Merging urban exploration with something akin to La Blogotheque's Take Away Shows, the below video gives a glimpse at what's hidden in the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel underneath Downtown Brooklyn while performer Greg "Cosmo D" Heffernan scores the journey. The video is part of an online magazine called NY Moon. Each month there are several features including one called "Blueprint" which proposes new ideas for NYC. In February's issue someone suggests New York's billionaires buy up......

Seems like even at a Central Park West apartment building in the West 70s, robbers can get in. A CPW apartment belonging to 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl and her family was "ransacked" by a thief last Friday morning. Apparently the thief, who stole over a $100,000 worth of items, managed to sneak into the penthouse by posing as a contractor - there are many projects at the building. The NY Press' sister publication, the......

Today the alternative weekly New York Press announced the resignation of their new sex columnist, Claudia Lonow, after her debut column – and the cover story, no less – was found to have used some questions from old Dan Savage advice columns. The answers were her own, but, as Jezebel discovered, not questions like the one seeking advice about [paraphrasing] ‘what to do when you walk in on your girlfriend canoodling with her noticeably......

Santa came early and dumped some carnivorous coal down the throats of vegetarians in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood this weekend. The NY Press has reported that the beloved Veggie Castle – so named because it was converted from an old White Castle fast food restaurant – has abruptly closed. The Veggie Castle was as famous for repurposing the White Castle as it was for its vegetarian twist on Caribbean classics, offering such delicacies as jerk tofu,......

The New York Press is getting their Gawker Stalker on with their latest cover story about stalking Claire Danes...and how you, yes you, can also follow her home! All you need is the internet, a lot of free time and an obsession in which to fuel your fanboy/girl fire. The payoff? Well, for the author of the article, Becca Tucker, it was a cover story complete with creepy photo, headline and font. Just close your......

Since the Subway Sweethearts are so over, we're turning our slightly interested, but mostly disaffected, heads towards the "Love Spammer". The mysterious man who has apparently approached every girl that walks by him on 6th Avenue with the same exact line. What gumption! His name is (coincidentally) Patrick, his line is asking where Union Square is, and he somehow manages to get some of these innocent passerby to come to his "art studio" for some......

Two types of tropical weather will be the weather story to watch out for over the next several days. You may have noticed that this morning is much more humid than in the past few days. The humidity and warmer air are courtesy of the large high pressure system that has finally moved offshore. The southerly flow of air around the backside of that high pressure system will bring us a day or two of......

McCarren Park Pool is getting a $50 Million makeover. Do you have a before and after image in your head? Well the NYC Parks Department wants your opinion as they ponder the design and future programming of the pool. Take their survey here. The OSA (Open Space Alliance) has been working with the Parks Dept and between two community planning sessions, surveying at a concert and at McCarren's track & field they have surveyed 500......

In 2005 Barbara Walters mentioned her distaste for public breastfeeding on The View and was met at the show's studio with "lactivists" protesting her statement. The NY Press reported that the "lactivists" (the New York City Breastfeeding Promotion and BABE - the Brooklyn Alliance for Breastfeeding Empowerment) were back Friday packed in to a southbound A train at noon. The groups carried signs that read “La leche materna es el mejor alimento” and “Breast milk......

Newsday reports that NYPD Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka is retiring. While many officers Newsday spoke to love Smolka, he leaves behind an interesting legacy. Let's paraphrase Aaron Naparstek's 2005 piece about Smolka for the NY Press' 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers issue:...Smolka was the commanding officer of the NYPD’s infamous Street Crimes Unit. It was his officers who, in February 1999, pumped 41 bullets into Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant guilty of nothing more......

Love it! The MTA's board says free newspapers are what caused subway flooding in 2004. Which contradicts an April report from the MTA's inspector general, who found that the agency was at fault for severe flooding that shut down much subway service on a September day (September 8, 2004 - when Hurricane Frances came to town and wreaked transit havoc). The April report noted the MTA's "historic neglect" of valves, difficulties Transit Authority first......

Yesterday (we think), NY Times published a Q &A; with its photo editor Michele McNally. It's very interesting and informative, with notes on what kinds of cameras are used, why color photos on actual newspapers can suck, the paper's policy on publishing pictures of wounded or dead American soldiers. But there was an odd part answering a university student's question, "after 9/11, what obstacles do your photographers encounter and how do they get the......

COMEDY: Sara Schaefer's latest show is at UCB, following up her long running series "Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You" with a new show called "Video Gaga". The night features Schaefer counting down funny music videos for you (we've been told that tonight will include The Fresh's Myspace video), a live musical act (tonight it's Erin McKeown), special guests and glittery dance numbers! (We hear she has her own version of Fly Girls!). 9:30pm //......

The NY Press's editorial staff quit over the paper's decision not to publish the controversial Mohammed cartoon from the conservative Danish paper/tinderbox. The Politicker broke the news and printed editor-in-chief Harry Siegel's memo; here's part of it:New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed......

