On a recent weekend, we saw Jacques Torres loading boxes of delectable treats from a van into his new store Jacques Torres Chocolate store at 285 Amsterdam Avenue, near 73rd Street, leaving us impressed at his commitment as a small business owner. Today, the chocolatier and the store are mentioned in a NY Times article that examines the emergence of Amsterdam Avenue as an option for retailers, who have traditionally been attracted to Broadway and......

Early this morning Hayden Panettiere and other Hollywood elite looked ready to hit the town for a night out even though it was 5:30am. They were announcing this year's Golden Globe nominees, often a good sign for who will be nominated for that other gold statue. All in all New York-based shows and movies fared well as the envelopes were opened sheets of paper were read from. 30 Rock (Best Television Series, Comedy or Musical......

Saturday night viewers of NBC didn't get a new episode of Saturday Night Live, but 150 audience members at the UCB Theater did! Live and un-aired, the show was to help raise money for crew members affected by the strike. Amy Poehler, who organized the event, made this statement:"The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is a second home to a lot of these performers and writers. We are doing this to raise spirits, raise awareness, and......

While the maple syrup smell remains a two-year-old mystery to us, 30 Rock entered the fray with a hypothesis. On last night's episode, Liz Lemon, who smells waffles from her Upper West Side apartment, calls Tracy Jordan to remind him to practice his Re-Run dance for the What's Happening! sketch. But Tracy, in his NJ home, says that the smell of waffles is distracting him. Then Liz gets another call - it's Jack Donaghy,......

The Mermaid Inn, that inviting East Village bistro beloved for its rich seafood entrees, has moved on up to the west side with a mostly new menu. Their second Manhattan outpost is appointed with old nautical maps, dark wainscoting and roll-up doors that will surely suck in the crowds during warmer months. (Alec Baldwin must be pleased about the eatery boosting Amsterdam Avenue’s cachet.) The Inn’s famous lobster sandwich survived the move, but there’s now......

While 30 Rock writers are on the picket line, Alec Baldwin is worried about his neighborhood.. And listening to the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. This morning, during a segment where Brian was discussing the future of NYC's streetscape with Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and the Open Planning Project's Mark Gorton, the acclaimed actor and gossip target made his debut as a caller. After joking that he needed a job, here's a transcription......

Did you know New York is #4 of America's Best Vegetarian-Friendly Large Cities? It's no surprise there are so many famous and not-so-famous veggies living here. Focusing on the former, PETA is holding another poll asking who the Sexiest Vegetarian worldwide is. This is their sixth annual sexy veggie contest, and has a list of 233 celebs competing for the title, including our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man Tobey McGuire. While the poll only includes Hollywood herbivores,......

Once (directed by John Carney) Have you ever had a certain beloved record so often on repeat that you start to think of it as the soundtrack to your life? That magical connection between music, emotion and experience is at the heart of the new musical Once and it makes for a truly unique movie. A vacuum cleaner repairman by day and a Dublin street busker by night, "The Guy" (Glen Hansard) is obviously nursing......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an overturned auto on Father Capodonno Blvd. and Doty Ave. on Staten Island, a shooting on Manhattan's Sherman Ave. and a barricaded perp on Manhattan's East 23rd St. The upstate shootout that ended with two state Troopers dead and a house burned with the suspect inside? One Trooper shot the other, who was then killed from gunshot wounds to the face and chest. The legal system is not synonymous......

In the masses of offerings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, there's quite a few strong New York-centric selections both in and out of competition to seek out. Granted at $25-$14 per, tickets for the festival don't come cheap, so if you're going to see something at the fest make it a local joint. Our favorite film so far at the festival has been West 32nd, a thriller directed by NYU alum Michael Kang (The......

After the hearing the crazy voicemail Alec Baldwin left for his daughter, it's nice to hear some refreshing news about him. In a taped segment for tomorrow's episode of 'The View', Baldwin says that he asked NBC to let him out of his contract for '30 Rock' so he could spend his time working on "parental alienation" and that if he "never acted again I couldn't care less." On the show, Baldwin plays a meddling......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Gefilte Fish Chronicles (Sunday, 7:00 p.m. WNET 13; 10:00 p.m., WLIW 21) A look at three sisters as they spend weeks getting a traditional Passover seder ready. New York Mets at St. Louis Cardinals (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., ESPN 2) The Amazings start their 2007 campaign this year against the team that shouldn't have even been in the World Series. A bit of warning - the game is......

Although the extremely gross clip of Glenn Beck propositioning an US Weekly writer on CNN was amazing, it's too awkward for us to enjoy. So our vote for the best line on TV yesterday is from 30 Rock. One of the plotlines was "Jack (Alec Baldwin) forces Tracy (Tracy Morgan) to attend The Source Awards." Oh, the sitcom wackiness! Naturally, Tracy refuses to go to the Source Awards, because of its history of controversy, and......

