Free Republic

President Joe Biden referred to former President Trump as an “existential threat” during a fundraiser in New York City on Wednesday, as anti-Israel protesters blocked Fifth Avenue outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “There is one existential threat: it’s Donald Trump,” Biden told business leaders during his first stop of the day at the Upper West Side home of Larry Linden, the former managing partner of Goldman Sachs. “He’ll try to undo everything we’ve done… We can’t let that happen,” Biden said. “There is only one existential threat we face in the world: and that’s the environment.” The president had...

For years, Bryant Park Grill & Cafe in Midtown Manhattan has been one of the country’s top-grossing restaurants, the star property in Ark Restaurants’ portfolio of 20 restaurants across the United States. But what propelled it to the top has vanished. The tourists are gone, the office towers surrounding it are largely empty and the restaurant’s 1,000-seat dining room is closed. Instead, dinner is cooked and served on its patio, and the scaled-down restaurant brings in about $12,000 a day — an 85 percent plunge in revenue, its chief executive said. Five months into the pandemic, the drastic turn of...

In the heart of Manhattan, national chains including J.C. Penney, Kate Spade, Subway and Le Pain Quotidien have shuttered branches for good. Many other large brands, like Victoria’s Secret and the Gap, have kept their high-profile locations closed in Manhattan, while reopening in other states. Michael Weinstein, the chief executive of Ark Restaurants, said he will never open another restaurant in New York. Of Ark Restaurants’ five Manhattan restaurants, only two have reopened, while its properties in Florida — where the virus is far worse — have expanded outdoor seating with tents and tables into their parking lots, serving almost...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A 36-year-old man flipped a hot dog stand in the middle of a crowded Broadway during an argument with the vendor, an arrest report alleges. Metro police responded Sunday morning to a report of a “disorderly individual” at Fifth Avenue South and Broadway. A hot dog vendor told officers that a man, identified in court documents as Patrick Bratcher, became aggressive and flipped over the man’s hot dog stand. No injuries were reported. As police interviewed the vendor, they said Bratcher continued to be “aggressive” and was “cursing loudly and creating a hazardous environment.” Officers revealed...

Here’s one hypothetical Mayor Bill de Blasio will answer! Hizzoner said Thursday that President Trump would be arrested if he pulled a gun and shot someone on Fifth Avenue, despite the president’s attorneys arguing in Manhattan appellate court Wednesday that Trump would be immune from prosecution. “If anybody shoots someone, they get arrested, I don’t care if you’re president of the United States, if you shoot someone, you should get arrested and we would arrest him,” de Blasio told reporters at an unrelated press conference. “Anyone who says that and calls themselves a lawyer should not be a lawyer, let’s...

Bergdorf Goodman. Tiffany & Company. Louis Vuitton. Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is to shopping what Broadway is to theater, defined by the marquee names that for decades have occupied some of New York City’s most prized real estate. But lately, the avenue’s glittery window displays have been changing more quickly, as retailers have streamed in and out. Tourism has slowed while online shopping has sped up, making it harder for companies to justify the cavernous spaces and sky-high rents along the shopping strip.

It was a girls' day out for Hillary Clinton as she and two friends shopped along New York's Madison Avenue on Saturday. The former first lady was dressed in a navy blue ensemble, along with black flats, as she laughed and walked on the city streets with her gal pals. Flanked by three walking Secret Service agents and two Secret Service vehicles behind, Hillary was greeted by members of the public who seemingly showed support, taking selfies and giving hugs. The former Secretary of State stopped into Kate Spade, Asprey and a stationary store before getting into her car and...

Federal prosecutors are taking steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a New York City skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization

Moments after President Donald Trump announced Neil Gorsuch as his U.S. Supreme Court pick, a small group of protesters blocked traffic in front of Trump Tower and got arrested. After Trump’s announcement, about a dozen demonstrators knelt in the middle of Fifth Avenue as an act of civil disobedience. They were calmly led to a blue and white police bus in plastic handcuffs.

The Bush administration moved Wednesday to clamp down financially on a New York City business suspected of acting as a front company for Iran's Bank Melli, which has been accused of providing support to Iran's nuclear program. "This scheme to use a front company set up by Bank Melli - a known proliferator - to funnel money from the United States to Iran is yet another example of Iran's duplicity," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

Wealthy Democratic political gadfly Connie Milstein, who calls herself "an ordinary Park Avenue matron," will now have to change her tune. Sources tells us the heiress to the Milstein real-estate fortune has just gone to contract to buy a Fifth Avenue duplex apartment with a $15.7 million asking price. Milstein made a name for herself in 2000 during the Bush-Gore election when she was caught on camera bribing homeless potential voters with cigarettes in exchange for a vote for Gore. She was eventually fined $5,000 for her spirited activism. Unlike the homeless, Ms. Milstein has signed on to take a...