If you weren’t one of the 41 million Americans drinking water contaminated with sex hormones and pharmaceutical waste, welcome to the club! Testing prompted by the AP’s damning investigation has revealed that another five million people, including residents of Reno, Colorado Springs, and Chicago, now sip the potentially dangerous pharmaceutical soup.
new york city
By 9.9.08
../../../..//2008/09/09/astroland-the-coney-island-amusement/
Astroland, the Coney Island amusement park, is closing for good this Sunday, says its owner. You can buy the rides at www.rides4u.com. Sorry, the wooden Cyclone coaster and the Wonder Wheel are part of another amusement company and won’t be sold (they’ll continue to operate). [New York Times]
High School Students Bust Restaurants And Grocery Stores For Selling Mislabeled Fish
By 8.22.08
Two high school students decided to see if New Yorkers were really getting what they paid for when they ordered expensive fish. Guess what? Sometimes, they weren’t.
Dear Radio City Music Hall, Christmas Is Not "Right Around The Corner" In August
By 8.14.08 — Updated: 10.17.13
Reader Scott says he spotted some nasty summertime Christmas Creep in the free NYC area paper “Metro”. Apparently the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular is under the impression that “Christmas is right around the corner.” In August.
Modell's Beats Any Price, As Long As It's Not On Sale
By 7.22.08
Modell’s own peculiar definition of “low price guarantee, we will beat any ad” surprised reader Randy when he tried to get them to honor it on a baseball glove he bought, as it would even the most casual student of Logic or Semantics. He writes:
Subway Takes Knife In Sandwich Very Seriously
By 7.16.08
THE QUOTE: “Subway restaurants spokesman Kevin Kane says food safety and customer comments are taken “very seriously” and that the company is “investigating the facts.”
VIDEO: Activist Bum Rushes iPhone Line With Flag Pony
By 7.11.08
The first person in line at the 5th Ave Apple store in Manhattan was some kind of activist Daniel Bowman Simon, part of a group who camped out in front of The Cube for over a week, hoping to use it as an opportunity to bring exposure to issues of, “sustainability, affordable housing, energy security, and locally-grown food,” who tried to bumrush the applauding Apple receiving line of Apple employees and penetrate The Cube with what appears to be a metal/aluminum-foil horse carrying an American flag. The world may never know now knows exactly what sort of brilliant political statement he was trying to make as he was quickly intercepted by burly security guards who jettisoned him away to make room for more obedient cult members. Video, inside…
New York City: 86% Of Milk Sellers Are Price-Gouging Customers
By 6.7.08
Sorry New Yorkers, but according to the City Council, you’re overpaying for both rent and milk. Anyone charging more than $3.93 for a gallon—86% of the city’s milk sellers, from bodegas to Whole Foods—is violating the state’s milk price-gouging law.
Pregnant? Asthmatic? Don't Like Rollercoasters? Stay Away From NYC Elevators And Escalators
By 5.19.08
Unless you’re willing to risk being stranded with 14 other passengers several stories underground in a cattle car elevator on a hot summer day, or plunging at extreme speeds down an escalator with a broken chain, you might want to steer clear of NYC’s subway system lifts. The New York Times has published the results of an extensive investigation that includes tales of daily breakdowns, comically undertrained mechanics, and about $1 billion spent over the past decade.
There Are Bed Bugs On The Subway Benches. Yes, Really.
By 5.14.08
Bedbugs are usually thought of as something that only hotel guests have to worry about, but apparently New Yorkers who like to sit on benches while they wait for the subway should be concerned about the bloodsuckers as well.
We Are Not Impressed By New York City's Proposed Cable Consumer Bill Of Rights
By 4.26.08
New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson has proposed tying a Cable Consumer Bill of Rights into the 10-year franchise renewals Time Warner and Cablevision are expected to sign later this year. The proposal would force cable operators to disclose information about their expenses and service goals—which sounds nice and important on paper—but wastes an unrivaled opportunity to end the cable operators’ most hated practices.
Data On Over 40,000 Patients Stolen From NYC Hospital
By 4.12.08
The New York Times is reporting this morning that an unnamed employee stole personal data on over 40,000 patients from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The theft “occurred over the past several years and included patients’ names, phone numbers and Social Security numbers.” As we’ve come to grimly expect in these cases, the hospital was made aware of the theft in January, and announced it publicly on Friday after an internal audit. “We obviously deeply regret that this has happened,” said the hospital’s spokeswoman, Ms. Manners. She also said that investigators are “looking into the possibility that the theft could be part of a larger criminal scheme.”
Verizon Sues Time Warner Cable Over "Egregiously False" Advertising
By 4.10.08
Verizon has had enough of Time Warner Cable making fun of their fiber intake and has sued the cable company, claiming that their advertising is “egregiously false” and is causing “immediate and irreparable harm” to Verizon.
Drugs In The Water No Big Deal, Says NYC Official
By 4.8.08
In regards to a headline grabbing AP investigation that found the drinking water of major cities contained trace amounts of an array of pharmacopoeia, the deputy commissioner of New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, “A person would have to drink one million glasses of water to get the dose of even one over-the-counter ibuprofen tablet or the caffeine in one cup of coffee…Even at eight glasses of water per day, this would take the average person over 300 years to consume.” So for those of you hoping to replace your medicine cabinet just by draining the Brita, sorry Charlie. However, there are no studies on the long-term effects to human of small exposure to a vast array of drugs, although, the Times notes, they have been shown to cause mutations in fish.
On The Final Day Of The Barnes & Noble's Existence, Chaos
By 1.4.08
The above photo was snapped on the final day in the life of the Astor Place Barnes & Noble in New York City.
Yes, New York City Cabs Take Credit Cards
By 12.15.07
New York taxi drivers have resigned themselves to a fate with credit cards, according to a New York Times investigation. Cabbies struck twice this year to protest regulations forcing them to accept credit of all stripes. To see if cabbies are following the new rules, the Times asked five reporters to hop in twenty cabs each with one question: “I’ve only got a credit card, is that O.K.?”
T-mobile Apologises For 3 Months Of No Service With $5 Off Bill
By 11.2.07
Nadine writes:
I recently switched to T-mobile thinking I would get better service at a fair rate. Unfortunately, since the onset of my contract with T-mobile this hasn’t been the case. In the past three months I have experienced major communication difficulties. I have been unable to receive phone calls and many of my text messages are not going through. I have been calling T-Mobile’s customer care to no avail regarding this problem and they informed me that they were experiencing network difficulties in New York City. They claimed that the problems were being worked on. As time passed I continued to experience the same difficulties but to a greater degree. My callers had to text me because they couldn’t get through when calling. I called for help but there was a different excuse given as to why the service wasn’t working…
Gold Llame Window Display Confuses Shopper Into Thinking American Apparel Is Store For Hookers
By 11.1.07
Because we loathe the peculiar iteration of kiddie porn that passes for American Apparel’s advertising, we got a kick out of the photo and description submitted to our Flickr pool by reader (and #1Consumerist reader Flickr pool submitter!) Maulleigh.
