Nyc Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form

Not a huge fan of doing this, but I'm going to self-promote a little bit. I'm the CEO of numberFire (http://numberfire.com), which is a suite of predictive analytic models in the fantasy football and football handicapping spaces. Despite being totally bootstrapped in 2010, we ended the season with 26,000 users and a partnership with Sports Illustrated. Not to mention the fact that our picks were destroying ESPN, Yahoo!, and even Vegas itself.We're seeking financing in 2011 to build more tools and implement our subscription/content revenue strategy. Good thing for us that we're in a massively expanding and homogeneous market with proven a money-spend!We're based in Cooper Square, and we're happy to be a part of the quickly emerging NYC startup community.

Visit The Bronx .Arthur Avenue, off Fordham Road, is NYC's most authentic Italian neighborhood. Often called "Little Italy of the Bronx", it is more Italian than Little Italy on Mulberry Street on Manhattan. Arthur Avenue includes many small Italian shops, where you can buy fresh bread, pasta, produce, meat, cheese, and fish. It also has some incredible Italian restaurants.The Bronx also offers The Bronx Zoo and The New York Botanical Garden. Both are right near Arthur Avenue, and both are world famous in their respective fields. Both are right off campus from my alma matter Fordham University, so make sure to take a stroll of the campus as well.The Bronx is also home to Yankee Stadium, and the city's best parks. It is home to City Island and the Hunt's Point Market. Make sure to check out Poe Cottage, former home of Edgar Allen Poe, on Grand Concourse.The Bronx economy could really use some help. Visitors to NY should visit The Bronx to explore a new area of the city, and help to provide some much needed economic relief to a proud local community. I no longer live in The Bronx but I feel it is my obligation to encourage all to visit and experience everything it has to offer.Since it is currently the holiday season, make sure to read my answer to:What are good activities in New York City for visitors near the holidays (around Christmas)?Aside from The Bronx, I would also recommend the NYC Transit Museum, located in downtown Brooklyn. The museum is built in an abandoned subway station, and features railcars from different eras in the subway's history.

March in New York is always a crapshoot and this year, we're as likely to have summery temps as we are to have a (third) blizzard. I'll split the answer between indoor and outdoor activities to give you some options either way. Indoor:The Metropolitan Museum of Art - great, historic collection of work.The Cloisters - a collection of actual European cloisters shipped over in the 30's by Rockefeller. Not something you're going to see everywhere.Chelsea Market - if you are interested in food, this is a great place to graze on locally produced and artisanal foodsKatz's Deli - Legendary pastramiBalthazar - I second. It's profoundly well known at this point, but still a fun experience.Fatty Cue - in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Asian inflected barbecue. Think hickory smoke and fish sauce. It's a thing to behold.Brooklyn Bowl - it's a bowling alley, music venue and a restaurant serving food by Blue Ribbon, one of the better restaurants in town. The fried chicken is amazing and, again, it's not a combination you're going to find elsewhere.Outdoor:Staten Island Ferry - I second this as well. It's free and gets you a great view of the harbor, the Statue of Liberty and the skyline from the south. Not necessarily where you want to be in a snow storm though.Brooklyn Bridge - again, I second. It's iconic. It gets crowded, but it's worth it to walk across and back.Washington Square Park - The heart of Greenwich Village. It's historic and with renovations nearly complete, it's a lot nicer than it's been in years.Central Park - Cold or warm, a must visit.The Pond at Bryant Park - If you ice skate, this beats the rink in the park or at Rock Center. It's free and isn't swamped with as many tourists since it's not as well known.The Highline - a long abandoned rail line on the west side of Manhattan, recently renovated into one of the best designed parks I've ever seen. A block from Chelsea Market, if you go that way.For more on interesting and unique New York (Brooklyn in particular), see Sam Sifton's recent 36 Hours in Brooklyn piece in the NY Times.

Get yourself Metrocards. They work in the Subways and on the buses. Each ride is about $2.75. However, you can transfer from bus to subway, bus to bus, Subway to Subway, or Subway to bus for free.When I take people around for two days, I typically start with the Statue of Liberty. First boat goes out at 8:30 a m. Do not talk to sidewalk ticket agents. At best, they will sell you the $19 ticket for $25, with a commission. At worst, thousands last year paid for boat trips that did not go to the Statue of Liberty, after being told by street ticket agents that it would.From the statue, it's a short walk to either the financial district or World Trade Center Memorial. (We don't call it Ground Zero anymore.)After that, I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights, with its beautiful 150-year-old houses, including those that housed Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and WH Auden. Stop at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with a 15 km or 10 Mile view of the city and the harbor.This takes us to lunch the first day.Contact me if you want to learn the rest of this two-day itinerary. I'm always looking for another day of work!

