Put Your City On: Pretzel Crisps Love Thin; Study The Bronx; Umasking Olek; More!

Federal Protective Service Police near headquarters on 16th Street

• Born to Study the Bronx [WNYC]
• Anonymous Celebrity: Olek the Crochet Girl Unmasked [Crushable]
• Pedestrian Struck, Dragged By Livery Cab In Midtown [Gothamist via WABC 7]
• The DOT's newest Pop-up park on Pearl Street, north of Broad, is now open! [Twitter]
• New PretzelCrisps ads look almost exactly like the old ones — still bringing up body-image issues [EV Grieve] [Previously]

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Cancerous Pigeons?

New York City pigeons eat, drink and breath the same food, water and air New Yorkers do. As result, it appears they also get the same cancerous tumors we do (note the birds foot above). See it from another angle below.

Jay Shells Poop Poster Installation On Video

Yesterday you saw two photos of a new Jay Shells poster installed on 173rd Street at Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights, reminding dog owners to pick up after their dog. You might've even read about it in the NY Daily News. Now, watch video of that installation below.

Put Your City On: Losing Lives; Tear Down The Penthouse; Respect Vandalism; More!

FDR drive and the Brooklyn Bridge as seen from the Elevated Acre on Water Street

• New York City loses another one: Jumper on 14th Street [EV Grieve]
• Landlord must tear down penthouse [City Room]
• Block in Flatbush named greenest block in Brooklyn [City Room]
• Paul Richard urges you to respect the vandalism on 190 Bowery. [Bowery Boogie]
• Ralph Gardner pays a visit to Adeline Adeline, a new bike shop on Reade Street in lower Manhattan. [WSJ Greater New York]

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UPDATED: Pretzel Crisps Offer An Apology

In an email yesterday to NYC The Blog, Perry Abbenante, Vice President of Marketing at Snack Factory LLC, apologized on behalf of the company for the ill-advised ad campaign currently running in New York City on bus shelters, phone booths and elsewhere. "Pretzel Crisps apologizes for any offense the ad caused," he wrote.

Last night, the company reiterated their resolve to remove the offending ads, and posted the following message (seen above) to their Twitter account: "We didn't intend to advocate unhealthy weight loss with our ads. Thanks to all for the feedback. The ads will be taken down asap." Whatever your opinion of the ads or company, that's a pretty classy move on their part. At the least, it's a responsive and accommodating decision and deserving of praise.

The author and comedian Julie Klausner might have said it best when she chimed in: "Prop 8 ruled unconstitutional and I can enjoy @PretzelCrisps guilt-free now that they're taking down their ads. We make mistakes & move on."

UPDATE: One of the offending ads, in a bus shelter on Houston Street, near 2nd Avenue and, and featured in the previous video, has already been replaced with a new ad. See it below.

Marc Ecko And Shepard Fairey Together On Houston Street

Marc Ecko took to Houston Street last night (or rather, a digital projectionist did on behalf of an ad agency) to illuminate the street with a digital billboard. The digital display advertised Ecko's Cut & Sew line, "for those who want to start dressing a little more seriously but still maintain their youthful edge."

Related:
Microsoft Zune projected their own advertisement above the Shepard Fairey advertisement
Guerilla Remy Martin advertising above Keith Harring Mural on Houston and Bowery

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Artist Jay Shells Visits Washington Heights: Dogs Owners On Notice

Artist Jay Shells, maybe better known as the man behind the 'subway etiquette' project, has undertaken a new campaign targeting dog poop, installing large, colorful, hand-painted posters street side, reminding people to "clean up after your dog!"

Last night, Shells went up to 173rd Street, on the corner of Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights, to shape up dog owners in the area. He explained his decision to visit Wahi at the suggestion of Gothamist commenters, who requested their own display after Gothamist featured the original dog poop poster installed on 14th Street. Posters now reside on 14th Street, 173rd Street and 1st Avenue between 4th and 5th streets.

In addition to an admonition to clean up after your dog, plastic baggies (bio-degradable!) are available from an attached roll to help make the poo-poo pickup more convenient.

New York City's Sh*t and Piss War rages on. Whose side are you on?

Shells told NYC The Blog his next stop will be Bed-Stuy. See last nights finished product below.

Pretzel Crisps: "We Will Be Taking The ‘You Can Never Be Too Thin’ Ads Down"

Earlier today, NYC The Blog posted a video featuring a friend and concerned New York City resident literally adding his commentary to a Pretzel Crisps ad that declared "You can never be too thin."

Perry Abbenante, Vice President of Marketing at Snack Factory LLC, maker of Pretzel Crisps, responded to an email request for comment shortly after, explaining that they have been monitoring the situation, and will be "making some adjustments to the campaign."

He just followed up, and informed NYC The Blog: "Based on the feedback received from you and other bloggers, we will be taking the ‘You can never be too thin’ ads down."

Between this and the Department of Buildings recent offensive against illegal billboards, advertisers seem a bit under the gun here in New York City.

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Put Your City On: Coney Island Talent; Dog Poop Sucks; How Many Laundries In NYC? More!

