The Bloomberg administration will spend $95.7 million in taxpayer money to purchase 6.9 acres of land in the Coney Island amusement district from millionaire developer Joe Sitt. The deal, which will be officially announced tomorrow, marks the end of a long stalemate between the city and Sitt, who is widely reviled in Coney Island for buying up property, evicting longtime tenants, and letting prime real estate remain vacate as way of essentially blackmailing the city into meeting his demands. Sitt had originally proposed a $1.5 billion Las Vegas style resort, with condos and shopping, but the Bloomberg administration had plans of their own. more ›

We can't decide if this trend is more or less inappropriate than the slatternly tween Halloween costume fad. While it's true that only a very sick perv would be aroused by these provocative pooch costumes, isn't that also true of the "Devil Grrrl" costume for eight-year-olds? As we were recently reminded by that New Jersey cow-fucking incident, bestiality is still a thing, and if you're going to go out with your dog dressed like this, you should definitely keep it on a tight leash. more ›

Click on the film stills above for more details and reviews of this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Drag Me to Hell, Departures, What Goes Up, Munyurangabo, Pressure Cooker, Call Center, The Breakfast Club, The Lost Boys, L’Enfant, and Rashomon. more ›

Click on the stills above for more on this weekend's new releases and repertory screenings, which also include Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Burma VJ, The Girlfriend Experience, Dance Flick, O'Horten, Milton Glaser; To Inform and Delight, Kabei, The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, New World Order, Ghosts of the Heartland, Easy Virtue, Eyes Wide Shut, and Warriors. more ›

The Bloomberg administration made another offer to developer Joe Sitt yesterday to buy roughly 10 acres of Boardwalk property, which the city would like to designate park land for an amusement district. Negotiations between Sitt and city officials have been stalled since November, when the developer shrugged off a $110 million offer; it's believed Sitt spent some $93 million acquiring the land, and hopes to flip it for twice that. So you can imagine how he responded to yesterday's $105 million offer, which was less than what the city previously floated, and based on declining land prices in Brooklyn. Speaking to City Room, Sitt's lawyer sarcastically remarked, "We won’t talk to them until they come down to $100 million." more ›

With a deal to sell some of his prime Coney Island boardwalk real estate to the city stalled, developer Joe Sitt is moving to snatch up more land in an attempt to build a controversial entertainment-amusement-hotel complex. Kansas Fried Chicken king Horace Bullard tells the Post that he's "leaning toward" selling the former Thunderbolt roller coaster site to Sitt for $91 million. Those three acres would tighten Sitt's grip on most of the land stretching from Keyspan Park to the Cyclone. more ›

Picnics always look so appealing in the movies, like that scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou? where John Goodman breaks off the tree branch and starts swinging. But here in the real world, picnics take a lot of work and schlepping, and if you don’t have one of those deluxe picnic baskets an unspoken feeling of inadequacy can quickly turn that potato salad to sawdust in your mouth. Thankfully, there are a number of places where you can spend your way to the picnic of your dreams. And one of them even delivers. more ›

An Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund has acquired the Chrysler Building from a fund managed by Prudential Financial Inc. for an untold sum. It was learned last month that the Abu Dhabi group was considering buying a majority stake in the 1930 skyscraper for $800 million; Bloomberg news is now reporting that the deal is done. Middle Eastern investors have spent $1.8 billion this year buying commercial property in the U.S., more than other international buyers. “We're sending our money their way to purchase oil, and that money is coming back and buying our assets,” said Dan Fasulo, market analysis director at Real Capital. more ›

Clearing up a legal gray area, state lawmakers have passed a bill regulating the sale of frozen dessert products made with wine, permitting the sale of ice cream and sorbet to anyone over the age of 21. The bill limits the alcohol content to 5 percent by volume and requires warning labels – even though it would take two gallons of wine ice cream or one pint of wine sorbet to equal one glass of actual wine, according to upstate purveyor Jeff Kostic. more ›

The new Joker action figure modeled after the late Heath Ledger has started arriving in stores and is reportedly flying off the shelves, as toy collectors scoop up as many of the snuff toys as they can get their hands on. After completing filming on The Dark Night, Ledger died in January from a prescription drug overdose. more ›