Brooklyn Bridge and cloud, by The life of Boyne at flickr At 125 years old, it's time for the Brooklyn Bridge to undergo a little fix-up work. The Dept. of Transportation is about to begin a multi-year series of projects to shore up Roebling's bridge structurally, as well as give it a cosmetic touch-up. Popular Mechanics recently named the Brooklyn Bridge one of the top ten pieces of national infrastructure most in need of......

Photo by Jake Dobkin While a Tom Otterness sculpture can really brighten up the dark underground of New York, for his latest installation he's shedding some sunlight on his work. The above was just installed in DUMBO near the pedestrian exit to the Brooklyn Bridge. This won't be the first time Otterness has been above ground, of course. Remember his temporary 2004 installation that spanned Broadway from 60th to 168th Streets? And in 2005......

Photograph of fog rolling over the East River by Stelmaria on Flickr It's simply a lovely photograph of fog meeting the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. And today looks like it'll be beautiful.......

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......

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......

Last year, the Health Department unveiled its free NYC Condoms on Valentine's Day. For this year's Valentine's Day, not only will volunteers from the Health Department be distributing condoms again, there's a new packaging and a new ad campaign with the tag "Get Some." Don't worry - the condom is the same lubricated Lifestyles latex condom as before. The Health Department gave out 36 million NYC Condoms last year and Assistant Commissioner for HIV......

Photograph of a Giants fan in Times Square by Johnia! on Flickr After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested. A thousand people flooded Times Square, reportedly jumping on cars and sitting on top of phone kiosks, but the Post says no one was arrested.......

Today Lego celebrates the big 5-0, even getting some Google-love for hitting the half century mark. New York has long been recreated in Lego-form, our favorite was at an exhibit housed in the Storefront for Art and Architecture late last year. Do you have a favorite Brick Apple? We love Sean Kenney's Greenwich Village (pictured) and Nathan Sawaya's Brooklyn Bridge. In a related story, this past Saturday was the city's first Lego League Citywide Championship,......

New York City officials are planning for a Dunkirk-like evacuation of Manhattan island in the case of an emergency. In the early days of World War II, a "bathtub navy" was assembled between Dunkirk, France and Dover, England, in order to move hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Continent to safer ground as the Nazis advanced across France. Hundreds of small craft were sent across the English Channel to ferry stranded and cornered British......

Plans to renovate Pier A, the last remaining pier on the lower west side, are staggering forward again. The Victorian-era three-story pier was built immediately after the Brooklyn Bridge, using much of the same equipment, and was once one of the city’s proudest points of entry, boasting visits from boldface names like Amelia Earhart and the Queen of England. Today it’s a dilapidated eyesore that clashes with the rest of the lavishly rehabilitated west......

Last June Scientific American took a look at a human-less New York, a vision that was fairly on par with how the city was portrayed in I Am Legend. Now it's The History Channel's turn to jump on board the post-apocalyptic train, their show Life Without People will premiere this Monday (at 9pm). The scene is eerily similar to how Chernobyl looks after decades without human inhabitants. The show's site tells us: "Abandoned skyscrapers......

Photo of a house in Victorian Flatbush via mercurialn's Flickr. Brooklynometry has a heartwarming tale from the days of old New York. The story is of one anonymous Brooklynite's family home in Victorian Flatbush which was about to be lost during the Depression when a west coast well-wisher stepped in and purchased it for $1 (plus taxes). The catch was that she promised to leave it to the family in her will.Thankfully she was......

Computer rendering of the waterfalls by the Public Art Fund. Details have emerged on the ambitious, $15 million East River waterfalls project coming to New York in mid-July to cap off the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at MoMa. The project will consist of four man-made waterfalls, ranging 90 to 120-foot tall, installed temporarily at four sites along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers......

Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson will work with the Public Art Fund – a nonprofit that brought Anish Kapoor's "Sky Mirror" and Jeff Koons's "Puppy," to Rockefeller Center – to bring freestanding waterfalls to the East River this spring. The project will be officially announced tomorrow, but a source tells the Sun that the waterfalls will rise 60 to 70 feet above the water, which is more than half as high as the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.......

It's that special time of year again when Charlie Todd and a troupe of others that like to de-pants every January go underground for a nice, brisk ride on the subway. As usual, you're all invited (warning: you may be arrested), but if you show up you must not have pants on! They warn, in all caps, that "THIS IS A PARTICIPATORY EVENT. DO NOT SHOW UP UNLESS YOU PLAN TO TAKE YOUR PANTS......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, an injured corrections officer at Rikers Island in the Bronx, and a gas leak on East 68th St. in Manhattan. Chris Booker, the NY radio DJ boyfriend of Philly news personality Alycia Lane who allegedly punched a female NYPD police officer after calling her a dyke, says that she's being singled out because "[she's] a babe." Or it's because she......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan. Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it......