Hanging out on Centre Street, near White Street

• Video compilation from the Coney Island Talent Show [Brooklyn is Better]
• Expressing a universal dislike of dog poop in the city [Gavin McInnes on Twitter] 
• As of May 19, 2010 there are 2,478 licensed laundries in NYC [NYPL on Twitter]
• Participate in a seven question interview about a New York City [I Visit New York]
• An under the radar bicycle repairman just went beep on the screen [DNAinfo]
• Remember: After you break free scream for help and run. [Gammablog]
• Video excerpt of The Voyage of Garbhglas by Christopher Williams at the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park City [Bloggy]

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Street Fight On Canal And Broadway: How Not To Go About It

UPDATED: Pretzel Crisps Responds: Pretzel Crisps Pretzel Ads Encourage Anxiety About Body Weight And Image; One Resident Fights Back

UPDATE: WPIX and reporter Debra Alfarone hit the streets to report the story
UPDATE: Read Pretzel Crisps response below. 
UPDATE: Pretzel Crisps informs they will remove the offending ads

New ads appearing from Pretzel Crisps on street furniture throughout Manhattan declare: "You can never be too thin." As imagined, people have opinions about it. East Village blogger EV Grieve blunty noted the ads "still want us to feel badly about our bodies." Lemondrop.com pointedly asked: "Does this pretzel ad encourage anorexia?" And Jezebel, the widely read Gawker Media blog focusing on women's issues wryly declared the ads are "tastefully marketed to eating-disordered demographic."

NYC The Blog was on hand last night as a concerned citizen decided to embellish one of the ads on Houston Street, at a bus station shelter between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. A small act from a responsible citizen, the Lower East Side resident left text and images over the ad, clearly displaying that you can in fact, be too thin. Watch the video below:

Put Your City On: Ballerinas In The Park; Baby Hawks; USDA Kills 5 Million Animals; Tiny Streets; More!

• Gammablog has multiple postings up, including great videos, on community actions to save community gardens. [Gammablog]  
• Fantastic closeup shots of the Riverside eyeasses (red-tailed hawk babies!) [Urban Hawks]
• A Brooklyn BoHo photographed in its native environment [The Sartorialist]
• Holy crap. About the 400 geese the USDA recently ordered killed in Brooklyn? The agency killed 4,997,172 animals in FY2008 [Animal Tourism]
• The Tiny Streets of Tribeca [Tribeca Citizen]
• 1,000 ballerinas were expected in Central Park last night in hopes of breaking a Guinness World Record. [My Upper West]

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Keeping Up With The Jim Joeses

Seen high above Delancey Street, Jim Joe tagged both sides of this building, and the water tower for good measure! See his tags on the easterly side of the building below.

Lexington Ave Chemists Closed; Starbucks Will Replace

Following an unfortunate economic trend of neighborhood pharmacies closing while chain outlets expand at an exceptional rate, another neighborhood pharmacy has closed its doors. Lexington Avenue Chemists at 1491 Lexington Ave at 96th Street, in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side, is closed, papered up and ready for a new tenant.

When the pharmacy closed is not clear; they were open last year, though that doesn't narrow it down much. The internet was no help, the phone number is disconnected, and a couple passersby asked weren't sure either. One thing is for sure; Starbucks will open a branch there in September.

Put Your City On: Facial Graffiti; Hipster Runoff Graffiti; Worst Bars; Google Earth Sees Your Unpermitted Pool; More!

Talking on the phone on the Lower East Side

• The Facial Graffiti of Tribeca [Tribeca Citizen]
• What's your least favorite bar in NYC? [Reddit] 
• Video of the Giglio boys setting up the monument for next weekend’s Feast of the Giglio festival in Harlem on 114th and Pleasant Ave [Here's to me]
• AudioMole is the place to track and stay updated on underground/street art, music and shows you saw in passing but had no idea where to find them again. [Audio Mole NYC] 
• Hipster Runoff graffiti discovered in the basement bathroom of Soho's McNally Jackson Bookstore [Max Abelson]
• Google Earth Used to Find Unpermitted Pools on Long Island. Also hidden pools in Williamsburg [1010 Wins]

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NYPD Cruiser Wrecked Itself Before It Checked Itself

This nearly split in half NYPD cruiser was spotted by BlackBook Media's feared respected Chris Mohney on 34th Street and Park Avenue a few weeks ago. It was about 12:30pm in the afternoon when Mohney came upon the scene. No one seems to know exactly what happened or what led to this extraordinary sight of a NYPD cruiser forcefully converted into a convertible.


Mohney told NYC The Blog: "...some guy was regaling the gawkers with a story about them having to saw the car open to get someone out, but it was puzzling...car didn’t look wrecked or seem like it was crushed or anything else that would make it impossible to open. A mystery."

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The Wall Street Journal 'Journal Community' Depicts Obama With Hitler Mustache

The Wall Street Journal's Journal Community page is "...a marketplace of ideas for The Wall Street Journal readers," where you "interact with guest experts and Journal reporters in rich conversations." This marketplace of ideas includes an Impeach Obama group depicting President Obama with a Hitler mustache (seen at left).

An email to the moderator of the community pages inquiring about the image, which has been up for weeks, was not immediately returned.

» Follow NYC The Blog on Facebook and Twitter. Photo credit: The Wall Street Journal