A New York State Assemblyman ticked off about congestion pricing for suburban drivers is retaliating by proposing a $4-per-ride surcharge for taxi riders, rather than the congestion fee of $8 for motorists entering Manhattan below 60th St. That taxis are another form of mass transit that allow New Yorkers to get around without owning a car escapes Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, whose district includes parts of Westchester County. Brodsky and other representatives of suburban communities feel......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

A New York State appellate court ruled that under the federal concept of the "marriage recognition rule," which grants reciprocity to the bond of marriage formed in other states, it will recognize gay marriages solemnized in other states. As one of the largest states in the nation, this is a huge step for proponents of normalizing same-sex marriages. Gay marriages still aren't allowed in New York State, although a young mayor in New Paltz, NY......

A New York State senator is proposing a law that makes criminals legally responsible for the inadvertent harm to helpful bystanders who might come to the aid of a person under attack. The proposal comes in the wake of the death of Flonarza Byas, who may have been killed by Maurice Parks while he was defending himself during a robbery. The media are calling this a strengthening of the Good Samaritan law, but when we......

The art group collected under the name Flux Factory is being pushed out of their Queens warehouse gallery to make way for the MTA's $6.3 billion East Side Access project. Currently there is an amazingly intricate group installation being housed in the gallery called New York New York New York which the group describes as "a New York City that is the forgotten past and the fantastic future all at once. A New York City......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has made it official: Cabs purchased after October 1, 2008 must get at least 25 miles per gallon. Then, after fall of 2009, newly purchased cabs must get at least 30 miles per gallon. As the AP puts it, this means "taxi fleet owners, who must replace their cabs every three to five years, will probably be forced to buy fuel-efficient hybrids, which run partly on electricity." The Taxicab Board......

Food bloggers from around the world are offering delicious prizes as part of Menu for Hope 4. Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event hosted by Chez Pim. Last year, Menu for Hope raised an incredible $62,925 to help the UN World Food Programme feed the hungry. Want more details? Well, here’s the FAQ. From December 10-21, you can buy raffle tickets to bid on any on the food-related prizes being offered. Tickets cost......

A New York state legislator stood at the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge yesterday and blamed confusing signage and roadways for the death of Sam Hindy, who was killed last week. Hindy was killed when he struck a barrier and plunged to the lower roadway of the Manhattan Bridge and struck by a car. The 27-year-old was riding from Manhattan to Brooklyn with a friend, Benjamin Price last Friday evening when they found themselves on......

The following post is from our advertiser CNN.com. Escaping a closed world: CNN's Randi Kaye talks with a woman who successfully left a polygamist society. Faux celebs congregate A Florida convention draws celebrity look-alikes. Central Florida News 13's Jackie Shutack reports. 9/11 ills linger for workers A New York photojournalist captures the ongoing struggles of 9/11 first responders. CNN's Jim Acosta reports. Boogie down behind bars Rehabilitation one step at a time for inmates in......

The French Connection (directed by William Friedkin) Film Forum through September 6th A New York City procedural cop movie classic and the winner of five Academy Awards, a new 35 mm print of The French Connection gets a one-week run at Film Forum starting this weekend. Starring Gene Hackman as the porkpie wearing detective Popeye Doyle in a career defining role, the movie follows the attempt of a French criminal (Fernando Rey) to smuggle heroin......

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:- “I was flashed all the time—that’s......

The police officer accused of killing his ex-girlfriend during an argument on a Queens street was arraigned yesterday. Harry Rupnarine, 38, who joined the NYPD 2 years ago and worked on the transit task force, was charged with second degree murder. Though his lawyer said Rupnarine had family members willing to put up their life savings for bail, Rupnarine was held without bail. Queens DA Richard Brown said, "This is a tragic case from any......

Governor Spitzer and other state leaders finalized this year's budget, to the tune of $121.8 billion, just in time for tomorrow's deadline. While Spitzer has touted greater transparency with public process, the budget deal has been notable for negotiations taking place behind closed doors. The Times Union had Spitzer's opinion on the secrecy, "Do we all wish there had been more public articulation? You bet," but "said a 'wide chasm' between his plan and the......

Last Monday, Gothamist set down with award winning sportscaster Len Berman. A New York native, Berman attended Stuyvesant High School and started his broadcast career while a student at Syracuse University. He got his start in television news as a reporter (and later news anchor) in 1970 at WLWD-TV (now WDTN-TV)in Dayton, Ohio. Three years later, he moved to Boston’s WBZ-TV, where he served as sports director and called Boston Celtics and New England......

House Calls The City has decided that it was just too cruel to keep sick students from calling home when they really needed to so they're making a teeny-weeny exception to its no-cell-phones-in-school policy (just this one teeny-weeny time). After supplying a doctor's note and convincing the principal that they really need them, sick kiddies will be permitted to bring their mobiles to school. But they'll still have to leave them at the principal's office......

