Earlier this year Bravo announced their "Real Housewives" series would be moving from Orange County to The Big Apple. The show premieres tonight, and critics have already gone sour on it. The NY Post describes the five women chosen to represent NYC as "status-hungry, money-mad matrons" (a real life Cashmere Mafia living in a Lipstick Jungle?). Appalled that out of "8 million residents representing every known corner of the globe" the network picked five who......

NYC & Co better update their marketing materials, because New York City has a new name...The Big Onion. At least that's what Stephon Marbury is calling New York these days. While professing his love of yesterday's NY Post cover (we can't argue with him), Marbury e-mailed The Post, "I must say the front page of The Post has to be the funniest thing I have ever seen in a long time. I'm sitting on......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

The NY Post reports that a 23-year-old woman was attacked when a man forced his way into her apartment last Sunday. The article states that around 8:10PM, the man pushed her into her foyer and punched her in the face when she opened the door. The woman's roommate appeared and started to yell; with both roommates screaming, the attacker left. The police believe the attacker meant to rob the apartment. A tenant in the building......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

The Big Apple Mystery of the Week: Why did NYC have bad CO (city odor) of natural gas with mercaptan yesterday? The malodorous bouquet freaked out people from all over Manhattan (even parts of Brooklyn) and parts of eastern New Jersey. The city's various agencies determined it was not a terrorist attack and that the odor was "not dangerous." So most of the blame fell to our neighbor, New Jersey. The city's Department of......

Two New Yorkers were awarded Rhodes Scholarships this past weekend. The Big Apple recipients are Jacob Lemieux, who is from the Upper East Side and attends Stanford, and Kevin Shenderov of Brooklyn who attends NYU. The NY Times has a feature about Shenderov, not just because he's a hometown boy who attends a hometown school: His brother Eugene, who went to Brooklyn College, was a Rhodes scholar two years ago. The Shenderov family moved to......

About a million years ago, we can remember when Tom Cruise was better at choosing his co-stars. For example: alcohol and style in Cocktail, inspiring wannabe bartenders everywhere. Like Cruise, the movie hasn't aged perfectly, but it is still the go-to guide for explaining exactly how cocktail slingers got so, well, cocky. What we didn't know is that there is an entire organization called Flair Bartender's Association that is devoted to the bottle-spinning, ice-throwing theatrics......

Over the weekend, Gothamist received an email* from Barry Popik, who let us know that he had put all his New York knowlege online at barrypopik.com. And what knowledge it is: Popik, with Gerald Cohen, figured out where the nickname "The Big Apple" came from - not to mention the fact that Popik also dedicated the corner of West 54th and Broadway to be Big Apple Corner. Popik is by day a judge (parking violations!)......

- Monroe wins the PSAL behind the pitching of Danny Almonte. - The Big Apple Bowl could be slated for 2010. - The Pistons beat the Lakers, while the Knicks are in the off-season. - Marv no longer with Cablevision and the Knicks; the subsequent controversy. - The Mets fire their hitting coach, stink up the field, and then trade for Richard Hidalgo. - Play at Shinnecock starts and continues through the weekend. -......

The Big Apple isn't just phat - we're also fat. The City's Department of Hygiene and Mental Health says one out of six New Yorkers is obsese and half are overweight. There are socio-economic correlations (African-Americans, Hispanics, and those making under $25,000 skewed towards obesity) and the figures are also broken down by borough: Bronx had an obesity rate of 24%, Brooklyn 20%, Staten Island 18%, Queens 16%, and Manhattan 13%. (The national obesity rate......