Lost City visits one of the odder buildings in the East Village today, located at 62 E. 4th Street. Currently two of the five floors house the Duo Theater, but the top three levels have gone unused for nearly 40 years. Built in 1889, the current crumbling facade isn't the biggest mystery -- the architecture is. LC notes:There's all sort of Italianate grandeur in the shapes and lines. But it's all thrown off by the......

Hotelier Jason Pomeranc is creating posh microcosms of gentility all over the city. Since his luxury boutique hotel brand launched seven years ago with the opening of 60 Thompson, Pomeranc has opened two more New York properties, 6 Columbus and Gild Hall. Now, everybody's wondering when his next venture, Thompson LES, at 200 Allen Street will swing open its doors to what The Observer says has become "a no-man’s land of rats, dirty streets and......

Nearly three decades ago, Andy Warhol's dealer made a list of 100 prominent 20th century Jews. Warhol created silkscreen paintings of ten of them. The show, Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, premiered at The Jewish Museum in 1980. It was met with both admiration and criticism, and turned a pretty penny for the painter. Back then, The NY Times criticized, remarking, "the show is vulgar, it reeks of commercialism, and its contribution......

Twenty years before thinking up the "I want my MTV" campaign, advertising genius George Lois saved Esquire magazine from a swift sink into bankruptcy by transforming it into one of the most visually provocative publications of the last half century. From Lois' first cover for the magazine, which featured an image of boxing favorite Floyd Patterson knocked out in an empty arena, and broke Esquire newsstand sales records, to a 1970 cover depicting a marquee......

Andy Warhol once said, “My favorite smell is the first smell of spring in New York," and now someone has stepped in to capitalize on the scent (good thing he didn't say summer in New York). Along with the Gap now using Warhol's "hot dead celeb" status to sell khakis; Laurice Rahmé, creator of Bond No. 9, launches her latest neighborhood fragrance (in collaboration with The Warhol Foundation) this month: Andy Warhol Union Square. The......

Everyone is abuzz about the latest art world scandal, and here's what is known about the life of the Warhol painting at the center of the controversy.1981: Andy Warhol creates a number of his "Dollar Sign" pieces, using the same theme with different colors and sizes. Medium: polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas. February 14th, 1998: One of the two "Dollar Sign" pieces measuring at 16 by 20 inches is reported stolen from the......

Need a last minute costume idea and in a New York state of mind? Here are a few NYC-themed ideas for your Halloween fête... R.I.P.ped from the Headlines • Thor Equities Need: Winged Thor helmet and hammer, brochures or maps (which can be printed out) of Coney Island -- and something to destroy them with. • The Staten Island Ninja Burglar Need: Ninja outfit, complete with nunchucks. Fake stab wound to the chest. Map......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 155th Ave. and 79th St. in Queens, a bank robbery at the Chase branch on De Kalb and Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn, and a pedestrian struck at Hunts Point and Lafayette Aves. in the Bronx. The Guggenheim sent out a postcard inviting people to a seminar about Andy Warhol. The message on the reverse side is expletive-laced and describes Warhol and his fans in derogatory terms......

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago? The NY Times takes a look at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) show,......

35-year-old Alison Pace has made a career out of thoughtful chick lit novels set in New York, where man's best friend (dogs), not girls' (diamonds), play the key role. From dogs getting fed at the dinner table and treated, literally, like family, to DB Sweeney, the dachsund (named after the actor) companion of her third and latest novel, Through Thick and Thin, who captivates lonely restaurant critic Meredith and changes her priorities, Pace makes pets......

Avenue Montaigne (directed by Danièle Thompson) If the rose-colored Paris in Ratatouille has you itching for more stories from the City of Lights, might we suggest renting the fluffy and enjoyable comedy Avenue Montaigne which comes out on DVD this week. Set in one of the ritziest neighborhoods in Paris, the movie tells a number of interconnected stories circling around a young waitress (the pixie-ish Cécile De France) at a local cafe. Wandering in and......

Has Andy Warhol's estate been dominating the market for the artist's work? One owner of a silkscreen by Warhol says that it has, and yesterday filed a $20 million lawsuit in the U.S. District Court. Filmmaker Joe Simon-Whelan's Warhol original was marked as a fake by the estate who he says has conspired for 20 years to control the market and create an artificial scarcity of original works. The board does this with the authority......

Print Magazine has an article on the man behind the Brillo boxes Andy Warhol took out of the retail world and put in to the art world. As it turns out artist James Harvey created the design you see to the right, and when he walked in to Warhol's exhibit at the Stable Gallery on April 21st, 1964 - he saw it being displayed as art. Harvey had designed the Brillo boxes when the company......

Opening this past weekend and running through June 30th is Seattle artist Mike Leavitt's "New York Art Army" show. Hand-made action figures were created to visually tell the history of the city's creative scene, the wooden New Yorkers stand alongside other "urban art stars and old masters." Fittingly, the show (exhibited in a site-specific installation) is across the street from the ToyTokyo toy shop, at their Showroom. Leavitt’s “toys” depict famous and controversial artists like......

Forbes has put out their list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities, something to bicker about at the water cooler, no doubt. Here are some of the top-ranked New Yorker's and their earnings: Jay-Z at #9 with $83M David Letterman at #17 with $40M Donald Trump at #19 with $32M Sean Combs at #43 with $23M Derek Jeter at #50 with $28M Bill Clinton at #55 with $7M Regis Philbin at #64 with $21M......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Reptiles on 39th Avenue and 111th Street in Queens, a person shot at Boyland and Sumpter in Brooklyn and police are searching the water near Battery Park City because a woman threw a baby carriage into the Hudson; it's unclear if a baby was in it, but dietrich on Flickr has pictures of the search Apparently police are investigating whether the children - including a 22-year-old Parsons grad -......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning. NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC. When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in......

