Jaded gourmands looking to spice up their New Year’s Eve dining experience might be interested in the Dark Dining event at the West Village French bistro Camaje. The four course dinner is designed to accommodate a small gathering of guests who, upon arrival, don featherweight blindfolds for the duration of the prix fixe meal, which features wine pairings and mysterious performances between courses. While you surrender to the dark side, a team of attentive servers... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a man was killed by a 6 Train at Manhattan's Bleecker St. station, a serious multi-vehicle accident on Grand Concourse and East 168th St. in the Bronx, and an evidence search followed a shooting on Beach Channel Dr. in Queens.
• The $250 nine course tasting menu at Per Se is the caloric equivalent of 4 and a half Big Macs, although we imagine infinitely more delicious. A prost-prandial stroll would have to be 31 miles long to walk it all off.
• Curbed reports that the former Jehovah's Witness Building in Brooklyn Bridge Park is getting the borough's first Trader Joe's.
• Brooklyn blogger and bicyclst eefers relates that she was nearly run down by a red light-running police car. When she physically indicated her displeasure at nearly being another bicyclist casualty of New York's traffic, one of the officers hurled her paper cup at her before the partners sped off. Rude certainly, but we imagine some citizens have endured worse.
• Appreciators can now purchase prints of artist Noah Kalina's "everyday" project, which are digital self-portraits taken every day for six years.
• It may do a body good, but milk will also slim your wallet. The price of a gallon of milk is rising to $3.54––up $.60 over the price a year ago.
• It's estimated that subway riders save roughly $1 billion annually using unlimited monthly and weekly metrocards. Only 12% of riders pay the full $2 a trip.
• The driver of the black SUV that struck and killed a Brooklyn boy last night and then sped off was arrested. He faces multiple criminal charges, including manslaughter.

Nazli Parvizi, Exec. Director, Mayor's Volunteer Center NYC more ›

Gothamist recently reported on people who plan to protest the Repuplican national convention by signing up as volunteers and then not showing up for their assignments. In the spirit of bipartisanship, websites such as shadowprotest.org are encouraging would-be protesters to volunteer on both sides of the aisle, so to speak, and then not follow through with their jobs in order to protest this country's two-party system. In the most highly-realized versions of the shadow protesters' goals, chaos - bible-thumping fundamentalists double-booked into hotel rooms with Log Cabin Republicans, left-leaning vegans served giant Big Macs - would bring both conventions to a grinding halt. more ›