New Yorker and Polaroid appreciator, Joe Howansky, has started a project to commemorate the soon-to-be-extinct Polaroid film, while simultaneously connecting with strangers through the medium. He explains:I will send you a Polaroid of anything anywhere in New York City. I don’t already have these stocked up - each one will be taken just for you. You will have the only copy in the entire world of a picture that was taken by someone else for......

Even though it had been open less than a week Wildwood Barbeque, the latest addition to the burgeoning New York City barbeque scene, was mobbed with merry meatheads Wednesday night. Folks were queued up at the entranceway, as they waited to taste meats from Pitmaster Big Lou Elrose. Big Lou had been deputy pitmaster of Hill Country and has cooked many a barbeque competition. He's clearly just at home smoking with the Texas post oak......

Photograph from the Bike New York/5 Boro Bike tour The 5 Boro Bike Tour is this Sunday, the one day of the year where 30,000 cyclists will have total right of way throughout New York City. The tour begins in Battery Park and ends in Staten Island after winding 42 miles throughout New York. In addition to the approximately 30,000 riders, The 5 Boro Bike Tour happens with the help of about 1,500 volunteers.......

Modern Mechanix has an old National Geographic from 1965 with a huge spread on the World's Fair in New York. Step back to the atomic era and see the now-endangered Tent of Tomorrow in its glory days. Not many of these structures and rides exist today, at least not in New York; the giant tire is alive and well in Detroit, and of course, the Walt Disney-created ride, "It's a Small World" is still going......

© MURAKAMI, a retrospective of the work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, opens Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, where it was on view until February, the exhibit primarily focuses Murakami's work between 1991 and 2000, when the artist began exploring "his own reality through an investigation of branding and identity." (One additional work, Murakami's 6,613 pound, 18 foot-tall Oval Buddha sculpture, will be on......

The tenth edition of The Armory Show, the International Fair of New Art, starts tomorrow and continues through Sunday at Pier 94, on the West Side at 55th Street. The massive show hosts over 150 galleries and nonprofit organizations from around the world; here's a small taste of some of the 2,000 works on display.......

The endless debate over how to classify hipsters has been tearing this city apart for years, pitting brother against scenester, native New Yorker against arriviste, trust funder against squatter, even self-hating hipster against himself. So it's important for everyone to step back a bit and acknowledge that while we may never agree on a singular definition for hipster, like Supreme Court judges watching porn, we know it when we see it. Sure, the word hipster......

Photos from the Met's exhibition of Lee Friedlander's Work Art is often accused of being contrived, especially in comparison to nature. But some of New York's most well-loved natural landscapes are themselves largely artificial, so it's interesting to see an artist like a photographer double-back on a landscaper's craft. Photographer Lee Friedlander did exactly that with with a lens pointed at the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-designer of Manhattan's Central Park and......

In yet another gem from Modern Mechanix, folks from 1932 ponder "How Much Longer Will Our Big Cities Last?" Photos of subway tunnels collapsing and apartment fires in New York set the apocalyptic tone for the piece which claims "scientific prophets" see the mammoth cities becoming obsolete. We're to pictured a cobweb-enshrouded Empire State Building and dandelions overtaking Wall Street after "exhaustive studies" concluded that we're pretty much, well, screwed.According to such writers as......

Photos: AP/David Guttenfelder The New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s historic concert in North Korea concluded hours ago, marking the first performance by an American orchestra in the impoverished, totalitarian nation. The event also marked a first for much of the press, who are routinely denied access to North Korea and, once inside, usually find their movements tightly controlled. The Times has a stunning slideshow of photos snapped en route from the airport to the center of......

Photo: Banksy Banksy, the cheeky street artist/prankster turned multimillionaire art star, was in town last week, presumably for the Damien Hirst-coordinated auction at Sotheby’s to benefit the (Project) RED campaign, which works with corporations like the Gap to raise money for the treatment of A.I.D.S. patients in Africa. The $48 million raised at the event – through the sale of works by Hirst, Banksy, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and others – will......

The man who attacked two women this weekend after picking them up under the guise of being a legit livery cab driver has been arrested. One of Torkieh Sadagheh's victims, Monica Maneiro of Morningside Heights, hailed his car after getting off work at Scores strip club on Saturday night; the 23-year-old recounts what happened next:"Out of nowhere he just stopped the cab and jumped in the back seat. He grabbed me and had his hand......

Photos via the Guggenheim Museum. Everyone's bursting with anticipation for the opening of Cai Guo-Qiang's new exhibit at the Guggenheim; the site-specific installation serves as a mid-career retrospective and is now just four short days away from being unveiled. The NY Times has a lengthy profile of the artist (who has lived in New York since 1995) which begins with this insight: "his favorite artistic moment is the pregnant pause between the lighting of......

Lindsay Lohan by Bert Stern. In 1962, photographer Bert Stern shot a series of photos (2,571 in all) of Marilyn Monroe at the Hotel Bel-Air that are collectively known as “The Last Sitting.” The 36-year-old Monroe was in the darkest period of her life, having weathered two recent divorces, gallbladder surgery and sickness during production of the romantic comedy Something’s Got to Give, from which she was fired and rehired. Six weeks after the Stern......

If you've been following the Julian Schnabel-branded apartment building, Palazzo Chupi, then you might be interested to learn that the remaining two units went on the market today. What's not good enough for Bono and Madonna may just be good enough for you! So if you've had your savings earmarked for that perfectly pink West Village apartment that you can call home, The NY Times has the listing and Curbed has the floorplan; here are......