In Mini's First Time, a new film starring Nikki Reed, Alec Baldwin, Carrie-Anne Moss and Luke Wilson, a precocious high school girl with money to burn and a deep resentment towards her absent mother, lives to have new firsts. Whether it's the first time she acts as a call girl and seduces her stepdad or the first time she orders a menagerie of circus animals on Mom's credit card, Mini lives for the new. It's......

Last summer, audiences fell hard for Owen Wilson's aging frat boy with a heart of gold routine in The Wedding Crashers. This weekend, he brings his lunkhead prat falls to the comedy You, Me and Dupree with co-stars Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson and Michael Douglas. From the previews it looks like most of the humor is scatological in nature but do you really need anything more complex in an A/C-tastic cineplex? Another movie up that......

Even though the network media upfronts don't mean anything - except to advertisers - because schedules can be shuffled and shows killed between now and fall, Gothamist is still excited, because it's about hope (Tina Fey's new show to be good, Veronica Mars to be picked up) and new seasons of shows we love (The Office, My Name is Earl...and, heck, we can't help but watch Grey's Anatomy). Anyway, there are a lot of NYC-set......

Yesterday Lindsay Lohan was the latest celeb to be added to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. This place creeps us out a little bit, but look at that resemblance - the photo to the right is of her wax statue. Is that a Balenciaga bag? Anyway, little fuss was made about this, as we can't seem to find anything in the local papers. Lohan herself didn't even show up to the unveiling (as celebs often do).......

"I love this dirty town." Oh, Page Six. Gothamist can't imagine why, but it seems like some people really just plain don't like Rupe Murdoch's gossip hounds. We mean, Nobody was surprised yesterday when the Daily News broke the Page Six payola scandal all over its front page. But crazy, either it was an incredibly slow news day yesterday, or the Times gave a very generous gift to Six Editor Richard Johnson on his......

On March 20th this year, the 3rd Anniversary of the US Invasion of Iraq, a group of artists will come together for the Bring 'em Home concert. Michael Stipe, Bright Eyes, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, Rufus Wainwright, Steve Earle, Fischerspooner, Peaches and Devendra Banhart will join forces for the event which will benefit the Iraq War Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace. An event like this will of course include everyone's favorite......

Somebody got a case of the Mondays? Yeah, we just said that. Luckily there is plenty going on tonight to provide a happy transition in to Tuesday... •Brian DeGraw (of the band Gang Gang Dance) is one of the many deejays who will set the atmosphere at the Bicycle Film Festival Winter Party tonight. Luckily, since it's 60 degrees out, you can bike over and make use of the bike valet! There are no screenings......

01:18 - Okay, Gothamist is going to sleep. We need to be fresh when we wake up in a few hours to review the tense yet Waiting-for-G-Train like pre-deadline hours and confusing (and boring) post-deadline hour. Thanks for commenting and keeping us company - see you in the morning! 01:06 - Hmm, FOX 5 has a scroll saying that trains and buses will run tomorrow, even without a contract. But that's FOX 5. And is......

Once upon a time in 1999, a book of short stories titled, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, came out and captured the hearts of female readers, many of them single, New York women looking for love and career fulfillment (much like the main character in most of the stories, Jane), as the Bridget Jones/Sex and the City zeitgeist started to take hold. And Gothamist thought, "This should be a movie!" And a year......

A great all-star cast is participating in benefit readings this weekend of 110 Stories, a play by New York playwright Sarah Tuft, which uses personal stories recorded in the aftermath of September 11th to reveal personal experiences and truth. Alec Baldwin, Edie Falco, James Gandolfini, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Hayden, Elias Koteas, Mary Stuart Masterson, Chazz Palminteri, Jay O. Sanders, Susan Sarandon, and John Turturro are among those scheduled to appear. The......

There are tons of cultural events going on this week as a response to the convention, such as this past weekend's Margaret Cho performances at the Apollo, the giant red megaphone at 60 Centre Street here all this week, or the Thalia Follies revue at Symphony Space every night of the convention. Check out what the Imagine Festival has planned for tonight, and we must tip our hats to tomorrow's panel discussion on The State......

Edith Bellinghausen, Queens For A Day...

Yay for surprises. The announcement of the 76th Academy Awards nominations were not the snoozefest we thought they would be, thanks to some shockers. Some thoughts on the categories: Best Actress Keisha Castle Hughes, youngest lead acting nominee ever, for Whale Rider; the film has been criticized for being heavy on cliche, but many films are (Lord of the Rings, for instance, though epic, is part of the adventure tradition) - it's the acting,......

Proving that Hotlanta only means hot in temperature, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a picture of the Britney and Madonna on its front page and the readers freaked out. Letters from readers, plus the managing editor's statement that it probably wasn't the best decisionto run it Page A1, are here [via Romenesko's Media News]. One reader's letter asks an interesting question: I am amazed at the lighthearted media coverage given the Madonna-Britney-Christina kiss. It makes me......