The elegant 7th floor roof garden at Rockefeller Plaza is usually off limits, but for the next two evenings the general public is invited up to sip cocktails while savoring the twilight view. The only catch is that you have to absorb a lot of information about Canada, because our northern neighbor's tourism board is the one footing the bill. But since their national sales pitch comes with free food, music, drinks and hand massages,......

Photo via Ben Lawson's Flickr. Hitting the big screen in June, The Incredible Hulk is primed to be one of this summer's big blockbusters. But don't expect the big green guy to be wreaking havoc on the real New York, as Torontoist points out, the film was shot in Canada. Even this chalk artist, who would have totally been arrested for pulling this in New York, has The Hulk carrying a Canadian flag. Pictured......

Stilted But Not Wilted, by PayPaul(Leader of the WW Tribe) at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 109th Ave. and Merick Blvd. in Queens, a person under a train at Sutphin Blvd. in Queens, and a cyclist pinned beneath the wheels of a bus on 14th St. and 1st Ave. (looks like victim will survive) in Manhattan. The tech-savvy youth who got himself arrested for stealing a Sidekick mobile device and then......

Two female Key Food employees at the Avenue A and East 4th Street store were attacked by a knife-wielding man. The police originally said one of the woman died, but it turns out that one is "clinging to life" while the other is in critical condition. The Sun reports the women were in the "elevated manager's booth" when the attack took place at 3:15PM. According to WNBC, the attacker may have been a delivery......

Two lawsuits currently wending their way through New York courts are forcing judges to grapple with the legal ramifications of “gay divorce.” In one case, State Supreme Court Justice Laura Drager is allowing a Manhattan woman to sue for divorce and custody of children borne by a woman she married in Canada in 2004. The ruling echoes a recent appellate court decision in Rochester that found "out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized......

It may have looked like simple joyriding on a Friday afternoon, but the Parks Dept. employee careening around Battery Park near Whitehall St. yesterday afternoon was actually a man on a mission, i.e. to kill as many birds in the park as possible. Martin Hightower has been a Parks Dept. employee since 2005, but was arrested after 911 started receiving calls about a man driving recklessly on a golf cart at the southern tip of......

The new NYC Condom campaign carries a secret Canadian tourism message: One of the ads features Toronto's Flatiron Building. Darn those confusing stock image searches using "Flatiron Building"! Toronto’s Gooderham Building (photo at right) makes an appearance in the ad entitled “The Village” (image below, highlighted on the right). This landmark Toronto building, often called the “Flatiron Building” by those in the Greater Toronto Area, predates Manhattan’s (properly known as the Fuller Building) by ten......

If you're a 67-year-old retired math professor from Montreal and your wife (in Canada) finds out about your near-death S&M-related; experience in New York City from a NY Post reporter, what do you do? Well, if you're Richard Benjamin, you give the Post an exclusive interview, landing on the front page and earning the headline "They Beat it Out of Me." Benjamin, who used to teach at Vanier College, said that he's been secretly involved......

One very new New York resident has been given a crash course on city living. Kevin, the blogger at Naked Sponge, just moved here a week ago from Canada and he's already jumped into the subway tracks to save a life! Something that could possibly help him in his apartment hunt (nothing says "perfect tenant" like a Post headline calling you a hero). He explains his underground adventure:See, I was waiting for the L train......

Okay, we realize that this isn't quite as crucial to the basics of a kitchen as either a sharp knife or a cast iron pan, but in our minds, it still ranks as a kitchen essential. Why? Because not only do we use our Microplane grater quite frequently, but it does what it is designed to do absolutely flawlessly. The Microplane was originally a woodworking tool, but made the crossover into the kitchen. According to......

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his downtown Manhattan apartment by the police. Some reports say he died from an overdose. UPDATE 5:00PM :According to the NYPD spokesman, Ledger, who was living in an apartment at Broome street, "had an appointment for a massage...The housekeeper who went to let Ledger know the masseuse was there, and found him dead at 3:26 p.m" with "pills strewn all around him." The housekeeper and masseuse tried......

Knicks 105, Wizards 93:The last time the Knicks won two games in a row, the TV writers' strike was only two weeks old. And this game came against a team that wasn't playing its fourth game in five nights. After jumping out to a quick first-half lead, the Knicks gave much of it back before recovering. Jamal Crawford had 29 points, including 6-of-7 shooting from 3-point land, but did see his free-throw streak come to......

And now it’s the Islanders turn to head out to Western Canada and based on Monday’s 4-0 thrashing, they may have the same problems the Rangers did. Early in the second, Ales Hemsky skated in on two defenders and through a harmless shot towards the net, that Rick DiPietro somehow let in and the rout was on. The Oliers added two more goals in the second and another one in the third to complete the......

