MTV network freelancers took their beef to the streets yesterday in protest of changes to their benefits plan; about two hundred of the workers spent the afternoon picketing outside the Times Square headquarters of MTV's parent company Viacom. According to Gawker, an initial chant of “What the fuck?!” was revised into the catchier “We care about our 401(k)s!” after a reportedly winsome young rabble-rouser climbed atop a garbage can and helped brainstorm new chant......

The Loch Ness monster, who has been tagging the city, has been in a marsh in Brooklyn for over a month. A note to New York's mythical creature coterie, you only have through December 31st to catch Nessie so close to home. The serpent has made the salt marsh off of Marine Park homebase ever since Ridgewood artist Cameron Gainer placed his creation there at the end of October. Using boats and divers at high......

It's been snowing out lately, and thanks to The World's Largest Snow Globe, it's going to be snowing indoors soon as well. Standing at over twenty feet tall, the monstrosity of holiday cheer will be arriving at The Pond at Bryant Park next week (December 14th to 18th). Throughout the week, the snow globe will feature live models in cheery winter scenes, not unlike an Old Navy ad. Why? Good question. In typical holiday fashion,......

The tree is lit, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular is another tradition back for a 75th season. The well-seasoned Rockettes steal the show from Santa every year, and have quite a history -- they were originally called The Roxyettes and originated in...Missouri:The group was started by Russell Markert in 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri as the "Missouri Rockets". In 1927, Samuel Roxy Rothafel discovered them and brought them to New York City. They......

The south Jersey town of Vineland – or “shithole Vtown” as some locals call it – will host a massive three-day rock festival with camping this August. The Vineland Festival will be presented in a partnership between the company that resurrected Lollapalooza in Chicago and U.K. concert promoter Melvin Benn, who has managed the Reading Festival. No acts have been announced but that hasn’t stopped promoters from setting their price: a three-day pass, which......

Notice anything funny about the Calvin Klein billboard below? No, not the hot pink splashing. The giant ad that hangs above Lafayette and Houston has a secret in the "negative space" left by the splashed paint. The silhouette is of the new New Museum building on Bowery. Here is what the billboard looked like over the past few days up until last night: And as Josh Spear pointed out yesterday a "stage 3 reveal" took......

The Smith: Believe it or not, the The Smith is housed in the spot that used to be a Pizzeria Uno. Virtually anything would be an upgrade. The owners of Jane and the Neptune Room, Glenn Harris and Jeffrey Lefcourt, brought the executive chef from Jane, Brian Ellis to create a hearty, seasonal, American bistro-style menu, with offerings like lamb schnitzel with parmesan crust, hot potato chips with gorgonzola fondue, and steak served in various......

The holiday-time movie releases are starting to pile up with their usual feverish frequency. Some have Christmas themes, like the widely reviled Vince Vaughn vehicle Fred Claus that’s already roadkill on the lost highway of cinema history; others, like Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, are timed to make an impression as close to Academy Award-voting season as possible. Here are some of the biggest gorillas set to dominate New York’s screens in the next six......

Yesterday Javier Téllez brought some wildlife to McCarren Park Pool for a new project based on the blind men and the elephant. Beulah (pictured) is apparently "39 years old and loves gumdrops, apples and empty pools," not unlike many Greenpoint/Williamsburg residents (though a tad older). NYC Art in the Parks has more info on the Creative Time project:Javier Téllez, Games are Forbidden in the Labyrinth November 2007 McCarren Pool, Brooklyn Artist Javier Téllez brings......

Last night we sent photographer Raymond Haddad to the I'm Not There concert at Beacon Theater. Calexico, The Roots, My Morning Jacket, J Mascis, Yo La Tengo, Mason Jennings, Joe Henry, Mark Lanegan, Lee Ranaldo & the Million Dollar Bashers and many more were on hand to celebrate the soundtrack, the film and of course Bob Dylan himself (who, in fact, was not there). The soundtrack is a double-discer that's been getting praise from......

It's that time of year again, when pumpkins take center stage. The Parks Department is taking the big orange gourds seriously with Camp Sunshine's First Annual Pumpkin Festival on Saturday. There will be a pumpkin patch, farmer's market, puppets, and entertainment like the Big Apple Circus and Chris Barron. All proceeds will go towards Camp Sunshine, a retreat for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families The centerpiece of the festival will be the......

The New York theater world’s obsession with the almighty Times, which was once astutely likened to kremlinology, has often erupted in strong words about reviewer Charles Isherwood, whose opinion was recently derided as “antique snobbery” by TONY critic David Cote. So it was amusing to discover today that not only had the Times assigned the more mainstreamish Ish to review Fuerzabruta, the latest wet and wild spectacle from the people behind De La Guarda,......

On tap for this year’s 33rd Annual Atlantic Antic festival, taking this Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM (rain or shine, buddy) is the usual bonanza of pony rides, live music, and balloon animals. This year’s Antic has an added emphasis on food, which should hopefully make it a remedy to all the street fair food fatigue that’s been going around recently. For starters, decent street food will be offered in overwhelming abundance-......

Mike Nelson has been working day and night at the abandoned Essex Street Market to create what he calls A Psychic Vacuum. The space has been closed off for 13 years and is now home to Nelson's first major New York exhibition. The 6,500 sq foot installation is a labyrinth of 10 rooms that create a fictional world with inspiration from the world outside its doors. Upon the opening of the space last week......

