Left cover by Gretel sent to subscribers, right runner-up cover by Wieden + Kennedy. New York’s Best of New York lifestyle catalog is out, and among the rightful winners, like Best Old School Lobby: The Chrysler Building and Best Dive Bar: Mars Bar, there are some curious ‘bests’ to ponder. In the New York Classics section, for instance, the sterile, six-month old Music Hall of Williamsburg is hailed for its “unequaled” sound and sightlines. This......

Queens Council Member Peter Vallone Jr. has introduced a bill that would have Evel Knievel rolling in his grave. If it becomes law, stunt men are going to have a tough time working on their craft in New York, as it would outlaw climbing and jumping off any structure taller than 25 feet; daredevils could get fined and spend up to a year in jail. Alain Robert is not going to be happy about this......

Buildings, clockwise from upper left corner: Prada Store Soho, American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center, Hearst Building, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Morgan Library expansion, Apple Store Soho, Conde Nast Building, and Seagram Building; in the center, Grand Central Terminal interior and the Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building. The Seagram Building. The Apple Store Soho? The Center for Architecture's executive director Rick Bell made a list of 10 great buildings to see in New......

Gothamist finally got to try Sakae Sushi, the new kaiten – or conveyor belt sushi restaurant – the other night. We were quite pleased to find the Singapore-based chain’s first New York City location actually open; when we stopped by last week it was temporarily closed. Given that it’s Fashion Week it was vaguely appropriate to see the plates parading down the runway in the sleek, hypermodern space. Some might dis the pastel-colored plastic plates......

When it comes to sushi our tastes skew authentic. Mackerel. Amberjack. Occasionally a tuna and natto hand roll, not Christmas or Dragon rolls. Nevertheless, Gothamist remains a sucker for a gimmick. So when Sakae Sushi, a Singapore-based kaiten – or conveyor belt sushi restaurant – recently opened its first New York City location we couldn’t wait to tear open our disposable chopsticks and begin grabbing tasty morsels as they paraded down the runway. Midtown......

Padre Figlio: In Italian, the name means father and son, so it’s no surprise that this new Italian steakhouse is run by Mario and Antonio Cerra, the father and son team behind Da Antonio. After ten years, they’ve sold that establishment and are joining forces again to focus on high-end Italian meats, such as rib eye and a porterhouse of Piemontese beef for two. Exotic meats include New Zealand venison, buffalo, ostrich and boar. There’s......

The Sklar Brothers spent years living in New York, working their way through the alternative comedy scene, becoming in demand performers, and eventually getting their own MTV show, Apt 2F, and later a Comedy Central Special. Then, once they had moved to LA and gotten comfortable, they were sent back into New York to film their show Cheap Seats for ESPN Classics. It seems like the Sklars just can't stay away from the city because......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a double shooting/possible homicide on Greene St. in Brooklyn, a shooting at Wyckoff Ave. and Starr St. in Brooklyn, and another shooting at East 51st St. and Church Ave. in Brooklyn. An appreciation of Jewish Delis in New York City. To avoid the widespread use of pesticides on its acres of grounds, real estate firm Tishman Speyer released 720,000 ladybugs around Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village. The ladybugs will......

More updates below, but here's a summary so far (8:20PM): A steam explosion occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6PM - right during the evening rush hour. The NYPD does not think it was a terrorist attack. It appears that there is a hole about 25' in diameter with a red tow truck in the center. One person has died (possibly from cardiac arrest) and there......

Yesterday, it was announced Tishman-Speyer, the real estate firm that bought Stuyvesant Town for $5.4 billion, along with Lehman Brothers would buy real estate investment trust Archstone Smith in a $22.2 billion deal; the Observer calls it the "largest public-to-private acquisition ever among apartment REIT’s." Archstone Smith has over over 85,000 rentals nationally and almost 3,800 in NYC, which would given Tishman-Speyer over 15,000 apartments for its portfolio. According to Crain's, there's been more interest......

Earlier this week, the American Institute of Architects announced findings of a public poll of America's favorite architecture, and the Empire State Building was tops. Here's the top 10, with the designers:1. Empire State Building - Shreve, Lamb & Harmon 2. The White House - James Hoban 3. Washington National Cathedral - George Bodley and Henry Vaughan, FAIA 4. Jefferson Memorial - John Russell Pope, FAIA 5. Golden Gate Bridge – Irving F. Morrow......

+ Delays are plaguing Philip Johnson’s Urban Glass House. + The Central Park Conservancy is going global. + Paris’ Phare Tower recalls Grand Central Terminal’s machine-age fascination, reports New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. + A map that's “one of the most beautiful, important and accurate plans of New York,” according to IN Phelps Stokes, who designed the University Settlement House at Eldridge and Rivington and Columbia’s St. Paul's Chapel. + An architect who......

If you're in need of a fairly inexpensive holiday gift - or are a sucker for any cute NYC tchotchke - then look no than the MUJI New York City in a Bag at the Museum of Modern Art Store. As irresistible to adults as it is to children, MUJI's New York in a Bag comes with nine wooden city structures and six wooden cars. Included are New York City icons such as the Chrysler......

There is a competition to name the new seven wonders of the world, and the Statue of Liberty is the only NYC mention out of the 21 finalists. Run by New 7 Wonders and with experts like Cesar Pelli and Zaha Hadid on its panel, the finalists are quite a bunch: Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Giza, the Sydney Opera House, Easter Island statues, the Kremlin, the Eiffel Tower, and the Colosseum are just some.......

Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. - From Mean Girls Unless it's October and you happen to be writing about it in the NY Times. There's the Styles section article about the increasingly provocative Halloween costumes for women today and Monday's Op-Ed piece by Allison Glock. The Styles section article talks to a couple professors, Halloween costume......

Breaking: Tishman-Speyer, the real estate concern that controls Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Lipstick Building, and much more around the city and world, was the winning bidder in the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village sweepstakes. The NY Times' Charles Bagli writes: Mr. Speyer and his partner, the Blackrock investment bank, outmaneuvered nearly a dozen bidders, including a group aligned with the tenants at the complexes who hoped to preserve what is fast becoming a......

If every building in New York City was to somehow be wiped off the face of the earth, and I had the power to pick only one to remain standing, I would choose Tom’s Diner in a heartbeat. Though I think of the Chrysler Building like a part of my own body, I would have to let it go. I get chills every time I catch a glimpse of Yankee Stadium, but I would bid......

- A suspended Bronx police officer was arrested again for allegedly raping a woman who he'd offered a lift. - We're not sure we'd call it a "Big Dig" yet, but this doesn't sound like fun. - Oy. A teacher at Bronx Science has TB. - Come to think of it, there are a lot of banks in Forest Hills, Queens. - The Department of Sanitation is working on getting some eco-friendly garbage trucks.......

Pity the poor editors at Conde Nast, as well as the high-powered lawyers at Skadden Arps. The east-facing views from their offices at 4 Times Square are quickly being blocked by a new Bank of America building going up down the block. Only the last six stories of the building will be spared. While we're trying to sympathize, it's hard not to feel a little schadenfreude when reading quotes like this one in the......

Gothamist doesn't find much opportunity to listen to Car Talk as we don't have a car and the only kind of driving we do, much to our shame, is the backseat kind ("No, we're sure there's an exit to Murray Street past Chambers!"). But we found a recent discussion about car clutches interesting:Question: I have a 1988 Honda Civic with a five-speed manual transmission. The mileage on the car is 75,000 -- all short trips......

Someone linked to this picture above on Gothamist Contribute-- it seems to depict a really big tidal wave hitting New York City. However, we can't be quite sure-- if you look at the big version, it sort of looks like the Chrysler Building is in the background at the upper left-- but we don't recgonize any of the other buildings. To further complexify things, the original page is in Russian-- can anyone read the......

Curbed has some nice pictures from the opening of the new park down on Water Street overlooking the FDR. The name of the neon structure is the "Beacon of Progress"-- but will probably be better known as "What the hell is that?" by all the tourists walking on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade at night. Trolopism has a nice shot of the view out towards Brooklyn-- looks like the park is going to be a......

We might have mentioned this before, but in case you missed it, here goes. Today, rain or shine (or, uh, rain), is the beginning of Open House New York, the one weekend of the year when hundreds of generally inaccessible places around New York get opened up to the public. It's really pretty awesome and worth your taking advantage of. And if you bring your digital camera (or your old fashioned one for that matter)......

Take your stunning New York City nighttime pictures before midnight, as buildings will have to turn off the lights outside the 40th floor for the birds. Birds are flying south for the winter, and NYC Audobon officials says that hundreds of birds get injured or die because skyscraper's lights can confuse them. The NY Post points out that the Empire State Building's lights have caused numerous injuries over the years and now turns its lights......

The Skyscraper Museum asked one hundred architects, brokers, builders, critics, developers, engineers, historians, lawyers, officials, owners, planners and scholars what their ten favorite NYC skyscrapers were from a list of buildings (which did not include the World Trade Center). The NY Times looks at the results, which are a great shorthand of the must-sees in the city. The top ten are Chrysler Building (with the most votes), Seagram, Flatiron, Woolworth, Empire State, Lever House, RCA,......

When Gothamist saw this photograph by Scott Jones for the NY Times, we immediately wondered if we could have Dr. Charles Weiss as our dentist ("Will our health plan cover it?"). We imagine that many other New Yorkers (and non) probably thought the same time, flooding various dental plans' hotlines and websites. Imagine: Dazzling skyline while your teeth get dazzled. The NY Times Home section is all about the Chrysler Building to honor its 75th......

In honor of the Chrysler Building's 75th birthday this spring, the NY Times ran this awesome Op-Art piece by James Stevenson that explained some of the building's beginnings. Stevenson did this an illustration of Brooklyn-born, Pratt-educated Chrysler Building architect William Van Alen wearing a Chrysler Building costume, noting that he looked "uncomfortable and forlorn," "more Pagliacci than skyscraper," and Gothamist decided to hunt down the actual photograph. And, in fact, Van Alen, who was never......

Since last week, Brian Berg has been building a replica New York City skyline at ABC's Good Morning America set using 178,000 playing cards, no glue and no tape. Gothamist went to check out the installation last night in Times Square (yeah, we're not happy about going to Times Square). Thankfully, no Naked Cowboy in sight. While it's difficult to make out the buildings from the street, we could see that there was a......

When we saw these silver-plated salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, we did not ask "Why?" but simply "Does it come gift-wrapped?" This got us thinking about some other NYC landmarks/buildings that should become productized: - Flatiron cheese grater - Central Park Reservoir finger bowls - Williamsburg Bank building clock - Brooklyn Bridge magazine holder - Lipstick building pepper grinder The Empire State and Chrysler......

After hearing so much about it, Gothamist finally decided to head up to the Bronx to check out the New York Botanical Garden's Holiday Train Show. Inside the conservatories, there are replicas of various NYC buildings and landmarks, "made entirely from plant parts like berries, mushrooms, pinecones, and twigs," with model trains running through around, through and over them. And Gothamist can say that the replicas are pretty incredible. Adults and children filled the......