The Atlantic is asking if today's McMansions are tomorrow's tenements in an article titled The Next Slum. It seems suburban developments nationwide are seeing the same problems the city streets are: druggies, homeless, grafitti, gang activity, broken windows, stray bullets, and even in Pleasantville copper wire is a commodity. Suburban decay is on the rise, making them a far cry from what they were presented as at the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and......

In Following the Equator, Mark Twain wrote:“In America the ice-storm is an event. And it is not an event which one is careless about. When it comes, the news flies from room to room in the house, there are bangings on the doors, and shoutings, ‘The ice-storm! the ice-storm!’ and even the laziest sleepers throw off the covers and join the rush for the windows.” Yesterday, we had the latter day equivalent, with television......

In spite of the reports, hypes and fears, there actually wasn't much snowfall in the city yesterday - just about an inch - though we did see some sleet that quickly melted. The suburbs got a few inches of snow, while much of the accumulation was in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. However, area airports did have a number of delays and canceled flights (many airlines canceled them due to ice conditions, as well......

The way the local news was hyping today's storm (especially with their nifty, paranoid graphics!), we expected to see a few inches of snow by the time we woke up. But, no, the snow is expected to come around later this morning (the snow and sleet will make a NYC appearance around 11AM or 1PM, according to WABC). Even so, there are many school closings in the suburbs as local government and anyone else out......

A couple of real estate agents are seriously deluded and declaring Montclair, NJ as "Park Slope West" (something The NY Times covered two years ago). They stand by their claim and the town's "urban-suburban setting" which boasts a theater, a museum, shops and even a "great commute". Suckers Prospective buyers are brought to the suburbs in a limo, and are wined and dined at the “Park Slope-style” restaurant, Raymond’s. Recently a curious Brooklynite and a......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water rescue at Atlantic Beach Bridge in Queens, a fall victim onto the train tracks at West 42nd St. and 9th Ave. in Manhattan, and a car in the water on Bay and Edgewater Sts. in Staten Island. He didn't have to be shot in the back with a shotgun! Dick Cheney's heart problems continue. Seriously though, best wishes. Gov. Elliot Spitzer is going to be sequestered in......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Art in the Twenty-First Century (Sunday, 10:00 p.m., WNET 13) Four artists - Robert Adams, Mark Dion , Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Ursula von Rydingsvard – who explore the intersection between nature and culture. Billy Crystal: The Mark Twain Prize (Monday & Thursday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13; Saturday, 7:30 p.m. WLIW 21) Billy Crystal receives the tenth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in......

With the stock of affordable housing in New York City shrinking, and requirements that some city workers reside within the five boroughs and nearby suburbs, some unions are entering the real estate market to directly provide or subsidize housing for their members. The firefighters union recently announced that it was considering using some of its $7.2 billion pension fund to invest in real estate that would be used to provide affordable housing for New York's......

About 14% of new police recruits have dropped out of the latest Police Academy class of over 1,000 recruits, and some are worried that the city's crimefighting programs will be hurt. Notably, "Operation Impact," which Police Commissioner Ray Kelly credit withs helping decrease crime by 25-30% by concentrating cops in those "impact areas" may be without more police officers. Kelly blames the attrition partly on the low starting salary of $25,100. Indeed, many police recruits......

Over an inch of rain fell on Central Park yesterday. That was our first rainfall in three weeks. Except for a slight chance of rain on Saturday it looks like there will be another week of dry weather ahead of us. Today might turn out to be slightly warmer than yesterday as the sunshine is plentiful. We will have pleasant sleeping weather tonight. The low will be around 60 in the city, in the mid-50s......

The New York Times describes a trend towards families with multiple children and a lot of money opting out of moving to large houses in the suburbs like Westchester. Instead, they are buying multiple adjacent residences in Manhattan highrises and shaping their own 4,000 to 8,500 square foot homes in the city. The Times dubs them Mansions in the Sky. The floorplan above is the "after" portion from the Times graphic of a man......

After a week in which the stock market reeled wildly due to concerns about the potential impact a collapse in mortgage debt could have on the economy, The New York Times examines the city's housing market and it's apparent imperviousness to downturn. The paper describes how despite a slump that was more of a pause in the second half of 2006, real estate sales and development continue to surge to this day, with property......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

The Simpsons Movie (directed by David Silverman) This weekend marks the move of America's favorite dysfunctional family the Simpsons from the suburbs of television to the urban center of the big screen. After all of the viral marketing of Simpson-ified magazine editors, real life Kwik-E-Marts and ticket giveaways, is it too much to hope that there's still fresh material to be mined from the long-running animated sitcom? According to the critics, the movie is just......

