Image of current and future Brooklyn House of Detention: New York City Department of Design & Construction The notorious Brooklyn House of Detention – immortalized by everyone from the Beastie Boys to Jonathan Lethem – has been closed since 2003, but plans to reopen the jail at twice its previous size are still moving forward. Last year many newcomers to the steadily gentrifying neighborhood decried plans to bring back the detention center, located at......

The Hollywood Reporter has news that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch will be expanding his music and film production operation, Oscilloscope Laboratories, into indie film distribution. Under the nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblowér, Yauch has orchestrated many of the Beastie Boys videos, as well as the hip hop group’s inventive full-length concert doc Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! Oscilloscope also shot and produced live concert videos for Beck and Ryan Adams. Former ThinkFilm vice president David......

alphabet city no. 3, by nschaden at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 120th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on West 31st St. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim at MoMA in Manhattan. The New York Yankees took first place in franchise spending, with a total payroll of $218.3 million last year. The World Series-winning Boston Red Sox payroll totalled $155.4 million to finish a distant second. The......

For the second year running, the Food Bank for New York City and the Lunchbox Fund of South Africa have enlisted over 100 celebrities in their holiday fundraiser. Boldface names like Kanye West, Elton John, Cameron Diaz, Mike Meyers, William Wegman and, um, Urban Outfitters, have created personalized, autographed lunchboxes that are now onsale via online auction. At Thursday night's kick-off event at Saatchi & Saatchi, a lunchbox by Michael Stipe was snatched up......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Before the Beastie Boys’ concert at McCarren Park Pool last night, Gothamist attended a press conference with the 3 MC’s and verified an interesting bit of trivia: Despite having formed in Brooklyn, rehearsed often at Adam Yauch’s parent’s crib downtown, and associated themselves with the borough constantly over the decades, the band itself had not yet performed in Kings County. Mike D broke it down like so, “When we came up none of the......

EVENT: Join a slew of artists, bid on their work and enjoy complimentary cocktails tonight at a benefit for the Seed Project. Artwork from Swoon, Lisa Dahl, Todd Deluca, Troy Dugas, Lee Everett, Midori Harima & Annysa Ng, Fumiko Toda, Sarah Trigg and a whole bunch more will be auctioned. The Seed Project asks that you buy basil seeds and after planting them: 1. Document what you have planted and put the picture online. 2.......

Suckers may be saying they can take out Adam Horovitz, but after all these years with The Beastie Boys – it’s now two decades since License To Ill dropped! – he’s still rocking steady. Having just released The Mix-Up, a new all-instrumental album, the three are set to drive the lane like Evan Bernhard with a trio of NYC shows in as many days. Tomorrow night and Thursday they’ll do two of their more familiar......

This Sunday there will be a screening of the 1983 classic Wild Style at Summerstage, followed by performances by some of the rappers in the movie. Busy Bee, The Cold Crush Brothers, GrandMaster Caz, Fab 5 Freddy and more, including some special guests. More info on the event, which is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the movie, is here, but let's take a look back to when it was filmed. Wild Style was the first......

Jill Cunniff keeps a blog (a "MamaLog") about being a mom and a musician in New York, but you probably know her best as the lead singer and bass player of early-90s band Luscious Jackson. The band broke up in 2000, but Jill is still creating and performing music - all while being a mom, a wife, and doing her part to clean up New York's beaches. This weekend she'll perform at the Mermaid Parade......

Bright Eyes Shows Off His Friends Okay Conor, we get it: you have cool friends. This week, during the Bright Eyes 7-night run at Town Hall, the band promised a special guest each night. So far he's brought out the likes of Lou Reed, Steve Earle, Jenny Lewis, Norah Jones and Ben Kweller. Each played a few songs of their own mid set before joining in jamming with the rest of the group. On the......

A friend who emailed us a few weeks ago to inform us that the Beastie Boys were releasing a new album and that it was going to be all instrumental left us conflicted. We'll admit that the instrumental portion of their last shows at the Garden were great, but we wouldn't consider them highlights, and we generally judge their last tour a high-point of our concert-going existence. A week or so later, this same......

Yes, yes...Last week was Volume 18. We had some counting...issues. Apologies. Human Giant's MTV Takeover A Success Not only did the Human Giant crew blow past their goal of one million page views well before the 24 hour mark that they were on the air, but for one day they returned MTV to its irreverent, enjoyable and, well, musical roots. The comedy trio aired videos we didn't think MTV still knew existed (Aphex Twin, Stone......

Sure, there are tons of auctions happening - a handwritten draft of a Steinbeck novel will likely take in $500K at the end of the month, Courtney is gonna sell Kurt's pajamas, the Dukes of Hazzard car (the General Lee) took in nearly $10M this weekend and the Met held an "Art for Opera" auction yesterday. We'd like to focus on the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, however. Tonight is the last night of......

Mets third baseman David Wright has been embraced by the public for his baseball skills, team work, and adorable face. He's been hitting a .316 average in spring training and now the Mets plan to settle up some important business with Wright: What song will be played when he goes to bat? They announced today the launch of an online fan vote at Mets.com to select Wright's at-bat song selections. The full list is......

