By Rob Kenner – NY Times

Gregory Isaacs, reggae’s “Cool Ruler,” whose aching vocals and poignant lyrics about love and loss and ghetto life endeared him to fans of Caribbean music, died on Monday at his home in London. He was 60.

The cause was lung cancer, said his wife, June Isaacs, who lives in Kingston, Jamaica.

Cat Coore, the guitarist and cellist for the seminal reggae band Third World, has called Mr. Isaacs “the Frank Sinatra of Jamaica” for his elegant vocal phrasing. But as the singer’s friend and former manager Don Hewitt observed, “It goes further than that, because Sinatra was not a songwriter.”  [Read More]

By Randy Kennedy – NY Times

It’s not common for important philanthropic prizes to go to people whose work involves criminal trespass and who make statements like the following: “You never know who’s part of the police and who’s not.”

But the TED conference, the California lecture series named for its roots in technology, entertainment and design, said on Tuesday that it planned to give its annual $100,000 prize for 2011 — awarded in the past to figures like Bill Clinton, Bono and the biologist E. O. Wilson — to the Parisian street artist known as J R, a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself by plastering colossal photographs in downtrodden neighborhoods around the world. The images usually extol local residents, to whom he has become a Robin Hood-like hero. [Read More]

By Jen Doll – The Village Voice

?It’s the end of an era. The Hotel Chelsea, which opened in 1884 — where Sid Vicious may or may not have killed Nancy Spungen, Andy Warhol directed Chelsea Girls, and the names of residents frequently read like a who’s who of ’60s counterculture — is now up for sale, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The hotel’s 15 shareholders (led by three families whose Hungarian immigrant ancestors bought the West 23rd Street hotel 65 years ago) have decided to sell the 200,000 square foot building after determining that modernizing would be too challenging and run into the millions. A hotel spokesman told ABC News that the building’s upkeep “required a $2 million to $3 million investment in recent years to renovate 25 rooms and the lobby.” [Read More]

By Jessica Mahler – NY Press

It all began last Thursday, when residents heard that inspectors had visited the building at 573 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg that houses “creative professional’s” workspace 3rd Ward, and had decreed tenants would no longer be allowed to spend nights there. This was confirmed Friday when a notice was posted by the Department of Buildings stating that people were only allowed inside the loft space from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; anyone caught on the premises after-hours would be arrested and the building would be padlocked. A formal vacate order was put into effect on Monday, Oct. 18. At no point did the building’s management or landlord contact residents—around 40 or 50 in total—to mention or explain what was going on; all inquiring calls and emails made on Thursday and Friday to the management were ignored. [Read More]

By Ben Sisario  – NY Times

Solomon Burke, a singer whose smooth, powerful articulation and mingling of sacred and profane themes helped define soul music in the early 1960s, died on Sunday at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. He was 70 and lived in Los Angeles.

His death was announced by his family on his official Web site,thekingsolomonburke.com. No cause was given. [Read More]