Olympics planners and San Francisco authorities made many attempts (making up the route as it went along) to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the Olympic torch's only North American appearance on Wednesday, they couldn't stop a torch bearer from the Bronx from expressing her pro-Tibet sympathies. Majora Carter, a 41-year-old environmental activist from the South Bronx, had tucked a small Tibetan flag up her sleeve, with the torch in the other. The NY Times described her......

While San Francisco is bracing for tomorrow's Olympic torch relay--protesters scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled "Free Tibet" banners yesterday --torchbearers hailing from New York City say they aren't worried about potential disruptions. A retired NYPD cop, James Dolan, told the Daily News, "I've seen enough demonstrations in my career. I'm confident the city will be able to make the event go off smoothly." The Olympic torch is only visiting San Francisco in the......

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens) will be formally announcing his bid to replace Mayor Bloomberg this Sunday. Theories about likely candidates abound (e.g. Councilman John Liu, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly), but Avella is jumping to the head of the line by explicitly announcing his desire to be Mayor this Sunday at 1 p.m. on the steps of City Hall. Avella is the chairman of......

Top photograph of Tibetan protesters outside the United Nations building by Mary Altaffer/AP; lower photograph of the riots in Lhasa, Tibet from the AP Roughly 100 protesters, most of them Tibetans, demonstrated outside the United Nations today against the Chinese government, which has been trying to put down protests and rioting in Lhasa. Three demonstrators were arrested for trying, unsuccessfully, to enter the U.N. and six were arrested for disorderly conduct. This demonstration coincided with......

City Council member and probable 2009 mayoral candidate, Tony Avella, is the latest politician to ask for America's withdrawl from the Beijing Olympics if China will not grant Tibet independence. Under China's rule for over 50 years, Tibet has made no headway, even with the support of human rights groups, activists...and Richard Gere. When we interviewed Robert Thurman, co-founder of the Tibet House, earlier this year he touched on the Olympics, saying:The thinking is that......

Five different car crashes in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens have left five people dead yesterday. At Atlantic Avenue and Buffalo Street, a Honda Accord carrying four people hit a subway station pillar (pictured; via the Post) after midnight. Two of the passengers, a 25-year-old Naquana Kilpatrick and 17-year-old Gilberto Howard, died while the 19-year-old driver and another passenger were injured. Another car crash in Brooklyn claimed two lives: A car hit an unoccupied box truck......

drunkie the snowman, by brainware3000 at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer shot on Vandalia Ave & Ardlsey Loop in Brooklyn, a gas leak at Dongan Pl. off Broadway in Manhattan, and an aircraft emergency at JFK in Queens. The City's investigating whether its artificial turf fields are poisonous. The Brooklyn Paper finds Obama did get votes in many Brooklyn districts (here's the congressional district breakdown for all of NYC). Blogging by......

Photograph of the Trump Soho by Riccardo Sinti Gothamist went to the scene of the Trump Soho construction collapse, which left one construction worker dead and others injured (an indirect culprit - Manhattan's hot real estate market, causing rushed construction jobs).Shanghaiist is confused by media reports as to whether Playboy will be available in China during the year of the Olympics.LAist got fugged in an interview with the Go Fug Yourself girls.Torontoist set hearts......

The proposed expansion of the Jacob J. Javitz convention center is essentially dead in the water as government officials admitted that the amount of money it would cost to undertake the project would not be worth the marginal return on investment that additional tax revenues would provide. Empire State Development Corporation chairman Pat Foye testified that about half of the expansion plan's $1.6 billion budget would be consumed just making repairs to the existing Javits......

Torontoist discovered their city's most ridiculous holiday lights setup, with 80,000 lights and two––two!––synchronized music routines. Naturally, they snagged a video. Chicago tragically loses one of its most recognizable neighborhood icons, the pigeon man of Lincoln Square. LAPD leaves body in car at crash scene, then tows it. Massachusetts plus mullet equals PR mayhem. Londonist sleeps in a Haunted plague pit. UC Berkeley students strip naked and race through campus, NSFW floppiness ensues. Phillyist......

Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who was in charge of Economic Development and Rebuilding in the Bloomberg administration, announced he would resign by the end of the year. The Post called the news "stunning," but we'd like to call it "classic," because his new job will be president of a little company called Bloomberg LP. At a City Hall press conference, Mayor Bloomberg said, "As a result of Dan's efforts, we've allowed for the creation of......

Just a day before the running of the NYC Marathon, the U.S. Olympic trials for the men's marathon were marred by an untimely death today. 28-year-old Ryan Shay died while competing in the Olympic trials in Central Park, just a few miles into the 26.2 mile race. Shay collapsed at the 5.5 mile mark of the race and was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital where he was declared dead. The cause of death has yet......

Making fun of hipsters isn't even ironically cool anymore, but this video of The Hipster Olympics somehow still manages to be funny. The hipsters go through a series of challenges including picking out ironic thrift store t-shirts (obvs), photographing themselves for their MySpace profiles, and tossing out albums by artists who have sold out by becoming popular (Of Montreal, Caribou, The Beatles and the sarcastic selection of Bruce Willis). Find out who wins the silver......

