Photos by Vincent Ng. This past Saturday, one of the Obama posters Shepard Fairey added to the cityscape was taken down by graffiti writer MARTY -- who Razor Apple reports "has been holding down that corner for years." The Obama poster is on the corner of Houston and Bowery, and reportedly Shepard was apologetic for pasting over another writers work, but added, “however, I feel Obama being elected is very important to everyone’s future......

Hilary Clinton won tonight's West Virginia primary with about 66% of the vote, handily defeating Barack Obama (he had 27%) as expected. The NY Times reported "racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor as Mrs. Clinton drew strong support from white, working-class voters who have spurned Mr. Obama in recent contests." Interesting note: John Edwards, who exited the Democratic presidential race a while ago, got about 7% of the vote. To a crowd in......

Too bad Knicks games aren't this exciting or well-played. The busiest -- and best -- day of the Big East schedule got started with Georgetown's record-setting win over Villanova, which is now squarely back on the NCAA Tournament bubble. The Hoyas won without any points from Roy Hibbert. Those tournament-record 17 3-pointers -- on 28 attempts -- helped more than cancel it out in a 83-62 win.The Hoyas will get the Moutaineers of West Virginia,......

As of 11:45 p.m., Hillary Clinton and John McCain are projected to win their New York primaries. The Democratic primary distributes NY delegates proportionally, so the final total will be important in determining how many will go to Clinton and how many to Barack Obama. McCain also did well in the Northeast, winning the whole tri-state area, while Mike Huckabee has been strong in the South. Mitt Romney has won Massachusetts, plus some in the......

The Princeton Review released its annual "The Best 366 Colleges" rankings, and NYC college schools make some interesting showings. The New School is number 1 for "Best College Town" (Barnard, Columbia, and NYU are also in the top 10), while Queens College is the third most sober. Here are some rankings for some area schools: Barnard: Best Quality of Life (16), Great College Towns (2), Nobody Plays Intramural Sports (18) Brooklyn College: Professor Get Low......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: "arsonists arrested" (!) in Bay Ridge, Pedestrian struck by car on Houston and Ave C, and a car vs. scaffolding in the West Village. One of the young investment bankers implicated in last year's massive insider trading scandal has pled guilty-- and he's going up the river for 37 months. "A large part of 145th Street in Harlem soon may be renamed in honor of the late James Brown."......

How often does college football matter to a New York-area team? Rutgers's game against Louisville garnered enough attention the Empire State Building was lit up in scarlet. It was the biggest local game in recent memory. But despite all the hype, the Scarlet Knights were heavy underdogs to the Cardinals, even at home. A last-minute field goal by Jeremy Ito stunned the No. 3 Cardinals and capped a shocking 28-25 Rutgers win. The result......

The polls in New York close in a half hour, so the media won't be reporting returns until then. But it's still exciting and heartbreaking to watch the other states' elections returns. For starters, Bob Casey ousting Rick Santorum for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania? That's exciting. Heartbreaking would be reports of bugs and intimidation at the polls. NBC also projects that Bob Menendez will win re-election in NJ (with only 3% reporting, though).......

In May 2005, a Cessna single-engine sightseeing plane crashed on a Coney Island beach, killing the pilot and the three tourists from West Virginia aboard. Now, the victims' families are suing plane's company for $45 million, claiming that the plane was never intended as a sightseeing vehicle. The Post reports that a NJ flight school had "advertised the flight as instructional time for potential student pilots," even though the West Virginia father, teenage daughter, and......

For a week, the Syracuse Orange used a label of "overrated" to motivate their run to the Big East title. Now, as Big East champions, they'll sit and wait to see how much they helped their seeding with a win over Pittsburgh in the championship game. Last year, West Virginia, like Syracuse, sat on the Big East bubble entering the conference tournament. The runners-up got a seven seed, and Gothamist thinks Syracuse can do better......

Syracuse could have taken it easy after knocking off Connecticut, confident a win over the nation's top-ranked team secured them an NCAA tournament berth. Pittsburgh could have rested after taking care of archrival West Virginia in their quarterfinal game. Even with nothing meaningful to play for except a bump in seeding, both underdogs lived to fight another day in the Big East semifinals Friday. Syracuse rallied to top Georgetown 58-57, and Pittsburgh crushed second-ranked Villanova.......

Gerry McNamara won a national title in his freshman year at Syracuse and he wasn’t going to miss the tournament in his senior year. McNamara hit a game tying three-pointer with 10 seconds left to force overtime in Syracuse’s 86-84 upset over UConn in the Big East Tournament. Syracuse will now face Georgetown in the semifinals tonight. The Hoyas outlasted Marquette 62-59 to advance. Pittsburgh and Villanova will meet in the other semifinal tonight after......

