Has the Super-real estate market finally encountered economic kryptonite? Manhattan's housing market has seemed utterly impervious to any hint of real estate meltdown, even as other boroughs have suffered mortgage foreclosures at four times the national average. But one can't pass a Chase bank branch or a Duane Reade before coming across yet another building going up or being retro-fitted as luxury condos. The New York Times has an article today indicating that the gilded......

We hope the human-scale snow globe in Bryant Park is well heated, because we'd hate to have to endure today's rain, snow, and ice, in a plastic bubble if it weren't. The installation in the park west of the New York Public Library's main branch in Manhattan is a promotion for tourism to Ontario, Canada. Above, one can see a Canadian practicing his hockey stick work to pass the time. Ice sculpting and Mounties......

A while ago when Gothamist got wind of TKettle, a spot on St. Marks that promised bubble tea, dumplings and Korean fried chicken, we were tempted to place it in the same category as many Chinatown spots trading in savory snacks and bizarre boba drinks. The appeal of slurping chewy gelatinous globes through an oversized straw has always proved elusive, but we harbor no such prejudices against fried chicken or dumplings. Additional reports about succulent......

According to Turkey Carving for Dummies, every year hundreds of thousands of people wind up in hospital emergency rooms as a result of kitchen accidents involving knives. Don’t become a statistic! In yesterday’s article about the best way to carve the turkey, the Times helpfully points out the wrong approach, to be read aloud in a southern accent: “One year the turkey took a long time to cook and I went to carve it......

ART: Duke Riley brings his latest exhibit, After the Battle of Brooklyn: East River Incognita II, to Magnan Projects. Starting tonight and showing through December 22nd, the works imagine New York during the Revolutionary War and "interweave historical and contemporary events with elements of fiction and myth to create allegorical histories. His re-imagined narratives comment on a range of issues from the cultural impact of overdevelopment and gentrification of waterfront communities to contradictions within political......

We all knew the real estate bubble was causing insanity, but we should have known it's encouraged people to divorce. There's a NY Times Styles section article about some who wait until the market's at its peak to divorce - that way, they can benefit from an even bigger profit when selling their homes. There are quotes from Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, who showed that couples with a drastic rise in net worth were......

For your daily dose of amusement/ outrage/ disbelief at the city we live in, the NY Times has an article about apartment buildings selling private parking spaces for as much as $225,000. Seriously.If parking at the Onyx Chelsea, a new 52-unit condo at 28th Street and Eighth Avenue, is any indication, there is plenty of demand. The first two spots sold for $165,000, the third for $175,000 and the last two for $195,000. Each......

Whether you're a fan of the reality genre or not, voyeurism has injected itself into every form of entertainment since shows like The Real World gave anyone with cable a chance to see the day-to-day lives of total strangers. With everything from HBO's Voyeur to watching a band in a bubble, we wish this were enough to satiate those creepy peeping tom's out there! The NY Times now reports on Lián Amaris Sifuentes and her......

Since the only truly green event is the one that doesn't happen, Live Earth is certainly being met with some criticism - but either way it's going to cast some green over the world tomorrow. If you aren't heading over to the "New York" event yourself, NBC Universal will be bringing the concert to the world with a three-hour primetime special Saturday night on NBC, 18 hours of live coverage on Bravo, seven hours on......

If the Manhattan real estate market is still a bubble, then it's a bubble with unbelievable staying power. The Sun reports that second quarter real estate data reveals that the average Manhattan apartment sells for $1.3 million (a record-high according to three of four real estate firms). The median sales price of a Manhattan apartment is another record: $895,000. And the commercial side is also very strong, with foreign buyers opting to buy buildings and......

READING: Today NY Mag asks, "What does Tina Brown have to do to get some attention?" Well tonight she's signing copies of her new book (a tell-all on Princess Di) called The Diana Chronicles. 7pm // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St] // Free MUSIC: That band in the bubble, Cartel, that you've undoubtedly already forgotten about, is playing a free show tonight. Go visit the bubble boys, help them re-enter the real world......

As of last night, Pier 54 became a temporary home for the band Cartel. Haven't heard of them? That's probably why they opted for this reality show/publicity stunt thing. Through June 12th they'll be recording their second album inside a partially transparent bubble. The stunt is brought to you by MTV, Dr Pepper and Epic Records - surprisingly David Blaine had nothing at all to do with it. You can check in live with the......

Every show biz impresario knows that the best way to get to Broadway is not by waiting for Guffman but by stirring up a little controversy. Though it seems unlikely that’s what Connecticut high school students intended while developing a play about the Iraq quagmire, controversy is what they got when Principal Skinner Canty cancelled their little performance. After the ensuing uproar, which included public outcries from such heavyweights as Edward Albee and Christopher Durang,......

Blogging Project Runway doesn't stop just because the show isn't airing right now. They have some reports in from the auditions for Season 4, and also point to a clip at MTV. They took the picture at right of Jason (who also auditioned for Season 3) - with one of his creations that he hopes will get him on the show. Did he make it work? We'd have to see it on that crazy model......

April 5: Italian Festa to celebrate the paperback publication of George deStefano's An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America. A reading and signing, followed by a Sicilian wine tasting, with antipasti served. Free. Hunters Point Wines and Spirits, 47-07 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens. April 7: Russell Simmons & Jivamukti Yoga School hold a benefit for Farm Sanctuary, which provides a refuge for farm animals and works to end......

