Granted this story could have ended badly, it's nice that a heartwarming tale was the final result. NPR reports on New Yorker Julio Diaz, a 31-year-old social worker, who often frequents his favorite Bronx diner on his commute home. When a teenage boy mugged him at knife point on the subway platform one of those nights, Diaz offered him his jacket and changed the course of things.As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told......

Photograph by Joe Holmes on Flickr Documenting the city in the snow apparently has its limits. Gowanus Lounge noticed this photograph of the Gowanus Canal, taken yesterday, by photoblogger Joe Holmes. Holmes wrote on his Flickr page it was "taken seconds before I was told that photography is prohibited on the 9th Street bridge because of 9-11 concerns." Oh, man, that should be a problem for the Toll Bros. marketing department. And what if......

Italian pianist Stefano Bollani has been known to play everything from Pet Sounds to Prokofiev. As a kid he could keep up with Scott Joplin recordings sped up from 33 to 45 rpms, and even today the 35-year-old, classically trained, composer is nothing less than rousing (Check out Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR.org). Twelve years ago Bollani was touring with Italian pop star Jovanotti when he caught the ear of famed trumpet player Enrico......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an explosion at Linden Blvd. and 220th St. in Queens, a homicide on Sedgewick Ave. in the Bronx, and a water main break on Prospect Place in Brooklyn Santa may have to bypass coalition troops stationed around the world today, but holiday presents will be appreciated even if they do arrive a few weeks into 2008. Newsday has a nice piece on gift-giving to troops and how to do......

Michael Dory is expanding the definition of graffiti, with his non-visual sonic street art (presented last month at Conflux). His inconspicuous concrete crickets (pictured) recently got some NPR and Boing Boing love, and his own site explains:Graffiti is one of the most powerful and most personal displays in the urban experience, and can be used to make statements, tag territory, spread messages — urban markup language in practice. However, the output is nearly always visual......

Ira Glass is the brains, heart and larynx behind the wildly popular program This American Life; each show employs a theatrical, multiple-act structure to carve strange slices of life out of a unique thematic pie. The show began almost 12 years ago as a Chicago public radio program but has since mutated into an Emmy-nominated TV series on Showtime – a leap that prompted Glass and his team to relocate to New York City, bringing......

Will there ever be a point when there are stories about the Greenpoint oil spill cleanup, instead of stories about how big and dangerous the spill is? Representatives Anthony Weiner and Nydia Velazquez released the results of the first EPA study (first study ever after, what, 29 years!) of the Greenpoint oil spill, and they are pretty ugly. Here some excerpts from the press release: The original estimated size of the spill of 17 million......

Grace Paley, New York's official state author from 1986-88, died at the age of 84 yesterday. She had been battling breast cancer for quite some time. The author, born in the Bronx on December 11th, 1922, still kept an apartment in Manhattan -- but was at her home in Vermont at the time of death. The NY Times recaps her life in literature:Ms. Paley’s output was modest, about four-dozen stories in three volumes: “The Little......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: multiple auto fires at 51st Ave. and 11th St. in Queens, a fatal double shooting on Watkins St. in Brooklyn, and a fatality under a train at 47th St. and Queens Blvd. on the 7 line in Queens. A 12-year-old boy was arrested for throwing two plastic bottles filled with an unknown chemical at two women with toddlers at a Queens playground. The four victims were taken to hospitals......

Brooke Gladstone is the managing editor and co-host of WNYC’s On the Media which is heard throughout the country on National Public Radio stations and as an internet podcast. She has won several awards, including two Peabody Awards, for her coverage at NPR, which she joined in 1987. She has been a foreign correspondent for NPR covering the reemergence of Russia out of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. She recently returned to Russia to......

Thirty years ago tonight, New York City lost electricity when a Con Ed substation was hit by lightning strikes and a "cascading effect" caused the system to shut down around 9PM. And NYC, as well as parts of Westchester County, were powerless for over a day in the sweltering heart of the summer. Subways were stuck, mobs set fires and stores were looted. It was also the summer that other dramas gripped the city......

David Rakoff is the author of the hilarious and best selling essay anthologies Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable, countless articles that have appeared in publications such as Vogue, GQ, and Salon, and has contributed to NPR's This American Life. Gothamist sat down with the writer to discuss his genesis and his moments of doubt. Why did you start writing and how did you pursue it? It all comes out of a bullying and narcissistic......

The prolific journalist and author David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash outside of San Francisco. Halberstam, a New Yorker, was traveling in a car that was broadsided while trying to make a left turn. Two other cars were involved in the crash, none of the drivers were seriously injured. The NY Times obituary notes that Halberstam "was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting," as he was on his......

Bourdain takes the food network to task yet again, this time for its Food Network Awards that aired last night. In his post on Ruhlman, he shows sympathy for the poor pimped out Food Network talent and the comments are well on their way to the century mark.We could hardly believe it when we read it over the weekend, but the FDA's “point man on E. coli” does not believe prewashed and bagged leafy greens......

Octopus Garden is a specialty seafood market located along the far reaches of Avenue U in Bensonhurst. Operated by Vincent and Pina Cutrone, the unassuming corner storefront long been known to chefs like Eric Ripert of Le Bernadin as the go-to place for fresh octopus and sepia. The nine year-old Brooklyn fish market specializes in, but is not limited to, all things cephalopod, a class that includes squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. The octopuses Cutrone......

