When Olafur Eliasson's NYC Waterfalls start roaring on the East River and New York Harbor this June, cruises like Circle Line will be bringing passengers so close to the spray they’ll need to stock ponchos on board. Sure, you could just look at the falls from any number of points on the shore, but tour boat companies are betting that plenty of people will gladly pay for the Man-Made of the Mist experience. A press......

Photo courtesy Vidiot. Work on this summer’s NYC Waterfalls project seems to be flowing forward, as the photo above indicates. The $9-$10 million project will bring 4 man-made waterfalls, ranging 90 to 120 feet, to the East River and New York Harbor. Presented by The Public Art Fund, the waterfalls are the creation of Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, who’s currently enjoying a retrospective at MoMA. The falls will be located under the Brooklyn Bridge, between......

The beaver that was rescued from the East River by an NYPD SCUBA crew Fiday near the United Nations has reportedly died. According to CityRoom, the 40 pound animal was on its way to Utica to be treated by a wildlife medical specialist, but expired along the way. The SCUBA crew was patrolling the East River near the United Nations because of the Pope's address to the General Assembly. They saw the animal swimming awkwardly......

Photos from MyFOX News Police patrolling the East River near the United Nations as part of increased security linked to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the General Assembly diverted their attentions momentarily to rescue a beaver who seemed to be in distress. Cops noticed that the animal, which was four feet long and weighed 40 pounds, seemed to be laboring in the strong currents of the East River and was swimming awkwardly. Quick-thinking officers......

Real estate developer Sheldon Solow's plans for a sextet of glass towers along the East River just south of the United Nations complex is rumored to be close to gaining approval of the City Council's Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises and Subcommittee on Land Use. A following vote by the entire Council will dramatically transform the East Side waterfront below the United Nations. Solow plans on building six massive glass towers for both residential......

Above, rendering of the proposed park; below, photograph of the site in its current state A $114 million plan to put a waterfront park on the East River, just south of the United Nations, came into focus yesterday; the four-acre site is where a parking lot for a Con Edison power plant used to reside. City Councilman Daniel Gardonick said, "The opportunity to create this riverfront park is an opportunity we cannot afford to......

Tonight is the last chance until December 2010 to witness a total lunar eclipse. This is the third such eclipse in the past year. With any luck the weather will cooperate. It looks like there will be breaks in the clouds over the city, which should make for dramatic views. Break out the tripods and cameras! A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth wedges itself between the sun and moon, casting its shadow on the......

Inhabiting what used to be an old retail shop near South Street Seaport is a new DIY space brought to you by the producers of the Seaport Music Festival. The venue is simply called @Seaport, and it's now up and running. The space will host a wide range of events, from art to music to comedy to readings; from the press release:The producers behind the acclaimed Seaport Music series of outdoor indie music concerts......

Design by João Sequeira, with Ana Figueiredo, Marta Moreira, and Pedro Ferreira, of Lisbon, Portugal Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Office of Emergency Management have announced 10 winners in the contest to design temporary housing for the thousands of New Yorkers who might be displaced in the event of a catastrophe, like a direct hit from a Category 3 hurricane. The 117 submissions from 30 countries had to create quickly assembled housing for......

Weighing in on the modified congestion pricing plan the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission recommended, Mayor Bloomberg said:"The Commission has done a thorough and thoughtful job. They've taken testimony from hundreds of residents, community leaders and civic organizations. They've held dozens of public meetings and have analyzed mountains of data. Although the final recommendation varies from our original proposal, I accept it. "We will work with our partners in the Council and the State Legislature, and......

MOVIE: Every national election year reminds us of that part in The Dark Crystal where the hideous Skeksis systematically drain the Gelfling’s “essence” and drink it to increase their power. If you don’t know the scene we’re talking about, you need to go see it on the big screen tonight – a regular-sized TV monitor just doesn’t do Jim Henson’s creepy masterpiece justice. The one-night-only screening will be introduced by one of the film’s puppet......

Computer rendering of the waterfalls by the Public Art Fund. Details have emerged on the ambitious, $15 million East River waterfalls project coming to New York in mid-July to cap off the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at MoMa. The project will consist of four man-made waterfalls, ranging 90 to 120-foot tall, installed temporarily at four sites along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers......

The mystery surrounding the new J.J. Abrams movie, which tore up the LES last year, will soon be in the past as it finally hits the big screen this week. Cloverfield (long thought to be just a code name for the movie) will be unleashed this Friday, and is getting some great reviews. But what everyone wants to know is: what does the monster that's responsible for decapitating Lady Liberty look like? One description from......

Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson will work with the Public Art Fund – a nonprofit that brought Anish Kapoor's "Sky Mirror" and Jeff Koons's "Puppy," to Rockefeller Center – to bring freestanding waterfalls to the East River this spring. The project will be officially announced tomorrow, but a source tells the Sun that the waterfalls will rise 60 to 70 feet above the water, which is more than half as high as the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.......

A new Quinnipiac poll reveals that people may support congestion pricing - if they get something in return. And that something is better mass transit. It turns 58% of voters oppose congestion pricing (37% support), but 60% will support it if "money from the plan is used to improve mass transit in and around the city." Quinnipiac's Maurice Carroll explained, "Traffic is a horrendous problem, New Yorkers agree. But they reject all the ideas that......

