Is Park Slope ready for its close up? The Post is reporting that the 'nabe may be getting the Star treatment, that is...the Darren Star treatment. He's "teamed with Sony and NBC for a proposed series about a group of affluent characters who live in the upscale Brooklyn neighborhood." The same execs of the yet-to-be-titled show also brought Sex and the City to the small screen, a series that Brooklyn-bashed throughout its lifespan. Post-Carrie Bradshaw,......

The Invasion (directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel) Stylish, political, visually arresting and darn right freaky, The Invasion is a horror movie that taps into what really horrifies us today—namely that the people in our lives could turn into personality-less automatons influenced by some evil alien virus. It may sound like a totally fantastical premise, but in the context of the movie it really works. Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig star in this remake of Invasion of......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a baby locked in a car in Staten Island, a near drowning at a West 14th St. YMCA in Manhattan, and a shooting at Randall and Rosedale Aves. in the Bronx. New York remains alive and well, as someone decided to throw a guerilla dinner party at the World's Fair site in Flushing Corona, Queens. A Brooklyn swimmer, who shockingly admits that he has no idea what it would......

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:- “I was flashed all the time—that’s......

The Summer of Love is back, and taking over New York for a 40th anniversary celebration spanning museums, theaters and screens. The NY Times takes a look at what to expect during this retrospective celebration: The Whitney Museum of American Art is noting the anniversary with “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era,” opening Thursday. The Public Theater, which formed that summer with “Hair,” is staging a hippie-friendly season of Shakespeare in the Park,......

Chew on this, NYC officials who are upset about Grand Theft Auto IV taking place in a city very similar to the Big Apple: GTA IV is actually really different. For starters, Staten Island isn't mentioned! Joystiq has details from Game Informer magazine:Setting: re-created Liberty City (better mirrors real-world NYC; smaller "geographical mass" than San Andreas, but more densely populated) + MetLife building = "Getalife" + Statue of Liberty = "Statue of Happiness" +......

Wow, some very wild data from the U.S. Census about the make-up of New York. Accordin to the NY Times, the number of Manhattan children under the age of 5 has increased by more than 32%, and half of that growth is attributed to wealthy white families. And get this:The analysis shows that Manhattan’s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 a year in 2005, which......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an electric shock at 10 Penn Plaza, a fall victim down a hole at Beaver and William Street, and a person stuck between train cars at 96th Street on the 2/3. A tip from Marianne, via Gothamist Contribute: "The public should not be alarmed by activity beginning tomorrow in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Bridge. Beginning tomorrow at 4:00 PM, Tuesday, January 23, and continuing on weekdays through January,......

Just in time for winter (as mild as it's been), LICNYC has created a Photo Tour of Long Island City. Photographs of buildings, restaurants, banks, and more are pinpointed on a Google Map. Our favorite spot noted on the might be the "Big rock that nobody owns." You can add your LIC shots by sending in your pictures to editor(at)licnyc(dot)com . And back when there was the Long Island City vs. Wiliamsburg debate, we......

It was inevitable. The NY Times City section has a little feature about the Long Island City vs. Williamsburg as better place to live debate that emerged on the Queens West discussion board last month. You can see a graphic pitting the different neighborhood's charms/cornerstones of gentrification, like upscale pizza joint/French restaurant/pet boutique/etc against each other, and by the looks of it, Williamsburg wins since there's no trendy boutique in Long Island City. Or......

After what seems like decades of dragging its feet, it really is going to happen. After tonight's performance by Patti Smith, CBGB's will close its doors on the Bowery for the last time. CBGB's & OMFUG (Country, BlueGrass, Blues & Other Music for Urban Gormandizers) opened its doors to the Bowery back when the Bowery was the last place on earth most people would go voluntarily. Since then it helped usher in some truly......

graphpaper has an informal look at the demographics of people on his morning subway commute, depending on the hour. Here are some of them:3:00-4:00 AM Drunks of all sorts, club kids, and winos. Late night workers, busboys, getting off their shifts. Only a handful of people per car. 6:1 male/female ratio. 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Early-career yuppies running a little late, creative industry workers, all sorts of professionals. 100% occupied. 1:1 male/female ratio. 10:00......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

- High school students slash each other on the Upper West Side, and local residents and business owners confirm that the kids are scary - The Brian Lehrer Show on the need for more public accountability from city agencies like the MTA - The tourist kids who threw paint cans at the police in Midtown were reprimanded by Virginia high school (one was expelled)... - ...and the Bronx high school kids finally got to......

