It used to be one only had to worry about "the morning after" if they took another bar patron home with them, but the NYC Health Department is asking at least 800 imbibers of a West Village bar to get a hepatitis A vaccination! The precautionary measure is being taken because a bartender at Socialista has the disease. Now everyone who was at the bar on February 7th or 8th after 8pm or February 11th......

With McCarren Park Pool soon becoming a place where one will hear children splashing in the water instead of hipsters sighing whilst listening to their new favorite band, the search is on for a new outdoor concert space. Of course, the venue simply wouldn't do unless it was in the mecca of indie rock, Williamsburg/Greenpoint. Renderings of the watefront park via New York City Department of Parks & Recreation NYMag reports that "a leader of......

Image of current and future Brooklyn House of Detention: New York City Department of Design & Construction The notorious Brooklyn House of Detention – immortalized by everyone from the Beastie Boys to Jonathan Lethem – has been closed since 2003, but plans to reopen the jail at twice its previous size are still moving forward. Last year many newcomers to the steadily gentrifying neighborhood decried plans to bring back the detention center, located at......

Just a week after making headlines for unveiling the world’s most expensive dessert – $25,000! – the popular Upper East Side restaurant Serendipity 3 has been shuttered by the New York City Department of Health. Could all the hoopla surrounding the Frrrozen [sic] Haute Chocolate have brought some unwanted attention to the establishment? The shutdown went into effect last night and calls to the restaurant have thus far not been serendipitous. We do know that......

Green Brooklyn (via Brownstoner) has a not-surprising-as-it-should-be post on, well, the Gowanus Canal having a touch of the gonohorrea. According to a Scienceline article, "a biologist at the New York City College of Technology, has her students analyze water samples and observe the oily substance that coats the water’s surface each afternoon. 'One group of students found gonohorrea in a water drop,' said Haque. She’s particularly interested in fluorescent white gauze that lies near the......

According to The New York City Department of Health, New Yorkers have a longer shelf life than those in the rest of the country. NY Mag has some astounding stats including: a New Yorker born in 2004 can now expect to live 78.6 years, which may not sound that long but it's in fact nine months longer than the average American. Note that the average gets brought down anytime a young person dies, which seems......

After hearing about the tragic rush-hour bridge collapse in Minneapolis that has claimed at least four lives, we wondered what the conditions of New York City's bridges were. Like the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, several of our city's largest bridges are undergoing what seems like constant construction. All the East River bridges are either undergoing repairs right now, have plans for the future, just finished construction, or all of the above. Gothamist looked......

As we know, Con Edison and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection have confirmed that asbestos was found in debris after the steam pipe explosion at 41st Street and Lexington, but that there is no airborne asbestos. If you were in the area of the explosion and have contaminated clothing, Con Ed is actually accepting clothes and will dispose of them:Anyone who was in that area around 6 p.m. who has dust or......

Through September 4th, Eugene de Salignac's photographs will be shown at the New York Rises exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. What separates this photographer from others who have taken famous shots of this city throughout the ages, is that de Salignac served as photographer for the New York City Department of Bridges/Plant and Structures. He did this for the first three decades of the 20th century (1903 to 1934) and......

This morning, WNBC 4 aired Gabe Pressman's News Forum interview with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Pressman asked Kelly about topics such as attacks on the police given the city's record low crime, stop-and-frisks, the recent arrest of a man who intimidated a witness in the Sean Bell case, the NYPD's eal Time Crime Center, terrorism, Rudy Giuliani and police conduct during the Republican National Convention. This is a small bit of Pressman and Kelly's exchange:PRESSMAN:......

What's the deal about dogs in apartments? I know that there is a public leash law - but does that apply to apartment building common spaces, like the lobby/hallways etc? Asking cuz my neighbors have some noisy pitbulls known for chomping on body parts. Occasionally they let 'em run around the hallways and up and down the stairs unleashed. We can speak from experience that seeing pitbulls roaming unattended can be very unnerving. And it......

If you can't bear the thought of eating hot food on a day like today and you've got a craving for oysters on the half shell, you might want to think twice. According to the New York Times, 74 New Yorkers have gotten sick eating raw oysters originating from the Pacific Northwest: Both the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Food and Drug Administration have warned people not to eat......

Can you do a post about swimming pools with lap swimming? Finding an affordable pool (well, any pools really) with lap swimming in the city is a difficult endeavor. Ok, we covered local gyms in the NY City area, it's only logical to discuss the options for getting your lap swimming in. Some of the gyms in the city have pools, but another option is to check out the New York City Department of Parks......

"I'm thinking of grilling this weekend somewhere in the city. can you give me some locations where i can grill?" With the weather looking to be just about perfect this long holiday weekend, there is no better time to bust out the apron, grill, and tongs and barbeque some meat and/or veggies here in the city. If you are not one of the lucky ones that has a backyard, it might be tempting to just......

It's old-fashioned meetup versus high-middlebrow-concept at UN Plaza! The Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza is suing the Parks Department over the agency's selection of New York Milkshake to replace the Patio Cafe. The Friends of DHP say the Parks Department violated procurement procedures by allowing the NY Milkshake to open up this summer. Even though economics sounds like part of the reasoning, as NYM offered $18,000 more in licensing fees than the Patio Cafe,......

As World Cup fever slowly infects its way across the five boroughs (we can't be the only ones who've found ourselves standing for hours in bodegas staring at soccer matches when we've already bought the beer we came for) the city has announced its own new competition, and we're pretty pumped for it, too! Using one of the few remaining large vacant properties in the city's portfolio, the Bloomberg administration and an architects' group......

Whether or not you believe in the Easter Bunny, the events from the Department of Parks & Recreation this weekend are awesome. Leading off would be the big Eggstravaganza at Central Park tomorrow starting at 11AM - there's egg dyeing, puppets, knitting clinics and more! There are more events in Manhattan and throughout the boroughs. Here are a few others: - Egg hunt at Morningside Park at 1PM - Queens County Farm's Barnyard Egg......

[Ed: Gothamist is happy to introduce Jay Parkinson, in his first weekly post about NYC health issues. He practices Pediatrics in a large hospital in downtown Manhattan and is pursuing a career in Public Health making sure that all the children of the world get their shots. Plus, he has a photoblog.] The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released a warning yesterday saying two New Yorkers have been diagnosed with a......

I want to sell a condo purchased from an affordable housing program in New York City. Are there income restrictions for buyers, and are there restrictions on my asking price? Ask Gothamist can't help but notice - it seems that the most popular questions involve real estate and romance (the most sought-after things in NYC?) According to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development FAQ,there are several affordable housing programs in NYC......

Partly cloudyish, high of 81. Miss me? Gothamist was illin yesterday morning, though the server was also conveniently timing out. Not much happening in weather news, other than the kinda-related first case of West Nile Virus occurring in Staten Island, where they are cranking up their chemicals for some hot mosquito-killing action. For some reason, mosquitoes are most active during dusk. So even though most boroughs seem bug-free (except for Queens, according to Frank Costanza),......

Actually, Mayor Bloomberg was ringing in the new school year for all New York City school children. He walked two students to their school, P.S. 164 in Brooklyn. The Times covered the first day of school and the New York City Department of Education website.......

As predictably as the return of robins to the park and the blooming of daffodils, spring means the running of this article (or one very like it) on the City's many potholes. This was, as many of you may have noticed, a particularly bad winter and is consequently a particularly bad pothole season. For those of you wondering how potholes form and why they're more apparent in the spring, check out this nice little explaination......