CONTEST ALERT: Tomorrow night the indie-elite will gather at Terminal 5 for The Plug Awards -- featuring Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, St. Vincent, José Gonzalez, Dizzee Rascal, The Forms, DiVinci and more. Tickets are sold out, so you can either watch the show here, or you can win tickets from us! We're giving away 5 pairs, starting now. Just email GothamistContest@gmail.com and tell us why you want to go. MUSIC: White Williams,......

In November, Charlie Rose sat down with rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z. The musician is originally from Brooklyn and late in the interview Rose queries about the expected success of the Nets once they move to Kings County. Jay-Z is very enthusiastic about the potential of the team and the virtues of the borough, as he prefaces every statement about Brooklyn with the words "we" and "ours." It is unintentionally comedic then when Rose immediately......

While everyone knows that the proposals five development teams have offered up for the MTA's West Side rail yards are likely to change, the NY Times' architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff made it clear that he hopes they do, with a withering review of the five plans. Noting the great opportunity that developers have, Ouroussoff says the designs "are not just a disappointment for their lack of imagination, they are also a grim referendum on......

News of Norman Mailer’s hospitalization broke today; the cantankerous and influential author is suffering from severe respiratory problems following a collapsed lung. His children have been keeping a bedside vigil in the critical-care unit of Mt. Sinai Hospital, where Mailer is reportedly still in fighting spirits, thumb-wrestling and cracking jokes. (The Post has more, while New York Magazine looks at the illness in the context of his recent ruminations on spirituality in a new book,......

Brooke Astor's funeral was held yesterday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, at Saint Thomas Church on 5th Ave. and 53rd St. The lineage and personal generosity of Mrs. Astor and the array of famous attendees at her funeral made it a widely covered news event. The New York Times reported that officiants at the funeral requested that all cell phones be turned off at the beginning of the service, although a Gawker correspondent pointed out......

Daljit Dhaliwal is currently the anchor of the PBS international documentary series Wide Angle, which starts its new season on Tuesday (9:00 p.m., WNET 13). A native of London, she got her start with the BBC reporting from Northern Ireland, then moved to ITN where in 1996 she became the anchor for ITN World News for Public Television which was produced for PBS. The newscast raised her profile on this side of the Atlantic and......

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......

THEATER: You’ve got just three more weekends to experience one of the wildest and most entertaining late-night theater extravaganzas to hit New York this century. The Curse of the Mystic Renaldo The defies description – what begins as a fake silent movie (ostensibly unearthed during the construction of 3 Legged Dog’s sleek new theater center) quickly dashes off in countless delirious directions at once: There’s live rock, hilarious vaudevillian slapstick, both high and low art,......

Two days after Wesley Autey jumped into subway tracks to save another straphanger from an oncoming train, everyone still wants to hear his story. With good reason: Not only is it an incredibly heroic story, Autrey's matter-of-fact explanation for his actions ("it's just being able to be here and help the next person.") and his humble demeanor:"I don't think I did anything heroic. I just saved a life. I don't call myself a hero because......

A couple of years ago, while leaving a show at Irving Plaza, one of the many people handing out cd's - handed us a cd. It wasn't in any fancy packaging, wasn't eye catching for any reason, and we held on to it and listened later that night. The band was called The Epochs, and we had a new rule about listening to cd's handed to us on the street. The EP was good,......

Gothamist loves this story: The big impressionist and modern art auction at Sotheby's last night did not disappiont, as a mysterious man bid $95 million for the famous Picasso, Dora Maar with a black cat. The NY Times says that witnesses say he sounded Russian and give further reasons why the bidder was an enigma:He was obviously new to both Sotheby's executives, who would never have seated him in such a remote spot had they......

- Charlie Rose had heart surgery in Paris-- get better, Charlie! - Surprise, surprise: another problem with the WTC Memorial-- this one's about the order of names, oh, and they want to charge admission to get in. - StayFree interviews Jonah Peretti from Chelsea's Eyebeam Atelier. - Naomi Campbell goes craaaaazy Russell Crowe style: assault with a deadly cellphone! - W00t! Rent-stabilization extended for three more years! - Here's a video of the Ramones......

Last night, the premiere of King Kong was held in midtown, but the PR folks also dragged out a huge King Kong model to place in Times Square, probably getting soggy from the snow (we're sure he smelled like a real ape after that). Gothamist has been watching some King Kong coverage lately since we can't escape it, and we have two observations: (1) Damn, did Peter Jackson lose a lot of weight; and......

With QEFTSG breaking Bravo's rating records, Gothamist takes a look at the previously highest-rated program, Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton Since Gothamist is a huge movie fan, when we watched the show for the first time, we thought, "Wow, this is great, this guy talks to really interesting actors and get them to discuss their craft." See, there was a day when we were naive and hopeful. Now we realize James Lipton is......

Finally, someone sums up the biggest problem with Chicago: Margo Jefferson complains how the editing in Chicago takes away from the essence of Chicago, which is the dancing. Yeah, there's all the blah blah about the movie musical being revised, but there's been no great dancing or great singing yet. When I think movie musical, I admit I think Singin' in the Rain, Wizard of Oz, Funny Face, On the Town. Gene Kelly, Fred......