03 am
3800 block of Van Dam Street: Harbor Division officers arrest Summit Heights resident Hugo Allen, 34, for theft of services after attempting to walk out of the Harborfront Diner without paying for 3 cups of coffee, a cheese omelet, hash browns, four sausages, two stacks of pancakes, and four glasses of orange juice. Allen also had an outstanding warrant for $5,386 in unpaid parking tickets.

5:12 am
300 block of Bay Street: 17th Precinct officers respond to a call of a Journal-Clarion delivery truck from the parking lot of LeFleur’s Donuts. The missing truck, licence plate XTW-79J, is a 2007 Ford E-350 box van and contained approximately 5000 copies of last Friday’s Journal-Clarion and a CD of Polka Party with Frank Yankovic and Friends. The Journal-Clarion is offering a reward of $150 and a free six-month subscription for information leading to the recovery of the vehicle.

6:36 am
9800 block of Troon Road: Emergency Service Unit Truck 4 and ASPCA officers respond to multiple reports of sheep on lawns. Further investigation revealed that the 8 sheep that were recovered had escaped from the temporary petting zoo in Col. E. M. Studebaker Park.

10:15 am
Softball fields at Fairleigh Park: Between 10 pm Tuesday night and 10 am Wednesday morning, someone broke into a Parks Department-operated concession stand, stealing a Sno-Cone machine and five bottles of flavoring syrup (raspberry, grape, apple, cherry, bubble gum), valued at $1,700.

3:45 pm
2000 block of Fair-de-Lac Lane: Gas-powered lawn mower reported stolen from garage. Later discovered under loose brush at edge of property. The complaintant’s 12-year-old son was cited for making a false report, having hidden the machine himeslf, but was let off with a warning.
- Hoyt Schermerhorn, RJ White

The act of civil disobedience, coordinated by the Mobile Food Providers Alliance, delayed commuters on their way home from work by up to 90 minutes. At 5:30 p.m., at least 215 food trucks pulled onto the Riverside Parkway and drove 15 mph. The speed brought traffic to a standstill, and was symbolic of the new toll the trucks will have to pay on the city’s highways, starting Monday.

The toll plan, which City Council passed two weeks ago, seeks to discourage the city’s taco trucks and other mobile restaurants from taking to the highways at peak traffic periods. Trucks that do so will be required to pay a $15 fee.

At a press conference before the traffic protest, Elena Cardozo, who operates Luchita’s Mobile Taco Truck No. 1 and is a co-organizer of the alliance, called the fee “industrial discrimination.”

But City Council President Martin Wernstrom, who has asked the city attorney to bring public endangerment charges against the group, says the pricing scheme only makes sense given the burgeoning number of food trucks in the city. “When we had just a few taco trucks and ice cream trucks, traffic was fine,” he said. “But now these things are out of control. They’re clogging up the roads, and some of them are clogging up our arteries.”

Wernstrom is right about the increase in mobile restaurants. In the past six months, the city has been introduced to:
:: sushi trucks
:: Vietnamese pastry vans
:: a Hawaiian pig roast bus
:: a baked bean El Camino that caused an infamous mess after a fender bender
:: a crepe truck
:: an organic potato chip pickup that runs on its own cooking oil
:: a foot-long hot dog limo
:: an oyster bar Hummer
:: a discarded NASA moon rover replica selling astronaut ice cream
:: a Korean spaghetti truck
:: and a jerry-rigged Mini Cooper that emits cotton candy from its tail pipe

The mobile eateries have become a sensation among the city’s young people and bar crowds. Many of them park at popular intersections and parks in the evenings, sometimes with DJs spinning tunes and movies projected onto the trucks. But the gourmet fleet has frustrated motorists lately, as they fan out across the city during rush hour so they can establish positions in time for dinner.

Council devised the congestion fee (dubbed by some the “indigestion fee”) to discourage the food trucks from traveling on the highways. The alliance seemed to muster almost enough resistance to the measure, but lost its fight when the American Brotherhood of Grocery Workers Local 812 (representing local pizza delivery drivers) switched its position to support the fee. Sources within the local say the rank-and-file were angry that the food trucks were preventing them from making deliveries in 30 minutes or less.

Which meant the only option left to the alliance was Wednesday’s symbolic protest. Tidy taco trucks shared asphalt with Airstream trailers painted to look like bratwurst, old school buses with jalapeno peppers popping from their yellow sides, and a second-hand police car with a large wok affixed to its hood.