I've lived in both cities. Really depends what you want. New York is a city that you immediately fall for. London is an affection that grows steadily on you over time.New York is more fast-paced and far more dense. It's more obvious exactly what is open late until 4 a.m. and what isn't. The city has an energy that stretches the limits of how long you think it is possible for a human being to be awake.  Public transportation is very, very cheap and it's fast to get from one side of the city to the other. On average, if you were to pick a random restaurant, I think the food is better. London is more like a collection of villages that have grown into each other over 1,000 years. It's lower density and I believe it takes longer to get from one side of the city to another. The Tube only runs until 12:30 or 1 a.m. (But the really edgy part of London -- Hackney & Dalston -- is only a short bus ride or maybe even walking distance from the financial center if you're liberal about what you consider its boundaries. Lower Manhattan, while extraordinarily fun to live in, is over-commercialized. The unique little shops and curiosities that made it an unusual place to live increasingly feel more like a vestige of the past to me there. Chains are kinda taking over.)  I personally think the artistic culture is far less commercial and much more innovative in London than New York. The Arts Council supports all kinds of local, eccentric and home-grown projects. Fashion is quirkier and more original. Alexander McQueen, I think, could have really only come from the U.K. and Central St. Martins. New York's designers and artists think about what will sell. London's artists think about what is conceptually new, even if it is difficult and considered unattractive now.London is also a more international city than New York. (I say this somewhat controversially). While about one-third of Londoners and New Yorkers are foreign born, America encourages more of a hyphenated sense of identity. People are Mexican-American, or Ethopian-American, or Chinese-American. In that sense, while New York may be international, the U.S.'s comparatively prohibitive immigration policies mean people try to stay in the country for a longer period of time and become more assimilated than they do in London, where dozens of other countries are literally an hour's flight away.  Travel, of course, is a major plus in London. You can you get away for ~$100 to Andalusia, Morocco, Turkey, Berlin, Milan, Rome, etc. Travel is deeply ingrained into the culture and Londoners now legally have five weeks of holiday a year.London's food culture is improving, but you really have to know where to go and when. Over the past several years, Brits have come to embrace and elevate their own cuisine and local produce. I love the different mix of international cuisines there too. Growing up in California meant I considered Italian, Mexican and Chinese to be the great trinity of foreign cuisine. In Britain, chicken tikka masala and the Turkish kebab rule. Sunday roasts also seem to be the functional equivalent of the Manhattan brunch. One of my favorite things to do in London was get lost in the Sunday markets -- Broadway Market, Upmarket, Borough Market, Brixton -- really, any of them. There are hundreds of stands where you can find the best hog roast, cheese brought in overnight from France, nduja from Calabria, octopus balls, banh mi, spanakopita, curry, Ghanaian stew, bizarre T-shirts or whatever. If you want to stay out very, very late, you also have to know where to go. Most places close down around 1 or so. The drinking culture is also far more onerous on your liver. A week of Manhattan drinking is more distributed. It might involve cocktails and wine on several nights, with some extra drinking on weekends. A week of London drinking and the culture of buying rounds -- where everyone is expected to buy a round of drinks for everyone else -- means you end up drinking WAY more than you should. If I went out drinking with a group of eight people, all eight people would end up buying drinks for everyone else. And then I would buy eight drinks for everyone (which is way more than I would ever pay for in the U.S. being a small-ish woman).If you're American, it's much easier to find a social circle in New York. Americans are just much more open to loose and sudden friendships. With Brits, you have to know them for at least a couple months until they feel really comfortable with you. You can apply this same line of thinking to dating -- except when Londoners go on the lash, which is probably the only time some Brits feel truly comfortable with themselves. (Just teasing!) In New York, the upside and the downside of dating is the paradox of choice. Enough said there. There are entire TV shows, movies and books devoted to this problem. Almost every New Yorker will tell you that they love the city and would have a hard time living anywhere else in the world. Virtually no Londoner will tell you the same thing about London. They will moan about the weather and reminisce about their holiday in Phuket, Ibiza, etc. Don't mistake this for misery (most of the time). Brits and Americans just have different ways of expressing themselves. Londoners find our flagrant use of "Amazing!" "Awesome!" and "Love!" as tiring and insincere as we find their lack of eye contact and smiling (amongst strangers) cold and dispassionate. Also, talking about what your job is or asking the requisite "What do you do in the city?" question immediately is a faux pas in London.  The vulgarity of that question also probably has a little to do with how Britain is a class-based society where a person's stature in life should be readily apparent through their accent, demeanor and dress to other Brits. This isn't the case in the U.S. so Americans tend to probe more, especially in New York, where a person's career is a major -- if not the most important -- part of their identity. Then of course, there's the cliche that Americans live to work, while continental Europeans work to live. The British tend to be somewhere in between those extremes. In Britain, frivolous banter is a high art. Talking about nothing can be a way to probe a person's intelligence, wit and creativity.I can't really compare costs at this point since the pound is so weak. When I lived in London, GBP-USD ranged from ~$1.40 to $2.10. When the pound was hovering near its peak, the daily costs of living were extraordinarily high, but rent took up a comparatively smaller share of my monthly income than it did in New York. Health care is also free (er, nationalized) in the U.K. I can't speak for older people who are likely to have more serious health problems, but for a younger person in good health, this was awesome. No having to stress about what's covered and what's not, figure out who is a provider and who is not, be shocked by unanticipated co-pays that were not listed in the original health plan marketing material, be sent random $200 or 300 bills for a routine annual when your doctor for whatever reason can't bill your health insurance provider, have expensive, unnecessary tests or consultations pushed upon you, worry when you're in between jobs, or re-figure everything out again when you change jobs or your company gets acquired. Also, the very best essay I have ever read about the experience of a young person in New York was written by Joan Didion: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~zkurmu...

