Clover Club has always been loftier than a self-proclaimed “neighborhood bar”—the standard-bearing cocktail parlor from mixology matriarch Julie Reiner (Pegu Club, Flatiron Lounge) is a regular of the World’s Best 50 Bars list, currently sitting pretty at a solid number 46 in all of North America. And now the iconic Carroll Gardens bar is expanding with a sibling drinkery next door.

RECOMMENDED: The 50 best bars in NYC right now for classic cocktails, craft beer and expert wine selections

Per Grubstreet, The Saloon at Clover Club will open at 208 Smith Street near Baltic in June, bringing with it a more “casual cocktail experience” than its older sister, as well as private invents and drink-making classes. The expansion plans kind of fell into Reiner’s lap, she told the outlet, saying that the Saloon was born when her landlord called offering her to rent the old comic book store next door to the original bar.  The Saloon is the latest bar offering from Reiner, her wife Susan Fedroff and fellow business partners Christine Williams and Tom Macy; the portfolio currently includes the Latin-inspired Leyenda (with Ivy Mix) and the Milady’s remake over in Soho. 

In the works for The Saloon will be classic cocktails like the Tuxedo (a martini cousin that traditionally features gin, dry Vermouth, absinthe, orange bitters and maraschino) and a Champagne Cobbler, which is reminiscent of a Mimosa but usually splashed with pineapple juice. While there will be real-deal saloon doors in the new space, there won’t be table service—that means you’re going to have to mosey on over to the bar to order a drink yourself. Full cocktail menu details are still to come, but we’ll keep you posted on all upcoming intel about this soon-to-open Clover Club companion bar. 

* This article was originally published here

Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitana opened on Coney Island 100 years ago (no, we’re not exaggerating) and more or less has been operating the same way since then, under the management of a single family. 

According to the New York Times, though, things are about to change: the owners are now looking for an investor or buyer to take over the space. 

“We’re coming up in age and we don’t have the manpower to continue,” said Louise Ciminieri, a part-owner alongside her sister Antoinette Balzano and brother Frank Balzano, to the outlet. 

Although looking to move on, the owners are clear on one thing: prospective buyers will have to agree to continue making the pizza the way it has been on premise since back in 1924, when Totonno’s first opened. 

Offering thin crusted pizzas made with imported ingredients from Italy, Totonno’s is one of the very few pizzerie in NYC that still uses a coal oven—a tradition that die-hard fans of the destination hope will continue. It also does so in the same building it has been operating out of since Antonio Pero, an Italian immigrant who worked at Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Manhattan, founded the eatery in 1924.

The pizzeria is clearly part and parcel of the city’s culinary and cultural character, having survived through Hurricane Sandy, the global COVID-19 pandemic (Totonno’s closed in March of 2020 and reopened two years later, now only offering takeout twice a week) and an awful fire in 2009 that forced the eatery shut for about a year.

The legendary destination enjoys die-hard fans that have moved on from the neighborhood as well—including Senator Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn native.

“In the old days, you stood on line, and when Totonno’s ran out of dough they’d come outside and say, ‘You’ll have to come back another time,'” the politician said to the New York Times. “But it was worth waiting for every minute.”

Although the family seems to be dead set on moving on, a centennial celebration of all that Totonno’s stands for is likely in the works for later this year. We expect to see a whole lot of people there paying their respects.

* This article was originally published here

Last night’s thunderstorm in New York City was a pretty violent one. As the rain picked up and the wind whipped around buildings, lightning flashed in the sky, even hitting the Empire State Building!

As always, someone is out there watching with a camera on hand. 

The Empire State Building’s Instagram posted a video of the strike happening from different angles and it’s pretty freakin’ cool.

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Gary Hershorn took a mesmerizing photo of the strike here:

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As did this photographer.

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The ESB wasn’t the only tower to get struck, though. One World Trade was victim to the storm, too.

Photographer Johnny Angelillo captured that strike below:

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And Max Guliani caught it on video, too.

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* This article was originally published here

Racing to escape the rain, I reached my building in the Bronx and positioned my face in front of the facial recognition entrance system. Despite multiple attempts, the screen repeatedly failed to identify me. As a Black woman, I had experienced the inconvenience of the system taking longer to recognize me than it did for lighter-skinned individuals. But stuck outside alone at night, this was the first time I truly felt endangered by this technology and felt aware of the omnipresent surveillance in my neighborhood. This experience forced me to confront the disturbing realities of how much personal biometric data I was relinquishing, who was accessing it, and the inefficacy of a system that barred me from my own home.

Across New York, countless tenants with landlord-installed facial recognition share these concerns about surveillance and racial discrimination. The prevalence of facial recognition technology in residential buildings not only infringes on personal privacy and puts tenants’ biometric data at risk, but it also exhibits racial biases against overpoliced Black and Brown communities. It is imperative New York State legislators ban its use this session to ensure the safety, privacy, and dignity of all New Yorkers in their homes.

Surveillance is especially prevalent in public housing. According to the Washington Post, there is one camera in New York City public housing for every 19 residents, comparable to one for every 20 visitors to the Louvre in Paris. This level of surveillance saturation goes hand in hand with the extreme gentrification occurring in Brooklyn and Manhattan, but also beyond the city, in places like Yonkers and Buffalo. Adding facial recognition technology to their surveillance arsenal is part of landlords’ efforts to attract wealthier, predominantly white tenants to these neighborhoods, making them feel safer, while closely monitoring current, mainly Black and Latinx public housing residents. This increases the likelihood of these tenants being punished or evicted for minor rule violations, including when misidentified. 

The NYPD can access surveillance footage through its dystopian Domain Awareness System (DAS), which consolidates private and public camera feeds and intelligence data, regardless of its origin. This system includes video footage from cameras around the city, including in residential buildings, infringing upon the freedom of residents, particularly Black and Latinx communities who are already disproportionately targeted by discriminatory policing. With the NYPD’s track record of using facial recognition technology against children, who are more prone to misidentification by the technology, it comes as no surprise that residents feel threatened at the idea of the police having access to their biometric data and movements without consent. 

Tania Acabou, a single mother from New Bedford, Massachusetts, found herself evicted on the grounds that she had violated a guest policy, as determined by the facial recognition camera, when the “guest” was her ex-husband providing childcare so that she could attend school. New Yorkers, threatened by similar actions, have resisted non-consensual installation of these systems by landlords. In 2019, residents of Atlantic Plaza Towers in Brooklyn organized against the implementation of facial recognition technology that forced them to surrender their biometric information. The power these systems give to landlords is boundless, forcing tenants to grant access to their biometric data to third parties with no security assurances. 

Protests by community members have successfully led to the introduction of a bill in the New York State legislature which prohibits the use of facial recognition by landlords on any residential premises. To protect New York residents from the threat of being tracked by landlords and not having control over their data, this bill needs to be advanced to the Assembly and Senate floors for voting. At a time when protecting the rights and privacy of New Yorkers is paramount, legislative intervention is more crucial than ever to prevent discrimination and safeguard the homes of residents. 

Renwick-Archibold is a Research Intern at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) and a 2024 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in computer science and cognitive neuroscience.

The post Facial recognition locked me out of my own apartment. NYS must ban it. appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here