Yesterday, lawyers for Peter Braunstein, the journalist turned molester in a firefighter's costume, said that their client has a fractured skull with a brain hematoma. While they say they are not sure how he got the injury, an assistant district attorney told a judge that a Riker's official said it was "self-inflicted": "...the official said he banged his head on a sink in his cell, possibly in an attempt to delay his trial." Well, Braunstein......

THEATER: Theodora Skipitares is a Greek-American playwright, director and puppeteer who uses near life-size puppets and Greek tragedies to look at our current situation in Iraq. (Her rendition of the Iliad and the Odyssey was a sold-out hit at La MaMa last year.) Her new show, which features puppetry and video, is The Exiles, an adaptation of the Orestes/Electra myth. “In this particular story of betrayal and vengeance, these puppets are an eerie construction of......

It's birdseed throwing or bubble blowing time with this weekend's NY Times wedding announcements. Total Number of Weddings: 12 (including Vows column) Total Number of Same-Sex Weddings: 1 Youngest Bride: 24 Oldest Bride: 48 Youngest Groom: 26 Oldest Groom: 56 Biggest Age Difference: 8 years Number of Couples Where Bride and Groom Are the Same Age: 3 (ages 27, 36, and 37) Number of Cornell Graduates Married: 2 Number of Penn State Graduates Married: 2......

Street artist Highraff recently came to the United States for the first time to raise awareness about the culture of his hometown São Paulo, Brazil, where he’s been painting in the streets since 1997. The twenty-nine-year-old artist, whose given name is Rafael Calazans Pierri, currently has work on display here in New York as part of Ruas de São Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery. If you think his......

Nets 101, Knicks 92: Vince Carter once again made the Nets happy they kept him around. He scored 40 points -- the second time in three games he's done that -- as New Jersey kept control over their cross-river rivals. As is always the case, a low-profile player helped too; Bostjan Nachbar had 15 points and 10 rebounds. And the Knicks? They worked hard to get a halftime lead but saw that go up......

- Shortly before the now infamous Bourdain post skewering the Food Network appeared, blogger Jinius put her newly acquired TV writing skills to the test with a piece funneling the stars of the much maligned network into the Lost model. Enjoy and don’t miss riding the wake still behind Bourdain’s post, hundreds of comments from readers, Josh at Grub Street defending RR and Nina Lalli piling on him. - NYPress comes through with a nice......

Brrrr… An honest to goodness cold day! A low temperature in the single digits! Can you believe it? It's been nearly two years since it has been this cold. To be exact, the last time it was this cold was on January 28th, 2005, toward the end of an eleven day cold snap. Our current cold snap? A pathetic two days. That's not to take away from the sting of today's cold. The artic air......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

Yes, yes, last night was the Golden Globes. And boy, that Warren Beatty NEVER SHUTS UP. People looked pretty (but Jennifer Love Hewitt, what the hell were you wearing?), and it was nice to see Helen Mirren rack up the awards, even though it got a little boring and we think more people saw Prime Suspect than Elizabeth I. Sure, Dreamgirls won big (Jennifer Hudson is a star - here's more and more confirmation......

The NY Times bursts the bubble for a lot of New Yorkers who complain about city traffic. While most of us blame out-of-towners for clogging up streets, it turns out that city drivers make up most of the vehicular traffic. The reasons are varied: many people drive from the outer boroughs where subway service is less accessible. Many are government workers who get free parking (think about that one, Mayor Mike, as you PLANYC).......

The family of Matthew Velez, a 17 year old who was fatally beaten while in a juvenile jail at Rikers in 2000, has accepted a $650,000 settlement with the city. Velez was being held there for a minor drug charge, but was attacked by members of the Bloods. Back in 2004, Newsday found that Rikers guards made "major errors...[that] contributed to Velez's beating and his subsequent death.": As the teen was being beaten and......

29-year-old artist Jacob Thomas has been putting pen to paper since he was a child, planting the seeds for what would become a full-time career. Hailing from Maryland, he did a four-year stint in the Coast Guard, where his creative talents didn't go unnoticed. He was asked to paint interiors of ships and design logos and other artwork for them, which in turn helped spur his own creative impulses. After several years in Pittsburgh, he......

Real estate pundits are calling the downturn in the New York residential real estate market, as the NY Sun reports, a "soft landing" versus a "bubble burst." Apparently the fourth quarter was pretty good for some real estate brokers! What happened? Real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller, who prepared a report for Prudential Douglas Elliman (one of three reports released yesterday), said there were less properties on the market and sellers were setting realistic asking prices.......

Last night, just after 7pm, inside of a giant bubble in midtown, the Paper Nightlife Awards took place. In the world of fake awards ceremonies, this one takes the cake. Sadly, we didn't keep notes on who won what, so we cannot tell you who took home the "Best Designer with an Influence on the Nightlife Scene" award. We do recall La Esquina winning for "Restaurant with the Best Nightlife Scene." The white dude accepting......

I could tell there was something fishy going on. Everyone told me to stay away from Junior’s. As far back as Master Cabbie Taxi Academy, my classmate told me that Junior’s wasn’t as good as it used to be. So many of my frequent fares out to Park Slope treated me like I was some sort of stupid Midwestern tourist for even showing interest in Junior’s. And now that Junior’s has opened another location in......