Tourists Take To The Skies To See City's Sights Despite Tragic Collision

A Liberty Helicopter Sightseeing Tours helicopter and a small plane that took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey collided midair above the Hudson River on August 8, killing nine with no survivors. All bodies and wreckage have since been recovered from the river. The passengers taking a tour of New York City on the helicopter were five Italian tourists.
The accident occurred in a busy corridor over the Hudson in which pilots are free to decide their route, as long as they stay under 1,000 feet and don’t get too close to skyscrapers. Despite the tragic accident, tourists have remained unfazed and took to the skies for tours the very next day after the accident. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has even encouraged helicopter tours to continue, and that “there’s no reason why having helicopter tours shouldn’t be safe … I certainly don’t think that we should ban them.” A city councilwoman is pressing to ban tourist helicopter rides over Manhattan.
Taking in a birds-eye view from a helicopter is an increasingly popular tourism attraction in New York City and a thriving business despite the risk and high cost. Liberty Helicopter Tours offers a Lady Liberty tour costing $135 for 6 to 8 minutes, Big Apple tour of Manhattan landmarks for $165, a 16 to 20 minute tour of all five boroughs for $230, and a romantic private ride around Manhattan at night for $1,010.

Graffiti Artists Os Gemeos Take on Lower Manhattan

There's nothing unusual about graffiti in Manhattan...unless you're talking about Os Gemeos. Say “urban graffiti” and most people are likely (not unreasonably) to think of giant initials scrawled on the subway or chalk drawings on the street. But Os Gemeos, otherwise known as Brazilian twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, have brought a whole new definition to urban scrawl with their first public artwork in New York City. (Os Gemeos is Portuguese for twins.) Located on the northwest corner of Houston Street and the Bowery, their mural clocks in at 51feet long and 17 feet high. The fantastical work includes New York subways and Brazilian favelas (shantytowns); humans, fish, dogs and waterfalls. Plus whales, a peacock, a rope bridge and a boat, in what could be deemed a story, perhaps, of escape, done in deeply saturated colors. Look carefully and perhaps you’ll be able to pick out a narrative.
The brothers’ work has been done everywhere from the Netherlands to their native South America, and includes influences from Sao Paulo’s social and political happenings to Brazilian folklore; they started painting graffiti in 1987. Their style also owes a debt to both hip hop and the pixacao (a style of graffiti native to Brazil, known for angular lines) movement.
Os Gemeos had their first solo show in this country in San Francisco in 2003.