Let's say you're tired of drinking plain old beer, but you're not ready to abandon ship just quite yet. We've got just the thing: step right up to the lido deck and slip into a beer cocktail. And we're not just talking about micheladas (though Papacito's in Greenpoint does make a killer version). No, we're talking about the good stuff, the fluffily profiled-by-the-Times stuff, with fancy bitters and pretty garnishes. And, usually, extra booze piled on top of the beer! Here's where to find some of the best beer cocktails in the city: more ›

Summer's here, and Travel + Leisure is looking at the best oceanside attractions nationwide, or as they label it: America's Best Beach Boardwalks. Coming out on top: our very own Coney Island! more ›

This year we talked to a lot of people, and here are a few our favorite interviewss — click through to revisit our talks with people like Rachel Maddow, Pat Kiernan, Zooey Deschanel, Joan Baez, and many many more. If you think there's a New Yorker we should talk to in 2010... let us know! more ›

This year we interviewed just under 300 people. From die hard New Yorkers to those just passing through our fair city, here are some our faves. And if you really wanna get reflective, here's our best of interview post from 2007. more ›

Read our Passing Strange review, our interview with Stew, and click on the other images for the Gothamist top ten of '08. more ›

Drawing on his roots in the fecund 1970s East Village avant-garde film scene, critic J. Hoberman has spent his three decades at the Village Voice introducing readers to the more adventurous cinematic worlds awaiting beyond the realm of Hollywood. He is the author of nine books, most recently The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties, which was described by Slate as "an extraordinary publishing event." To commemorate his thirty years at the Voice, BAMcinématek has invited Hoberman to select films that have sparked some of his most stimulating reviews and articles, as well as a few personal favorites. more ›

New York’s Best of New York lifestyle catalog is out, and among the rightful winners, like Best Old School Lobby: The Chrysler Building and Best Dive Bar: Mars Bar, there are some curious ‘bests’ to ponder. more ›

Part of the NBC 2.0 philosophy has been to put cheap programming on air as a measure to cut corners and save money. Even before the writers' strike this has meant a string of programs that are “unscripted,” such as cheesy game shows and of course the requisite fakeality nonsense. So taking quarterlife, a Web 2.0 based online show/online community from the creators of thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and Once and Again, and sticking it on TV doesn’t seem like a big stretch. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an injured police officer at Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, a gas leak on South 8th St. and Wythe Ave. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery at the North Fork branch on 87th St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
  
• The FDNY will be stationing a battalion chief at the Deutsche Bank building until it is fully dismantled.
  
• Someone in the Clinton campaign said that there's a 5% chance that in the event of a deadlock between Obama and Clinton at the Democrats' national convention, Al Gore may arise as a compromise candidate.
  
• Plans for a Veselka on the Bowery may be on the rocks, as a liquor license for the Avalon building location looks unlikely.
  
• The 69-year-old man, who was killed after being sideswiped by a cab and then run over by a bus on West 57th St. yesterday, was on his way to deliver candy to Oprah's best pal Gayle King.
  
• A 500 lb. man is suing the FDNY for $5 million after ten firefighters, who were trying to take him to the hospital using a pulley-and-platform rig to get the man out the building, dropped him down a flight of stairs.
  
• Patty Hearst's French bulldog won Best of Opposite Sex in the breed's category (a male won Best of Breed) at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
  
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a citywide network of water-borne mass transit, where boats could ferry New Yorkers from stop to stop all over the city's five boroughs.
  

href="http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_snowbal.php">photographing a big, organized snowball fight.