If it wasn't a big enough spectacle before, the Big East tournament now has even more power to its punch. Starting today at Madison Square Garden, the league's top 12 (out of 16) battle it out for the conference's tournament title and the berth in the NCAA tournament that comes with it. Of course, most of the teams are playing for seeding, but a few are on the bubble. Connecticut and VIllanova should receive two......

To beat Villanova at home, a team would have to play flawless basketball, or at least close to it. When West Virginia knocked off the Wildcats earlier this year, they used scorching three-point shooting. St. John's didn't play perfect basketball, and their shooting ended up far from accurate in a 65-52 loss at Villanova Wednesday. The Red Storm did a good job of keeping it close, but not of making Villanova sweat. They'll need a......

As conference play continues, St. John's Big East conference continues to make its claim to the title of best conference in the country. Given the talent of the teams at the top, the Red Storm have played well. Unfortuantely for Norm Roberts' squad, playing well was not enough for the second straight game. West Virginia held off St. John's Sunday days after the Red Storm hung with top-ranked Connecticut on the road Wednesday. Unlike Wednesday's......

After stumbling through the non-conference season, St. John's finally picked up a victory it can be proud of when the Red Storm defeated Louisville at the Garden Tuesday night. Louisville may have been worn out from battling a tough Pitt team this past weekend, but St. John's still deserves plenty of credit for taking down the 17th-ranked team in the country. The Red Storm still figure to struggle in Big East play this year, but......

Online, the Post's cover headline for the terrible West Virginia mining accident is "CHAOS" to mark the tragedy of twelve of the thirteen miners being found dead. But on our subway commute, we were momentarily confused when we saw a Post with the headline "ALIVE!" Clearly, at least some of the print run was printed after the original, mistaken announcement that the miners were found alive. UPDATE: It seems the Daily News made the same......

Yesterday afternoon, a sightseeing single-engine Cessna crashed onto the beach at Coney Island, killing the pilot and three passengers. The pilot, Endrew Allen of Jamaica, Queens, and the three tourists, Courtney Block, his daughter Danielle Block and the daughter's friend Jo-Beth Marie Gross, all of West Virginia, had started their trip from Linden, NJ. The NY Post reports that the three passengers were originally the daughter, her friend, and another friend, but the second friend......

Loyal Gothamist readers will notice that there is little change in our rankings this week - there simply weren't many upsets or games involving top 25 teams last week. That will certainly change this weekend with several top matchups including LSU vs. UGA, Aub vs. Tenn, and Purdue vs ND. It will be a great weekend for college football junkies/coach potatoes! Naturally Gothamist will be watching every televised game from Noon until 2 am in......

Justin S. brings us his 3rd weekly ranking of the NCAA Division 1A teams. No movement in the top 5 from last week's rankings. 1. Oklahoma � Oregon isn�t great this year, but that�s still a quality win. 2. Miami 3 . Southern Cal � A young team that will improve as the season progresses. Pac 10 is weak, and getting Cal at home sure helps. 4. Georgia � How can a team with so......

As some of the top teams begin to play each other (FSU-Miami), we can finally begin to gain some insight into how good (or bad) they are. Some teams are without comments this week - if you blow out a cupcake, there's not much to say about that. Also, as you will see, our rankings can fluctuate from week to week - unlike the "real" polls, just because you win doesn't mean you won't drop......

With the first full week of college football now over, Gothamist Sports proudly unveils our first Top 15 ranking for college football. Ranking the top 15 this early is obviously a crap-shoot, but that's never stopped anyone before. It's difficult to rank teams early in the season, but we gave it a shot, so don't take it personally if your team is lower than you think they should be. We'll publish the rankings on Tuesday......

Many Ask Gothamist readers have written to us recently with questions related to politics, current events, and the upcoming Republican convention and Presidential election. So Ask Gothamist is going to be bringing you non-partisan advice over the upcoming weeks and months about participating in the democratic process. Whatever your political leanings, it's a good idea to vote in the upcoming election, educate yourself about local and national candidates and issues, and make sure that your......

Could New York City be the host of a college football bowl game? If the new Westside Stadium is built, a college football game could be a possibility. That's a big if, but it would certainly be great to have some college football in the city. The stadium, if approved, would be finished in 2009 and would need NCAA certification to host a postseason bowl game. The plan was announced by the Big East Conference,......

Clay Shirky...

Gothamist went to the Big Apple Blogger Bash last Friday at Siberia. Organized by Paul Frankenstein, BABB was filled with some of the hardest working bloggers in New York. Like Jason Kottke. Paul says the next one won't be until September, so Gothamist is trying to convince him to organize a baby-BABB before then. Funnily enough, Page Six today says that Jayson Blair was at Siberia on the day he supposedly covering the Jessica Lynch......