Photograph, top, of Alain Robert climbing the Times building by Carol Quillen; photograph, below, of Renaldo Clarke climbing by Michael Chan After two incidents of X-treme attention whoring Thursday afternoon, cops were stationed around the perimeter of the New York Times building on 41st St. Friday, successfully preventing anyone else from taking a shot at scaling the side of the new skyscraper. Famous urban climber Alain Robert drew quite a crowd as he climbed......

Last we heard, rapper Foxy Brown, who has been on Rikers for about 8 months now, was trying to get an early release because of her "hearing problems". Deaf or not, something worked, and this week she'll be a free woman once again. After violating probation last year by attacking a couple of manicurists, she was sent to the slammer -- and even spent 40-days in solitary confinement for a confrontation with officers there. Now......

Continuing their misguided and terribly executed orange bike campaign, DKNY has infiltrated YouTube with a 1 minute 53 second clip of a model speaking out in support of the company's great..."humanitarian cause"? The video starts off showing two models mowing each other down with fake miniature cars as an orange bike lies on the ground...probably not the best way to negate the whole ghost bike thing. Hear that children: you could take a cab and......

Photo: Claire Houston Curious about the fate of all those orange bikes with the DKNY website that were locked up around town? The ones the police didn’t cart away (some were illegally chained to trees) are being picked clean for spare parts. The tone deaf Fashion Week publicity stunt was presented by DKNY as an effort to promote cycling in New York, and the company did help raise awareness by, uh, distributing bicycle maps in......

Perhaps it was the near-freezing temperatures at yesterday's Jets-Browns game that kept breasts covered, but that weather didn't stop crowds from flocking to Gate D at Giants Stadium for a halftime ritual - men yelling at women to expose their breasts and throwing bottles or spitting at them if they don't. Despite an attempt to shut down rowdy fan behavior at Gate D, things didn't seem to change that much at all since new procedures......

Oprah Winfrey introduced one of her favorite things people at what the NY Times called "the largest spectacle of the campaign cycle" - the Oprah for Barack Obama rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Winfrey said, "For the very first time in my life, I feel compelled to stand up and to speak out for the man who I believe has a new vision for America," and told the audience of 15,000 said, "I am......

Resumes are being accepted to fill a sudden vacuum in the self-proclaimed “drug ring” that is Gawker. On Friday afternoon, at the end of a long Gawker post about palling around with the n + 1 crowd – who happen to be publishing a long think-piece on Gawker in their new issue – editor and cewebrity Emily Gould abruptly announced that managing editor Choire Sicha was to resign. And she would be joining him.......

Today we have illusionists like David Blaine performing "stunts" in the city, but back in the day there was the real deal stuntman, Evel Knievel. Just after making news by making nice with Kanye West (after suing him over this video), he died yesterday in Clearwater, Florida at the age of 69. The NY Times reports he had "failing health for years with diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung condition. In 1999, he......

The New York Sun is reporting that the operator of the midtown Japanese restaurant Naniwa has been arrested for trying to bribe a city health inspector in order to avoid a summons. Kazuo Mitsuya allegedly tried to slip the inspector $200 to make the restaurant’s violations just go away. Presumably offended by the low sum offered, the inspector got on the horn with the Department of Investigations, who sent in an undercover officer posing as......

We hope the following doesn't put anyone off their appetite before they've even had a chance to tuck into their Thanksgiving feast, but we have to describe what champion eater Tim Janus managed to consume in a publicity feast for charity. In the course of 15 minutes, Janus gobbled down the following:A 10-pound turkey Four pounds of mashed potatoes Three pounds of cranberry sauce Two and a half pounds of green beans This was accomplished......

Jay-Z Around Town With a new, critically acclaimed album out and a refocused approach to his craft, Jay-Z took the stage twice this week in the Big Apple. For the relatively intimate events at Hammerstein and The Apollo, there was no shortage of friends and guests out to show support for Hov's return to form. Diddy, Nas, Lil Wayne and...Lebron James (?!?) all made appearances between the two shows. Lebron skipped a game to attend......

The New Oxford American Dictionary has selected "locavore" as its 2007 word of the year. According to the OUP blog, "The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation." Locavore beat out......

Could American Apparel have a better location for their advertising than the corner of Allen and Houston? Their ads in the location has made some members of the community upset and may have caused The Splasher to return from hibernation. And they have the echo-chamber that is the NY blog community talking about their "racy" ads all the time. Indeed, any publicity is good publicity. They've since replaced the defaced leggings billboard with a......

Marko Perkovic (known as Thompson on stage, portrayed by Kitler at right) is coming to town, and the protesters are awaiting -- with good reason. The Croatian rock star is known for nostalgically warbling for the Ustaša regime and glorifying the Nazis in his songs, and we can't imagine his anti-Semitism sing-a-longs are going to be very popular here in New York. The musician isn't all about the controversial topics (though it does get him......

We recently visited Fox News Channel’s morning show Fox & Friends. Unlike most of the other morning shows it is a freewheeling kind of crazy romp that definitely has “Fox attitude”. We don’t know if that “Fox attitude” is what gives a different on-set vibe compared to other news sets, but it did seem like less of a precision military operation than their competition at the Today Show. It could be that the show......