We're sure you're all busy with office parties and hiding from the cold, cold weather. But it's one of the last weekends of 2005, so try to get out there (besides, who knows if we'll have subways after the weekend is over!) THEATER: When a beleaguered last-minute shopper is desperately trying to find the hottest toy of the season at All-Mart - a good 'ol fashioned holiday shopping brawl knocks her unconscious and catapults her......

We've heard that things are going badly over at the New York Press, but that's no excuse for what we saw over on their site today. Remember the tragic story of Dennis Kim, the 22 year old poet who drowned in the Hudson two weeks ago trying to retrieve a book of his poems? The Press's JR Taylor follows up on the story, and goes sort of nuts insulting the dead-- first accusing him of......

- The Village Voice gets director Victor Buhler (he did the documentary Rikers High) to do a feature about the kids getting their GEDs at Rikers - The teachers' union is going to vote on the new contract with the city - The Apiary talks to Neil Swaab, whose cartoon Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, was yanked from the NY Press - A reason we don't want malls: A woman falls from the second floor of a......

- New York is the only city in the country (with a population of 1 million plus) to record an increase in the poverty rate... expect Mayor Bloomberg to refute the Census' figures somehow, as that totally screws with his re-election platform - The NYPD flunks 42 police cadets from the Police Academy, leaving 42 people who will not have to endure Steven Guttenberg and Michael Winslow jokes anymore - The NY Press looks at......

Interesting: A court ruled that newsstand owners should be paid if city decides to "remove or replace their newsstands." The city has been looking at bids from a number of companies to provide new "street furniture," because the new street furniture will mean more places to put advertising. What's interesting that while the Newsstand Operators Associations gives a value of $5 million for the 300 newsstands at risk (which is averages $16,000 a pop), any......

- Scientists may have found the hangover gene, but this sentence caught our eye: "Other studies have revealed that people of Chinese, Japanese or Jewish descent often carry genes that ward off alcoholism by increasing nausea-producing liver enzymes that make drinking unpleasant." All we can say is, Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad! - The country's mass transit threat level has been lowered, but, don't worry kids, it's still high in NYC... - And......

A few strange deaths have been in the local news lately. For instance, more body parts of a Bronx woman have been found, a Harlem pastor found a nude woman was found dead, hanging upside from a pipe (her foot got stuck when she was trying to sneak into Mount Olive Church) and neighbors in Midwood are waiting to hear what the police have to say about the body of a woman found in a......

Every so often, Gothamist gets passionate emails from Christopher X. Brodeur, who is running for mayor, about Mayor Bloomberg being corrupt. And yesterday, Brodeur sent us something about how a flier that Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields put together had Asians Photoshopped into it. As Gothamist had trouble opening the attachment and needed to rest up for the bid anticlimax that was the 2012 Olympics announcement, we had to wait for today's Post story......

Call it shameless self promotion if you want, but the place to be tonight (Monday) is Knitting Factory for Gothamist's own Movable Hype 3.0 show featuring some of the hottest bands from NYC and Austin. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah just self-released their debut self-titled album and its quickly become one of our favorite listens of the year (read the Gothamist interview). Fans of Talking Heads and the Arcade Fire should take note (MP3s......

The Fame...

Gothamist wanted to give you a heads for the next Movable Hype event. It's coming up fast, on JUNE 20th, and we'll be back at the Knitting Factory (main space) this time around. Movable Hype 3.0 featuring: The Fame [NY Press coverband this week. Listen: Lost In You.mp3] Ghostland Observatory [check out their interview at Austinist. Listen: Candy Rider.mp3] Man in Gray [read more about them at the Deli. Listen: Brakelights.mp3] Man in Gray starts......

Yes! Since there are never enough things to make fun of, New York City is getting a gimme: David Blaine will be performing a Halloween high-wire act this October. The AP reports that Blaine wants to call this stunt "Easy and Fun," as "it's something that's been done in the circuses, based on the old high-wire acts. It's like family entertainment, this one." Please, family entertainment can also be throwing food and various detritus......

Yesterday morning, a woman was killed by an uptown 6 train when she was unable to get off of the tracks. Jean Eng of Chinatown was trying to retrieve her fallen purse at the southern part of the tracks. The Daily News says that she had tried to look for a pole to fish the purse out, but dropped down to the tracks when she couldn't find an aid. People tried to help her up......

If an internet petition couldn't save Freaks and Geeks, can one possibly save the arts listings from the Sunday Arts & Leisure section in the New York Times? Probably, because the current petition in question is not being generated by a group of fans, but by the influential theater ad agency Eliran Murphy. The Times public editor has chimed in on the situation with an editorial piece that says the powers that be are reviewing......

Gothamist understands the need for advertising revenue, but this pop up ad from the New York Times website really took the cake. It seemed like a pop up ad appropriate when going to Maxim or FHM. Time to fire off a letter to new public editor, Daniel Okrent. "Dear Daniel, Love the paper, hate your ads." Granted, the ads seem to only appear after 11PM, but they're still kind of downmarket, back of Village......

The NY Press has it all wrong with their "Best Absolutely Useless NYPD Initiative": Police on Segways are not useless. They are perfect for press conferences with Commissioner Kelly or with Mayor Bloomberg.......