travel
Win Trip To 'Luxurious' Hotel Pennsylvania!
MTV is sponsoring a contest to promote the upcoming action film Max Payne starring Mark Wahlberg--and talk about the perfect setting for a gritty cop-movie gimmick!
"To celebrate the release of this slick new thriller, MTV is giving one lucky winner and a friend an NYPD trip to New York City. You’ll get flights, two-nights accommodation at the luxurious Hotel Pennsylvania..."
What, you were expecting the posh Hotel Carter?
Now, MTV wasn't around during the Swing Era, but has Kurt Loder and company bothered to peek inside the old Glenn Miller hangout recently?
(Read The Observer's extensive coverage here.)
"Save The Hotel" activist Gregory Jones once took issue with my use of the term "fleabag" to describe the dowdy would-be landmark on Seventh Avenue.
But, come on, luxurious?
City Revises Rosy Tourism Numbers
The city is expecting about 400,000 fewer out-of-town visitors than originally anticipated this year, in light of the recent financial crisis.
Revised projections released today by the city's tourism office, NYC & Company, estimate a total of 47.3 million people traveling to New York in 2008 -- still, about 2.8 percent more than in 2007. The original forecast estimated about 47.7 million tourists.
Nearly 46 million visitors came to New York in 2007, according to the agency.
Prior to the economic downtown, the city had experienced a 10 percent increase in international travelers over the first six months of 2008.
More Riders Taking New York-Hamptons LIRR Routes
Maybe people wanted to beat the holiday weekend traffic this year or perhaps they were put off by higher gas prices. Whatever the reasons, the Long Island Railroad lines running between New York City and the Hamptons got a boost in ridership this Memorial Day Weekend compared to 2007.
This year, 44,618 passengers left Penn Station or Jamaica on eastbound trains on Friday, May 23, between 11:30 a.m. and 8:53 p.m., LIRR spokesman Salvatore Arena told us, up 12 percent from the 39,849 riders who took the train on the first day of the holiday weekend in 2007.
On Monday, Memorial Day, 6,775 people headed home, compared to 6,327 last Memorial Day. (“The question is what happened to all these other people?” Mr. Arena said.)
Mr. Arena said ridership on the LIRR between New York City and the Hamptons in April was up 10 percent from the same month in 2007. read more »