One morning Gothamist woke up with dreams of walking into the sunset with a taco in one hand and a Corona in the other. Thank goodness for friends who organize fabulously economical taco crawls, and doubly so for the welcoming dive bars of Sunset Park, a neighborhood still scant of those Williamsburg Hipsters and Park Slope yuppies. Take the N/R to 59th street in Brooklyn and follow this route for an afternoon of sure-fire......

Forget arguing over whether uptown or downtown Manhattan is better - the new fighting is about what's better, Williamsburg or Park Slope. There's a hilarious Observer article about the psychological divide between residents of hipper, edgier enclaves like Williamsburg and Greenpoint and those of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill. Yes, hipsters may lives in South (Gentrified) Brooklyn and yuppies may have condos in North (Gentrified) Brooklyn, but that doesn't matter - it's all......

Bring back the Tompkins Square Park band shell! That's what the lead article in this weeks Villager argues, and we've got to say we wholeheartedly agree. Forty years after the original band shell was put up and nearly fifteen years after it was taken down in response to the Tompkins Square riots, there is a growing desire to see a designated performance space return to the park. And why not? The original band shell......

Something named "Philth-Y" presents something we've all been waiting for: the Battle of the Blogosphere. Lay down your bets and put your money on either Fluxblog or Stereogum as they face off, armed only with their knowledge of mashups and downloads of the "next big thing". Which music blogger will prevail? We have no idea, but we're betting that Norwegian pop tart Annie is played at least 4 times throughout the night. Come meet......

With next Monday's dismantling of The Gates fast approaching, Newsday looks at how the Gates will live on beyond the confines of Central Park and obssessive photobloggers. All the parts will be recycled, and here's a rundown:- The steel bases are to be melted and recast as rods for reinforcing concrete, steel plates or steel coils.- The aluminum corners and base sleeves are to be recycled into such products as gutters and aluminum sheeting.- The......

After a year of build up, the NYC Subway system officially turns 100 today. We love how the NY Times' Randy Kennedy starts his feature about the subway's 100th year (which has some nice interactive features as well):For a New Yorker just one day shy of turning 100 years old, the subway kept crazy hours yesterday. In other words, there were no hours it did not keep. As its neighbors around the world locked......

Melody Henry, Lucky 13 Co-Owner...

In yet another story about how NYC is safer today than it was 10 years ago, the Post looked at how Coney Island has gotten safer. Crime has dropped significantly, thanks to the quality-of-life crackdown during the Giuliani administration, plus the new Stillwell Avenue subway station and Keyspan Park, where the Brooklyn Cyclones play, Coney Island have contributed to the rebirth. [Dick Zigun from the community group, Coney Island USA, told the Post, "It used......

The notable line from the Post's article about how Williamsburg real estate is on fire: "With Brooklyn fast becoming the new Manhattan � and Queens turning into the new Brooklyn � it stands to reason that Williamsburg could eventually reach the status of a Chelsea or TriBeCa." Lord. So does that mean that Staten Island will be the new Bronx while the Bronx will be the new Queens? New Jersey becomes annexed to be the......

Brooklynites protested the proposed Nets basketball arena and real estate complex yesterday as a coalition of residents argued that 1,000 people would be out of a home if the development goes ahead as planned. Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James and others argue that the original number (100) of homes to be razed was grossly underestimated by developer Bruce Ratner and his associates. There is also some question as to whether or not the plan can really......

Yesterday, the Post reports Hasidic Jews in Williamsburg staged a protest about the "yuppies" overdeveloping the neighborhood, with new buildings and expensive rents. Not only are rents selling for around $500-600 (vs. regular price of $200) per square foot, a 21 year-old Hasid Joel Klein says, "[The new residents] will have a very liberal lifestyle, contrasting to ours. We have Jewish housing, synagogues, a Jewish medical center. They want to make bars and swimming pools.......

Brooklyn gets two new magazines: One, BKLYN, looks like something perfect for multi-culti yuppies on in Park Slope (okay, maybe that's the idea Gothamist gets from the cover, but wouldn't you?), whereas the other, NRG, seems just right for hip and politically motivated Clinton Hill and Fort Greene residents. According to the Times, the first issues of the magazines include: BKLYN - advice to Brooklynites from the Park Slope writer Jill Eisenstadt about how to......

Money magazine takes a look at yuppies who lost their jobs and are now "underemployed," taking lower paying gigs not only to make ends meet but to feel active and busy as well. Money calls these people, duppies, "depressed urban professionals." The article mentions Martin Pierce, who runs a support group, WIND and says "For most Americans, their identity is tied up to what they do. Depression is very common with the unemployed." Depression......