Now that the steamroller is flattened like a pancake, it's time to meet the soon-to-be new boss. Same as the old boss? Certainly not on the surface: Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson (pictured being sworn in back in 2007) is a 53-year-old African-American who has been legally blind since infancy. Thanks to Spitzer's total meltdown, Paterson, who has partial vision in just one eye, will be the first African-American governor of New York State, the......

With rumors buzzing that Governor Spitzer will resign in light of his involvement with a prostitution ring, the residents of New York could very well join the residents of Connecticut and New Jersey in the "My Governor Resigned Due to Scandal Club." On July 1, 2004, Connecticut Governor John Rowland resigned after it was discovered that contractors who did business with the state also did work on his weekend cottage free of charge. Rowland......

Jodi Applegate and Ron Corning, co-hosts of Fox's Good Day New York, both claim to be serious foodies, and it was a toss-up as to which one would have the chance to share their favorite recipe with Gothamist. But New York Magazine went through Ron Corning's daily diet last month, and Jodi Applegate wanted to unveil her favorite recipe for Tuna Surprise here today. Because both anchors have to get up early in the morning......

Last month The Brooklyn Eagle had a report on how Brooklyn has been sucking the creative lifeblood right out of Manhattan. In recent years Brooklyn has experienced a 33.2 percent increase in the number of self-employed creatives, while Manhattan’s growth during the same period was a mere 6.5 percent. On Wednesday the Center for an Urban Future held a forum addressing the impact of Brooklyn’s growing cluster of self-employed creative freelancers on the borough’s economy.......

A man and three women were arrested by the feds for overseeing an intercontinental prostitution ring catering to the upper crust of New York, Miami, LA, and Europe. The women pictured on the Emperor's Club V.I.P. web site, now taken down, had their faces blurred but featured body shots alongside a one to seven diamond ranking system. Chintzy customers willing to go low-end could get a three-diamond lady for $1,000 an hour; seven-diamond pros cost......

If you are one of the 700,000 people who pass through Grand Central Terminal every day there are things that you may take for granted or just may not know about the great train station. Thanks to Metro-North's Dan Brucker, Gothamist can reveal some of them to you. First things first: It is Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station, since it has always been the terminus for the railroads it serves since its......

Some Capitol Hill offices received letters claiming responsibility for this morning's bombing in Times Square. WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center "before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" According to the AP, Senator Dianne Feinstein's office sent this email to other lawmakers:"A few offices on the House side have received a letter today addressed to 'Members of Congress' with a picture of a......

Oenophiles envious of the big wine expos held in Boston and D.C. can stop whining; this weekend marks the first annual New York Wine Expo at the Javits Center. Friday night and Saturday are open to the public, where more than 600 wines from over 170 vintners will be available for tasting. Here’s the list of all the wineries and vineyards at the Expo. And after sampling hundreds of different wines, what better way to......

After a long absence, Stephon Marbury finally showed up at Madison Square Garden last night, but the circumstances of his absence remain a mystery. “I ain’t got no comment to that,” was Marbury’s response when asked if Isiah had told him to stay away from the team. Marbury did add that he was happy to be “able” to be on the bench and support his teammates. Was that a reference to the ban or simply......

The Manhattan of yesteryear is alive and well on YouTube. Take a 3-minute journey down the Hudson River (then referred to as the North River) in 1903. The view you'll see is of the west side moving towards The Battery. A treasure trove of old New York footage can be found here.......

Whether you call them variety meats, off cuts, or simply offal, hearts, tripe, tendons and the like aren’t the first things that spring to mind as fit for a gourmet feast. But thanks to the offal wizardry of Chef Chris Cosentino, just such a dinner was served Tuesday at the Astor Center. Cosentino, the executive chef of Incanto, graced New York with his annual “Head to Tail Dinner,” which he usually holds at his San......

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71). Most of the big buck city dwellers are familiar names: Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($11.5 billion), publishing powerhouses Samuel Newhouse Jr. and Rupert Murdoch ($8.5 billion and $8.3 billion),......

It seems like every other weekend, Brooklyn is home to some kind of homestyle cooking competition, with a constant rotation of cupcake-offs, chili massacres, a big jerk-off, and probably some vegan tofu spread-a-thons somewhere. Prizes at these things are typically anything from homely trophies to a few cans of PBR, but the just-announced, upcoming inaugural Risotto Challenge is something special indeed: The prizes are going to be very nice. More on that below. On April......

Photo via senseable city lab When MoMA and MIT join forces, the result is the highlight of an exhibition that zeros in on "current examples of successful design translations of disruptive scientific and technological innovations, and reflects on how the figure of the designer has changed from form giver to fundamental interpreter of an extraordinarily dynamic reality.” Translation: cool design developments meet scientific concepts meet human nature. The Design and the Elastic Mind is......

Turns out the number parking placards sloshing around New York is over 142,000, twice the number guesstimated by Mayor Bloomberg’s office when he announced a 20% cutback on the placards, which allow police, teachers and civil servants to park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. The new total does not take into consideration the number of counterfeit and expired placards, and the city is still not done counting, so this preliminary total is......

