Aaron Marks · NYU Local

Dojo Is Closing

May 13th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Sad news for fans of cheap eats around NYU: Dojo, the venerable West 4th Street eatery, will be shutting up shop soon. According to Vanishing NY, rising rents will force the cheap and healthy eatery to close sometime this summer and “reopen as something entirely different.”

Dojo, described once by this blogger’s waiter as “a sort of Japanese diner,” has been serving healthy, fresh foods at reasonable prices since 1991. Their location at Mercer and West 4th Streets has made them a favorite among NYU students for as long as most of us have been alive.

No hard date is set for Dojo’s closing, and a bartender yesterday told us that “Nothing is finalized, yet.” But Vanishing NY says they’ll be gone this summer, so best go take advantage of their cheap eats while you can. Seriously, their food is absurdly cheap: $6.95 for an enormous plate of nachos, $7.25 for a soy burger and salad and Japanese favorites like ramen and tempura.

Former NYU VP Catches Heat In Benghazi Hearing

May 10th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

The big event in D.C. yesterday was the Republicans’ investigation into the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans last September. The underlying goal of the investigation, as BuzzFeed reports, is to call into question the response from Hilary Clinton, whose State Department was mostly responsible to respond to the attack in Libya. This investigation looks forward of the 2016 Presidential Election in which Clinton is an ostensible Democratic front-runner. And while Clinton received most of the media coverage, interestingly enough a former member of the NYU community is drawing heat as well.

The Weirdest Tweets From NYU Creative Writing Professors

May 7th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

NYU’s creative writing program is one of the most distinguished in the country. Professors ranging from bestseller Jonathan Safran Foer to 2013 Pullitzer-winner Sharon Olds workshop stories and poems from hundreds of undergrads and MFA students every semester. With such a powerhouse of talent teaching in the program, it’s no surprise that many have taken to one of the most popular writing platforms of our time: Twitter.

Surely you’re aware that Twitter is for more than Modern Seinfeld gags and RTs to take down #KONY2012 (That was his name, right?); “the tweet,” as n+1 recently put it, ” is a literary form of Oulipian arbitrariness, and the straitjacket of the form has determined the schizophrenia of the content. A tweet is so short that you can get right to the point — but so short, also, that why should it have one?”

The professors of NYU’s Creative Writing Program have taken this missive to heart, and have tickled our Twitter feathers by Tweeting fragments far more strange and interesting than an alert about their upcoming readings. Here are our favorite weird Tweets from NYU’S Creative Writing Professors. Read more…

Free Hugs Guy New York Times Washington Square Park

“Free Hugs Guy” Tells Washington Square Assault Story In His Own Words

May 2nd, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Better known as the “Free Hugs Guy,” Jermaine Himmelstein has been an appreciated and irksome presence in Washington Square Park in recent years. Last month, the tensions many felt that came along with his “Free Hugs” campaigns — including threatening and sexual remarks — came to a head when he was arrested for hurling a soda can at a woman who refused him a hug. Now, more information on Himmelstein has emerged in a story from the Times. The case turns out to not be so simple as Hugs Guy Gone Wild.

In A Sea Of Smartphones, Going Off The Grid

April 25th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

When Brittany Siler wants to figure out her Friday plans, she doesn’t log onto Facebook to check which events she signed up for that week. She doesn’t look at her Twitter stream to see what events are trending. She doesn’t pull up Foursquare to learn about the hottest restaurants her friends have been checking into.

Brittany does not, cannot, do any of these, because she does not have accounts on those sites. She doesn’t have an account on any website, in fact, besides Gmail and a Google Plus account — where her only friend is her sister, who posts pictures of her children. Nor does she have a smartphone, opting instead to carry “a little Nokia that was made before common cellphones could access the internet.”

That Siler lives without these “always-on” technologies wouldn’t be particularly strange — millions of Americans live without smartphones, Facebook, or even (gasp) high-speed Internet — were she not a student at NYU, where it seems that every elevator is packed with students on their smartphones, the last time anyone got invited to a party over anything but Facebook was back in high school, and through its various digital initiatives, the university embraces technology with open arms.

Will These Twitter Users Convince NYU To Reveal Who The Graduation Speaker Is?

April 22nd, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Last year, NYU revealed who its commencement speaker would be on March 22. Today is April 22, a full month later, and we still do not know who our speaker is. Well, seniors are getting antsy to find out who will be gracing their entrance into the oft-rumored “real world” with words of wisdom.

When NYU students have something to complain about, we tend to take out our ire online, to Twitter! So we took a look at the digital vitriol surrounding the delayed speaker announcement, and put together the graph below, which highlights the total number of Twitter actions (Tweets, favorites, retweets and @-replies) about NYU’s graduation speaker over the past few weeks.

Which Of These 15 Activities Should Be Our New Senior Tradition?

April 16th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Graduation is five weeks away (Yes, you read that right) which for seniors means it’s time to prep the Kleenex, pack your bags and get ready to move into mom and dad’s basement! Before we depart our fair institution, however, many of us would like to leave our mark. In lieu of the long-retired Washington Square Pool Party, we must begin a new tradition. Here are our proposals:

“Free Hugs Guy” Arrested In Washington Square Park

April 11th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Yesterday afternoon, Jermaine Himmelstein — the man who walks around Washington Square Park with a “Free Hugs” sign — was arrested in the park around 1:45pm on charges of assault. According to the NYPD, the 21-year-old Himmelstein asked a woman if she would give him a hug and when she said no, he threw a can of soda at her which hit and bruised her face.

Stern junior Emanuel Hahn witnessed the incident and told NYU Local that Himmelstein was “to the left of the fountain … looking for people to hug. Two cops came up to him and took away his sign and proceeded to handcuff him.”

Brunch Favorite Sunburnt Cow Up For Sale

April 8th, 2013 by Aaron Marks

Could the East Village brunch spot Sunburnt Cow be strolling into the sunset? According to EV Grieve, the NYU favorite has been put up for sale. So get in your ~~complaints about how much you drank last night~~ mimosas before it’s too late!

Located on Avenue C near East Ninth Street, the Aussie-inspired Sunburnt Cow is popular among students for its reasonably priced all-you-can-drink brunch (Or, “drunch,” from the same wordsmiths who brought you “YOLO” and, actually, “brunch” itself). $20 will get you a seat at a two-hour seating, with bottomless mimosas and an entree.

But now, following a string of hard times — Sandy damages caused the Cow to be temporarily shuttered by the DOH for not being up to snuff, and about a year ago they ceased their money-losing drink deals — it appears the restaurant will be sold off.