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November 12, 2014 Rhett Jones

Henry S. Farber, an economist at Princeton, has performed an exhaustive study of NYC’s taxi data and weather patterns over the last four years and he thinks the research has produced a pretty good explanation for why it’s so hard to get a cab in the rain. Using a small subset of the enormous amount […]

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October 29, 2014 Rhett Jones

Are New York and Paris the same city? That may sound like a crazy question, but have you ever seen them in the same room together? I didn’t think so. Videographer MATEL, apparently thought that was mighty suspicious, so he put together a video of all the ways that New York and Paris reflect and […]

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October 28, 2014 Amy K. Nelson

After several high-profile traffic-related deaths in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a new bill on Monday that lowered the city’s speed limit to 25 MPH. The bill is part of de Blasio’s “vision zero” plan, which aims to eradicate traffic deaths within the next decade. The mayor signed the bill on the Lower […]

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October 27, 2014 Prachi Gupta

On Monday, New York City’s subway system turned 110 years old and celebrated by releasing two vintage subway trains on Manhattan’s high-volume 1, 2, and 3 lines between Times Square and 96th Street. A description of the Nostalgia Trains, via the MTA’s site: One train will consist of four Low-Voltage subway cars that were in […]

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Prachi Gupta

Presumably, the City that Never Sleeps doesn’t require any introduction, but in case it does, New Yorkers now have Taylor Swift to represent them. She announced on Good Morning America that she’s been tapped as New York’s Global Welcome Ambassador for tourism. Keep in mind that Swift moved to New York in March, her only […]

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October 24, 2014 Rhett Jones

After a man was diagnosed with Ebola yesterday, everyone wants to know where Dr. Craig Spencer has been and what he’s been doing. Did he sneeze on the subway? Cough on his Uber driver? Spit on the High Line? A number of news sites have made maps for readers to track where Spencer went. For those […]

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September 16, 2014 Sophie Weiner

CityRealty president Dan Levy is planning on pitching a gondola transportation system at a real estate conference today. The East River Skyway network would require several phases of construction, each costing between $75 and $125 million, which would run from “Brooklyn Navy Yard to Williamsburg then across the river to the Lower East Side; up to Greenpoint and Long Island City, then […]

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September 12, 2014 Sophie Weiner

What’s the scent of New York? “A warm, musty smell that comes from the cellar,” mostly, according to artist Kate McLean. With a few volunteers, she’s on a quest to create a Smell Map of the city, as she’s already done for Amsterdam, Milan and Edinburgh. Her team of several dozen scent detectives have been following her […]

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September 11, 2014 Sophie Weiner

A NYC councilman has proposed an online governmental petition service for residents. Modeled on the White House’s popular online petitions website We The People, the service would require a reply from the city if a petition reached a predetermined number of signatures. “Not everyone can go to a public hearing,” said the bill’s author James Vacca. “This […]

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September 9, 2014 Sophie Weiner

The MTA responded to a recent I Quant NY post explaining how the transit authority’s vending machines trick commuters by applying bonuses that leave you with less than enough money to pay for another ride. Ben Wellington, who runs the data-driven site, found their response unsatisfactory: “These machines do not hold an infinite amount of change and the […]

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