I loved living in NYC. I achieved my highest highs (professionally and personally) and lowest lows there, and lived there for 11 years. We had just moved about half a mile east to Ridgewood, Queens, after being kicked out of our place in Bushwick, Brooklyn when it was flipped. We were looking forward to a nicer apartment and a little more space, although we were a little farther from the city center.When my lady and I went to bed in our new apartment in Ridgewood, within minutes we could hear squealing and fighting from what sounded like 30 rats trying to kill each other, probably 3 feet from our heads through the wall and floor. I remember sitting down to watch a Mets playoff game later in the week (we were in Queens, the home turf!) on TV and jumping out of my sofa when another group of rats had a death match which sounded like it was right behind me.Then the fun started. Within 5 days we had a sewage backup in the basement where all our stuff was in boxes still, (the management company said we all flushed tampons down the toilet, but everyone had just moved in that week) then the fire marshall came and told us the walls in the apartment were not rated as “fireproof” and some other stuff was not up to code. The management company (MyspaceNYC) who showed us the place was discovered to be the lease holder through a complex shell company situation, and had made us sign a draconian lease (which I should have known was a bad sign) from which they would not consider releasing us, and me and another guy in the building had to pay a lawyer to advise us on how to deal with scumbag landlords. But the rat colony was amazing. A local kid walked by the apartment (on the ground floor) and said to his buddy, “Yo! Look at the size of the rat! That’s the biggest mother fu@#er I ever seen!” And that kid grew up in NYC.One of those nights my lady was sobbing in the middle of a particularly intense rat fight which sounded like it was coming from under our bed, and right there and then I made a plan to get the hell out of NYC. We called the city a million times to complain, and finally the company let us out of what we call The Rat Palace. It was good while it lasted, but at a certain point I didn’t want to live like…well, a rat.

Walking in might work, but you also run the risk of inconveniencing someone while their working. However, let's say you go for it, have you thought about what questions will I be asked at an interview for a restaurant job? Visit this link to get yourself prepared for what is surely to come your way whether at your impromptu or official interview. Having some prepared answers can make the process run more smoothly which will give you confidence and probably result in a job.

I lived in NYC for over 10 years, and now live in Paris. If all things were equal in terms of language and immigration status, I would definitely say daily life in New York is harder.NYC is more expensive than Paris (though you do get paid more too), you work all the time and the grind of the metro and pizza rats and crazy people exposing themselves can wear you down. Paris can be crowded, Paris can smell sometimes and Paris definitely has rats, but compared to The Big Apple there is no question life is a little easier in the City of Lights. If money is no object, NYC is my choice though.There are also more protections for residents in terms of healthcare and job security in Paris. No one goes bankrupt because they don’t have insurance or gets fired for no reason.The daily lifestyle isn’t that different however. You don’t need a car, people come visit a lot, and you can go out to eat in a different place every night for a year if you wanted.I wrote a whole article on the differences between Paris and NYC if you are interested to hear more about my experience: Life in Paris vs New York City

Being an employee of JPMorgan at the time of Occupy Wall Street, I don't think that anyone at JPM really cared at all about OWS.The thing about banking is that almost none of it happens on Wall Street.  The main offices at JPM are at Park Avenue near Grand Central, so no one at JPM (or any other major bank) was affected at all by the protests.  In any case, since 9/11, all of the banks have had contingency plans so that if someone tried to shut down Midtown, everyone could work from home.  All of the computer systems are distributed at various locations around NYC, to make it impossible for any one group or person to shut down the system with anything short of a nuclear bomb.There *were* a lot of demonstrations near the JPM headquarters, but not for reasons that you would think.  It turns out that JPM is located right outside the no-protest zone for the United Nations, so every time the UN was in session, there were tons of protesters outside of the office.  There was something of a strong police presence, but the police were just on horseback watching the protesters, and I suspect that one of the reason the police were there were to prevent the protestors from fighting each other, since there were some conflicting groups among the protesters.We did get the occasional protest against JPM (I remember a lot of protesters in yellow shirts), but I don't think that there was ever a police confrontation.  The protestors that I saw where merely exercising their right to free speech, and they were careful to stay on the public sidewalk and not to try to block anyone from entering the building.  Often when we got e-mail saying that there would be a demonstration that day and to remember to bring our badges.  I do vaguely remember some police there, but they were just watching.One reason that I do appreciate the NYPD (and I suspect this was the reason why they got a donation) is that the main reason that the police were there was to prevent demonstrators from blocking the office entrances.  When there was a demonstration, the police set up lines so that demonstrators could not keep us from going to work.  The other thing is that there were times when you had extremely angry protestors, and it felt good to have the police there since it would insure that the demonstrators wouldn't physically beat us up.