Mayor Bloomberg was named in a bias lawsuit filed by three former Bloomberg LP employees. This now accompanies a lawsuit, which charges that female employees were discriminated against, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed against the billionaire's media company earlier this week. The lawsuit says, "Upon information and belief, Michael Bloomberg is responsible for the creation of the systemic, top-down culture of discrimination which exists within Bloomberg." The Sun reports that the three women,......

Recently Williamsburg doc Jay Parkinson unleashed his revolutionary idea onto Brooklyn -- a doctor for the uninsured, medical advice through emails, and the return of the housecall. The word spread fast and now much of the world is looking his way to see if he can change the way healthcare is provided. How did your non-conventional idea come about and become a reality? I don’t really fit in very well to the traditional doctor mold......

Bill O'Reilly continued to claim that he wasn't being racist when expressing his surprise that a dinner at Harlem soul food restaurant Sylvia's was extremely pleasant. Media watchdog group Media Matters distributed text and clips of O'Reilly's radio show where the conservative talking head explained, "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even......

Isn't the Internet wonderful? It lets baseball fans vote in an All-Star game player and now it lets people around the world decide what to do with a historic ball. After purchasing the ball that Barry Bonds hit to break baseball's all-time home run record, fashion designer Marc Ecko has decided to give the public a vote on what to do with the ball. On the website Vote756.com, Ecko gives voters three choices, "Bestow......

Barry Manilow, who is out promoting his Greatest Songs of the Seventies, has refused to share a stage with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who was barely walking in the 70s. The crooner left a little message on his website yesterday for his fans letting them know he wouldn't be on The View today, saying "I had made a request that I be interviewed by Joy, Barbara or Whoopi, but not Elisabeth Hasselback. Unfortunately, the show was not......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA/Fall Victim at 1 Hogan Place in Manhattan (that's the Manhattan DA's office), a double stabbing on East 171st St. in the Bronx, and an overturned ambulance at Broadway and Delafield Ave. on Staten Island. Opening day sales for tickets to The Metropolitan Opera set a record this Sunday after increasing 25% year over year, to $2.08 million. Online sales to performances were 50% higher than 2006's opening.......

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......

HEADS UP: Last year we had Daniel Kitson join our Laughable Hype comedy show, and we've been eagerly awaiting his return to the states since then. Good news...he's back! We strongly urge you to buy tickets right now so you can catch the special performance on Monday at Mo Pitkins. These will go fast Sold out! But this just in...Kitson will also be performing at Union Hall this Sunday at 9pm (first come first served).......

The Post updates the story about the kid whose mom wants him held back a year! Anthony Hassell's father Victor Raimo called Post reporter Chuck Bennett to complain about his estranged wife's tactics discussing their son's 60.53 seventh grade average. Raimo said, "A normal mother doesn't do this, especially when she is a dropout of her own. My son shouldn't be embarrassed - it should be her." But the kicker is that Raimo called from......

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (directed by David Yates) In a funny reversal of the "movie's more important than the book" paradigm, the excitement surrounding the release of the fifth Harry Potter movie on Wednesday was but a preview to the real midnight mania next Friday. While the movies in this children's books franchise have been popular, they could almost be seen as publicity tools for the books, psyching up fans for......

City Councilman Dennis Gallagher gave a DNA sample as the NYPD investigates claims that the Queens Republican raped a woman at his Kew Gardens office on Sunday. A woman that Gallagher met at Danny Boy's pub (he's described as a "heavy social drinker" by some colleagues, according to the Daily News) alleges that he brought her back to his office and sexually assaulted her. The police raided his office on Monday but have not pressed......

A judge has banned Toto's "Washlet" cleaning system billboard from a Times Square building. One of the building's tenants happens to be the Times Square Church, which sued to stop the billboard by claiming it was "certainly unsuited for public exposure to children, and antithetical to the values of our congregation and church.” No word if the parishioners feel their bottoms are clean enough already. State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman said, "The court......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible grenade is noticed and reported on 33rd Ave. in Queens, an armed robbery on East 61st St. in Manhattan, and a carjacking on 133rd St. and Neptune Ave. in Brooklyn. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is employing the celebrity skills of Matt Dillon to help save St. Brigid's Church in the East Village. Eastbay is marketing Converse All-Star high tops that appear pre-worn and fairly dingy as......

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (you can see him reading from the novel on The Steve Allen Show, here). Of course, with the celebration comes some controversy. The NY Sun reports: The author of a noted Kerouac biography, Memory Babe, Gerald Nicosia, is holding a press conference in Manhattan today, where he will claim that Viking Penguin has been removing his name from books it publishes on......

We can't listen to Criss Angel (pictured..."levitating") speak for more than two seconds without thinking of the Human Giant sketch, Illusionators, so it will be hard to take his latest stunt very seriously. Angel, who is currently romantically linked to Cameron Diaz, will perform a death-defying stunt on on June 4th in Times Square. At this time, a shackled Angel will encase himself in a glass cube and be lifted 40 feet in the air,......