Sylvestor Morris, a claims adjuster reached on his cell phone while he sat in the traffic jam,  couldn’t help but note the irony of the situation. “I had to skip lunch today because of a meeting,” he said. “I was hoping to get home quickly for dinner.”
- Craig Gaines

Maybe it’s because I was a failure as a bohemian (one has to be a true bourgeois to become a true bohemian), but all this hipster wank about how “authentic” New York was in the 70’s really gets up my nose. I understand the love of vibrant density, variety, energy and chaos, but I’m not willing to romanticize the downside of such environments, or the fact that the backdrop of such fantasies are populated by people who are experiencing real suffering. It’s only glamorous if you can escape it; playing at being “decadent” is just a childish, predictable trope. Drop the silly act and have a picnic, for heaven’s sake.

Northeastern cities are still a filthy, dangerous, feudal mess (our friends who live in cities are robbed with some regularity), but I’d never want to see New York, Philly or Atlantic City return to the singularly dark depths they had plumbed in the 70’s.

In my own way I’m just as guilty of this misguided nostalgia: I’m fascinated by old New York, the world of the Bowery and Five Points–but I’d never, EVER want to set foot in such a living horror. Everyone you and I know would have been eaten alive within a day. So yeah, goodbye and good riddance to you too, 1970’s:

If you weren’t a scene maker, New York’s crumminess held a lot less allure. Stagflation, rotting infrastructure, sanitation workers’ strikes, and rampant crime didn’t just turn New Yorkers into ninjas and jungle cats—it made the city an incredibly unpleasant and often terrifying place to live. I have a memory, from around the time I was in second grade, of a perhaps forgotten New York folkway: the breakfast table distribution of “mugger money,” cash that parents would give to their kids before packing them off to school. The idea being that a $20 bill would placate the mugger so he would opt not to blow a child’s head off.

(…) There is something gross about nostalgists aestheticizing squalor that they never really, fully experienced.
[New York in the '70s: The Grit Wasn't So Splendid | Salon.com]

- Victor A. Crawford III
Reproduced, with permission, from his LiveJournal.

:: The Seventh of the Eight Great Zoo Hoaxes was committed on this day in 1968.

:: Number of regular weekly Farmer’s Markets (regulated) within city limits: 12

:: Number of regular weekly Farmer’s Markets (regulated) within city limits three years ago: 4

:: Number of stands where it’s just guys selling produce streetside: At least 47 (according to a story this week by the Clarion-Journal)

:: Number of these out of a station wagon: 10

:: Number of these out of a van: 22

:: Number of these out of an old ice cream truck: 1

:: Number of vacant lots/properties being used for farming, under the city’s new UrbanFarm program: 18

:: When First Amendment activists blocked a 1979 attempt by the City Council to pass an ordinance against the sale and display of shirts bearing the legend “FBI: Federal Breast Inspector,” the City Council successfully retaliated by passing a different ordinance requiring three-hundred hours of qualification course work and a $500 fee for a Breast Inspector License. Individuals wearing the shirt but not bearing the license were fined under false advertising and Impersonation of Authority laws.

:: A city ordinance passed in 1881 prohibits the demolition of churches, cathedrals or opium dens “by hand.”

:: The Augenblick Trust lost its lease on a pair of warehouses by the Mean Harbor pier district, meaning that its collection of more than seven hundred parade floats and displays dating back through fifty years of local history will be put up for auction or destroyed this weekend. Collectors are eagerly looking forward to the impending sale of such artifacts as the 30-ft papier-mâché squid carried by volunteers at the 1961 parade honoring Marianas Trench explorers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh.
- Jon Morris, RJ White

Central Depot was the showpiece of the of the Ostahanoc Valley Northeast Line, a regional railroad that did very well with both passenger and freight transport during this city’s booming industrial age. As such, the railroad’s offices were located on the upper five floors of the massive limestone edifice to transportation. The first two floors were dedicated to the grandly-designed passenger concourse and two levels of tracks were located below, which are now used for CSTA subway and regional light rail. But few know about the levels which lie below even these.

Sub-levels three and four were and still are used for mechanical works, storage and maintenance. Level five, however, is a different story, entirely. L. Mathewson Burlsworth was the founder of the Ostahanoc Line and lead the company until his death in 1912. When he comissioned local architect Francis Locane (who also designed several of Watson University’s original buildings), he decreed that he should have, in addition to his palatial office on the depot’s uppermost floor, a “getaway” space within its lowermost level. So, at great expense, a six-room, well-appointed space was dug out of the earth, far below the city’s streets. Burlsworth had a secret entrance installed, hidden in the tiles near track 4-A. From there, a cast-iron staircase would take guests down to a wood-paneled and carpeted suite, complete with small kitchen and dining room. The magnate would often retreat down there to get away from it all, entertain fellow businessmen, or even the occasional extra-marital “guest.” There were two additional exits, behind more standard unlabeled locked doors at tracks 3-A and 4-B.