We're starting a new feature here called Tour-ist. Get it? Okay, let us explain. A New York band hits the road for a tour. They keep a tour diary for us. We post it here, there may or may not be YouTube videos from the road included, and we call it Tour-ist. Does that make more sense? We have some bands lined up for the Fall already, but would love some more, so if you're......

Last night Gothamist attended the 4th annual benefit for the Academy of American Poets at Alice Tully Hall and was reminded that reciting poetry aloud is really a wonderful thing. As the kick-off to National Poetry Month in April, a panel of celebrity readers including William Wegman, Mike Wallace, Dianne Weist, Alan Alda and Meryl Streep read a few examples each from a variety of American poets. Great poets like William Carlos Williams, Sylvia Plath,......

- An off-duty cop fighting with a group of "thugs" was shot early yesterday morning by another police officer. - The inevitable spread of children throughout the West Village is affecting local businesses. - One of the East Villages "last bohemians" passes on. - The Onion moved to New York five years ago, remains funny. - The Daily News reports that "Donald Trump, the Rockefeller Group and Ford Models were among the tycoons and......

Since negotiations between the MTA and the TWU started way back in Ocotober the threat of a strike has loomed, and loomed, and loomed. And now the thinkable has happened. After a 25-minute address at the Javitz Center from TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint yesterday, more than 6,000 members of the union voted to illegally strike next week if an agreement with the MTA can not be reached in time. As Toussaint argued it,......

We are giving you fair warning: For better or for worse, in the next two months you are going to hear a lot about the plight of the modern transit worker and the incompetence of the MTA. Why? Because the last-mintue three-year contract that the Transport Workers Union signed with the MTA in 2002 expires at 12:01 a.m. on December 16. Isn't that still a bit off? Yes, but negotiations started yesterday. What is......

The Upper West Side is overrun with mice and rats! Or at least that's the idea you get from a story in the Post, which suggests that you might be able to stop buying the Fancy Feast and let your cats feast on Grade A New York City Rat. Complaints have been coming in fast and furious to 311 and Community Board 7, which says, "They're in the 60s, they're in the 100's. They're everywhere."......

A New York football team in New York City? That's a good one! But it seems that Queens is trying to woo the NY Jets once more into building a stadium there. Queens Borough President Helen Marshall wrote a letter to the Jets, "A new Jets Stadium would complement the new Shea Stadium and the spectacular U.S. Tennis Center and make the borough a regional sports mecca," and the Jets will be meeting with various......

Mary Lou Lord...

The first nine of the 164 token booths scheduled for closing will be shut down in April. The Daily News says the first retired booths will include ones in Union Square and Penn Station, and then the remaining booths will close weekly until October. Then, 600 of the clerks will be up and around, helping riders with the Metrocard machines and turnstiles. The Transit Authority emphasizes that even though the token booths are closing, the......

A New York based band with roots stemming worldwide, Soma has a classic sound that combines melodic pop, post punk, shoegazer and a new brand of soul. Impassioned lyrics float in the forefront of the multi-layered sonic landscape. Lyrics are pertinent to our times, one reason Gothamist thinks this band has the staying power we don't often see in the more novelty based bands. Soma is Skye Nicolas (vocals), Eric Zuehlke (guitar), Jeremy Foti......

When Joe Rogan walks the streets of New York City, it's not going to be accompanying Dave Chappelle for a sketch, it's going to be for Fear Factor's 100th episode, which will be set in the Big Apple, though for Fear Factor it'll have to be a decaying apple with a million mini worms in it, wading in a puddle near a curbcut. The NY Times' Randy Kennedy New York Region > A New York......

Farewell, tiny metallic NYC transportation friend: This week, 45 million subway tokens were melted down. The Post repoted that M&M; Scrap Metals in NJ melted down about 342,000 pounds of tokens. M&M; Scrap Metal bought the tokens for $500,000; their street value would have been $90 million. The copper and nickel tokens can be melted down in a "noncorrosive alloy" and may be in a car, airplane and computer you drive/ride/use soon. Tokens are still......

New Yorkers always thinks they are the most clever, and the people who, upon hearing that the subway fare would be increased, thought they'd get the best of the MTA by buying tons of tokens at $1.50 and using them when the fare was $2.00. Little did they realize that tokens would no longer be accepted period. The Daily News examines these people and the problem of redeeming the tokens for cash. The Transit Museum......

Thanks to what we must assume is the intervention of our friends Elizabeth Spiers and Nick Denton, Gothamist got a mention in an actual New York Times article, which hasn't happened since 1997: A New York State of Blog. Nick got quoted in the other blogging article that was running in the Times today. And somehow, Jonathan Van Gieson.com got mentioned in both articles, which makes me think that "Warren St. John" might be......

Nice. I've never posted a self-referring link to a self-referring blog before but hey, here's to the brand new Gothamist: A New York Group Blog! Nice work Jake and Jen. BTW, you're getting some weird offsetting in the Features section on OS X 10.2 IE 5.2. (Look! Self-critique in a self-referring post!)......