The League of American Bicyclists has awarded New York City a bronze medal for bicycle friendliness. League representatives met with Mayor Bloomberg and DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who sometimes cycles to work, at City Hall yesterday to present the award. Though bronze is the lowest rung on the friendliness ladder, New York City is the only community in the region to be designated a Bike Friendly Community (BFC). While the total number of cycling fatalities......

Photo of Eli Manning by AP/Bill Kostroun; Photo of Tom Brady by AP/Stephan Savoia When Super Sunday rolls around, there will be a lot of questions that will be answered. Will the Giants stop the undefeated season of the Patriots? How will Eli Manning perform in the biggest game of his career? And how Tom Brady's foot be? While there are clearly lots of other questions, one question that isn't so obvious is...who's the......

It's back to the Upper East Side dog run fight: Remember how dog owners are battling over a future 6,200 square foot (!) dog run on the Upper East Side, because tiny dog owners want a separate space for their petite pooches while large dog owners want a continuous space? The Parks Department has decided to put up a temporary fence (1,200 square feet for the small dogs, 5,000 for the big) to see how......

THEATER: John Fugelsang, the son of an ex-nun and a former monk, declares war on right-wing evildoers in his one man comedy All the Wrong Reasons. Targets include sex, politics, Klansmen, stem cells and the drug war (which Fugelsang recently skewered on the Huffington Post.) Theater blogger What’s Good/What Blows raves: “…once he settles in to tell the story of trying to get through Orlando airport with an 1/8th of weed in his sock and......

A $100,000 donation to study how a free subway can save money? Yes, someone really did it: The NY Sun explains that 92 year old Theodore Kheel has donated the 100 G's to the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility to study the concept. The belief is that making subways and other mass transit free, then drivers would have an incentive to switch. The IRUM is the group behind the 42nd Street light rail idea......

- Brooklyn Papers talks to Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz who tells them they are biased about the Atlantic Yards project and updates them on his diet - An eighth grader tells The Politicker's Azi Paybarah that Eliot Spitzer's inauguration speech was positive but "mean" to George Pataki. How naive the young are - wait till you pay taxes, kid! - Speaking of Spitzer, good luck to him on trying to introduce gay marriage proposals......

32-year-old artist, illustrator, and writer Dan Goldman may hail from Miami, but his current "Brooklyn-blessed" status is evident in his work, whether depicting subway scenes he's meticulously researched or in the guise of 2011 Williamsburg hipster turned Iraq blogger in his breakout collaboration with journalist Anthony Lappé, Shooting War. Shooting War was serialized earlier this year by SMITH Magazine, and will see an expanded hardcover release next fall from Warner Books. Goldman already had one......

With four weeks until the fifth anniversary of September 11, lots of magazines are rolling out their "September 11 think pieces." And New York devotes their cover feature to "What If 9/11 Never Happened?," with essays from a wide variety of people - Andrew Sullivan gives a faux blog, Slate's Supreme Court correspondent Dahlia Lithwick has a scary view of what the law would be like, writer Tom Wolfe (who suggests the same), deputy mayor......

The Daily News has been regularly reminding readers about the murder of 16 year old Chanel Petro-Nixon in order to hopefully reach someone who knows what happened. Petro-Nixon disappeared one afternoon, on her way to apply for a job at Applebee's, only for her body to be discovered days later in a garbage bag on the street. Petro-Nixon's father Gavin Nixon said, during his first visit to where her body was found, "We need to......

It's hot. It's sticky. You need a cool, refreshing drink, and a non-alcoholic one because it's the middle of your work day. Gothamist suggests a chocolate egg cream, as its fizz will perk you up and its sweetness (but not too sweet) will satisfy your sweet tooth. Many swear by Brooklyn's Fox's U-Bet syrup, and the Fox's recipe says to spoon in the U-Bet syrup before adding the milk. But this might be blashphemous, as......

It's skateboarders versus the neighborhood as Soho residents and city agencies are eyeing the Greene Street skate shop, Etnies, for its rooftop skate ramp in a historical district. The Landmarks Preservation Commission said, "We received an application from the company, but it was never completed. So the ramp was never approved." Ha - that's totally feeding into the stereotype of irresponsible skaters! Residents have also complained about the noise from the ramp; the Post says......

From what we've seen, NASCAR fans are always passionate - wearing their favorite driver's colors, belittling drivers they dislike, cheering for crashes - but Gothamist has never heard of a fan putting a public official in a headlock. Until now, that is. At last night's public hearing about a proposed racetrack in Staten Island, things got a little heated once City Councilman Andrew Lanza took the stage. According to the Staten Island Advance, a supporter......

- Is New York ready for Charles and Camilla? - Robbers hit church safe in Queens, only find it had no money - A female teacher is accused of raping a male student, starting when he was 13, at a Manhattan Montessori school - yikes! - Fire at a Times Square budget hotel; unclear whether or not the fire will damage or improve the atmosphere there - True Crime: NYC is teaming up with Puma......

In the spirit of this weekend's Yankees-Red Sox series, Gothamist suggests you go to the First Street Gallery in Chelsea to visit sculptor Daniel Edwards's death masks of Ted Williams. The Baseball Hall of Fame Red Sox legend who batted .406 in the 1941 season became more famous in his after life when it turned out his head had been cut off when he was cryogenically frozen. Edwards had spent time with Williams (while he......

- The two teenage girls who died on East Houston Street a week and a half ago died of heroin-and-cocaine overdoses - Goldman Sachs may be leasing at Ground Zero, but they won't paying any rent until the NYPD agrees on security - The missing grandmother with Alzheimer's had actually been at a hospital for two days...but no one contacted her family even though she had a medical ID bracelet - The stealing-from-celebrities housekeeper claims......

The father who had (1) kidnapped his 14 month son from the custody of the boy's maternal grandmother after she refused to feed the baby a vegan diet, thereby (2) putting himself and his wife on the lam amidst (3) rumors he was threatening to kill himself and the child if arrested, has surrendered the baby to the authorities. Raphael Spindell, characterized as a "hard-core vegan father," called the Daily News to say he's......

As the area's favorite Knick turned Senator, Bill Bradley, endorses Howard Dean, Gothamist decided to read about the Democratic debate in Iowa yesterday. The Times' David Halbfinger noted the absence of Al Sharpton, "For sheer comedic appeal, the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday was short a Sharpton..." Ah, Lorne Michaels was so on the ball in asking the Reverend to host SNL. Unintentional funniness seems to have come from one John Kerry supporter held......