"M" by Megu: Expensive Tribeca Japanese restaurant Megu has redone its upstairs space (formerly Kimono Bar) into a swank nightclub (pictured) with a "small bites" menu. The dance floor has been expanded, fancy cocktails like “Death in the Afternoon” (Absinthe, Champagne, Rock Sugar) have been concocted, and the waitress have been attired in swimsuits custom designed by Keiko, who we're told is kind of a big deal. Menu options include Kobe Beef Sliders, Crispy Cod......

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, pictured here at last week's Atlantic Antic, is still drawing fire over the way he runs several non-profit groups that put on free Brooklyn events and promote tourism. Last month city comptroller Bill Thompson said he was "very concerned" about $680,496 in taxpayer-financed no-bid contracts Markowitz awarded to the non-profits, and the Brooklyn Paper saw a conflict in the estimated $260,000 that Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner donated to......

The Times went around fretfully asking experts and 'men on the street' whether the economic downturn is going to lead to higher crime. The consensus? Well, it couldn't hurt to get renter's insurance, and hide those iPod earbuds as you stroll home through your increasingly blighted neighborhood. While this isn't an exact science, the article does draw some persuasive parallels between today's meltdown and the crime explosion that followed the 1987 Wall Street crash, as......

Meet Richard Ivory: New Yorker, blogger, black man, and John McCain supporter. He also works as a counselor to mentally ill patients, but he himself is not mentally ill—he just doesn't want another tax-and-spend Democrat to undo the proud achievements of George Bush, even if said Democrat would, you know, be America's first black president. Today the Times takes a look at what it's like to be a black Republican for John McCain living in......

The NYCLU has fired off a sternly worded letter to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly demanding that police stop arresting children in public schools under the age of 16. The state's Family Court Act prohibits police from arresting kids younger than 16 without a warrant unless they've committed a crime. But according to NYPD data obtained in a Freedom of Information Law request, 309 kids under age 16 were arrested between 2005 and 2007 for offenses......

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and guest, essayist Sarah Vowell, wondered about the GOP's relationship with NYC. (Jezebel calls it's a frenemy relationship), since the Big Apple is both the center of the East Coast liberal elite/media elite/elitist media and where 2,751 people died on September 11, 2001. Around 5 minutes 10 seconds, Stewart and Vowell start talking about Sarah Palin's visit to New York City, specifically going to Ground Zero (she......

The eyes of the Competitive Eating world (all two dozen of them) will be fixed on Times Square this Sunday for the first-ever World Pizza Eating Championship, set to kick off sometime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Military Island. Trumpet flourish! Competitors will include Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, the 2008 Hot Dog Eating Champion; Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti, "a mohawked chef from Chicago" (according to the press release; Tim "Eater X" Janus, the 4th-ranked......

After the end of the Clinton era, the National Debt Clock in midtown was temporarily turned off because the number had actually started to go down for the first time since it was installed in 1989 by real estate developer Seymour Durst. Now, after eight years of The Decider, the number's gotten so vast and incomprehensible and depressing that the sign isn't big enough for all those digits. It's passed $10 trillion, and the Durst......

Is New York the intellectual and cultural hub of the planet, or is it just where you come when you want to be called a bitch and have a cat thrown in your face? Last night, How I Met Your Mother explored the positives and negatives of NYC and NJ. No contest, right? Except that Marshall, a New Yorker in the show, steps in and speaks up for New Jersey. Traitor! Amongst his top reasons......

Today, the NY Times reports that billionaire Ronald Lauder opposes Mayor Bloomberg's and the City Council's plan for legislation to permanently extend term limits from two four-year terms to three four-year terms. But the NY Post reports\ that Lauder, who help fund the initiatives to introduce term limits in the first place, made a deal with Bloomberg where Lauder would "support legislation...in exchange for a guaranteed seat on a Charter-revision commission." Lauder told the Times,......

Corton: One of the most anticipated openings of the season, this modern French restaurant, formerly Montrachet, is the love child of big shot restaurateur Drew Nieporent (Nobu) and chef Paul Liebrandt, who dreams of owning a cryogenic freezer "for freezing the cooks when they misbehave." Located in Tribeca, the 65-seat space serves a three-course prix fixe for $76 and a tasting menu for $110. What financial crisis? Appealing options for the not-broke-yet include Ocean Trout......

Looks like some of the local NYC graffiti artists have begun to object to Banksy's massive billboard project. When we walked by this morning, the piece on Howard and Broadway had been hit with this big "damn rats!!!" piece. Can the fire-extinguisher tags be far behind?......

Internationally acclaimed British artists Gilbert & George are getting their first American retrospective in more than two decades with an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum that opens tomorrow. On view are more than ninety pictures produced since 1970, including more than a dozen that will be seen only in the Brooklyn. The exhibit will be on view through January 11th and is the final stop an acclaimed international tour organized by the Tate Modern. Since......

An unidentified female NYPD officer with HIV, named Jane Doe in court papers, is suing the city for denying her the tax-free "line-of-duty" disability benefits awarded to other male cops with HIV. Court papers obtained by the Daily News reveal that four male officers have been granted the full, tax-free benefits after contracting HIV in the line of duty: One who reached into a perp's underwear to retrieve drugs, another who was bitten on the......

Adrian Benepe may be the Parks Commissioner 364 days out of the year, but yesterday in Central Park he was The Falconer. That's him in the above photo holding a young female American kestrel, which was (illegally) taken in as a pet in Brooklyn before she was discovered by wildlife rehabilitators a few weeks ago. Moments after this photo was taken, Benepe fought off the urge to crush the raptor between his gloved hands, releasing it into the wild instead....