Cleveland 119 Knicks 105: If you were looking for a game where the Knicks should have beaten a quality opponent, this was it. New York battled Cleveland almost evenly over three quarters and although they ended up out-shooting the Cavs, they did not walk away with the win. That was because the best player on the floor took over the game. LeBron ended up with 50 points and 10 rebounds, scoring almost at will when......

Howard, Tyler, and Trip begin the final puzzle, by activitystory at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person trapped under an automobile at 9th Ave. and 55th St. in Brooklyn, a missing delivery man at De Kruif Pl. and Dreiser Loop in the Bronx, and a scaffolding incident on 7th Ave. and 25th St. in Manhattan. NYC's Dept. of Health wants pharmacists to be allowed to administer flu shots, citing the death toll of......

Brooklyn College is joining the ranks of other New York academic establishments by adding a dorm next spring (something they've already started, and stopped, work on). The school has a little over 15,000 grads and undergrads, with about 99% hailing from New York and 77% from Brooklyn. The school hopes that by adding a dorm, some out-of-staters will flock to Midwood. The Daily News reports the eight-story Farragut Road building will house about 214 students......

CONTEST ALERT: Tomorrow night the indie-elite will gather at Terminal 5 for The Plug Awards -- featuring Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, St. Vincent, José Gonzalez, Dizzee Rascal, The Forms, DiVinci and more. Tickets are sold out, so you can either watch the show here, or you can win tickets from us! We're giving away 5 pairs, starting now. Just email GothamistContest@gmail.com and tell us why you want to go. MUSIC: White Williams,......

Would-be Empire State Building jumper, Jeb Corliss (pictured), isn't in the clear yet. Last year's decision from Supreme Court Justice Michael Ambrecht to dismiss the charges against him was overturned yesterday when The Supreme Court Appellate Division decided to bring the case back to life. A four-judge panel unanimously voted, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office can now pursue its charge of reckless endangerment against Corliss for his 2006 attempted jump. The judges did reduce......

Costumed performers and tour guides are fighting for unionization at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where they work to recreate the squalid living conditions of turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants, the very group that was integral to 20th century unionization efforts. Dozens of the tenement employees protested last night outside a fundraiser for the museum at Chelsea Piers. Most of the guides work part time for an average $17 per hour, with no regular pay increases,......

There are some residual delays on Metro-North this morning after yesterday's East Harlem building collapse that led to the suspension of all service in and out of Grand Central. The trains' speed restrictions were lifted at 6:30 a.m. and there may be 5-10 delays. A crowd formed in Grand Central as commuters waited out the suspension or devised alternate routes to get home as the New Haven, Hudson and Harlem lines were all down. But......

After his $500,000 donation to NY State Republicans was revealed, Mayor Bloomberg explained why he did it to reporters while attending a Mayors Against Illegal Guns conference, "I've said repeatedly, I will help those who help us. They have stood up for the city a number of times — when we needed to have a voice in Albany and we didn't have that voice from the Assembly or from the governor, whether it was the......

Above images from WNBC 4, below right image from WCBS 2; bottom left image from Peter Haskell/WCBS 880 A building collapse at 124th Street and Park Avenue has prompted the MTA to shut down all train service in and out of Grand Central Terminal. Metro-North's Dan Brucker told WCBS 880, "We don't know how long the closure will last. We have been told by the police not to have any trains run through the......

Since New York developers love to put on a happy face while spinning their architecture plans to the public, Lost City has made a translation guide so it's a bit easier to follow along. Here are a few key phrases:Statement: "Our design is meant to respect the historical and architectural context of the neighborhood." Translation: "This building is not as big and ugly as we'd like it to be." Statement: "We support the approval process."......

Bronx-born writer Richard Price, famous for his gritty urban novels Clockers and Freedomland, as well screenplays like The Color of Money and award-winning episodes of The Wire, has now turned his eye for detail on the turbo-gentrifying Lower East Side. Lush Life, his first novel in five years, was described by Times critic Michiko Kakutani as “a visceral, heart-thumping portrait of New York City... no one writes better dialogue than Richard Price.” The story concerns......

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......

You may have heard that New York City will have two new ballparks to attend in 2009. Of course that means that Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium will close their doors forever after the 2008 season. And if you want to be there for the last scheduled game at either venue, you better have a lot of money. Tickets for the finale at Yankees Stadium are being scalped online for as much as $17,000 with......

Yesterday we noted Council Member Peter Vallone Jr.'s latest mission: putting an end to stunts. Of course, one of the best examples of this daredevil activity is brought to us by Jeb Corliss; after attempting to jump off the Empire State Building in 2006 Bloomberg wasn't too happy with this thrill-seeker. Or the judge that dropped the charges against him. But now the city is revisiting the case and trying to appeal the decision. Possibly......

The incoming president of the Obesity Society has resigned amidst controversy surrounding his work on behalf of the restaurant industry. Last month Dr. David B. Allison (pictured), a professor of biostatistics and nutrition at the University of Alabama, drew fire from colleagues when he submitted an affidavit questioning the city’s new rules requiring chain restaurants to prominently display calorie information on their menus. The Obesity Society supports the requirement, which will go into effect at......