Interesting: Amazon is offering same-day delivery for certain items—and for an additional fee (Amazon Prime members would pay $6; non-Prime members would pay $15)—in NYC and six other cities. The Bits blog reminds us of the olden days of Kozmo.com and Urbanfetch: "Of course, those earlier players did not have sustainable business models: Urbanfetch and Kozmo were saddled with huge delivery costs (paying a fleet of bike messengers) that they tried to offset with higher-margin products (DVD players and video-game consoles), but it didn’t work—most people just ordered a pint of Cherry Garcia and a pack of Marlboros." more ›

Last May, Amazon.com sued NY State over Governor Paterson's new law requiring out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax from consumers in New York State. NY requires residents to pay tax on out-of-state purchases for which sales tax wasn’t collected, but the argument is over who should collect it—and the new law would make Amazon responsible. Yesterday, State Supreme Court Judge Ellen Bransten dismissed Amazon's lawsuit, as well as one from Overstock.com, finding, "The neutral statute simply obligates out-of-state sellers to shoulder their fair share of the tax collection burden when using New Yorkers to earn profit from other New Yorkers." This could be headed to the Court of Appeals, should the online retailers wish to pursue it. And Paterson offered other tax ideas last month. more ›

The Independent Budget Office has done a study on that controversial topic--taxing Internet retailers for goods bought in NY State. The IBO suggests the city could earn tens of millions with an Internet sales tax, estimating that $29 million was "lost" between July 2006 and June 2007 on goods brought online. Further, the $2.2 billion of goods bought online last year is taxable, and the city could have made $82 million and the state $91 million. The study say, "In recent years the sales tax has comprised a declining share of total city tax revenues. Rising levels of untaxed Internet sales is likely one of the reasons for this decline." You can read the report here (PDF). And while Governor Paterson is pro-Internet sales tax, Amazon is currently suing NY State. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing child on Union St. in Brooklyn, a shooting on Wyatt St. in the Bronx, and a fatal car fire on the Long Island Expressway near College Point in Queens.
• Colombian immigrants celebrate their roots with rolling parties aboard buses known as chivas.
• Is the person doing Amazon.com product reviews for ski masks under the screen name "Ninja Thief" Staten Island's very own Ninja Burglar?
• New York Times critic Kelefa Sanneh is rumored to be heading to The New Yorker.
• A horse marching in the Queens St. Patrick's Day pararade yesterday bolted free from its handler and galloped into a crowd of spectators. Four people were injured.
• A woman with the unwieldy street name "Brooklyn's Reclusive Cat Woman Bank Robber" was arrested after returning most of the money she stole several years ago and attempting to apologize to the the bank.
• For the first time in its 31-year history, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament was held in Brooklyn. First prize is $5,000 and a dictionary.
• Police arrested a man in the fatal stabbing of a Brooklyn woman that occurred Saturday night.

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

Governor Eliot Spitzer had a busy week. Not only was he working himself up to admit his driver's license plan would not pass, Spitzer suggested instituting the state's 8.375% sales tax on Internet goods - just in time for holiday shopping! But only hours after the NY Sun reported on the plan, Spitzer changed his mind, deciding to wait until the new year to implement taxes on Internet purchases. Currently, online retailers who don't have... more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Art in the Twenty-First Century (Sunday, 10:00 p.m., WNET 13) Four artists - Robert Adams, Mark Dion , Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle Ursula von Rydingsvard – who explore the intersection between nature and culture. Billy Crystal: The Mark Twain Prize (Monday & Thursday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13; Saturday, 7:30 p.m. WLIW 21) Billy Crystal receives the tenth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in... more ›

, dating back to the mid 90s, are selling on Amazon.com for $750. Although Fusselman thinks it'll be a while until anyone ponies up that much cash, she has thought about what she'd do if the seller manages to pull off the sale, "What it might mean is that I'll go back to Kinkos instead of working with a publisher." For $750, wouldn't you? more ›

Feed Your Mind is a new column that will focus on food-related books. more ›

3. To iron a light image onto a colored shirt, make sure you get the Dark T-shirt transfers. more ›

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddy for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bids Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. more ›

