Get ready to groan: "I look forward to 'Phase Two' of the 'blinging up' of the Parachute Jump," said inveterate cornball Marty Markowitz during his recent State of the Borough speech. The 262-foot Coney Island landmark was retrofitted with a lighting system two years ago, but borough president Markowitz and others deemed the effect too subdued and “artsy.” Now the city is soliciting proposals from companies to create a flashier effect. $1.5 million has been......

Photograph of a section of the Texaco map by Sybil Young/NYC Parks & Recreation For the 1964-1965 World's Fair, architect Philip Johnson designed the New York State Pavillion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Besides the well-known observation towers (think Men in Black) and the Theaterama, he commissioned a "130-foot-by-166-foot terrazzo replica of a Texaco New York State road map." However, after vandalism and weather, the past decades have damaged the map to the point......

SHOP: Still looking for that perfect gift? The Brooklyn Historical Society is holding the 4th Annual NY Creates Craft Fair, and they may have just what you're looking for. Check it out today and tomorrow, and it will be back the 22nd and 23rd for the real last-minute shoppers. Friday and Saturday // Noon to 6pm // BHS [128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn] ART: Too much is going on the First Friday of every month, so......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An armored robbery in Queens, a boat in distress east of the Steeplechase Pier in Brooklyn and a school bus accident in Staten Island. The bids are in for the West Side Yards, and the companies that submitted them are Extell Development Company, Brookfield Properties Developer LLC, The Related Companies, TS West Side Holding, LLC (A Joint Venture of Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley), and Hudson Center East LLC......

At the end of a row of newspaper boxes lining a street in Corona Plaza is an orange number offering a free publication titled, "This Is What I Eat." The eight-page newspaper is also being given out at a nearby Associated Supermarket. The design screams supermarket circular, but "This Is What I Eat" is actually a public art project created by Stephanie Diamond. Diamond asked the residents of New York City's most diverse nabe about......

MOVIE: The new Hairspray has set up special Sing-A-Long screenings! They begin nationwide today, and there will be three right here in New York. If you don't like rowdy theaters, skip this one! All Weekend // Various Times // Regal Union Sq 14; Clearview Chelsea 9; AMC Empire 42nd 25 MUSIC: Head down to the Seaport for an evening of Billie Holiday tunes. Turntables on the Hudson will be celebrating the release of Billie Holiday......

There's a fun NY Times City section article about the Queens Museum of Art's Panorama Challenge. The Queens Museum of Art's panorama is a to-scale model of New York City: One inch equals 100 feet (the Empire State Building is 15 inches tall) and the model was originally designed for the 1964 World's Fair, as a "helicopter" ride over New York City. (And, yes, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned the panorama in 1964, just......

THEATER: We could try to describe Neal Medlyn's Coming In The Air Tonight, but why bother when there’s this: “The show features a variety of Phil Collins and Genesis music and is about how Neal is starting to slowly fall apart due to how he's all torn up inside from getting his heart broken into tiny pieces. It is also about how Neal steals a lot of stuff from people. Like their belongings and house......

Robert Moses’ legacy may be getting tweaked if organizers of three upcoming exhibitions have their way. The NY Times’ Robin Pogrebin is reporting that the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art and Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery will unveil a three-parter over the next month on the master builder. Columbia University architectural historian Hilary Ballon says that Moses’ achievements have been overlooked. From the Times: Living in New York,......

The New York City Journal is a blog about New York... in Sim City. It's author has spent many months laboriously recreating every detail of the five boroughs, from Times Square, to MSG, to Governors Island, to Roosevelt Island, and beyond. It's amazing stuff-- page through his monthly archives for reenactments of major New York events like September 11th and the Upper East Side plane crash. If you like this stuff, you should check out......

+ The New York Sun calls the Queens Museum of Art building "fascist" and its redesign renderings "weak." Rare feat. + Norman Foster sets his sights on a neighborhood known for its aversion to "bold contemporary architecture" (rendering, right). No, we don't mean Greenwich Village and we do wonder if this is NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's way to sway opinion to keep the design in tact. + Speaking of downtown, more than a......

For the past few months, the Queens Museum of Art has been exhibiting Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao's photographs of Queens life around the 7 train in the show, Habitat 7. Like river valleys that flowed through and gave birth to early civilizations, the IRT 7 Train of the New York City Subway system serves as the conduit that connects many ethnically diverse neighborhoods in northwest Queens to the heart of Manhattan. While I’ve been living......

It is no secret that one of Gothamist's all-time favorite New York attractions is the Panorama at the Queens Museum of Art (have you still not been?). A holdover from the World's Fair, the Pan-to-the-orama is just, well, tubular (that's right, we're bringing tubular back, baby!). But for all of it's craziness, the Pan'ama is about to get even crazier. Thanks to state and city funding it is about to undergo a half-million dollar......

Our absolute favorite Brooklyn blogger Callalillie took a trip outside her home borough to the Queens Museum-- home of the amazing, stupendous model of New York City. Some info about the model: The Panorama of the City of New York was the creation of Robert Moses and Raymond Lester. It was originally presented in the New York City Pavilion as part of the 1964/65 New York World's Fair. At the time of its creation,......

News that Queens Borough President Helen Marshall is putting her discretionary account towards repairing the Unisphere (regularly working fountains!) reminds Gothamist of another classic, and often forgotten, New York trip: The Queens Museum of Art and the Panorama of the City of New York located within it. The QMA in Flushing Meadows Park is located within the New York City Building from the 1964 World's Fair. The Museum regularly shows works by local Queens......

The Mayor gave the full court press for the Olympics Stadium in Queens plan, making him the only mayor of an Olympic bid city to officiate at his daughter's wedding AND come up with a backup plan for the Olympics proposal. And some people, expecting the Olympics to not come here, think the plan could be reworked for a 2016 bid, which actually sounds about right, since Beijing missed out on an earlier Olympics,......

Nava Lubelski, Artist and Author "The Starving Artist's Way"...

After last week's post about the Parks Commission trying to figure out what to do with the 1964 World's Expo Towers, a reader sent us some photographs of the towers and the old Tent of Tomorrow (above and below), taken by sneaking onto the grounds - anything for a photograph. Gothamist finds something really cool in how decrepit the towers and tent look, because they look like this strange thing from 40 years ago,......

The wonderful panorama of New York at the Queens Museum of Art will add The Tribute in Light to the panroma. Panorama of the City will replace its World Trade Center replicas with Tribute in the next few months. QM Executive Director Tom Finkelpearl tells Newsday, "The Panorama itself has got a big following and after Sept. 11 we received many calls asking what would happen to it." Two of the artists who helped develop......