Bike-friendly city Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told reporters last night that August's street closures in Manhattan will be back next year. The Summer Streets program, which prohibited traffic on a 7-mile stretch from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park on three consecutive Saturdays, was "clearly a hit on Park Ave," Sadik-Khan tells the Daily News. She also says it's "highly likely" Summer Streets will be extended next summer to the other boroughs. While some retailers......

This Sunday's free Brooklyn Book Festival is a one-day-only explosion of authors, publishers, poets and scholars, all gathering for discussions on four stages about anything and everything related to books, which are those heavy things people drag around for times when they can't read blogs. Check out some of the bold face names who'll be participating: Joan Didion, Jonathan Lethem, Dorothy Jonathan Franzen, Chuck Klosterman, Jimmy Breslin, Walter Mosley, and many, many more. Seriously,......

The Republican National Convention may have ended last week, but lost in the haze of John McCain's acceptance of the nomination was how the final day of the St. Paul protests was marked by a spike in arrests. Police rounded up nearly 400 demonstrators during and after a major protest march, and at least 19 journalists were also arrested--including two from the Associated Press and even a New York-based reporter with the GOP-friendly Fox News.......

The Post has a funny editorial today about how St. Paul police could have avoided all "the ugliness that's marred the GOP convention this week" by taking some tips from the NYPD's "effective" management of the 2004 RNC protests. Of course, St. Paul officials did consult with the NYPD before the convention, and their raids on protesters' homes seem partly inspired by the NYPD's pre-convention spying in 2004. But according to the Post, demonstrators in St. Paul are now "pining for the apparently gentler tactics of the NYPD." ...

No surprises here; more reports of heavy-handed police tactics are filtering in from the Twin Cities, where the NYPD has been consulting with local law enforcement on how to handle demonstrations during the Republican convention. Salon has a long story on police and federal officers ("in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn") raiding houses where protest organizers are suspected of staying, in some cases seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. The Times guesstimates over 250......

Lin-Manuel Miranda celebrates his win for In the Heights; Patti LuPone accepts her Tony award for best leading actress in a musical. (AP Photo/Jeff Christensen) The 62nd Annual Tony Awards were presented last night at Radio City Musical Hall; the biggest winners were a musical first staged in 1949 and a Pulitzer Prize winning pot boiler from Chicago. The acclaimed Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific won the most awards, besting Sunday......

Like the last party guest who lingers long after her welcome and leaves the hosts feeling a little awkward and anxious for her departure, Hillary Clinton finally conceded that she is not going to get the nomination of the Democratic Party in the 2008 Presidential election. In a fairly upbeat address at the National Buildings Museum in Washington, DC, Clinton pledged to work to unite Democrats after a long and bitter campaign. Senators Clinton......

As Bike Month NYC winds down, over two thousand cyclists filled the Brooklyn streets yesterday for the fourth annual Tour de Brooklyn. This year’s 18-mile family-oriented ride was moved up a week to coincide with the Brooklyn Bridge 125th birthday festivities. Borough President Marty Markowitz kicked things off on Water Street near the bridge, sending cyclists on a leisurely ride that wound through DUMBO, East Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant, and the Evergreen Cemetery,......

After last year’s stuffy exile at NYU’s Skirball Center, the Village Voice Obie Awards were back at the raucous, open-bar Webster Hall – or rather the Ritz, as Stew, co-creator of the phenomenal Broadway rock musical Passing Strange recalled. For over fifty years, the Obies have honored the best of Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theater; coming on the heels of last week's Tony nominee announcement, the awards serve as a pointed reminder that the......

Groundbreaking postwar artist Robert Rauschenberg died last night at the age of 82. The adventurous painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, set designer and composer was born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on Oct. 22, 1925, in Port Arthur, Texas, a small refinery town with little cultural stimuli. (In his adult life he took the name Robert.) His father worked for a local utility, and the family’s lifestyle was so financially tight that, according to the Times, Rauschenberg’s mother......

Governor Paterson joined Mayor Bloomberg at Manhattan Community College this morning to kick off the 7th annual Tribeca Film Festival, which is expected to attract at least 500,000 visitors and $125 million. Paterson used the appearance to announced an expanded state film tax credit, intended to stop the loss of movie money “to our neighbors, like Canada, Connecticut and Massachusetts.” The governor’s office say these “neighbors” have cut into the state’s film revenue to the......

The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival begins April 23rd and runs through May 4th, with over 200 feature length narrative films, documentaries and shorts from around the world. This year also features discussions with filmmakers, music events, a family film series, an ESPN Sports Film Festival and other special presentations. Check out last week's preview of some of the narrative feature films in the festival, or brave the entire program of films.) American Express cardholders have......

© MURAKAMI, a retrospective of the work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, opens Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, where it was on view until February, the exhibit primarily focuses Murakami's work between 1991 and 2000, when the artist began exploring "his own reality through an investigation of branding and identity." (One additional work, Murakami's 6,613 pound, 18 foot-tall Oval Buddha sculpture, will be on......

For three years straight, NYU has dominated the annual Princeton Review "College Hopes and Worries" survey, coming in as the #1 “dream school” for college-bound students. But now NYU’s reign of dreams has turned into a humiliating nightmare, as the 2008 survey shows the university plummeting to the #4 slot, bested by Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. Columbia University also took a hit, dropping down two slots from last year to #7. Is attending college in......

The tenth edition of The Armory Show, the International Fair of New Art, starts tomorrow and continues through Sunday at Pier 94, on the West Side at 55th Street. The massive show hosts over 150 galleries and nonprofit organizations from around the world; here's a small taste of some of the 2,000 works on display.......