Starting this morning and through Sunday, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour is making its 2007 stop in New York City with the AVP Brooklyn Open. In it's 2nd year in NYC, the Brooklyn Open features over 150 beach volleyball players, a temporary 4,000-seat stadium, and 13 outer courts that will offer general admission seating (ticket info). Qualifying round play began today at 8 a.m. One of the teams this morning almost missed its 8......

The NY Times takes a look inside the ping-pong world of New York. Sure, it may not be as big as the US Open, but the Naked Ping-Pong tournament is growing bigger and better every week out of a loft in Tribeca. The tournament (which is actually fully-clothed) was started by three friends in their 30s who hope to bring table tennis to the forefront of urban sport. The Times introduces them as "Jonathan Bricklin,......

Aha! We were right when we suggested that August 8, 2008 might be another coveted wedding date to consider, now that July 7, 2007 has passed. The date 08/08/08 is considered very auspicious by Asian cultures (in fact, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will start on that day), and some weddings planners who specialized in Chinese weddings are seeing a big rush. One told LJWorld, "We like to do three weddings max a day, but......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: The Kill Point (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., Spike TV) The debut of a hostage drama miniseries starring John Leguizamo as a leader of a group of bank robbers who’s plans went wrong and Donnie Wahlberg as the Pittsburgh Police negotiator tasked to deal with them. Saving Grace (Monday, 10:00 p.m., TNT) Another cop show with a twist, this time Holly Hunter stars as an Oklahoma City Police detective......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

John D'Amato, a prominent Staten Island attorney, died of a heart attack yesterday; the 52-year-old had been jogging near his Dongan Hills home. D'Amato, a lawyer and lobbyist, had been appointed as the NYC campaign manager for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. (He had hosted a fund-raiser for Governor Spitzer's campaign last year, though.) The Staten Island Advance writes:John D'Amato was a titan on Staten Island -- one of the most ambitious, aggressive and influential of......

The New York Post is loving the NJ beauty pageant story, which includes allegations that a fellow contestant may have been behind the blackmail plot to get Miss New Jersey to relinquish her crown. Someone sent pageant winner Amy Polumbo a package of photos that were lifted from Polumbo's Facebook account and doctored to include sexually suggestive captions. The Daily News says that there is no breast-baring or drug-taking in any of the photos, but......

Police have arrested a man in connection to a string of sexual attacks in city parks in Queens and Brooklyn over a four year period. The Post and Daily News report that Alvin Henry, a sprinter who participated in the 2000 Olympics, representing Trinidad and Tobago, was arrested last night. The rapist was being called the "lover's lane rapist" because he would target women in couples or who had just been with a boyfriend. Three......

For better or worse, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg's assertion of political independence, we'll be hearing about an all-New Yorker presidential race for months to come. Last week, a Quinnipiac poll found that New York State would go to Democratic front runner Senator Hillary Clinton, over former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg. Clinton would get 43% of state votes, Giuliani would get 29% and Bloomberg would get 16%. If Bloomberg's not in the picture, Clinton still......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial collapse at Fleet Court and Woodhaven Blvd. in Queens, two pedestrians were struck on the westbound Grand Central Parkway at Queens Boulevard in Queens, and a stabbing on West 21st St. in Manhattan. All three area airports: Newark, JFK, and Laguardia, were thrown into chaos yesterday after a computer malfunction in the air traffic control system resulted in multi-hour delays, missed connections, and many unhappy passengers. Gov.......

Some wrap-up about Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing legislation making its way to the state senate. The controversial and innovative (for the U.S.) plan which would charge vehicles to enter Manhattan below 86th Street (between 6AM and 6PM) received support from Governor Spitzer and U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters yesterday, but it looks like Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver may once again be the Mayor's bete noir. How so? Silver has a number of concerns (privacy......

The eight Democratic presidential candidates debated in New Hampshire last night, covering immigration, health care, and, of course, Iraq. Former Senator John Edwards, who is a distant third in the polls, went after Senators Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's voting on the Iraq spending bill, saying, "They went quietly to the floor of the Senate. They were among the last people to vote. They cast the right vote, and I applaud them for that.......

Over the weekend, WNBC 4 launched an updated version of the classic "We're 4 New York" station image campaign. The original (see it here) first rolled out in 1992 when a new general manager, Bill Bolster came from St. Louis came in to revitalize the station. At the time, some dismissed it as a promotional campaign that made New York look like it was a generic Midwestern place. It actuality, it was filled with high......

SALE: Our recent interviewees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are having a plant sale today and tomorrow. With .50 cent plants for kids and "new and exclusive varieties [of plants] from Monrovia Growers" for adults. Tomorrow at 10am there's a "Houseplants for Sun or Shade: guided shopping trip," so that may be a good time to go! Today 9am to 7pm, Thursday 9am to Noon // Kids Free, Adults $8 FILM: "West 32nd" is one......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

Rangers 2, Bruins 1: Henrik Lundqvist made 40 saves, the Rangers scored to tie it up with 100 seconds remaining, and everyone ended up happy. Thomas Pock scored the goal -- his first since Oct. 10. Lundqvist, who let the Rangers down somewhat last year after returning from the Turin Olympics, looks more and more like a big-time goalie who can carry a team through the playoffs. With each passing win, the Rangers are more......