">know how to shop effectively. Despite having 1.1 million students to purchase books for, the Daily News is reporting that the DoE is paying on average roughly $1.76 more per book than a shopper "who choose the lowest-priced book on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble's Web site." more ›

Recently Time Magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Now as these lists seem to come out about once a month and mean about as much as the prize in a box of cracker jacks we've learned to generally completely ignore them. In fact, we probably wouldn't have even registered this latest list if it weren't for this genius post on The Morning News. more ›

Now, Gothamist has not read Chris Elliott's new book, The Shroud of the Thwacker, yet, but it sounds so much like one of our favorites - The Alienist by Caleb Carr, which was about an investigation of a grisly serial killer in turn of the century Manhattan. Here's a description of the Thwacker:

The book debut from the Get a Life and Cabin Boy star is billed as a parody, but this murder mystery wrapped in laughter is simply straight-up enjoyable. Jack the Jolly Thwacker is leaving dead bodies all over 1882 New York City. Chris Elliott, a modern-day researcher, is tracking the serial killer through time. Elliott's wry humor fastens on the burgeoning, Boss Tweedified city, giving it a hilarious and vividly imagined set of anachronistic technologies and accoutrements (New York's Mayor Teddy Roosevelt, who has mysteriously disappeared, has a navel piercing). The narrative leaps back and forth in time, as 1882 police chief Caleb Spencer chases the Thwacker through the streets, and Elliott, convinced the killer is from the 21st century, chases him through time. Elliott's ability to time travel is facilitated by Yoko Ono (don't ask) and a willing suspension of disbelief, but the results are very amusing (if often infantile in the style of There's Something About Mary), with asides on every page that bring in everyone and everything from Typhoid Mary to Skyy Vodka. If Shroud feels like an extended, Americanized Monty Python skit, it's also a rousing good yarn.

Yesterday, the NY Times had an obituary for the photographer Ted Croner, who died at age 82. He was part of the New York School of photographers and this line from the obit sums up his technique: "...[his] rigorously blurry photographs of New York at night in the 1940's epitomized the film noir energy of a city that never sleeps." Croner took his photography class at The New School in 1947 and later worked for magazines and retail outlets. According to his gallery, the Howard Greenberg Gallery, Croner said "photographer was lucky if he produced just 10 great images." more ›

Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, YC Media, authors, The Girl's Guide To Starting Your Own Business more ›

Now, if only Amazon will develop some sort of ESP-technology that lets us search from vertical positions, they would own our souls. more ›

The NY Times has a profile of Kerik, and his story is definitely the stuff of a movie (his mother abandoned his family when he was 2, and he later found out that she was a prostitute, perhaps killed by her pimp). Which is probably why, when Kerik published a book, The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, Oprah Winfrey featured him on her show. Kerik looks like he's had a lucrative career on the speech circuit; according to the Washington Speakers Bureau, Kerik was making $25,000-40,000 per speech, with topics like "My Time in Iraq," "Crisis Management," and an overview of the WTC attack. more ›

Fashion week is in full swing in New York, celebrating the irritatingly recurring time of year that all of the self-congratulatory super-socialites take the opportunity to stop patting themselves on the back and pat each other for awhile.  Last night, Betsy Johnson took the opportunity to share the limelight with the Great-Uncle of Glam, John Cale, the founding member of the Velvet Underground, to celebrate the release of his new record, "HoboSapiens." more ›

There's a fine site dedicated to the Czech-born Sasek (he worked in Munich but traveled around the world) This is M. Sasek, that's loaded with information. That's where we learned about this "This Is..." books about other cities, like Paris, London, Hong Kong and Venice - plus the other American cities, San Francisco and D.C.. Only This Is New York and This Is San Francisco have been reprinted, but many are at libraries. more ›

If you're a fan of artists like Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams or Tom Waits, Gothamist highly recommends New Jerseyan-turned South Sloper Dayna Kurtz, playing tonight at Joe's Pub. more ›

- The woes of Global Dimming more ›