Oenophiles envious of the big wine expos held in Boston and D.C. can stop whining; this weekend marks the first annual New York Wine Expo at the Javits Center. Friday night and Saturday are open to the public, where more than 600 wines from over 170 vintners will be available for tasting. Here’s the list of all the wineries and vineyards at the Expo. And after sampling hundreds of different wines, what better way to......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg and Lance Armstrong by Harry Cabluck/AP The day after giving his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg headed out of town and to capital of the Lone Star State. Sure, Bloomberg did have a press conference with Lance Armstrong and former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, but more interesting was his meeting with Ross Perot's former campaign manager! The billionaire mayor had a "private" meeting with Clay Mulford, who is......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking at the State of the City address by Mary Altaffer/AP Mayor Bloomberg sounded some broad themes in his seventh State of the City address. Held at the new ice skating rink at Flushing-Meadows Corona Park in Queens, his speech outlined initiatives the city and various city agencies will undertake (digital 911 so you can send the NYPD photos from cell phones by this summer! reforming the Board of Elections!......

Yesterday was No Pants Day 2008, the 7th Annual Improv Everywhere event that includes hundreds of people riding the subway with no pants on. According to IE's initial report, yesterday's event drew 900 participants, requiring that the group split up onto three different lines--the 6, the R, and the 2 trains, which they rode from downtown Manhattan to Union Square. Or as someone noted on Gothamist Contribute, "Those retarded pantless freaks boarded a downtown......

An AP report that Mayor Bloomberg has been "conducting extensive polling and voter analysis in all 50 states" continues to fan the flames of a possible Bloomberg '08 bid. We can just imagine it: People in Alaska, Missouri, Ohio, all getting phone calls and asked, "How would you feel if a billionaire who happened to also be a mayor of a certain urban area decided to run for President - as an independent?" So far,......

During his State of the State address yesterday, Governor Eliot Spitzer showed what eating humble pie can do, with a collegial plea for fellow lawmakers to "work together for the common good, despite any political or personal differences." After an embarrassing first year of missteps, Spitzer hopes to build bridges, rather than steamroll over them, by taking up ideas he previously scorned like capping property taxes. Here's how editorials rated the speech: The Times-Union wonders......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent yesterday in Oklahoma, discussing the state of politics today at a bipartisan political forum at the University of Oklahoma. Bloomberg lamented the way things are going these days:Government is dysfunctional. There is no collaboration and congeniality. There is no working together. No 'let's do what's right for this country.' I think there is no accountability today. Nobody is holding themselves accountable and to the standards of what they promised when they......

Armed with cheesecake from Junior's, Mayor Bloomberg headed to Oklahoma for the summit of Republicans and Democrats to discuss a third party White House run. Organized by former senators David Boren and Sam Nunn at the University of Oklahoma (which Boren is the president of), the group has been working since meeting last night . Here's some of Boren's opening statement:We have come together at a crucial moment. These are not ordinary times. For the......

With news that Mayor Bloomberg is planning to attend a meeting about a possible third party bid for the White House, the mayor's possible presidential aspirations finally enter 2008. If he does plan on running, he's lucky he has his billions to get the hundreds of thousands of petition signatures to get onto ballots across the country. The NY Times looked at the petition quest. Naturally, the states' petition requirements (and deadlines) are all different:......

A sparkling new 700-pound ball, tons of confetti, and over a million people helped ring in the New Year from Times Square last night/early today. Mayor Bloomberg and police Police Academy valedictorian Karolina Wierzchowska, who also served in the Iraq War, hit the switch that brought the famous Times Square New Year's ball down. The Daily News called it a "shimmering pole dance," and it was the 100th time Times Square has had a......

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Mayor Bloomberg would be meeting with other Republicans and Democrats to "consider the merits of a third-party bid for the White House." Which means that today, not only do we get a NY Post cover, we also get a NY Post Photoshop illustration of Bloomberg, Gary Hart and Christie Todd Whitman (two other meeting attendees) as Revolutionary musicians! Former Democratic senators David Boren and Sam Nunn are organizing the......

Reader Douglas sent us this photograph of a 14th Street vendor unable to vend various 2008 and New Year's Eve tchotchkes. We've seen these vendors are on many corners, so one probably doesn't need to go too far to find one. And we have to admit that the wacky metallic top hat with LED "Happy New Year" (with a blinking and constant modes) are pretty hilarious. So hilarious that we bought one, along with......

Yesterday we heard the "8" which will create the "2008" sign that millions will see in person and on screen during the New Years Eve Rockin' Eve extravaganza...was reduced to take mass transit to Times Square. This number is a true New Yorker! The Daily News has some quotes from its fellow straphangers and handlers:"It's not every day you ride with an 8," said the 30-year-old from Rego Park, Queens. "It's going to be......

Break out the dry erase board - the Sun looks at Bloomberg's Electoral Calculus by seeing how Mayor Bloomberg could potentially make a play for the White House next year. The Sun created a map (for space purposes, we put Bloomberg's head in the states he doesn't have a chance to win) and explains, "Under the right circumstances, Mayor Bloomberg has the potential to win 312 of the country's 528 electoral votes, well more......

Last week, a CNN/WMUR poll with "likely Republican voters in New Hampshire" gave a snapshot of what they were thinking and Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign got the bad news that not only had his poll numbers slid from 24% to 16%, he was now in third place after former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (33%, up from 25%) and Arizona Senator John McCain (18%). Third after McCain! So, Giuliani hustled to New Hampshire to make......