Brett Gelman's favorite jam back in the day was Eric B. for President. It's okay for me to make that reference Gelman, along with comedian Jon Daly , makes up the hip-hop duo Cracked Out. He also performs improv as part of Death by Roo Roo , is a member of the sketch group The The Brighter Side , and appears at venues ranging from Rififi to Comix. He's busy, is what I'm trying......

Video for An Open Letter to NYC - The Beastie Boys Tomorrow night is the "GIMME SHELTER: Rock & Rescue NYC" Benefit. The night will bring together rockers in support of homeless animals. Details: WHO: BEASTIE BOYS, BLUE OYSTER CULT, THE CHOKE, THE DUELLING BANKHEADS, JOE HURLEY AND THE GENTS, MARSHALL CRENSHAW, the band MORE, MURRAY WEINSTOCK NELLIE MCKAY, SIC F*CKS, THE STAR SPANGLES, AND MORE GUESTS T.B.A. With special appearances by DEBBIE HARRY......

-- The Nicole duFresne murder trial is shaping up to be a tearjerker. -- If you own a house, a condo or a coop in the city, watch your mailbox for your $400 tax rebate. -- On the topic of taxes, here's a great scam: claim that New York is a seperate country. -- Nine insurance policies, a lesbian bride and a dead groom. Yup, that sounds suspicious to us too. -- A pretty......

I broke my personal record for the single most lucrative fare I’ve ever taken in my five years a yellow cabbie. I drove a couple who’d been out on the town shopping all day to their place off Farmer’s Boulevard in Queens. We listened to the traffic report, and when they heard Matt Ward say that there was a jam on the Van Wyck, they told me to take the Belt. I warned them......

Wolfmother...

According to the album, Paul's Boutique is in Brooklyn...but we all know this photo was taken in the Lower East Side. With a Paul's Boutique sign hanging up on the Lee's Sportswear storefront, the shot was taken at 99 Rivington Street, where Rivington and Ludlow intersect. Currently residing in this exact spot is a restaurant called Paul's Boutique, named in honor of the album. This shot looking down Rivington Street from the intersection of Ludlow......

This week the multiplexes seem practically flooded with new releases, in addition to the good things already out, so much so that Gothamist is starting to fall behind on our movie consumption. But never fear, we shall surely rally. Here's a few suggestions to guide your own weekend viewing. To get them out of the way first, there's two sequels coming out that might be worth your time if you fall into a certain demographic......

Here's an amusing video of a dorky kid with a pronounced accent (or speech impediment) rapping to the Beastie Boys' An Open Letter to NYC. What can we say? This is exactly why the internet was invented. Do you have an amusing video of yourself rapping? Please send us a link.......

It's been a busy week out in Park City, Utah as the 2006 Sundance Film Festival draws to a close this weekend. Most New Yorkers are uninterested in the daily screenings and sales at Sundance unless you're in the "industry," but Gothamist finds the whole spectacle sort of fascinating because the festival is such a great prognosticator of what will be hot in indie cinema in the coming year. A few premieres we've been excited......

In a shocking move, Infinity Radio has dumped oldies from their stalwart station WCBS FM 101.1. Out with "The Greatest Hits of All Time" and in with Jack FM which is "the best songs from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, right up through today." So long Harry Harrison, Ron Lundie, and Cousin Brucie. The Daily News reports that they ended the oldies format with Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind" and entered the Jack era with "Fight for......

Sometimes, fate just works so that the randomly assigned tickets in the 226 section of the Beastie Boys show at Madison Square turn into the best seats in the house. For the first song of their encore, Mike D, MCA and Adrock appeared right behind Gothamist and everyone around us lost it. People climbed over seats to get closer as the Beastie Boys sang Intergalactic. One poster to the Beastie Boys Message Board notedThe......

If you plan on hitting the clubs next week and taking part in the annual CMJ music binge, why not use the coming days to rest up, get some sleep and save your pennies? A week of rest woudln't hurt, would it? But it's not that easy. Not this week...though the shows are mostly big ticket events that will set you back a few bucks. The big names precede CMJ this year. Next week we'll......

Ben Lyons, MTV Co-host...

Gothamist can only suspect that the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards were so stultifyingly boring is because somehow, Miami and the huge US Air Arena sucked the energy out of everyone. We think the overly manufactured entertainment industry is digging its own grave (A&R; guy: "Hey, we need another 'rock' group...it's be a bunch of guys with spiky hair and punkish clothing...let's give 'em a wacky one-word name, too!"), because watching commentary-less CSPAN coverage of......

Few people walk in to a situation like Steve Hurst... literally. While working at The Weather Channel, he walked into his producer's office for something, and walked out, with the job of choosing the music for the local forecasts. That may not seem like that big of a deal, but for a lot of people it is. Gothamist has mentioned to several friends that we got the opportunity to speak to Steve, and the......