After Burlsworth’s death, the office was still used, reportedly, as a perk for certain of the railroad’s executives. But, after the company’s various mergers and sales, at some point, it fell into disuse and was apparently forgotten. It’s not entirely clear at which point someone decided to put the space to a more salacious use. At any rate, in 1966, when plans for the demolition of the building were in full swing, city and CSTA (then City Transportation Company) engineers were taking a survey of the subterranian space and found the passage to Level Five. They were at first surprised that it was still extant. Then, they were even more surprised to find that it was in use as one of the city’s most secretive and exclusive (as well as rather luxurious) brothels.

In the ensuing investigation, it was found to be run by the Lanfesi crime syndicate as a perk for certain of its “executives” and the occasional out-of-town business associate and had been since the mid-1950s. Apparently, someone knew someone who said something back then, one of the Lanfesi lieutenants did some exploring, found that the space was largely ignored (thanks to L. Mathewson Burlsworth’s desire to have secret and unabeled entrances) and voila! Adaptive reuse. Thousands upon thousands of travelers had no idea what they were walking upon for years and years.

Soon after its discovery, the space was stripped of its ornament to the bare walls and used for equipment storage, as well as a possible secondary Civil Defense shelter, given its proximity to Old City Hall. Instead of late 19th century railroad tycoon opulence, there are barrels of decades-old nutritional biscuits and expired distilled water, as well as obsolete subway parts and rebar.
- RJ White

The company which employs Torbjorn Bruhn keeps this bookish, blond-haired, forty-two year old lawyer hopping -  even though it hasn’t produced a single product in more than thirty years.

As the official “copyright bulldog” of the Hearth’s Delight estate, Bruhn’s responsibility is ensuring that the now-defunct local candy manufacturer’s copyrights and trademarks stay out of the public domain.  “The will (of Hearth’s Delight founder and Norwegian expatriate Magnus Halvurson) made it very clear; the sole responsibility of the executor is to use the resources of the estate to keep the intellectual property of the company intact.”

Bruhn (employed by Halvurson’s grand-nephew and recipient of the Hearth’s Delight fortune, Howard Schmitt) says his closest call came when the California-based candy outlet and mall-staple The Sweet Factory began releasing Mormon Corn and Cinnamon Texans – familiar and popular Hearth’s Delight ‘Penny Candy’ classics – under their own banner. “We put an end to that, tout suite,” says Bruhn – or did he mean “Toot sweet”?

To maintain its copyright, the company releases fifty limited edition “Proof of Intent Packages” once every three years – plain cardboard packages containing a sample selection of reconstructed Hearth’s Delight classic confections. A sample box may include such vintage candies as Beauty Bars, Calypso Whistlers, Dices, Ring-O-Ding-A’s, Caramel Flats, Rev-Em-Ups, Peach Boys and more.

Having closed its factory doors more than three decades ago, Hearth’s Delight no longer has the resources to produce its candies in bulk, so for the Proof of Intent Packages, Bruhn oversees a small team of professional candy chefs whose job it is to recreate the treats. Leftover bulk packaging from the company’s original run provide the wrappers, and a copyright-protecting collectible is born.

Most of the packages end up in the hands of Halvurson’s relatives, or the families of his former business partners. Some end up on the auction circuit, with a 2003 selection of King Dandies Royal Candies, Snubs, Chinese Nut Bars and Crazy Cherry Coffins fetching more than $20,000 from a famished collector.

One of the perks of his position? “One Proof of Intent Package is always set aside for my use,” beams Bruhn, adding “Of course, sadly, they go directly into the vault, in the case that they’re needed to support us in any legal challenges.”

Restraint brings its own rewards, of course, but “Confidentially,” adds Bruhn, “I’d kill for a coconut Sasquatch Bar.”
- Jonathan Morris

Lt. Arnold Corrigan, a police department press officer, told reporters that police had not yet determined a motive. “Whoever these people are, they’re good,” he said. “I’m talking flatbed trucks, portable cranes, bolt cutters, arc welders. Carting away a giant doughnut? I couldn’t do it.” (”Sure he could!” joked local morning drive time radio host Charlie Wipple in response. “Eight feet across? Foot-long sprinkles? That doughnut could feed the whole department for a month!”) A spokeswoman for Urban Amalgamated Outdoor Advertising, Inc., had no comment.

Until this theft, the lingering question was whether four earlier food thefts were related. Three weeks ago, a 14-foot-tall coffee cup was stolen from the facade of the abandoned Il Sigorio Roasters plant near the Industrial District, a crime that police initially attributed to decay or simple vandalism. The theft of three giant tacos, each mounted atop a Mama Nacho taco truck, was also seen as vandalism. (The trucks had been left overnight in a lot near the Sprang School of Design in Dockside, and the local opinion was that the tacos would eventually reappear in a performance art piece.)

