Journey to the Center of the "Ist-a-Verse"
By Chuck Sudo on Sep 16, 2007 4:00PM
Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week!
Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market challenge. Wilco also played Millennium Park under a picture perfect late-summer evening. The one-year anniversary of Macy's taking over and re-naming Marshall Field's was marked by protests outside the store. They also took a look at the rotten egg the Bears laid in San Diego. Finally, the story of a Loop pandhandler whose dog was stolen was enough to sheath the claws of even the site's most negative readers, if only for a few moments.
Londonist delved into past, present and future. They went back 300 years as they explored the dingy cellars of royal wine merchant Berry Bros and Rudd, then welcomed aged rockers Led Zeppelin and Brian Wilson to town. In the present, they attended a talk by Naomi Klein, author of controversial exposé The Shock Doctrine, and lamented the fact that London is now the most expensive city in the world for eating out. Looking to the future, a team of scientists recommends banning all cars from central London by 2030.
LAist must be doing something right if the Beverly Hills Police Department is serving them with a search warrant after a controversial bicycle post. Even later that week, Denis Leary and Jay Leno went off on how they hate the bicycles on the road (but love motorbikes). Other celeb news included a visit to the red carpet of MTV's VMA Awards, an interview with Carol Channing and the audio of Kathy Griffin telling Jesus to suck it. In non-celebrity news, but equally as important, they caught up with artist Florencia Pita of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and took photos of a girl being hung by hooks in her skin.
Bostonist embarked on a week of discovery. They saw their beloved Patriots grow tarnished from a cheating scandal. Pats QB Tom Brady tried to teach them how to pick up chicks (he didn't do a good job). After all that, Bostonist was in no mood for football, so they tried rugby. Exhausted from that endeavor, they slurped on some tasty--but pricey--noodles. At the coffee shop, they rediscovered Jack Kerouac. On the way home, they discovered a new species riding the subways -- the T Bag.
Phillyist continued their insanely detailed coverage of the Live Arts Philly Fringe Festival, remembered a tragedy, had an interesting phone call with the bassist of Metric,panned Jodie Foster's latest, and got excited about the return of the TV show with their town's name in the title.
Gothamist started the week wondering if the end of Missahpes meant the end of an era for Manhattan hipsters. September 11 was observed, and the fate of a beloved tribute is uncertain. A violent rumble during a weekday afternoon raised questions about unruly teens on the subway. The sexual harassment lawsuit against the Knicks revealed Isiah Thomas' dislike of details - or dealing with ticket sales - and more of Stephon Marbury's wacky behavior. And Brooklyn's first bowling alley to open in nearly 50 year captivated their attention.
Over at SFist, readers' tempers revved up over pedestrian safety versus (illegal) luxury car parking as well as taxi drivers versus (more convenient) limo and town car drivers. Sean Penn will play assassinated San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, but more importantly, who will play Dianne Feinstein? Dave Eggers received a well-deserved, big ol' cash prize; and Mayor Gavin Newsom requested letters of resignation from his entire staff, and then some. Yikes.
And learn more about the top stories from our other sites: Austinist, DCist, Houstonist, Sampaist, Seattlest, Shanghaiist, and Torontoist.
Images: Array of three photographs (at top) of the Macy's protest in Chicago by Timohty State for Chicagoist; search warrant (middle) from LAist; and photograph of the Tribute in Light, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground, (bottom) by TomVu on Flickr.