Now that you've torn through your presents and are making room for new gifts and purchases -- why not give a little back? Green Brooklyn reminds us that we have until December 31st to make tax-deductible donations (to claim on 2007 income taxes). They were particularly moved by the amount of work Habitat for Humanity has been doing for Brooklyn, they just completed their 9th home in the area -- all "constructed using state-of-the-art, eco-friendly......

The Critical Mass Halloween Ride is tonight! If you go, get some good pictures! THEATER: Sam Marks’s new play The Joke peels back the thin gauze separating comedy from an open wound. Set in the last throws of the Catskills comedy circuit circa 1965, the story concerns the disintegrating comedy duo of Steady Eddie and Doug the Mug. Doug has let his envy of Eddie get the better of him and begins adding more of......

THEATER: System of Units, a performance group from Siberia, begin their site-specific collaboration with the local “interventionist performance group” TRYST outside today starting at 12:00pm, when the temperature will transcend 90°. So if you think it’s stinking hot, just wait ‘til you see how the Siberians hold up in this six-hour performance. Called Security Zone, the two groups will create "a mock construction site that plays with perceptions of labor and public space, expectations of......

Despite the warm winter weather, coat drives have not lost momentum this season in comparison to coat sales. This week, there are several more creative ways to give. On Tuesday, January 9, New York Cares wraps up its 18th year of coat collecting with the Weatherproof® Garment Company’s Coat-The-Rink-Skate-A-Thon. The day begins early when a few lucky volunteers (which could include you) will take to the ice with Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen at 6:30am.......

On this day when many are reveling in gifts, there are others who need the most basic of things. This morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn helped deliver Christmas Day meals with Citymeals on Wheels - the Mayor delivered the estimated 34 millionth meal. The 25 year old program was started by New York magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, who also got James Beard involved, and Citymeals on Wheels supports agencies......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a "car in the water / DOA" in Queens, an unstable building in Fort Greene, and an "unusual crime" at Laguardia ("PLANE RETURNING TO LAGUARDIA AIRPORT-US AIR. PILOT WAS HANDED A THREATENING NOTE. --BNN.") The Times has a touching story about a cave-dwelling homeless man in the Bronx-- together with a nun, he delivers holiday food to needy families in the area. A man took an upskirt cameraphone picture......

October 26: The Caffeine Question Get a buzz at this upcoming class at Joe, The Art of Coffee, where Head Barista Erin Meister will guide you through a tasting of coffees with levels of caffeine. Learn how the type of coffee bean and brewing method affect a beverage's caffeine level, and discover the many misconceptions about caffeine. Reservations are required: call 212-924-7400, or e-mail joecoffeestore@aol.com. 7:30 PM, 141 Waverly Place at Gay Street, $10. October......

There is a lot to be said about Warren Buffett's announcement that most of his billions-of-dollars fortune will be given to charities, with particular focus on giving about $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And we hope his actions, as well as those of the Gateses, reverbate through billionaire and millionaire circles, because giving back to the world that made them rich makes sense - tax incentives or no. For instance,......

THEATER: The Ohio Theater is the site of two of summer's best play festivals, and the first, Clubbed Thumb's eleventh Summerworks, started yesterday with Anne Washburn's I Have Loved Strangers, "in which true prophets, false prophets, and non-prophets battle for the salvation of ancient New York." On the company's website http://www.clubbedthumb.org/ you can do some "research" before going, via various eyebrow-raising links; or you can just rely on the winning trifecta of excellent track records:......

Two new locations in the Park Slope/Windsor Terrace neighborhoods of Brooklyn have discovered that giving is one way to bring in the people. Sweet Charity, a new boutique on 7th Ave., donates a portion of its profits to two animal sanctuaries, one in Watkins Glen, New York. Sweet Charity has a variety of lovely, and unique, gifts, from vintage table linens to floral gardening hats and jewelry. Gothamist is currently enamored with the floppy gardening......

Today the Department of Education introduced new school hours that will give extra time for students who need tutoring. Parents and pundits are wonderig why the new changes are happening in the middle of a semester, versus the calendar year or a new school years, but this just seems like the usual DoE wackiness. Plus the DoE decided that the extra school period should be 37.5 minutes long, which makes Gothamist wonder if DoE doesn't......

The ballyhooed big snow did arrive, and the snowflakes are yooge. They are like millions of little clumpy chunks of Gothamist's "school's closed" dreams, but, alas, we have no car and live in a city with a great, working (for now) mass transit system. And, besides, if we were NYC public school students, NYC schools are open so no sledding in the park for us. We saw salt being dumped on streets yesterday, but will......

While we're not thrilled that the movie version of the musical Rent was shot mostly in San Francisco, Gothamist strongly urges you to go to Bryant Park at lunchtime to hear the cast members of the movie sing songs from the musical in a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS event. Most of the musical's performers are reprising their roles - Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel, Wilson Jermaine Herredia, Tracie Thoms, Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin......

The City has launched an effort to get New Yorkers volunteering with the Mayor's Volunteer Center. The website is a resource for New Yorkers to find out about different volunteering opportunities in different locations and with different focuses (focii?). It's also a great way to meet people. And if you can't volunteer once a week, why not once a month or every other month? Heck, even twice a year would be good. What better way......

Some terrible and just plain strange crime stories involving older New Yorkers: - A 68 year-old woman was punched in the face over the weekend by a heavyset black man in his 40s as she was walking in the Central Park. The incident occured on Saturday morning, near West 63rd Street. According to reports, the man said, "What are you -- blind?" and punched her. She was found, passed out, and the paramedics were called.......

The Census Bureau released it study, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003, yesterday with the headline, "Income Stable, Poverty Up, Numbers of Americans With and Without Health Insurance Rise." Democrats are accusing the Bush administration of releasing the data all at once in August, versus in September as in earlier years, but the NY Times reports that the Census Bureau has published reports at the same time before, adding politics......

Former Mayor Ed Koch is volunteering for the Repubilcan National Convention - seriously! A volunteer effort, NYC2004, has been launched to show Republicans (and the country) how great New York and New Yorkers are. In the press conference yesterday, the Mayor emphasized that job creation the convention will bring, citing the success of other conventions in helping jumpstart summer business, which is usually slower. Former Mayor Koch said, "You don�t have to be a......