New York Comic Con took place at the Javits Center this weekend and drew thousands of fans to meet authors, artists, actors, and characters of pop culture. It's also an opportunity for professionals in the industry to mingle and do business. This is the third year that the event has been held in New York.......

EVENT: Into anime? It's your lucky weekend, the New York Anime Festival is in town! There will be previews, screenings and panels galore. Check out their website for more details. All Weekend // Jacob Javits Convention Center [655 W 34th St] // $30 day pass, $55 weekend pass SHOP: FIT and the Design Mavens come together for a 3 day shopstravaganza. Tons of designers we're not cool enough to have ever heard of will be......

It's the not the first time the government has wasted lots of money and it won't be the last, but the Daily News special investigation into former Governor Pataki's never-built Museum of Women is great proof of how bureaucracy sucks. Originally conceived to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca, the museum would have been at the south end of Battery Park City. Various grants were directed to the commission (chaired......

People may be talking the 2008 Presidential election, but when it comes to NYC, the aftermath of the 2004 Republican National Convention is still being felt. It was right before the convention when the NYPD arrested over 200 bicyclists during the August 2004 Critical Mass ride, starting more heated of NYPD vs. Critical Mass clashes. Yesterday, a number of bicyclists sued the city over their arrests during the October 2004 Critical Mass ride. The......

Grand plans for the 7 line extension have run into the harsh reality of budgetary constraints. Originally, the 7 line was going to be extended westward from its terminus at 42nd St. and 7th Ave. to a stop at the Javits Convention Center at 41st St. and 11th Ave., before heading south to 34th St. and the proposed Hudson Yards development site. Construction for the $2.1 billion project is going to be paid for by......

The Dalai Lama has arrived in New York, speaking in his native Tibetan language for two hours yesterday to followers, fans and the faithful at the Javits Convention Center. Newsday reports:He delivered his entire speech without notes, pausing to take a sip of tea only at the end as tears of joy flowed through the crowd. [He stated:] "The Tibetan cause is a cause of justice, and that's something that cannot fade away. That is......

A memorial to thousands of people buried in downtown Manhattan will open to the public Friday at 1 p.m., and there will be a candlelight procession at 8 p.m. from Battery Park to the monument at Duane and Elk Sts. The African Burial Ground National Monument is set to open 16 years after construction workers discovered human remains while doing foundation work on a downtown federal building. What they discovered were the remains of early......

RALLY: Barack is back! This time he's hitting up Manhattan with an evening rally in Washington Square Park. It's gonna be a big one, so get there early! At least this time there won't be any unhappy paying customers, because it's free! Check out his video invite: 5pm // Washington Square Park [W 4th St and Fifth Ave] // Free, RSVP here EVENT: Tonight the Fall 2007 season at NYPL is in full effect as......

The following post is from our advertiser CNN.com. Escaping a closed world: CNN's Randi Kaye talks with a woman who successfully left a polygamist society. Faux celebs congregate A Florida convention draws celebrity look-alikes. Central Florida News 13's Jackie Shutack reports. 9/11 ills linger for workers A New York photojournalist captures the ongoing struggles of 9/11 first responders. CNN's Jim Acosta reports. Boogie down behind bars Rehabilitation one step at a time for inmates in......

"I'm a nice old lady. I have salt and pepper in my hair. And I would fight ferociously against anybody who would limit my ability to do something just because I'm sixty-four years old." The Gray Panthers are a pan-generational organization promoting senior citizen rights, but also campaigning for issues such as peace, health care, and workers rights. When Judy Lear joined the NYC network , she revitalized the whole organization. She's led protests, gone......

Critical Mass, which came to New York around 1993, hasn't always been a cause for concern amongst the city's police. After 2004's Republican National Convention coincided with that month's Critical Mass in Manhattan, things changed. The ride has taken a more political tone and there's often an air of protest circling it. The ever-changing leaderless group has been in and out of the court with arrests being called in to question. Do the police have......

With all the news of identity theft, of course it would have to hit couples who are getting married. The Post has an alarming story about a number of couples who, when applying for a marriage license, have found themselves already "married." It's believed that thieves use other people's identities to get marriage licenses and green cards. Denise Daskalkis "filed two appeals, multiple petitions, and attended a hearing at the Office of Administrative Trials and......

Almost three years after the 2004 Republican National Convention, the tactics the NYPD used are still being debated in court. Per the NY Times, federal judge James C. Francis ruled yesterday that "hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups" must be disclosed. The city had been battling the NYCLU over the release of the intelligence reports ever since the revelation this past spring that the......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

The Post has button fever as it notices Bloomberg for President pins on eBay already! (Their headline is "Bloomy Looks Cute As a Button" - is that an underhanded way of saying he's short?) Some of the offerings include the stylized portrait and a straight up photograph. And there's always the classic all-type "I Like Mike" style. We expect anti-Bloomberg pins to go up this week - you know, the ones that mention how......