Avenue Montaigne (directed by Danièle Thompson) If the rose-colored Paris in Ratatouille has you itching for more stories from the City of Lights, might we suggest renting the fluffy and enjoyable comedy Avenue Montaigne which comes out on DVD this week. Set in one of the ritziest neighborhoods in Paris, the movie tells a number of interconnected stories circling around a young waitress (the pixie-ish Cécile De France) at a local cafe. Wandering in and......

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......

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing? 99. December 11, 1965: The Velvet Underground play their first show, which was actually at a high school dance in Summit, New Jersey. The following year however, the Velvets became the house band at Warhol's Factory. 96. December 14, 1977: "Saturday Night Fever debuts in......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on 101st Ave. in Queens, a boat in distress at the Gateway Marina off Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and an "unusual occurrence" on Wall St. in Manhattan. Brownstoner notes the arduous bureaucratic effort to get DUMBO landmarked, and developers' rush to build before that can happen. The NYPD is initiating TOMS––Total Order Maintenance Sweeps––aboard Metro-North and LIRR trains to deter terrorists commuting from the suburbs, after......

Earlier this week, a man on Staten Island attempted to kidnap a second child in two weeks, sending police on a manhunt to find him. A Hispanic man, bald, around 40 to 50 years old and driving a white car, tried to use candy to lure a 10-year-old boy into his car on May 16 outside a Duane Reade; the boy ran home and told his parents. Then on Tuesday, he tried to grab a......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Hillside Ave. in Queens, commercial robbery on 16th St. in Brooklyn, and a bomb threat on 70th St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan. We hope some Brooklynites' leases are ironclad, because getting tatooed with an image of your building is the new fashion. Mayor Bloomberg conjures the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party by suggesting the likeliehood of a third party candidacy......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: falling debris this afternoon on West 46th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, an unstable building on Troutman St. in Brooklyn, and a dead body in the water off Manhattan's Battery. Reasoning it's not far and not hard to reach by water, Mayor Bloomberg thinks commuters will be happy to hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach on a ferry service from downtown Manhattan. A report from the Times Square......

Just when you thought that you might have put some distance between you and your folks, the Brooklyn Paper stirs things up with "the invasion of the suburban grandparents!" Now it makes total sense why developers are selling condos and buildings in up-and-coming neighborhoods at crazy prices: Not only will parents buy apartments for their kids, heck, they might leave their homes and move to the Big Apple too! The Brooklyn Paper makes an examples......

Gothamist became acquainted with Kristen Buckley after reading her book, The Parker Grey Show, which is about a New Yorker who is not only a waitress and aspiring musician, but she also decides to negotiate with her friend's kidnappers. When not writing screenplays (the upcoming Accidental Husband with Uma Thurman; she also co-wrote 102 Dalmatians and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) on the Left Coast, Kristen has been working on a memoir......

The Nor'easter that drenched - and flooded - the Northeast with inches of rain has headed out. Many homes in the area were flooded and pummeled by winds; the NY Times adds that though the storm is gone, rivers are "still rising, swollen by the runoff of record rains." Residents in some suburbs were evacuated and thousands of people are without power: NY Governor Spitzer noted the devastation, while acting NJ Governor Richard Codey......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

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 News Map: A hazmat situation in Brooklyn, and a fire at Essex and Broome in Manhattan Unusual sighting on the Metro North: A 7' tall drag queen A magistrate judge recommends dismissing the lawsuit that is blocking Atlantic Yards construction, but a district judge will have the final say The suburbs totally suck the smart out of you: One guy bought a CPR dummy to be able to commute on......

Billy Bob Thorton sets aside his raunchy Bad Santa persona with his new family movie The Astronaut Farmer about a man building a rocket in his backyard. This family drama looks cheesy like Velveeta from the previews, but hey, that's what you expect with these "ordinary Dad does extraordinary thing" movies. They're always heavy on the sentiment. Jim Carrey senses the universe may be trying to communicate mysteries to him through numerology and a book......

There is nothing like a little snow to make the local television stations go nuts. The madness really started yesterday evening with reporters sent out to find snow, special winter weather graphics and crawls with school closings along with other notes about the snowstorm on the bottom of the screen. This morning the madness continued with most of the stations starting their morning newscasts an hour early at 4 a.m. However, we missed the......

As the debate about the former Parks Commissioner rages on, Venerated newsman Gabe Pressman is cheerleading for Robert Moses. In an article posted on the WNBC web site, Pressman says that he knew the master builder. Here’s his take: Yes, Moses was tough. And he fought hard against those he believed were undermining his vision of what New York should be. But he was far from insensitive to the needs of people. The Yale-educated master......