More Hotels That Lean?! Bella Sky Comwell Opens in Copenhagen

Travelandleisure.com

You can build a neighborhood from scratch, but that alone can’t give it heart. Luckily for Copenhagen, a flashy tilting hotel is transforming a day-stroll district to a destination with a pulse. Rising from the southern flatlands on land reclaimed by the sea, the 3XN-designed Bella Sky Comwell Hotel (doubles from $420) has fast become a centerpiece for Ørestad City, a master-planned enclave founded nearly two decades ago.

Read more here.

Hotels that Lean?! Capital Gate Looms Over Abu Dhabi

Travelandleisure.com

We live in a daredevil age of architecture. Out of the fog of dreams rise colossal structures that twist, outsize, and undulate to the extreme. Among these freewheeling feats stands the tilting high-rise hotel—and its crowning glory opens this fall.

The silvery spire of Hyatt Capital Gate (doubles from $650) slices the sky above Abu Dhabi’s sultry cityscape at a sharp 18 degree angle—four times greater than Pisa’s slouching bell tower. “There was an opportunity to do something very powerful,” says Chris Jones, principal architect withRMJM, “to create a new gateway to the city.”

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Piano in Bryant Park

Travelandleisure.com

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New Travel Slogans Twist Arms

Travelandleisure.com

Cheesy travel slogans are a dime a dozen. There’s something decidedly square in the art of selling destinations, and rightly so. Not only must you lure new travelers, you also have to represent the locals who live in these places—and you probably shouldn’t tick them off.

So, it’s all the more interesting to notice some chance-taking of late.  A few brave tourist boards—hoping to zap awake a sleepy economy, defibrillator-style—have unveiled a slew of over-the-top, playfully arm-twisting slogans.

Read more here.

Lonely Planet Consoles Stranded Travelers with Free Apps

Travelandleisure.com

No matter how miserable your shoveling chores were this morning, I bet you wouldn’t trade places with a stranded traveler during a snowstorm. Flight delays typically mean another day or five stuck in a strange city without an itinerary.

—That is, unless John Boris can help it.

Over the past year, when severe weather or natural disaster has trapped tourists at the airports, Lonely Planet Americas’s executive vice president and managing director has been making his popular city-guide apps (iPhone, iPod; iPad) completely FREE for download at iTunes for 72 hours. (Normally, they sell for as much as $5.99!)

Read more: http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-blog/carry-on/2011/1/12/lonely-planet-consoles-travelers-with-free-apps

E-reader Showdown: Kindle vs. Nook vs. iPad

Travelandleisure.com

Smart travel is all about consolidation. One of the best ways book-lugging adventurers can streamline is to invest in an e-reader that can store thousands of books—and other reading material—in a single lightweight device. But with so many e-readers on the market, choosing the right one can be maddening. Here’s your rope out of the consumer quicksand.

Continue reading: http://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-blog/carry-on/2010/12/14/e-reader-showdown-kindle-vs-nook-vs-ipad

Gangs of JC – 3 – The Detective

Pavementpieces.com

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Gangs of JC – 1 – City launches first youth rugby team

Jerseycityindependent.com

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Transgender activists, Jersey tabloid at odds

Pavementpieces.com

On the warmest, sunniest day so far of spring, Coy Gordon, 42, sat in her West New York apartment with the doors locked and shades drawn. She lives in constant fear of unknown enemies who know where she lives, what she looks like and — should it provoke them — that she is a transgender woman.

Gordon is set for a court hearing today in West New York for a recent prostitution arrest, part of citywide crackdown on the local sex trade. But for many activists — and transgender women living private lives — this trial has become much larger than Gordon herself.

Gordon feels her safety has been jeopardized because of the way the arrest was covered by a Jersey City-based tabloid, the Jersey Journal. Questions meanwhile have resurfaced about the ethical limits of tabloid sensationalism in the coverage of transgender women and the real-world harm it can cause them.

Read more: http://pavementpieces.com/transgender-woman-reacts-to-tabloid-report/comment-page-1/#comment-3684

Come to yer census and zap language mistakes, activists gripe

New York Daily News, Queens section, Apr. 13

FRUSTRATED community leaders in Queens have a message for the U.S. Census Bureau — get your act together.

Typographical errors in foreign-language versions of the census form and poorly trained operators on the bureau’s phone hotline are throwing an unnecessary hurdle into the process of getting an accurate count, advocates and some elected officials said.

The language snafus will hit Queens especially hard, advocates said, because it is the nation’s most ethnically diverse county and has a very poor response rate so far.

Asian-language speakers are encountering problems with hotline operators who are reading from awkwardly phrased scripts. Their poor language skills might also be discouraging callers, advocates said.