Brooklyn Bridge

Gary David Goldberg, creator and executive producer of "Brooklyn Bridge," says he's "in a much different place now. " Well, yes. The Brooklyn-born writer/producer is camping in Oregon with his family, taking a break from the Hollywood grind. But the real "different place" is inside Goldberg's head. Back in April, a bitter and disappointed Goldberg lashed out at CBS programmers when they reneged on a public promise to let "Brooklyn Bridge" air for six straight weeks in a single time slot.

In a drive-by shooting that may carry international repercussions, a man sprayed gunfire yesterday morning into a van carrying ultra-Orthodox Jewish students across the Brooklyn Bridge. Four students were wounded, two critically, by a gunman who fired on them three separate times as their van approached and crossed the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The attack raised fears that it might have come in reprisal for Friday's massacre in a West Bank mosque by an Israeli extremist who had emigrated from Brooklyn.

For a special fall treat, try walking across the Brooklyn Bridge - or, for that matter, any bridge where walkers still are allowed. Most of us rarely think about walking across bridges. Modern spans are built exclusively for automobiles - no walkways included. And so we whoosh across them, barely seeing the water underneath or the scenery on either side. On big bridges, even if you want to stop your car for a moment to savor the view, it's not allowed. Even if your car breaks down, you find it quickly towed away.

More than 700 demonstrators disrupted traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and stopped trains on two subway lines last night to protest racism in New York City. The disruption, which delayed more than 500,000 commuters, came in defiance of a court order signed hours earlier that barred protesters from closing bridges, tunnels, roadways or transit systems. Seventy-three people were arrested in the largest show of civil disobedience here in years. Mayor Edward Koch denounced the demonstrators as "irresponsible" and vowed they would be prosecuted.

The Statue of Liberty has been decapitated. The Brooklyn Bridge destroyed. And did you hear, Rob and Beth had sex. Omi gawd ! In Cloverfield , the first monster movie for the YouTube generation, a going-away party for a guy moving to Japan is pretty much ruined when a giant reptilian squid thing starts snapping its tail into skyscrapers, smashing cars, cabs, buses and pedestrians under its huge, gnarly feet. Produced by Lost boy J.J. Abrams, and directed by Matt Reeves (partner with Abrams on the TV series Felicity )

Dorothy Swanson rattled the network's cage as it had never been rattled before. In the summer of 1983, after CBS canceled the first-year police drama Cagney & Lacey, Swanson and thousands of other fans inundated the network with a spontaneous outpouring of letters and phone calls. The ruckus helped draw more viewers to summer reruns of the series. And then CBS did a remarkable thing: It rescinded the cancellation and in early 1984 returned C&L to the airwaves, where it stayed in popular, Emmy- winning grandeur through 1988.

Casinos Atlantic City Hilton Boston at the Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-347-7111. www.hiltonac.com . Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge. $30. 1/6 7 pm. 1/7 2 pm. 1/9-1/10 7 pm. Bally's Atlantic City Park Place & The Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-340-2000. www.ballysac.com . Malignaggi vs. Ngoudjo. $125-$250. 1/5 6:30 pm. Borgata Hotel & Casino 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City; 609-317-1000. www.theborgata.com . Kid Rock. $65. 1/5 8 pm. Comedy Stop at the Trop Brighton & the Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-822-7353.

Bally's Atlantic City, 1900 Pacific Ave., 609-340-2000, ballysac.com. Paulie Malignaggi vs. Herman Ngoudjo, 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, $125-$250, Main Ballroom. Borgata Hotel & Casino, 1 Borgata Way, 609-317-1000, theborgata.com. Kid Rock, 8 p.m. tomorrow, sold out, Event Center. Harrah's Resort Atlantic City, 777 Harrah's Blvd., 800-342-7724, harrahs.com. Atlantic City Hilton, Boardwalk and Boston Avenue, 609-347-7111, hiltonac.com. Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge, 7 p.m. Sunday, $30. Resorts Atlantic City, 1133 Boardwalk, 800-336-6378, resortsac.

The first thing you need to know about Joseph Stella is that he is not Frank Stella. That's not as fatuous a statement as it seems. While perusing the Joseph Stella retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art here, I overheard several visitors discussing the show under the mistaken impression that they were visiting with Frank. Not only are the two painters not related, they represent different generations and philosophies of art-making. Frank, born in 1936, made his reputation while still in his 20s with his "what-you-see-is-what-you-see" brand of geometric abstraction.

An extraordinary community theater project came to fruition last night in the shell of a former wire cable plant in Trenton, N.J. A drama called "Roebling Steel," commissioned three years ago by Trenton's Passage Theatre Co. expressly to be performed at the site of its fictional story, the John A. Roebling's Sons Co. factory on S. Clinton Avenue, had its world premiere before a full house which braved an unseasonably chilly evening to join in the...