The week of Arcade Fire shows at Judson Memorial Church is over, and mostly everyone who didn't have a ticket and showed up at the venue that night, got in. If you missed it, there's plenty of documentation on YouTube to entertain you until they come back in May. The above clip is of the band opening up the last night of the run in the audience (something they ended with on most other......

VINYL SALE: If you're looking for some rare vinyl, you might want to check out this monthly event: Shakey's Record Fair. A meatpacking district locale seems...a little off, but as FreeNYC points out, if you're "looking for that super rare old school funktified 7"...Shakey's Record Fair is probably the only place you'll find it." 8pm // APT [419 W 13th St] // Free THEATER: Rules of the Universe is a new site-specific play performed in......

Wallace Shawn has long enjoyed a fruitful career as a character actor in mainstream movies (Clueless, Princess Bride, Chicken Little). He also happens to be one of the world’s most significant dissident writers. His plays The Designated Mourner, Aunt Dan and Lemon and The Fever – to name just a few – have garnered much praise (and controversy) for their unflinching examinations of brutality. Shawn’s plays are political but not polemical; through his writing he......

- Momofuku Ssam Bar makes shakes up their menu -- the late-night selection is available earlier and Ssams later. - The Village Voice's Seistema visits the Smoke Joint and likes it "right out of the starting gate." [via Eating for Brooklyn] - The Black Pearl has been reborn in Chelsea -- long live lobster rolls! - Congrats to the winners of this year's food blog awards; a big shout out to Smitten Kitchen, Slashfood, and......

What's a polar bear to do when it is 72 in January? Well, if you're a member of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, you stage a silent protest. The Times reports eight members of the club cancelled their Saturday swim, because the water was too warm. Perhaps more interestingly, the News reports it was nine members of the club and the Post says ten! According to Polar Bear Club treasurer Tom McGann, yesterday was......

[photo of a Monet painting as drawn by John Singer Sargent in his letter to Monet / from NPR] Claude Monet's letters sold for $1.7 million yesterday at Artcurial, much more than the $600,000 expected. There were about a thousand in the collection. Some went to private collectors, while others went to the Musee d'Orsay, which recently also acquired Monet's Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars. Michel Cornebois, Monet's only living direct descendent, gave......

We really can't beat this roundup of food gift roundups, courtesy of The Food Section. They've culled together gift suggestions from the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, Food & Wine, Epicurious, Time Out New York, Cravings, and Chow. Whether you're looking for cookbooks or food-related reads, kitchen gadgets, edible gifts, or something a little boozy, you're bound to find it here. What's on your holiday gift list for the......

The food blogs were all in a buzz yesterday about the possibility of a foie gras ban, similar to the one recently enacted in Chicago, being instituted here in New York. It seems that Councilman Alan Gerson was poised to introduce a ban today; Ariane Daugin of D'Artagnan, a prominent purveyor of foie based in New York, sent an email to her food-related contacts urging action. Jennifer Leuzzi posted the email in its entirety......

Despite Fugazi's "indefinite hiatus", Ian MacKaye has been as busy as ever; in addition to recording a new album for his current group, The Evens, he’s been producing albums for other D.C. bands, touring, doing Q&As, managing the Dischord label and, as always, personally responding to all his mail. The Evens second album, called "Get Evens", is being released today. The duo features MacKaye on vocals and baritone guitar and Amy Farina on vocals and......

As the biggest city in the country, different New York City hospitals are claiming babies born in their respective maternity wards are the the 300 millionth American. The NY Post had a graphic of three babies - all coming in at 7:46AM yesterday. There's baby Emanuel Plata born in Elmhurst Hospital. Then there's baby Zoe Emile Hudson at New York Presbyterian Cornell. And teeny Joana Palaguachi, born in Flushing Hospital. Newsday also offers a......

Just as NPR charted the rise of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah through blogs, Rolling Stone has now done the same with them and other bands. Stereogum posted their chart (above) which not so accurately depicts how blogs destroy bands that they love. Apparently on June 15th, 2005 we said something nice about CYHSY - and in this chart that is (one of) their high points?! Not to metion Pitchfork is charted as their......

THEATER: The two most dreaded words in theater, "staged reading", get a shot at redemption with tonight's free reading of Stuff Happens. The show has cut and run from the Public Theater, so this is your last chance to catch David Hare's satire about the ramp-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In an interview with NPR, Hare described it as "a play about how a supposedly stupid man, George W. Bush, gets everything he wants..." Laugh......

With the fifth anniversary of September 11 drawing near, many related books are being released this and next week. One of the most intriguing is The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Both have a rich history in comics: USA Today explains, "Jacobson, 76, created Richie Rich and was executive editor of Marvel and Harvey Comics, and Colon, 75, drew Casper and Wonder Woman" - but the book is......

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

Name, age, occupation, where are you from and where do you live now. Jessica Lynn Johnson, Actress/Playwright, From St. Louis Missouri, lived in Astoria NY for a little over a year now. You're in "Oblivious To Everyone," a play at the upcoming Fringe Festival - can you tell us a little about the project? How did you come up with the idea? As a teenager, I was definitely a self-proclaimed smut-a-holic, tuning in to every......