We hope the human-scale snow globe in Bryant Park is well heated, because we'd hate to have to endure today's rain, snow, and ice, in a plastic bubble if it weren't. The installation in the park west of the New York Public Library's main branch in Manhattan is a promotion for tourism to Ontario, Canada. Above, one can see a Canadian practicing his hockey stick work to pass the time. Ice sculpting and Mounties......

It's been snowing out lately, and thanks to The World's Largest Snow Globe, it's going to be snowing indoors soon as well. Standing at over twenty feet tall, the monstrosity of holiday cheer will be arriving at The Pond at Bryant Park next week (December 14th to 18th). Throughout the week, the snow globe will feature live models in cheery winter scenes, not unlike an Old Navy ad. Why? Good question. In typical holiday fashion,......

Our friends from the Great White North are feeling flush from the strengthening of the Canadian dollar versus its US counterpart, and New York is apparently ready to relieve them of their excess cash. The Loonie, or Canadian dollar, is even with the US dollar for the first time since 1976. If you've ever wondered why the backs of paperback books usually have a second, more expensive, price printed on them them for Canadians,......

A man, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he beat his roommate and the man's 4-year-old son to death with a billy club in 1974, left the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital Sunday afternoon when he went on an unescorted stroll around the hospital's grounds. Sixty-four-year-old retired Marine William Enman admitted the killings in 1975, but was spared prison when it was determined that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Enman left the......

A number of buildings with a possible connection to Brooklyn's abolitionist past and the Underground Railroad may be razed to make way for a public park and an underground parking garage. The commuter daily amNewYork reported yesterday that the Duffield Houses are slated for replacement by a public park along the lines of Manhattan's Bryant Park, mixed-use residential and commercial development, and the expansion of local colleges. Opponents to the plan include Lewis Greenstein, who......

The aftershocks of the explosion that destroyed 34 East 62nd St., which Dr. Nicholas Bartha blew up in a suicidal fit of pique directed at his former wife in 2006, continue to reverberate on the Upper East Side. The New York Times describes how neighbors are complaining to the Landmarks Preservation Commission that the proposed plans for its replacement fit neither the style nor the personality of the block. Instead of rebuilding the destroyed Victorian......

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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a motorcycle jacking at 230th Place and 148th Ave. in Queens, shots fired at police at Gates and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and multiple pedestrians struck at Coney Island and Ditmas Aves. in Brooklyn. State and city politicians broke ground in the Bronx yesterday on a new Metro-North station stop at the under-construction Yankee Stadium. It's hoped that the transit option will cut down on auto traffic from upstate......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

We'd give you a review of the iPhone's capabilities - if we could get the damn thing activated. Yes, the ultimate irony: Activating the phone take much longer than waiting on line for one! Apparently AT&T; underestimated the number of phones that would be bought - and the number of people who'd try to activate them - and various systems weren't able to handle activation requests. No, it's not the end of the world......

Last night's cold front didn't bring as much rain as expected but it did cool us down and clear out much of the mugginess, making today feel a whole lot more comfortable than the rest of the week. The dew point temperature has dropped from a miserable 76 Wednesday afternoon to a reasonable 59 this morning. Our bodies cool by evaporating perspiration away from our skin. The closer the dew point is to our......

The New York City council is allocating a cool $4 million to combat childhood obesity - which works out to about a dollar per extra pound or something like that. According to a June 2003 DOH report, 43% of elementary school children in the City are overweight or obese. The cash will provide for education and physical fitness programs. Thank your City Council member here. The New York Times reported yesterday that the International AIDS......

Recipe for a Cuban Molotov cocktail: Michael Moore, Harvey Weinstein, a documentary about U.S. healthcare and a federal investigation. No need to mix, because it'll stir into a frenzy on its own. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and his distributor, Harvey Weinstein, appeared at a press conference yesterday to question why the government is investigating Moore's trip to Cuba for his upcoming film, Sicko. The film, which premiered at Cannes and is scheduled to open......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

The man with a highly drug-resistant strain of TB, who decamped to Italy aboard a commercial airline for his honeymoon against the CDC's advisement, and then eluded authorities when told that he would be quarantined abroad and banned from returning to the U.S., before smuggling himself back to the states via Canada, is sorry for putting everyone out. Andrew Speaker, who was initially not named by the press because of the stigma associated with being......

A man being treated for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis and who was advised by the Centers for Disease Control not to travel was briefly quarantined at Bellevue Hospital after he sneaked back into the U.S. in an effort to evade a travel embargo. He is now being detained under armed guard in an Atlanta hospital. The patient, who was in consultation with the CDC prior to traveling to Europe and scheduled to receive advanced......