Pinch & S’MAC: Dejected fans of Pinch, the defunct Park Avenue South “pizza by the inch” joint, will not only be reunited with their favorite Pinch pizza, but they can even slather it with the incredible mac-n-cheese from East Village favorite S’MAC. The new cheese and carb cartel will bring the best of both menus together on the Upper West Side, forming a single, unified, belt-busting celebration of starch. If you’ve never tried S’MAC, you’re best off staying away; those who’ve tasted their mac-n-cheese speak of it with glazed-over eyes befitting a Shake Shack devotee. Opening “soft” on Monday, Pinch & S’MAC promises a casual environment with take out, delivery, catering and a separate room for private parties. 474 Columbus Ave., between 82nd and 83rd, (646) 438-9494. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston are putting it all on the line for Sunday's Super Bowl. After winning the awful bet from Green Bay, Bloomberg has a lot more riding on the line when the Giants face off against the Patriots this weekend. As is the custom when the playoffs roll around, the mayors of the teams participating decided on a friendly food wager. The stakes, or should we say steaks, are upped in this bet as the Vince Lombardy Trophy are on the line. more ›

This week in the Times, Bruni one-stars Lebanese Ilili, saying “Ilili is probably the atmospherically grandest excursion into Middle Eastern cooking that New York has ever seen.” While much of the menu is inconsistent, he loves the kebabs and kaftas. Says the service is “occasionally confused.” And get the essmalieh for dessert. more ›

As of 8 this morning the starting points for this year's Idiotarod had already been changed twice. As with every year, the effort to dodge police and the scramble to find the most updated starting line is still underway, but the carts should be off soon...and we'll keep you updated. In the meantime, check out Team Danger Zone's ride! more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Stuyvesant Ave. and Hart St. in Brooklyn, a multiple stabbing on West 49th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, and a car in the water on Beach St. and Rockaway Pt. Blvd. in Queens.
• After a 14% surge between 2005 and 2006, complaints about the NYPD from civilians dropped 1% last year.
• The lawyer defending the man on trial for killing his 7-year-old stepdaughter has been receiving phoned-in death threats. The defense attorney says that he doesn't bother reporting the threats anymore because cops don't seem very interested in investigating them, but is determined to defend his client to the best of his ability.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired on 103rd Rd. in Queens, a double stabbing on Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and an armed robbery on 94th St. in Queens.
• Get paranoid!: Not only is your nanny not nurturing your kid to the best of his or her abilities, she's probably beating her mercilessly. Not really, most babysitters love your kids and take good care of them.
• Set your watch by it: the Williambsurg Savings Bank clock tower is accurate.

In Samuel Beckett’s 1961 play Happy Days, a decidedly upbeat woman named Winnie spends Act One striving valiantly to make the best of her sticky situation: she’s irrevocably buried up to her waist in a “low mound.” True, Winnie has her reticent companion Willie for company, but she cheerily defies the barren void by holding forth for a seemingly nonexistent gathering of spectators. And Act Two finds Winnie still determined to make a go of it, despite a marked deterioration of her condition: she is now buried up to the neck. 47 years after Beckett finished it, the brutally funny and moving Happy Days is now the hot ticket at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. more ›

Luxury cruise line Cunard has many ships, but last night was the first time that its Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth 2, and new Queen Victoria ships were in the "same port at the same time." And the port was the NewYork Harbor, under fireworks and gaze of the Statue of Liberty. more ›

MTV is getting all old school and reporting on relevant music! The channel traveled all the way to Brooklyn for a piece on bands closely associated with the Todd P scene. Best of all, they declare Manhattan's LES dead! Not a great way to promote their new vLES, we suppose. more ›

The company that founded Chuck E. Cheese, which famously replaced lazy live musicians with ruthlessly efficient animatronic animals, now has their sights trained right on your server. According to this breathlessly excited vision of the future, soon “a new trend will be found at your favorite restaurants”! [Emphasis added.] Computerized touch screen ordering at your table is destined to radically marginalize the entire restaurant service industry, liberating diners from the bondage of inattentive service and tedious chit-chat with the help. Best of all, you don’t have to tip a touch screen! Oh, and there’s games, too! And ads! more ›

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia. more ›

Where, like last year, we recap the biggest stories from the New York music scene of the year. more ›