On Monday Mayor Bloomberg announced a lawsuit against the Poospatuck Indian reservation on Long Island, in an attempt to stop the untaxed sale of 11.3 million cartons of cigarettes on the reservation per year. Today the Times has a great, long article about how the smokes travel from the wholesaler through the reservation and to the streets of New York, where "$5 Men" like "Paco" stand on corners and whisper, "Newports. Loosies. Shorts. Longs." Reporters......

There are just a couple more days left to take advantage of New York's first Korean Restaurant Week, with participating restaurants offering a $15 prix fixe for lunch and dinner through Saturday. All the deals revolve around bibimbap, that classic bowl of rice and assorted meats or vegetables, sometimes served hot in a "dolsut" (stone pot)—a perfect, hearty meal for the cooling fall weather. Each restaurant has bibimbap as the main course in the prix......

After spending years of his life and over four million of his dollars to impose term limits on NYC politicians, cosmetics heir Ron Lauder has had a sudden change of heart, giving a major boost to Bloomberg's plans to run for a third term as mayor. As late as last Friday, Lauder's organization, New Yorkers for Term Limits, was fighting any change to the city's term limit laws. Now Lauder says the financial crisis convinced......

Design by Grimshaw Billings Jackson with Systra/HNTB, photo courtesy MTA/Rob Wilson.. It's prototypelooza today! First ten possible prototype back racks of the future were revealed, and now the MTA has upstaged the DOT with their own street furniture prototype, installed in front of 151 West Broadway between Worth and Thomas Streets. The second of three multi-purpose prototypes, it's designed to prevent subway flooding while ventilating the subway system AND providing benches to sit on AND......

To complement the NY Times' story about the sad state of NYC real estate, the NY Post offers the sobering news that home prices are dropping all across the country as well as here in NYC. While the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller July survey does not include "does not include co-ops or condos, which make up the bulk of high-end real-estate sales in Manhattan," it does include single-family homes. Some examples included in this graphic are......

This week the Times's Frank Bruni has a mouth-watering rave for Southern Italian restaurant Convivo (pictured), chef Michael White's revision of the stuffy L'Impero in Tudor City. He declares that Convivio has emerged from the transition "as a pasta lover’s dreamland...soulful and unpretentious...Mr. White can do it all...and is doing even better work with pasta at Convivio than he has done at Alto." Skip the seafood, though: "Roll-ups of fried swordfish with a yogurt sauce......

It's happening: Mayor Michael Bloomberg will reportedly announce that he will seek a third term on Thursday. The NY Times writes, "The extraordinary move promises to upend New York City’s political world.." Three people tell the Times that the billionaire mayor will "propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009." And he will use the financial......

A judge has thrown out an insurance broker's lawsuit against AMC Lincoln Square Cinema over a fractured tooth he incurred from an unpopped kernel in a tub of popcorn. 46-year-old Steve Kaplan broke the tooth last year during a screening of Superbad, and wanted the theater to cover the cost of his $1,250 in dental work. Judge Matthew Cooper tossed out the claim yesterday, having some fun in the process: "Until such time as the......

There was a time when one might have been surprised to find an article about, say, Girl Talk nestled within the fussy pages of The New Yorker. But for years now Sasha Frere-Jones, the magazine's pop music critic, has been broadening the magazine's appeal with his perceptive and funny observations on everything from Radiohead to Coldplay. (Ha.) (See also: Miscegenation.) Jones is also that rare breed of critic who actually creates in his field......

Note to self: When heading off into the woods with a group of rifle-toting friends from childhood, leave stuff like politics and infidelity off the list of discussion topics. In Craig Wright's modest one-act Lady, the voluble and disgruntled Dyson (Paul Sparks) just can't keep the conversation light. A passionate liberal college teacher in small-town Illinois, Dyson blames his old friend Graham (David Wilson Barnes), a congressman, for inspiring his 18-year-old son to join the marines. Kenny (Michael Shannon), the third amigo, is the ineffectual stoner peacemaker caught in the crossfire with his dog, the titular Lady....

Philippe Express: Don’t let the name throw you; the cuisine here is Chinese, not French, and Seth Rogen has no connection with the place. Chef Philippe Chow is all about Chicken Satays, Crispy Beef, and Salt and Pepper Prawns, which has worked well for him uptown on 60th Street. This downtown satellite, opening tonight, features red banquets and automated touch-screen ordering. And in a “Big Brother’s Watching You Eat” twist, the touch screens will remember......

After years of massive expansion, real estate brokers are bracing themselves for a reversal of bank oversaturation. There are as many retail bank branches in Manhattan as there are Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts combined. Now Washington Mutual has postponed opening new branches (understandably), and other banks are consolidating their branches. One broker predicts that "we might have empty corners without a lot of takers out there chasing the space." But Mitchell Moss, NYU professor of......

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......

Here, pour yourself a morning cup o' contempt, courtesy Frank Bruni's review of Delicatessen (pictured), the overpriced, overcrowded Soho comfort food lounge where tools and over-privileged scenesters flock to judge each other. (You know, the place that's driving neighbors to urinate on it.) After conceding that "this seriously mediocre but ingeniously conceived restaurant" isn't catering to epicures, but rather "night crawlers looking for foodstuffs that double as alcohol sponges," Bruni decides that "many of these......

Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is ready to make her Big Apple debut at the Republican vice presidential candidate. She arrived last night and is reportedly staying at a Times Square hotel (The Caucus said husband Todd and youngest child Trig are also here). Which means the lady on the cover of today's Daily News is a Palin imitator. The News had a comedian dress as Palin and walk around the city with two beefcake-y bodyguards......