A proposal by City Council Member Hiram Monserrate would give hybrid car drivers free parking at meters for a year after their initial purchase. If the legislation passes, drivers with receipts for hybrid cars could apply for the permits, which the Queens councilman says would cost the city little in lost revenue, because the taxes from new car sales would make up for the quarters lost at parking meters. But Council Member John Liu, chairman......

Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan that will require better fuel efficiency for city's TLC-run black cars; the change is part of the broader PlaNYC initiative and follows in the tread marks of the new hybrid yellow cabs. Emissions will be halved for the fleet of 10,000 black cars, which currently release 272,000 tons of CO2 equivalents annually, making up 2% of the City's transportation related emissions. The fleet is a part of the Taxi......

Photograph of Queens native Amy Ryan, nominated for best supporting actress for her role in Gone, Baby Gone At 8:30PM (following a half-hour red carpet special), the 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony will begin, finally putting an end to the "There Will Be Oscar" or "Oscar Country for Old Men" type headlines. You can prep yourself with the Oscar nominees list as you watch (or avoid) red carpet coverage. You could read NY Times......

Continuing their misguided and terribly executed orange bike campaign, DKNY has infiltrated YouTube with a 1 minute 53 second clip of a model speaking out in support of the company's great..."humanitarian cause"? The video starts off showing two models mowing each other down with fake miniature cars as an orange bike lies on the ground...probably not the best way to negate the whole ghost bike thing. Hear that children: you could take a cab and......

The Daily News has an entertaining story today about the possibility of the five-block radius surrounding the Empire State Building becoming a sort of Bermuda Triangle for cars. Apparently, a number of cars have to be towed from that area every day, which makes people suspicious. The common denominator: the ESB.“We get about 10 to 15 cars stuck near there every day,” said Isaac Leviev, manager of Citywide Towing, the AAA’s exclusive roadside assistance provider......

timely, by jakedobkin at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unconscious baby on Ralph Ave. in Brooklyn, a construction accident on Bedford Ave. and Crown St. in Brooklyn, and a found grenade at 54th Ave. and Junction Blvd. in Queens. Dave Chappelle made an unannounced appearance at a comedy club, where Radar learned he "took the stage at approximately 12:30 a.m. and didn't leave until club management turned off the lights at 4:20......

As violence continues in Pakistan in the wake of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination, New York City's Pakistani population was shocked by the news, watching news coverage and holding vigils. One woman said to the Daily News, "For us, this is like losing [President John] Kennedy. She wanted peace. She wanted democracy. And she lost her life for these things." And a man told the NY Times, “I think there will be......

Monday will mark the entrance of a new taxi logo on New York cabs, in a move to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the iconic yellow cab. Cars that appear for their annual inspection will be required to sport the new logo, so the sooner you see a cab with the new look, the more recently they've presumably been inspected. The redesigned graphics feature a checked motif that is supposed to be reminiscent of......

Doug Gordon (former Ask Gothamist contributor) put almost 10 minutes worth of footage of cars entering Prospect Park after 7PM, when it's supposed to be closed to traffic, on YouTube. StreetFilms' Clarence Eckerson Jr. edited it down and added a counter of how many cars actually enter over a 15 minute period - you can see that video above. We can't decide what makes us more crazed: The cars that try to squeeze through......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: 2007 MTV Movie Awards (Sunday, 8 p.m., MTV) All you have to know is that Sarah Silverman hosts, so expect wackiness to ensue. Bonus: LAist will be liveblogging, from the ceremony's greenroom. Creature Comforts (Monday, 8:00 p.m., WCBS 2) An Americanized British import from the creators of Wallace & Gromit where people in on the street interviews are animated in clay in the form of talking animals.......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg presented PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York, his administration's thinking about what the city needs to do by the year 2030 in order meet sustainability goals. The plan involves 127 initiatives under the areas of Brownfield Remediation, Housing, Open Space, Transportation, Energy, the Water Network, Water Quality, Air Quality and Climate Change, but the big topic was congestion pricing. After much speculation, Mayor Bloomberg even acknowledged that congestion pricing was the......

Mets third baseman David Wright has been embraced by the public for his baseball skills, team work, and adorable face. He's been hitting a .316 average in spring training and now the Mets plan to settle up some important business with Wright: What song will be played when he goes to bat? They announced today the launch of an online fan vote at Mets.com to select Wright's at-bat song selections. The full list is......

Finally we have details about when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is coming to town - and, more importantly, when the elephants are planning their annual walk through Manhattan. For all you pachyderm enthusiasts, get ready to stay up late next Tuesday night:Unload Stock Cars: 11:30 PM (Tuesday, March 27) The Walk Begins: 11:59 PM Time At Tunnel: Approx 12:20 AM (Wednesday morning) In Manhattan, the elephants will emerge from the......

Anyone that's ever driven a car in New York City knows that one of the hardest things to do is find a parking spot near your destination. A study released by Transportation Alternatives today finds that Park Slope may be the worst place to park. As if it wasn't enough to deal with stroller hell. The study (.pdf file), which looked at 7th Ave. between Union and 12th, finds some alarming things about the vehicle......

