James has a post on a proposal from The Mayor's Office of Theater, Film, and Broadcasting to make it harder to take photographs or film videos without getting a permit. This reminds me of our friend Donald's suggestion for protest signs saying

City only for use of paying customers

Smaller NYPD class raises fears, AM New York (emphasis mine below)

Researchers and city officials Wednesday wondered if an increasingly stretched police force can continue to keep crime rates down on the same day that the NYPD fell far short in its goal of 2,800 recruits at cadet graduation.

...

While 1,097 cadets graduated Wednesday, the department is 1,828 short of the number of officers it is allowed to hire this year, an NYPD spokesman said. The force has steadily declined as veteran officers retire or leave the city to work in higher-paying areas.

Critics have charged that the city is unable to attract enough recruits because NYPD salary levels are not competitive with those in the suburbs and New Jersey. Police academy recruits start at $25,100, a rate that's lower than newly hired sanitation workers, Central Park gardeners and plumbing inspectors. Top pay maxes out at $59,588.

Apparently, Jack Shainman isn't the only art dealer involved in real estate these days. Check out the website for The Machinery Exchange, which lists Max Protetch as one of the developers.

For those of you following along, I'm wondering if the powers that be are realizing that appearing to be hostile to parades, especially queer ones at this time of year, is a bad thing. According to onNYTurf, The Audre Lorde Project is getting their permit to parade in the streets on Friday after having been denied several times. They received their permit as they were about to take the NYPD to court.

It will be interesting to see how "un-permitted" and historic protest marches such as the Dyke March and the Drag March are treated.

Am I the only one who finds it odd that the New York Police Department is in charge of deciding who is allowed to have a permit for political demonstrations and decides who gets a press pass for city press conferences?

Hotel Chelsea Blog reports that the Bard family has been forced out of their management role. The family has been running it for over 100 years.

[photo from bwalsh on flickr]

The Dancing of the Giglio will take place this year on July 8th and 15th. Here is a link to a PDF with the schedule.

Someone sent me a link to a video that uses footage from the event in the original town of Nola, Italy.