There are new details surrounding Sunday's 208 arrests at the Puerto Rican Day Parade: According to the NY Times, the police still claim that people were arrested for "specific illegal behavior," like blocking traffic, and not because they were wearing colors of the Latin Kings gang. However:Criminal complaints filed against 10 defendants show that the police were concerned about the risk that those arrested would engage in violent or threatening behavior or cause some public......

Al Sharpton continues his effort to clean up rap lyrics. After Russell Simmons held some meetings on the topic, Sharpton took it to the streets by marching in midtown, and now he's brought his campaign to Motown. Cleaning up rap lyrics is as easy as following the old adage of washing ones mouth out with soap. At least that's a theme Sharpton is using, as he plans to collect thousands of bars of soap as......

The Roseland Ballroom is hosting The New York City Tattoo Convention this weekend and videographer Kelly Loudenberg was onhand to capture an artist named Vincent Castiglia whose medium is human blood, the relentless buzz of dozens of needles perforating human flesh, and a lot of illustrated people. The TattooCon continues through tomorrow and tickets at the door are $18, with an all-access two-day pass going for $35.......

The NYPD decided not to appeal a judge's decision that the NYPD should declassify its surveillance documents from the 2004 RNC, so it has set up a special NYPD RNC Documents website with the documents. Of course, you have to scroll down to the very bottom for a zip file of the 600 pages of documents. And what's above the documents is the NYPD's rather thorough explanation/ defense justifying why it did such extensive......

The new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says the NYPD thinks it's the NPD - the National Police Department. The Daily News reports that Democratic Mississippi representative Bennie Thompson is critical of the NYPD's tactics that stretch into other jurisdictions. He told the News, "While I understand that chasing down leads in other locales might help keep the city safe, I emphasized that the NYPD is not the FBI, that it does......

The area across from Shea Stadium known as the Iron Triangle has never seemed suitable for housing, mostly because it was home to hundreds of auto shops. That could all change, if Mayor Bloomberg gets his way. Yesterday, the mayor announced a master plan to revitalize Willets Point, the official name of the 61-acre area in Northern Queens. The plan would replace the 250 businesses, which employ about 1,300 people, with housing, office space,......

Swedish rockers Peter Bjorn & John have won over the world with their brand of catchy indie pop. Last time they were in town their album wasn't even released yet and they sold out three shows. This time they've got two consecutive shows at Webster Hall (May 1st and 2nd)...and hopefully you got your tickets, as they are both (suprise, surprise) sold out already. This week Peter took some time to answer some questions for......

Patrick Cullina is the VP of Horticulture and Facilities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and New York's go-to guy for cherry trees (there are over 200 trees and 42 species at BBG alone!). Anita Jacobs is responsible for all of the programs that go along with the garden, speaking of which... The two-day Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival (New York's Rite of Spring) enters its 26th year at the Garden this weekend. Just after the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning. NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC. When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in......

Senator Barack Obama made his appearance at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network Conference yesterday. The conference, which is also known as the Sharpton primary, featured many Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Hillary Clinton on Friday. But yesterday's speech from Clinton rival Senator Barack Obama was especially notable, given the earlier talk that Sharpton wasn't a big fan of Obama. Obama worked to woo the crowd, even joking, when Sharpton's Blackberry buzzed on......

On Tuesday "The Oprah Winfrey Show" became a platform for the Hip-Hop community to respond to the Don Imus controversy with a panel discussion featuring Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Kevin Liles, Common and more. Should musicians lose their jobs or their contracts for using words that are considered racist and sexist? As seen in the video clip below, the former EIC of Essence Magazine thinks so. She is met with many who disagree, however,......

Car makers are flocking to the city with the New York International Auto Show opening this weekend (media previews start tomorrow) at the Javits Convention Center, and there's one particularly NYC-focused exhibit: Taxi '07. In honor of the taxi's 100th birthday, the Design Trust for Public Space has corralled many taxis "transformed" for the future to be displayed outdoors in an inner roadway at the Javits Center. There's “The World’s Fastest Taxi" (a hydrogen-powered......

This morning, WNBC 4 aired Gabe Pressman's News Forum interview with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Pressman asked Kelly about topics such as attacks on the police given the city's record low crime, stop-and-frisks, the recent arrest of a man who intimidated a witness in the Sean Bell case, the NYPD's eal Time Crime Center, terrorism, Rudy Giuliani and police conduct during the Republican National Convention. This is a small bit of Pressman and Kelly's exchange:PRESSMAN:......

Though not necessarily together. The Mayor believes in zeppole and fair games, telling reporters: "I understand the frustration of the community, who has their streets blocked and a lot of noise at night. On the other hand, it is part of New York." But yesterday the Mayor also spent some time defending the spying the NYPD did prior the Republican National Convention, chalking it up to "a fundamental responsibility to learn whether groups might......

A judge sided with the city and is allowing police files to remain secret. After the NY Times ran two stories about how the NYPD spied on groups at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention - and some of the groups did not seem to be intent on breaking the law - questions were raised about police conduct and whether the police broke the law (police cannot spy on organizations unless......