Just last month The Avengers was filming some final shots around New York, and now Joss Whedon & Co. have released the first trailer for the movie (due out, in 3-D, in 2012). And surprise: it's full of NYC destructo-porn! If you've ever wanted to see yellow cabs, NYPD cruisers, or buildings engulfed in fireballs dangerously close to Scarlett Johansson, this is for you. And not all of this was filmed in Manhattan—in August the production took over East 9th Street in Cleveland, Ohio, which doubled as our very own 42nd Street. more ›

ART: Art, fashion and blogs meet tonight at the Met. In an exhibition entitled blog.mode: addressing fashion, viewers will be able to comment on what they see. It's "the first in a series of shows designed to promote critical and creative dialogues about fashion. The exhibition presents some forty costumes and accessories dating from the eighteenth century to the present." Visitors are then encouraged to share their reactions online or from a "blogbar" of computer terminals in the exhibition galleries. Pictured is one of the dresses -- you know you have comment about it. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a church shooting on Schenectady Ave. in Brooklyn, a pedestrian struck on West 17th St. and Union Square West in Manhattan, and a water rescue in Raitian Bay between Staten Island and Sandy Hook, NJ.
• City Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff, Viola Plummer, was suspended for six weeks from the City Council and by Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who she's also heckled, with a promise of reinstatment if she promises to behave herself. Plummer is in her 70s, but threatened another Councilman with assassination on a contentious vote.
• A grand jury in a federal court case voted to indict four alleged plotters that wanted to blow up JFK airport, kill thousands, and cripple the U.S. economy with a harebrained scheme to take out a pipeline that runs towards the airport.
• "...the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse." Captain America got capped, by Marvel Comics no less.
• A 21-year-old White Plains worker at the Rye Playland Amusement Park was killed when thrown from a gyrating ride. Gabriela Garin had changed shifts with another ride operator and then got on the ride to make sure visitors were properly secured, when her replacement started the ride.
• The new rules against noise and trans-fats go into effect tomorrow. Somehow we feel that NYers will remain louder, skinnier, and better looking than the rest of the country, regardless of what laws are passed.
• The City has a list of all the designated grilling areas around the five boroughs. The Parks Dept. says "Designated Barbecuing Areas," but frankly, we don't want to get into all that right now.
• We've pretty much given up on listening to radio, but this blog may point us to something it's possible we'll want to hear. Thank you New York Radio Guide.
• The Staten Island Advance points out that Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious plan to make all yellow cabs hybrid in a few years overlooks the livery cabs that service the outer boroughs. Car service owners and drivers would prefer to keep it that way.

Reader Jim sent us this sign he saw at one of the 14th Street L stations that was "taped to a column in the same haphazard fashion as legitimate MTA service change notices." But it turned out not to be an MTA service notice but a warning from the Lesbian Avengers!

Now, just so we're clear, I have one simple rule: I never sit on the train when there is a woman standing. Ever. Period; the end; no exceptions. There are those who would say that in this day of equality and women's lib, I have every right to sit where and when I please. And they may be right. But it seems to me that no matter how liberated we make our womens, or how absolute our equality becomes, women will still always wear heels and occasionally carry our children to term for 9 months. Those two things alone earn them a seat in my book -- case closed.