As chains take over every nook and cranny of this city, some people in the East Village are forming a united front against them. The Villager reports on the corporate takeover, the resistance and the new spin on this story as old as time. Multiple Starbucks in Astor Place act as a welcome sign to the East Village, but the East Village Community Coalition would like to say good riddance to them, and more than......

Like the GWB and the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge will have LED lights installed next year, but how exactly do the bulbs get replaced? The NY Times says it only takes one man to screw in these bulbs. Okay, maybe he has some help. Ben Cipriano, the leader of a crew of electricians who maintain the four major East River Bridges for the city’s Department of Transportation, and his colleagues make about a dozen......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on East 112th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, shots fired at 132nd St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan, and a commercial burglary on 4th Ave. and 90th St. in Brooklyn. Page Six lists its top ten scoops of the year. #1 is about Rosie O'Donnell's writer being escorted from The View offices for drawing magic marker mustaches on pictures of Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and rumors that......

New Yorkers still trying to swallow the fare hike that's been approved by the MTA board can at least take heart that entire swaths of services aren't being eliminated. New York Water Taxi commuters are facing the elimination of large parts of that company's East River service from the beginning of 2008 at least until May of next year.New York Water Taxi regretfully announces the suspension of commuter service on the East River from 1/1/08......

Everyone is buzzing about the Brooklyn Bridge Park development today. The latest is that the project (which has been stalled time and time again) could begin next month as a wrecking ball tears down a piece of the area's history. The Daily News reports:If approved today, the $18 million construction phase would include the demolition of the historic Purchase Building [pictured] and the removal of portions of five piers, officials said. "This is the......

The Independent Budget Office released a report examining who might be affected by congestion pricing. The report, "Behind the Wheel: Who Drives Into The Proposed 'Congestion Zone'" can be read here (PDF) but the topline is that drivers are middle-class and over half are from Nassau County, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The report states, "Looking at the extremes of the earnings distribution for all congestion zone commuters, motor vehicle users were less likely......

Riders were stranded on the platform and in subway cars when a Brooklyn-bound L train stalled under the East River just after 8PM. Reader tokyohanna, who took this photograph of people waiting, wrote at the time, "There is a train stalled between first and Bedford. They stopped trains in both directions. A sea of people is on the platform and we can barely walk." amNew York reports that the train had a mechanical failure close......

Back in June, we looked at a fascinating article from Scientific American titled "An Earth Without People." The article was based on the premises of a book by Alan Weisman called "The World Without Us." Both focus on what would happen to the earth if humans vanished from the planet immediately. The SA article even has some cool animation of what would happen to NYC here. This obviously inspired other artistic renderings of what......

Last year, there was a very sad report about a 14-year-old boy who committed suicide by jumping into the frigid waters of the East River, and his mother suggested it was because of school bullying. Now the Daily News reports that the Administration for Children's Services had been investigating a charge that the boy's mother had choked him and beat his brother with a belt. Last March, Sidney Hatchett and his 6-year-old sister were walking......

Some of you looking outside this morning might have had a double take, as fog has rolled in some parts of the city. Janelle sent us this photograph of fog seen over the East River from Dumbo (the Brooklyn Bridge is hidden on the left), but we hear that the view is clear and beautiful looking from Midtown East. As for what kind of fog it is, we're not sure, but it sure is......

ART: Duke Riley brings his latest exhibit, After the Battle of Brooklyn: East River Incognita II, to Magnan Projects. Starting tonight and showing through December 22nd, the works imagine New York during the Revolutionary War and "interweave historical and contemporary events with elements of fiction and myth to create allegorical histories. His re-imagined narratives comment on a range of issues from the cultural impact of overdevelopment and gentrification of waterfront communities to contradictions within political......

If you're a woman and are heading to exclusive Chrystie Street club The Box, be very careful! According to WNBC, the NYPD is two reported rape-and-kidnapping incidents that originated outside the venue. On September 30, a woman says she was "standing in front of the club when she was grabbed from behind, put in a white sport utility vehicle and forced to drink an unknown liquid." After the attack, she was left in Queens. The......

New York City was amply represented during last night's National Design Awards at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The Landscape Design award went to PWP Landscape Architecture, the firm that won the World Trade Center Memorial design competition (with Michael Arad). PWP Principal Peter Walker thanked Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki and described the last four years as "difficult," presumably for the number of redesigns and challenges with moving the project forward, but he......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a baby was struck on 120th St. in Queens, an auto extrication on Wilson Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Sherman Ave. in Manhattan. Forgetting the name of the 13-year-old boy injured in a game of Quiet last week, his middle school principal just referred to him as "spleen boy" during a faculty meeting. A former concierge at a Central Park South residential building is suing building owner......

The Real Deal (via Brownstoner) is reporting that, according to a recent court ruling, the city is taking two Williamsburg properties via eminent domain for Bushwick Inlet Park. The properties are located along the East River between North 9th and 10th streets. According to one real estate expert, the city will only pay about $100 per square foot, compared to the $200 per square foot it could garner on the open market, even though the......