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (directed by Mary Jordan): It's not such an uncommon story—a misunderstood, sensitive, artistic boy moves from the sticks to Manhattan seeking creative and sexual freedom. However, Mary Jordan's documentary, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, paints Jack Smith, the avant-garde photographer, filmmaker, actor and performance artist as hardly a common person. Influential on such filmmakers as Federico Fellini, John Waters and Andy Warhol, Smith's most notorious movie......

They don't make "downtown It girls" like Edie Sedgwick any more, which is why it's fortunate that Andy Warhol spent so much time capturing her on camera during the height of their artistic collaboration. The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens is devoting a retrospective to these films starting this weekend and running through Apr. 8. Featuring 15 16 mm movies, many loaned by the Museum of Modern Art, the series also includes footage......

The below is from a BBC documentary on the Hotel Chelsea, it includes footage of Andy Warhol (inexplicably wearing headphones) sharing a meal with William S Burroughs and Nico singing "Chelsea Girls". It was filmed inside the Chelsea Hotel in 1980, and the hotel's blog has more insight in the form of a letter from Joe Bidewell (who plays guitar in the background as Nico is singing) on what went down during filming: "Nico's performance......

The Port Authority has officially agreed to fund $1 billion of the Freedom Tower's construction Dr. Denton Sayer Cox, whose patients have included Andy Warhol and John Steinbeck, told police he was beaten and burned with a chemical at York and East 73rd Street but police believe he was the "victim of a gay pickup gone wrong" in his Upper East Side apartment. Either way, he's fighting for his life. A corrections officer gets......

The essentials: Exhibit: Andy Warhol: In His Wake Artists: Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Billy Name, Ivy Nicholson, Anton Perich, Steve Joester, Amy Cohen Banker, Cynthia von Buhler, Pamela Martin, William Tisdale, Molly Weingart, and Gary Azon Gallery: Carrozini von Buhler Gallery Location: 407 West 13th Street, 2A, NYC Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturday from 2 PM – 6 PM. Cost: Free Opening reception: Thursday, February 22, from 6 – 10 PM Exhibit closes: March......

MUSIC: It's hard to believe Kurt Cobain would have been 40 today. In celebration of his birthday and life there will be live performances of Nirvana albums Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero from Daouets, The Domestics, and Schwervon with some other musical guests. Bring flannel, your inner teen angst, and rock out like it's the early 90s. 7pm // Cake Shop [152 Ludlow St] // $8 THEATER: Alfred Molina (Frida, Dead Man) is one of......

Just a thought as we look ahead to this week's new releases. Someone should really take Diane Keaton aside to tell her that this series of increasingly painful looking romantic comedies where she plays an over-the-top meddling mom aren't good for her cinematic legacy. The newest installment is the Mandy Moore romantic comedy, Because I Said So, where Keaton plays a mother desperate to marry off her headstrong youngest daughter. Please Diane, after loving you......

The following is an account of what someone purchased four years ago at a stoop sale in Chelsea, for 75 cents: "In September of 2002 Warren Hill of Montreal Canada was perusing a box of records at a Chelsea, New York street sale when he happened upon a brittle 12" piece of acetone-covered aluminum with the words "Velvet Underground. 4-25-66. Att N. Dolph" written on the label. He purchased the three records for 75......

For their upcoming November issue (The Art Issue), Vanity Fair is running what appears to be an epic photo story on Andy Warhol and the crew that made up the legendary Factory. Apparently Bob Colacello, who helped Warhol make Interview magazine what it is today, moved over to Vanity Fair in the mid 1980's. A connection for VF to the Factory folks that are still around - so hopefully there will be some real faces......

“Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film," Ric Burns' film on the artist, will be shown tonight and tomorrow night on the PBS's“American Masters” series. According to the Times, Burns had a hard time getting the film made, and still needs to raise $225,000 to finish paying for the $3.6 million film. Warhol's artist stature was questioned by many, as they don't consider "his riffs on celebrity and commerce to be art." The film serves as......

The New York Times reports on The Misshapes once again (according to Gawker, the 10th time in under a year). Love them or hate them, and we're sure you hate them, our limited first hand encounters with these three have been fairly pleasant. We've been to their party a few times over the past couple of years, despite the fact we weren't sporting asymmetrical bangs or...whatever the kids are wearing these days (we did have......

-- Does anyone else love the Milford Plaza song? Someone should use that in a mashup! [Via Gawker.] -- If you haven't visited the new Morgan Library yet, you really should-- it's beautiful. -- Bad news: mixing heroin and bathtub-fentanyl can kill you! Guess it's time to go back to huffing glue! -- There's something strangely compelling about Andy Warhol's "screentest" of Bob Dylan. Speaking of Dylan, check out this article in this week's......

Tonight the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens will be screening for the first time in the US, director Jonas Mekas's most recent film, A Letter From Greenpoint. It's a lovely, personal movie filled with vignettes and Mekas's musings about leaving SoHo for Brooklyn after 30 years. He moved from Lithuania to New York in 1949, where he organized the first downtown avant garde film screenings, founded the Anthology Film Archive, worked as a......