alphabet city no. 3, by nschaden at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 120th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on West 31st St. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim at MoMA in Manhattan. The New York Yankees took first place in franchise spending, with a total payroll of $218.3 million last year. The World Series-winning Boston Red Sox payroll totalled $155.4 million to finish a distant second. The......

Prefab housing isn't just for the..."thrifty" anymore! Yesterday Wired featured a selection of twelve modular, prefab housing units -- from lofts to place atop city skylines to 60 square-foot cabins with "cathedral ceilings". Today The NY Times reports that the idea has "become fashionable at architecture schools and among an upscale segment of the housing market." As such, MoMA has commissioned five architects to set up their prefab-ulous designs in their vacant lot on......

Back in May we asked what you thought of a Sex and the City movie, 51% of you thought it was coming three years too late. Whether we like it or not, the movie is going to happen - after Kim Cattrall finally signed on. Word is that she wanted a higher salary and a deal for a future HBO show, both of which she got. Guess her post-Samantha days haven't been filled with great......

All sorts of people have been showing up at the Hotel Chelsea, or writing in, to express their thoughts on "new management". It was only a matter of time before Ethan Hawke stopped by (and we're glad he did)! His famous ex-wife famously dated Andre Balazs, who will now be "helping" to "rejuvenate" the hotel. From the front lines, the Hotel Chelsea blog reports (and even snapped that photo of his visit): Earlier today Ethan......

La Maison Tropicale, the Jean Prouvé-designed modernist movable metal house, has sold for $4.97M. While this fell right in the middle of the projected bid ($4 to 6M), Bloomberg.com noted this is "more than twice the price per area of a Park Avenue apartment." Guess that's expected when you buy real estate at Christie's. Uma Thurman's ex and Cameron Diaz's latest maybe love interest, hotelier Andre Balazs, was the high bidder. Though he has......

New York City (and Mayor Bloomberg’s 2030 strategists) now can breathe a sigh of relief: Gotham is getting its first luxury green hotel. Starwood Capital Group today announced in a press release that a “1” hotel will be replacing a parking lot on West 40th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues, across from Bryant Park. The building, which will comply with LEED standards, will be a 31-story mixed-use tower that, in addition to the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A(nother) pedestrian struck on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx, high carbon monoxide readings in Queens and a technical rescue in Manhattan That big six-alarm apartment building fire in Queens last month? It turns out a man who was squatting there with his girlfriend purposefully set a fire in a closet "hoping to dissuade her from using drugs and engaging in prostitution there." A metal beam falls from scaffolding and......

It is a day for rodents, that's for sure. To the excitement of Big Apple animal lovers, the NY Times reported the first beaver in 200 years has been spotted in the city. A 2- or 3-year-old beaver has been seen in the Bronx River, doing one of two very New York things: Looking for a mate or trying to make his home better (the Times says he was spotted "looking for more material......

+ The old Cabrini Stuyvesant Polyclinic on Second Ave., an 1883 landmark building, could be "dormed" if Landmarks approves. (Props to Villager reporter Bonnie Rosenstock for writing "the East Village is turning into the Village of the Dormed" and inspiring us with some Halloween ideas.) + Portraits of Meatpacking District kingpins will line the new Theory store on Gansevoort. Andre Balazs fatigue, anyone? + Time’s redesign will feature changes in “fonts, grids and templates.” Now......

High Line photos aren't exactly rare, but, since we happened to be on a nearby roof recently, we took a few. It looks like we were onto something. According to Katie Lorah, media and project manager for Friends of the High Line, a new construction phase has begun. Deterring birds is one aspect of it: Pigeons are roosting in the beams, damaging concrete and steel and creating "unpleasant" conditions below. To read about the......

Police believe that Imette St. Guillen, the John Jay College graduate student who was murdered last Saturday, was probably targeted by a stranger. After confirming that St. Guillen was last at The Falls, a restaurant and bar on Lafayette Street just south of Spring (near the Andre Balazs Kenmare Square development, across the street from La Esquina) where she headed after the Pioneer Bar, witnesses say she left the restaurant alone. The current theory: A......