Yesterday Gawker posted about a little-known LES space that, if you know the secret handshake, will open its doors to you. Once inside you'll find a reception room, a capacious old theater space... even fishtanks. The night Gawker stumbled in they found a band playing, and in booze-induced wonderment, took a short video clip. The clip was included in the post yesterday but now both have disappeared, becoming as mysterious as this secret club itself!......

Photos of Michelle Damon from SI.com Gracing newsstands and mailboxes around the nation yesterday was one of the highlights of winter - the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. While Marisa Miller was the model that made the cover, SI continued the tradition of featuring the wives of the athletes that are typically covered in its pages. One was Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon's wife Michelle. In the magazine, she's complimented on her body by photographer Marlena......

Lunar New Year, by Harris Graber at flickr This afternoon was the parade celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year; it's the Year of the Rat. Chinatown in Manhattan is one of the earliest concentrations of Chinese people in the United States. After the jump are more early pictures of the parade.......

Photos of David Tyree catching the ball with Rodney Harrison defending in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLII by AP/Charlie Riedel (left) and AP/Gene Puskar (right) You’ve seen it a thousand times by now and it’s clearly the biggest play in Giants history. Eli Manning drops back, somehow escapes three different Patriots from sacking him and then heaves the ball downfield. David Tyree jumps up, pins the ball against his forehead and somehow......

Photos of snowboarders at the Union Square Street Sessions by Tien Mao Perhaps the only place you'll see snow in New York City this winter is today in Union Square and this weekend in Central Park. On the north end of Union Square, where the farmers market and skateboarders usually are, there's now a man-made hill with 132 tons of snow trucked in from Mountain Creek in New Jersey. The Union Square Street Sessions,......

Photos of David Tyree catching the ball with Rodney Harrison defending in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLII by AP/Charlie Riedel (left) and AP/Gene Puskar (right) History will place the 2007 Giants among the most unlikely champions ever. 0-2 to start the season, down 17-3 at halftime of their third game, bad losses to Minnesota and Washington, down 14-0 off the bat in Buffalo, a comeback in Dallas, an OT winner in Green......

Photos via The New Yorker's Eustace Tilly Contest Flickr Pool. Put your pencils down, The New Yorker's Eustace Tilley contest is over! The magazine will be announcing the winner on February 4th, but their Flickr Pool is currently stocked with all of the entries. Check out the iconic dandy reinterpreted here, a few of our favorites are above and below.......

Photos via loveitmadly's flickr. On Sunday Gowanus Lounge received frantic emails from tenants in a blocklong loft building at 475 Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg who were being suddenly tossed out into the frigid night by the FDNY; we went to the building on Monday morning and talked to some of the shell-shocked residents as they moved out, one of whom told us, “Sheila [Properties] owns the whole lot and I don’t want to......

Photos via Dietrich's Flickr. The Enough Fear campaign has come to New York, and earlier today New Yorkers and Iranians were speaking to each other at City Hall on red vintage phones the organization set up. The project is part of an effort to connect citizens of both countries who "say no to war," and the goal is to create a "people to people diplomacy" link between the two countries. Nick Jehlen, the co-founder,......

Last night we received a link to a treasure trove of old copyright-free photos being hosted on the Library of Congress's Flickr page. Here's a link to all of their New York images, and some of our favorites are below and after the jump. The pilot project will get 3,000 of the Library's 14 million photographs online. See what both the Library of Congress and Flickr have to say about the endeavor. Woolworth Building, between......

Photos by Miss Heather Today Miss Heather posted photos of a nice little set up on Willoughby Avenue (pictured above). Sure, this isn't what most have in mind when they think of the perfect New York living space, but a few of the positives are pointed out: large front yard, extra storage under the stairs, lawn ornaments that really make a house a home. We dig the digs, and Miss H is smitten with the......

Photos via It's Meng! and XAdrian's Flickr. Last week we mentioned The New Yorker's invitation for one and all to draw their "mascot" and cover boy, Eustace Tilley. From iPods to Einsteins, there are plenty of submissions in their Flickr Pool already, check them out here. The contest is still running, and ends January 24th.......

As Gothamist recently noted, New Year's and the following week or so are a particularly festive occasion for the Japanese. Which is no doubt why Haru decided to celebrate the grand opening of its newest location on Wall Street last Wednesday. Hordes of sushi-crazed suits crowded the restaurant located in the historic Beaver Building for the gala event, which was also a benefit for the Downtown Alliance. Although the sushi bar teemed with platters......

The Bronx Zoo is decked out for the holiday season through January 6th. Every animal under the sun has been recreated in twinkly lights, so bundle up and check out the sparkling safari. Giraffes and rhinos and peacocks, oh my! On top of all that, there are even real reindeer! They stay up late, so you can visit them after enjoying some of the zoo's nightly events. Photos via WallyG's Flickr.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a ceiling collapse at Franklin Ave. and Union St. in Brooklyn, a pedestrian was fatally struck on Queens Blvd. in Woodhaven, Queens, and an unusual rescue on the south bound tower of the Throgs Neck Bridge in Queens. An undercover cop forgot to turn off the wire he was wearing while discussing 11 bags of cocaine he seized in a Brooklyn bust that were never turned in. He was......