New Yorkers like to go out. A lot. A website aptly called Outalot allows fast and easy browsing of three nightlife basics: restaurants, bars, and movies (Gridskipper calls it "menupages-meets-yelp"). The Google Map based-site lists restaurants by cuisine, bars by type, and provides local cinemas' showtimes. You can bookmark your favorites (and check out your friends') and green thumbs up/down symbols quickly signify how others' feel about an establishment. Though many New Yorkers pride themselves......

MOVIE: Every national election year reminds us of that part in The Dark Crystal where the hideous Skeksis systematically drain the Gelfling’s “essence” and drink it to increase their power. If you don’t know the scene we’re talking about, you need to go see it on the big screen tonight – a regular-sized TV monitor just doesn’t do Jim Henson’s creepy masterpiece justice. The one-night-only screening will be introduced by one of the film’s puppet......

Williamsburg missed a crucial stage of gentrification; the phase where gay people were supposed to pioneer a neighborhood before the young hipsters could supplant them. The social hop-scotching has left gay people out in the cold in Billyburg, unwelcome in what should be a pioneer ghetto. The nightlife reflects the less-than-edgy environment that marginalized NYers try to seek out.“There’s like one go-go boy, what is that?” grumbled Matthew Kane, a scruffy 22-year-old photo agent. Still,......

Panic gripped a sizable number of New York night crawlers last fall when both the holiday-timed Motherf*cker freakfest and popular posture party Misshapes were derailed within months of each other. Today the Times checks in on distraught survivors like one Melissa Maino, partygoer: “It’s been rough. Going [to Motherf*cker] was what I depended on for New Year’s Eve. [Its end] was definitely heartbreaking.” But what’s so inspiring is the courage summoned by other partiers who......

Some time ago the New Yorker ran an amusing “Talk of the Town” feature on nightlife crusader Roy Den Hollander, who, unlike most nightclub scolds, isn’t fighting against excessive noise and loose morals – he’s out to put a stop to the scourge that is Ladies’ Night. And not because he disdains the ladies or the night, but because Den Hollander, attorney at law and self-styled pick-up artist, sees it as yet another way The......

Zagat's updated Best of Brooklyn 2008 guide was released yesterday, filled to the brim with all that the city's largest borough has to offer, including 216 restaurants, 141 nightspots, 355 shops, 25 tourist attractions and more. Like all Zagat guides, this one is a complilation of surveys from the public and each entry is rated on a scale of 1-30. The guide is broken up into five sections: Dining, Nightlife, Shopping, Gourmet Shopping & Entertaining,......

Until last weekend I had just a vague sense of what life in mid-19th century New York was like for the masses – filthy, brutal, corrupt, vulgar, smelly and desperate for dentistry. Now, thanks to a spellbinding 50-minute theatrical tour led by the Axis Company, I’ve got a vivid picture of what passed for living on the city’s streets in those days. The play is called A Glance at New York, and though you’ve probably......

See, one thing about this show is that, while it makes the city an important character, the actual locations can't always appreciate the personalized credit that comes with the screentime. When you've got 14 year olds carousing about the New York nightlife scene without too much conflict or legal controversy, a club wouldn't be so brash as to openly advertise such laissez-faire door policies, right? Nobody wants to glorify such illegal behavior at their establishment,......

Forbes has released the results of their 7th annual Best Cities for Singles poll, and unlike last year...NYC is in the top 3, ranking #2 overall. An unprecedented rating for us! According to their results, out of 14,104,498 -- 33% of us are unmarried. Add that to the fact that we're (apparently) the 32nd drunkest city...and voilà! We're a top city for attracting the single class. This island is not unlike Neverland, so it's not......

The Observer people watches the people watchers this week with a piece on The Bench. Almost too ridiculous to report on, the Lower East Side American Apparel happens to have a hot spot outside of its windows which has become the "epicenter of perhaps the hottest 'anti-scene' scene on Saturday nights." Exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to be forged outside of an American Apparel, it even has founders - including DJ Big Black......

EVENT: GRBG is helping in the celebration of the “Gangs of New York” Fall ’07 collection. Enjoy a photo exhibit of the fall look book shot in Coney Island, a screening of The Warriors and free Rum! 6 to 9pm // powerHouse Arena [37 Main St, Brooklyn] // Free READING: His book on the nightlife scene hit the stores yesterday, and today Rob the Bouncer will be joining them. He's not even quite sure what......

Will Manhattan's clubs be moving to the 10013? With the group that opened Cain on 27th Street having opened Gold Bar at 389 Broome Street in February; and uber-promoter Danny A having opened the VIP-only Upstairs on Spring Street and Broadway, The Observer is reporting on a move of "clubland" to Chinatown. Following the flock is former model Emma Cleary who purchased Double Happiness at 173 Mott Street. The lounge will open as a "hip......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at West 31st St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan (the 1 line), a triple shooting on Elder Ave. in the Bronx, and an unconscious baby on Hylan Blvd. on Staten Island. The used anti-tank weapon that a NJ woman found on her front lawn was traced to a Marine, who had thrown the missile tube in the trash. A white-painted "ghost bike" memorial for......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a motorcycle jacking at 230th Place and 148th Ave. in Queens, shots fired at police at Gates and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and multiple pedestrians struck at Coney Island and Ditmas Aves. in Brooklyn. State and city politicians broke ground in the Bronx yesterday on a new Metro-North station stop at the under-construction Yankee Stadium. It's hoped that the transit option will cut down on auto traffic from upstate......

The Copacabana, perhaps best known as the muse for Barry Manilow's song of the same name, is closing this weekend (the papers are reporting last night, however their website has a flyer for a Last Dance, tonight). The club has been around since WWII, and was at one point a staple stop in New York's nightlife circuit. Having already had to move three times, finding a new home isn't something new for owner (since 1976)......