It took the disappearance last Sunday of a paper mache bunch of grapes from the unlocked lobby of P.S. 24, assembled using purple balloons as a third-grade art project, for police to suspect a trend. Four days ago, an oversized rutabaga vanished from the roof of Ryzynsky’s Greenmarket in Little Budapest and a tearful Gabor Ryzynsky appeared on Channel 3 news, pleading for its return. Now, with last night’s disappearing doughnut, police say they believe the thefts are connected.

This spate of thefts is hardly the first problem for the city’s outdoor advertising industry. An 1872 issue of the Weekly Clarion condemned the city’s first billboards as “giant devil-signs” that “would squeeze out the word of God.” The introduction of neon signs in the early 1920s set off a similar uproar: “Noble Gases Deserve Noble Jobs!” read a handbill advocating the passage of a city ordinance to ban such signs.

Large representations of food items, however, have been common in the city since the mid-1940s, when a set of Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes were painted red and topped with green fabric leaves as part of a campaign to plant more tomatoes in local Victory Gardens. (The domes were later stripped to their skeletons and donated to area playgrounds as climbing structures.) The floats of the Giant Food Brigade were one of the most popular segments of the city’s 1958 Fourth of July parade.

Police emphasized that determining a motive will take time. For now, Corrigan advised city residents with giant models of food to take additional security precautions. “Cameras are your best bet,” said Corrigan. “We need video. We can’t let these people get away with stealing the city’s food, small or large, real or fake.”
- Sean Fraga

In a press release, Governor Allen (D) chastized Cosgrove for her rashness, and reminded her that the Ostahanoc River Maximum Security Prison is a federal, not a municipal, facility.

“Mayor Cosgrove seriously overstepped her jurisdiction in her offer to accept Guantanamo Bay detainees,” said the governor’s press release. “We here at the state level apologize to President Obama for having wasted his time, and will see to it that nothing like this ever happens again.”

Cosgrove (R) quickly issued a rebuttal to the governor’s letter.

“It seems as if our governor has failed to show the fortitude needed by all Americans during these difficult times,” said Cosgrove via e-mail to local media outlets. “I am ashamed that our state leadership has failed us, in stubbornly blocking us from fulfilling our patriotic duty.”

Despite Mayor Cosgrove’s rhetoric, a member of her staff (who asked not to be named) suggests that the mayor’s offer was made less out of a sense of duty, and more out of a sense
of desperation.

“This was nothing more than a business decision by the mayor,” said our source. “A last-ditch effort to find a way out of the ($728 million, five-year) city deficit without having to make politically compromising budget cuts. You didn’t think we’d take those terrorists off of Obama’s hands for free, did you?”

Another source was concerned about the effect the mayor’s stunt would have on the city’s share of stimulus package funds, much of which may be distributed from the state level.

The City Desk has been unable to reach a member of the Obama administration for comment.
– Ray Ingraham

Ever since President Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, a holding facility for so-called “enemy combatants,” the administration has had difficulty finding anyone, foreign or domestic, willing to take on the prisoners.

Mayor Cosgrove, apparently, heard opportunity knocking.

“Now is the  time for all of us in the city to take ownership of our new president’s call for a new Era of Responsibility,” declared Mayor Cosgrove. “Difficult decisions and sacrifices must be made, and I am proud to say that our city is unafraid to make them.”

The mayor’s announcement came as a shock to Earl Stiner, warden of the Ostahanoc River Maximum Security Prison. Stiner claims that neither the mayor nor any of her staff consulted with him prior to the declaration, in spite of the fact that his prison was specifically named as one willing to take on Gitmo detainees. However, after some consideration, Stiner agrees he is up to the challenge.

“For over 50 years now the ORMSP has held some of the meanest sons-of-bitches in the region. Serial killers, rapists, drug lords, and even a few honest-to-God cannibals have been routinely imprisoned here. Not a one of them ever set foot outside these walls until they were either parolled, or wheeled out stone-cold on a gurney. I don’t know about you, but I’d feel 100% better knowing those terrorists were in the competent hands of hard working Americans under my personal watch, than if they were getting the kiddie-glove treatment in some damned Swiss prison.”

A tough yet practical man who loves to talk to the media as much as they do to him, Stiner was willing to express some concerns regarding the influence that the Gitmo detainees might have on his prison’s thriving Muslim population.

“Yeah, that’s something of a powder keg situation, isn’t it?” Stiner admitted to FOX 17. “Not to name names, but these terrorists might be seen as heroes to some of the fellas we have locked up here.” After a moment’s pause, Stiner added, “I suppose we’ll have to keep them protected from the Aryan and Jew gangs, too… I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

In the meantime, Stiner, like the rest of us, is holding his breath in anticipation of the Obama administration’s response to Mayor Cosgrove’s unprecedented offer.
- Ray Ingraham