Like the GWB and the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge will have LED lights installed next year, but how exactly do the bulbs get replaced? The NY Times says it only takes one man to screw in these bulbs. Okay, maybe he has some help. Ben Cipriano, the leader of a crew of electricians who maintain the four major East River Bridges for the city’s Department of Transportation, and his colleagues make about a dozen......

A Guyanese woman on her way to a citizenship ceremony was critically injured after a livery cab hit her in downtown Brooklyn. Queens resident Shantta Raghunana had been crossing the street when the car careened into her on Cadman Plaza West. Raghuana's family was with her during the accident; her daughter said, "The car just came out of nowhere, picked her up and threw her." The car's path ended when it crashed into scaffolding: It......

By the end of next year, downtown Brooklyn will have a new upscale steakhouse to rival Peter Luger in Williamsburg; it was recently announced that Morton’s will be occupying the ground floor of a new Marriott annex tower on Adams Street. The Chicago-based restaurant chain will dish out their beef, seafood and sandwiches in a 300 seat restaurant near the Brooklyn Bridge. Writing for the Brooklyn Paper, Gersh Kuntzman sees Morton’s arrival as the beginning......

We checked in with some folks recently for a little end of '07 "exit interview" before we enter a new year. Next up is Nick Kroll, actor, caveman and one of our favorite comedians of '07...and probably '08. What did you do last New Years Eve? What will you do this year? Last year i listened to a cab driver complain about how a girl pee'd in his cab. I don't know why i would......

This summer we saw the man behind Davey's Dance Blog entertain passers-by on the Brooklyn Bridge with his impromptu moves. Today, here's something a little more seasonal. And as usual, no one blinks an eye as the troupe flail around Rockefeller Center.......

Everyone is buzzing about the Brooklyn Bridge Park development today. The latest is that the project (which has been stalled time and time again) could begin next month as a wrecking ball tears down a piece of the area's history. The Daily News reports:If approved today, the $18 million construction phase would include the demolition of the historic Purchase Building [pictured] and the removal of portions of five piers, officials said. "This is the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at East Fordham Rd. and Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, a shooting on Henry and West 9th Sts. in Brooklyn, and a homicide on Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. New Yorkers found guilty of repeated incidents of ignoring recycling laws may be required to throw out their trash in see-through bags for easy inspection. Ads soliciting the perfect ass might not make it onto city......

Did anyone go see destructo-porn blockbuster, I Am Legend, this weekend? Apparently New Yorkers who saw the movie up close and personal when it was being filmed gave it two thumbs down, or rather -- one middle finger up! amNewYork reports on Will Smith's run-ins with disgruntled locals."I would say, percentage-wise, it's the most amount of middle fingers I have received in my career. I'm used to people liking me… [all those] middle fingers, I......

It seems like just yesterday that the Brooklyn Bridge was being blown up by Hollywood. How time flies. I Am Legend, the movie for which this post-apocalyptic craziness occurred, is opening today (get your promotional survivor kit ready!). In the 100 minutes of watching it, you'll meet three main characters: Manhattan, Sam the dog, and Will Smith ("Robert Neville"). The combination is apparently a winning one, as the reviews have been frighteningly positive...it will scare......

We've been monitoring how I am Legend, the big budget post-apocalyptic zombie movie set in New York, will be portraying the Big Apple ever since filming took place on the Brooklyn Bridge (it eventually gets blown up). Now, with reviews starting to pop up, we're hearing mixed things about the movie but raves about how a futuristic people-less New York City looks. The Observer's Sara Vilkomerson was freaked out, noting how the city is......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual elevator rescue on Washington Ave. in Brooklyn, a pipe explosion on Richmond Terrace on Staten Island, and a person fatally struck by an A train at Van Siclen and Pitken Ave. in Brooklyn. NYC already has 91,000 practicing attorneys, but we can expect a lot more. Nearly 11,000 freshly minted JDs sat for the bar this summer and more than 70% of them passed. A 63-year-old man......

There are plenty of Starbucks in Manhattan (over 170), but if you head over to Brooklyn -- you'll see the streets are mostly void of discarded Venti cups and hardly anyone has heard Josh Groban's new Christmas album. But things are about to change, chain-haters beware.A recent Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable meeting revealed that retail giants such as Starbucks, Duane Reade pharmacies and Chase Bank are planning to double and in some cases triple their......

Back in June, we looked at a fascinating article from Scientific American titled "An Earth Without People." The article was based on the premises of a book by Alan Weisman called "The World Without Us." Both focus on what would happen to the earth if humans vanished from the planet immediately. The SA article even has some cool animation of what would happen to NYC here. This obviously inspired other artistic renderings of what......