Tomorrow, the city and other organizations will mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Here's the official city commemoration:7AM: Families start to arrive at Zuccotti Park, where the ceremony will take place. 8:40AM: Mayor Bloomberg begins the program, which includes first responders reading victims' names and readings from NY Governor Spitzer, former NY Governor Pataki, NJ Governor Corzine and former NYC mayor Giuliani. Bagpipers and drummers lead......

We all knew the real estate bubble was causing insanity, but we should have known it's encouraged people to divorce. There's a NY Times Styles section article about some who wait until the market's at its peak to divorce - that way, they can benefit from an even bigger profit when selling their homes. There are quotes from Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, who showed that couples with a drastic rise in net worth were......

After a month of investigation, the Daily News revealed a major problem with the DMV’s issuing of Official license plates. What are Official license plates you may wonder? They are the license plates issued to local governments, such as towns, cities and counties, as well as other quasi-governmental entities like the Port Authority and MTA for their vehicle fleets, with the exception of most marked local police cars and fire trucks, since they do......

Yesterday, the MTA lowered the first of many parts of the Tunnel Boring Machine into the lower level of the 63rd Street tunnel as part of the MTA’s East Side Access project. The lowering itself could have been dismissed by passersby as just some sort of generic routine construction work, but it was much more than just moving a boring machine. When finally assembled in about two months, the 600-ton automated Spanish-owned and Italian-made......

Yesterday in Bed-Stuy, the NYPD arrested a man accused of robbing eight cabbies in a two week period. Earl Evans, whose driver's license said he was from Nashville, is described as a "hulking country bumpkin" by the Daily News. For good reason too - his license said he's 6-foot-3 and 320 pounds. As if his size wasn't intimidating for the cab drivers he robbed, he also had a very realistic looking 9mm Glock. Evans would......

The area across from Shea Stadium known as the Iron Triangle has never seemed suitable for housing, mostly because it was home to hundreds of auto shops. That could all change, if Mayor Bloomberg gets his way. Yesterday, the mayor announced a master plan to revitalize Willets Point, the official name of the 61-acre area in Northern Queens. The plan would replace the 250 businesses, which employ about 1,300 people, with housing, office space,......

Spring continues its sneak preview today. A low pressure system centered over Toledo this morning is pumping all sorts of warm, moist air our way. Most of the area will top out around 70 degrees this afternoon. Areas along the shore will be much cooler as conditions are ideal for a sea breeze. A sea breeze is a small circulation that sets up when ocean temperatures are much lower than those over land and if......

A truly strange story unfolded yesterday after initial reports that a police officer had been shot at Sixth Avenue and Prospect Place in Brooklyn. It turns out that the husband of an NYPD officer shot at an unmarked police SUV carrying four cops. And the wife, police officer Jacqueline Melendez-Rivera, tried to cover up her husband's actions. Yesterday morning around 4AM, Jose Rivera drove his SUV next to the unmarked police SUV, which carried......

Myspace.com/heresthethingcomedy is Sean O'Connor , Nick Maritato , and Andrew Wright . You're going to be hearing those names a lot starting February 6th when their show makes its debut at The People's Improv Theater. They'll lure you in with their line-ups, but it's their hilarious sketches and stand up is what's going to keep you coming back for more. Sean O'Connor Why should people go to HTT? I think people should go to......

London Terrace Gardens, the imposing set of buildings on West 23rd St. has issued a memo to employees to speak English "in all public areas as well as on the radio". This is the second time in two years that management has issued such an edict to the building's staff, which is mostly Hispanic. Rose Associates, the owner of London Terrace Gardens, said in a statement that the memo is a reiteration of a......

They say New York is home to a million stories, and so far this year, we've published 7021 of them here on Gothamist. So in case you missed any of those, let's take a little stroll back in time, and review the most significant stories the past 12 months, shall we? Here's part one of a semi-chronological look at 2006; part two will go up tomorrow: Nixzmary Brown and the Problem with the Administration for......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a residential high-rise fire on upper Broadway, a "church robbery" (! - those robbers took from the poor box!) in Queens, and a shooting in Bed-Stuy. Have you lost the Christmas spirit? If you have, read "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story", by Paul Auster-- it'll cheer you up. [Via OTBKB] James Forbes, the controversial pastor of Riverside Church, has delivered his last sermon there. He'll be embarking on a farewell......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: pedestrian struck by vehicle on 34th Street and 11th Ave, a school hazmat condition at 103rd and CPW, and an all hands fire in Soho on Thompson Street. Soho residents and shoppers want to trade parking spaces for wider sidewalks. If you've ever been on Prince Street on a Saturday, you know why. Chase Bank has agreed to turn off those annoying sidewalk projection ads-- about two dozen branches......

Awesome: The Post reveals that Donald Trump Jr. was fired from the condo board of his own Upper West Side building! While one might initially suspects that a Trump would have a lifetime seat on a condo board of a building with the Trump name, 220 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place was never owned by The Donald - he lent his name out to a group of investors. It seems that at a November 8......

Each year, Grand Central Terminal has a light show for the holidays. And this year, it's a kaleidoscope:The walls and pillars of the main concourse will be illuminated in a joyful display of color and light created from architectural and historic elements and views of Grand Central Terminal and other well-known New York City icons. Each seven minute show, which will be accompanied by synchronized music, will feature artistically adapted images for a wondrous......

For one week only we are re-titling to “What’s Lingering” due to the featured produce choice of corn. While the peak was a few weeks back, tons of local corn is still in the markets and much of it is delicious. As per usual, the best recommendation is to get it fresh from a farmer – please know that this time it is more crucial than most. Corn that is not one of the......