A new noise code will go into effect tonight/tomorrow morning when the clock strikes midnight, and that clock better have muffled bells. It's the first comprehensive overhaul of noise ordinances in about 30 years and was proposed by Mayor Bloomberg three and a half years ago. It's mostly oriented towards bars and clubs, where a growing nightlife presence in neighborhoods like the Lower East Side has left many residents sleepless. The New York Times notes......

Times Square has always offered a nice dose of "weird," whether it be in the pre-Giuliani days or its now more Disney-fied incarnation. Now some more strange will be saturating the area, in the form a famous Odditorium. Yes, tourists will be able to see things like locks of Abe Lincoln's hair after having a nice meal at the Olive Garden. Ripley's Believe It Or Not! is back, for a third time, in Times Square.......

Racked brings us the sad news of the demise of Gertel's Bakery, a Lower East Side institution. It will close up shop on Friday, after more than 90 years of challah, rugelach, and other baked goodness. And in other closing news, even bringing in Wayne Nish couldn't help Varietal. Restaurant Girl has the details. Gridskipper rounds up (pun very much intended) some of the city's best bagel shops. Why does H&H count twice and......

The New York Times has an interesting story today on Sion Misrahi and the Lower East Side he helped transform. If you've walked down Rivington St. a few times, you've probably noticed the Misrahi Realty storefront business. Its owner is Sion Misrahi, who sold pants for his father in the neighborhood when he was fourteen. When it began to gentrify, he worked to classify the old bargain-shopping district as a landmark area. Then he decided......

You can almost smell the tequila and limes -- Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow. We've pulled together some of our favorite roundups for your fiesta-ing pleasure:New York Magazine hightlights Mexican restaurants with special menus and/or drink specials for the occasion, including Mercadito (their Margarita de Tres Citricos is pictured at right). Andrea Strong gives us a few more, including Crema, who'll be having a happy hour from 4-5:30 p.m. with 2-for-1 Margarita Imperials at the......

AMNY continues the ongoing story about clubs and venues in New York closing. They report on the irony of it all: "Images of edgy nightclub Sin-é are flashed on oversized plasma screens in the sales office of a new condominium development. Buyers, lured by the mystique of the Lower East Side's arts and music scene, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to live at the center of it. A few years later that same edgy......

After City Council recently passed a bill to regulate pedicabs, Mayor Bloomberg decided to wait a bit longer before signing it (however, he did sign three bills about nightlife safety). Angry pedicab owners seemed to influence the mayor, pleading that the bill would contradict the 2030 sustainable city initiative. Bloomberg has until March 30th to decide whether to sign, veto or leave it alone. If left alone, the bill would automatically become law. Mayor Bloomberg......

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists. We start with SFist which broke the -ist record for comments with nearly 500 comments on a post about our Mayor's girlfriend. She responded back on charges that she's not a "girl's girl" and, whoo boy-- the floodgates? They......

March 10th marked the last day The Roxy would open its doors. The club shut down after years of being a mainstay, especially in the gay nightlife scene. The Roxy was a rite of passage for many gay New Yorkers, and according to New York Blade writer Matt Kalkhoff, "an essential stop on any gay tourist’s agenda.” This past Saturday night the doors opened at 10pm, and the club ended up staying opened until......

Frank Miller devotees have been salivating all over their computers in anticipation for the new adaptation of his Greek battle comic book 300, which comes out this weekend. Like the version of Miller's Sin City from '05, 300 makes nice with the stylized visuals giving us the most lush, chiseled, half-naked warriors and warrior wives ever depicted on screen. In particular the actors playing the Spartan queen and king, Lena Headey and Gerard Butler look......

NY Mag's Best of New York is out. Want to know what's good in your hood? Here's a handy little chart that will direct you to just that. Here's a glance at some of the more fun categories: Best impromptu dance party: No Malice Palace, 197 East 3rd Street (take that cabaret laws!). Best zoo animal: Sasha the Siberian tiger, Bronx Zoo. Cheap men's haircut: Frank's Chop Shop, 19 Essex Street. (Wu-Tang Clan and actor......

It was a good time to be a bill at City Hall this week as Council Members introduced stacks of legislation concerned with how we eat, speak, and party(bike) in the city. Council Member Rivera introduced his version of the calorie display law passed by the Board of Health that required restaurants to display nutritional information on menus. Rivera’s proposal would require restaurants to list the nutritional content on posters or brochures, not menus. The......

Tomorrow at 3PM, Transportation Alternatives will be holding an emergency rally to demand that Mayor Bloomberg improve the streets for pedestrians. From TA:The Problem: In 2006, over 10,000 pedestrians were hit by cars and trucks in New York City. One hundred sixty-six were killed. The City's pedestrian safety efforts are inadequate. Where is Mayor Bloomberg? He has spoken out about transfats, gun violence and smoking. If killing a pedestrian with a car was considered......

The City Council's Public Safety Committee is discussing a number of new proposals to crack down on nightlife problems. The NY Sun reports that one of them would allow the city to shut down businesses like shops and bar "if more than one person is killed within a year." Another would allow the city to shut down fake ID businesses - including their legal fronts. Assistant Police Commissioner Robert Messner says that public nuisance laws......

Four strippers at Scores West in Chelsea were arrested for offering to have sex with undercover cops. Hello, nightlife and cabaret beat! From the Post: The cops spent several hours inside the temple of titillation at 528 W. 28th St. looking for violations, sources said. They were told that if they rented a back room, they could receive sexual favors for $200 to $700, the sources said. One of the girls assured the cops, "What......