It's that time of the year again: When Hollywood honors its moviemaking the way it knows (and not always in equitable ways, given that Alfred Hitchcock nor Robert Altman, to name a few, have never won Directing Oscars) and America gets to watch hours of pre-show hosted by idiots. Giving commentary for Gothamist this year, Karen Wilson, Margaret Harper, and Jen Chung. 7:06PM First thoughts: Gael Garcia Bernal is so cute. Ryan Seacrest is an......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

After Thursday's story about the suspected closing of the Ford plant in Michigan that produces Lincoln Town Cars, people were worried about the end of an era in oversized upscale sedans. Car services were especially concerned, because the Town Car is a warhorse: Cheap to fix, comfortable with lots of legroom, and classy enough for customers. But now it turns out that the Town Cars will still be produced in Canada. Ford told the Daily......

You know from the Daily News headline, Ford to Town Car: Drop dead, that the Daily News secretly wishes they could have made an article about Ford ending production of the Lincoln Town Car a cover story. The Lincoln Town Car is beloved by drivers (reliable!) passengers (legroom!), and even criminals (trunk room for bodies!), but Ford won't be building Town Cars after next year. Gothamist will put money down on car service companies buying......

How does Zipcar work? Is it really worth it? Zipcar is a great option for people who want the flexibility of having a car to drive without actually owning one. It's a car share program with cars available throughout NY and NJ, as well as several other cities throughout the US. Anyone who is 21 or over with a license and a clean driving record can become a Zipcar member after paying a one-time application......

The Straphangers have released their annual State of the Subways Report Card for 2006, and like last year, the 6 train rules and the N train is the worst. The W also joined the N train as being the worst, confirming everything Queens residents have been saying. The newer subway cars on the 6 line (as well as the 2/3 and 4/5) help elevate scores in breakdowns, cleanliness and announcement adequacy; other factors include......

Ever since that W cover with Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan, an unexpected amount of buzz around Robert Altman's new film Prairie Home Companion has been building. Maybe it's merely the oddity of combining Garrison Keillor's radio program, Altman's usual troop of amazing character actors and the teen starlet that has people intrigued but it finally hits general theatrical release. Besides a blonde LIndsay trying to hold her own with the likes of Lily Tomlin......

There's an interesting article in the Village Voice about downtown residents unhappy with all the Town Cars in the neighborhood. The cars wait for employees at investment banks and the like, and Community Board 1 passed a resolution forcing Goldman Sachs, which is building a new skyscraper on West Street, to "minimize the impact of black cars" to the area. An agreement was reached (GS will keep its cars in a garage until they are......

There are a lot of hit-and-run incidents in the city, but it seems like there are have been a lot more than normal. Could it be holiday traffic? Darker evenings? Or people are just more careless? A Brooklyn man was killed in Clinton Hill, leaving a restaurant where he watched soccer (the NY Times reports that Lucino Galindo had said if he died, he would want a soccer ball in his coffin). But there are......

We all should already know that SUVs are not the safest of vehicles under any circumstances, but in case you weren't sure the Daily News take a moment today to hammer the point home: Though they comprise fewer than 15% of passenger vehicles in the city they were responsible for 26% of pedestrian deaths from passenger vehicles. Much of the problem can be traced to the design of SUVs, experts say. Cars tend to hit......

WNBC 4 reports that two cars are on fire at a Chelsea parking garage at 422 West 15th. While this raises all sorts of questions about vehicular spontaneous combutsion, the A, C, and E trains are bypassing 14th Street. Update: fire was upgraded to 4 alarms, which is a lot of alarms. 9th Ave is closed 13th to 23rd. If you have any pix from the scene, email them to photos@gothamist.com and they'll appear on......

You've already heard us wax poetic in our NYFF coverage about Noah Baumbach's latest cinematic foray, The Squid and the Whale, but how can we not? Based on events in Baumbach's life, the film looks at a family going through a messy, joint-custody divorce in Brooklyn in 1986. Each family member internalizes the bitter reality in their own way and Baumbach artfully brings the psychological unravelling to life in his bleeding dramedy. Jeff Daniels......

Day 2 was significantly busier than Day 1. All in all, we made it to 12 different shows between 10:00am and 2am, we'll highlight the highlights here. Bright and early yesterday morning we shot uptown to The Museum of Television and Radio for a KEXP in-studio performance by The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers. Due to some wretched midtown traffic, we didn’t get there until they were halfway through the set, but we......

Fashionistas and music snobs descend upon the city over the next week with both CMJ and Fashion Week starting. We'll most likely only be attending the former. Before it begins though, we'll ease into the hectic schedule with a few of the following events...even if we should be resting up for the week ahead. PARADE: Some downtown blocks will play host to The Art Parade this weekend, with artists parading toward Soho on foot and......

The MTA revealed that the bulk of a new subway car order is damaged. French manufacturer Alstom was contracted to build 400 of 660 new subway cars for the BMT and IND subway lines, but a variety of problems will prevent the company from delivering a prototype train to the MTA this Friday. The NY Times detailed an MTA report that said two of the train car shells were damaged in shipping to a NY......

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