For Labor Day weekend, my wife and I agreed it was time to get out of town. We needed to see different zip codes, to slip the surly confines of Center City Philadelphia, to give our spirits a lift. So we traded one big town for another and went to New York for the day. In the past, we'd see a show for half-price, but this time we set our sights on bigger things. One thing that has always captured my imagination is the Brooklyn Bridge, with its sturdy stone towers made almost spiritual by the beautiful Gothic arches and spiderweb of cables and suspenders.

NEW YORK - Occupy Wall Street protesters clogged streets and tied up traffic around the nation Thursday to mark two months since the movement's birth and signal they are not ready to quit, despite the breakup of many of their encampments by police. Hundreds of people were arrested, most in New York. The demonstrations - which took place in cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Washington, and Portland, Ore. - were for the most part peaceful. Most of the arrests were for blocking streets, and the traffic disruptions were brief.

IF THERE'S any truth to the idea of karma, the Yankees won't be winning the World Series. Their fans don't deserve it. The team itself isn't all that objectionable, with a storied tradition and players that, except for juiced-up serial dater A-Rod, get the job done in a poetic fashion. It's actually hard to hate a club with charter members like the Babe, the Iron Man and Joltin' Joe. But tolerance doesn't extend to the actual denizens of Gotham (and let's throw Mets, Jets, Giants, Rangers, Islanders, Nets and Knicks fans into the mix as well)

In fall and winter, world-class performances in the Big Apple might break the budget. Summer, now that's the time for free and breezy. Whether you're searching for the soulful sounds of jazz, looking for cinema under the stars, or are a fan of the Bard, New York's summer season has a freebie for you. And much of it takes place outdoors against the backdrop of iconic landmarks such as those in Central Park or the Brooklyn Bridge - almost as...

The Statue of Liberty has been decapitated. The Brooklyn Bridge destroyed. And did you hear, Rob and Beth had sex. Omigawd! In Cloverfield, the first monster movie for the YouTube generation, a going-away party for a guy moving to Japan is pretty much ruined when a giant reptilian squid thing starts snapping its tail into skyscrapers, smashing cars, cabs, buses and pedestrians under its huge, gnarly feet. Cloverfield is as much about our need to document everything we do - capturing cute moments on the cell phone, holding the mini-cam aloft on dates, keeping the "record" button pressed even when you're in danger of being mauled by basketball-sized carnivorous spiders - as it is about our colossal fears in a post-9/11 world.

Casinos Atlantic City Hilton Boston at the Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-347-7111. www.hiltonac.com . Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge. $30. 1/6 7 pm. 1/7 2 pm. 1/9-1/10 7 pm. Bally's Atlantic City Park Place & The Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-340-2000. www.ballysac.com . Malignaggi vs. Ngoudjo. $125-$250. 1/5 6:30 pm. Borgata Hotel & Casino 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City; 609-317-1000. www.theborgata.com . Kid Rock. $65. 1/5 8 pm. Comedy Stop at the Trop Brighton & the Boardwalk, Atlantic City; 609-822-7353.

Bally's Atlantic City, 1900 Pacific Ave., 609-340-2000, ballysac.com. Paulie Malignaggi vs. Herman Ngoudjo, 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, $125-$250, Main Ballroom. Borgata Hotel & Casino, 1 Borgata Way, 609-317-1000, theborgata.com. Kid Rock, 8 p.m. tomorrow, sold out, Event Center. Harrah's Resort Atlantic City, 777 Harrah's Blvd., 800-342-7724, harrahs.com. Atlantic City Hilton, Boardwalk and Boston Avenue, 609-347-7111, hiltonac.com. Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge, 7 p.m. Sunday, $30. Resorts Atlantic City, 1133 Boardwalk, 800-336-6378, resortsac.

The federal government's rating system for bridge safety tells us a lot, but not enough. The eight-county Philadelphia region has 57 "structurally deficient" bridges with ratings as bad as, or worse than, the Minnesota bridge that collapsed on Aug. 1, killing 13 people. That tells us the costly scope of the repair job facing transportation officials in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as taxpayers who will foot the bill in those states. But it doesn't tell drivers whether to avoid a certain bridge.

Chester County is going way back in time, to 1776, the first full year of the Revolutionary War, for this year's Chester County Reads book. The book, in fact, is 1776, historian David McCullough's account of the military campaigns and political intrigues of that year, as experienced by George Washington, his farmers turned soldiers, British troops, and Americans loyal to the British crown. Cecy Keller, director of the county library system and a member of the panel that chose the book this month, said 1776 "tells the exciting tale of the American Revolution, and we feel it is a starting point for discussion of Chester County's role in the War of Independence.