The Food Bank for New York City held their 5th Annual Can-Do Awards Dinner and fund raiser last night at Chelsea Piers. For the past 25 years, the Food Bank has worked to end hunger by giving low-income New Yorkers access to affordable and healthy food. Last night's dinner was hosted by classy actor Stanley Tucci and attended by celebrities like Michael Stipe, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mike D; musical performances were by Angela McCluskey, Jill......

Costumed performers and tour guides are fighting for unionization at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where they work to recreate the squalid living conditions of turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants, the very group that was integral to 20th century unionization efforts. Dozens of the tenement employees protested last night outside a fundraiser for the museum at Chelsea Piers. Most of the guides work part time for an average $17 per hour, with no regular pay increases,......

New Year's resolutions probably started out as some sort of gym propaganda to up membership. Every new year, fitness centers worldwide bulk up their ad campaigns, promote "deals" and promise a better body in just months. With so many options, how does one choose a suitable establishment in which to "get physical"? The Post points to Consumer Reports' new list of gym ratings...and it's slim pickins! Bally Total Fitness scored the lowest with a......

Eugenio Cidron, the man who killed bicyclist Eric Ng in 2006 after driving drunk down the West Side bike path instead of the West Side Highway following a holiday party at Chelsea Piers, was sentenced yesterday to three to 10 years in prison. Cidron had driven over a plastic pylon to enter the path from Chelsea Piers and had been driving south for a mile before hitting Ng, who was traveling north. Cidron, who pleaded......

The Gotham Awards gala run by the Independent Feature Project (IFP) will be held in Brooklyn for the first time tonight, after 17 years spent bouncing around between Roseland, Hammerstein Ballroom and Chelsea Piers. This year the independent film awards will take place on the soundstage of Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Among the thousand-plus guests expected to attend are Javier Bardem, Sean Penn, Laura Linney, Uma Thurman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Brooklyn’s......

On December 1, 2006 around 9:30PM, 22-year-old Eric Ng was biking north on bike path by the West Side Highway. Around the same time, 27-year-old Eugene Cidron, leaving a party at Chelsea Piers in his BMW, mistook the bike path for the actual highway, drove south on the bike path and fatally struck Ng near West Street - at least a mile from Chelsea Piers. Ng was hit so hard that his bicycle and shoe......

The Writers Guild strike continued into its second day today; in L.A. Jay Leno delivered donuts to strikers on his motorcycle, while here in New York Seth Meyers joined the picket line and the giant rat outside Silvercup Studios in Long Island City (30 Rock and Gossip Girl are among the productions filmed there). The Saturday Night Live star and head writer had this to say:TV is completely changing, the way people are watching......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a hostage situation on East 124th St. in Manhattan, a carjacking on Undercliff Ave. in the Bronx, and a home invasion robbery on East 18th St. in Brooklyn. For a few thousand dollars a month, one can join the LL Yacht Club at Chelsea Piers and East Hampton and enjoy access to their selection of luxury yachts to head to and from the Hamptons. Ball State University in Indiana......

If you happen to see a huge, green M&M dressed as the Statue of Liberty in the harbor, you are not hungover, it is a Statue of Liberty M&M floating by. Why M&M's has created a 50-foot tall green lady M&M to echo our iconic Frederic Auguste Bartholdi statue? Why, to promote its new PLANET M website, where you can design a M&M avatar, of course. While we missed the 6:45am moment when the "Statue......

An all-Brooklyn edition today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a car struck two pedestrians in Williamsburg, an all hands call in Greenpoint, and a big traffic accident on the Kosciusko Bridge. Tony at PFAW wrote in to say "More than 50% of New Yorkers failed a simulated 10-question naturalization exam—composed of questions recently released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—according to a survey of nearly 250 people held in City Hall Park over a three-day......

There's information about a memorial ride for Eric Ng, the 22 year old bicyclist who was killed by a drunk driver driving on the Hudson River bike path. Ng, a recent NYU graduate, lived in Brooklyn and was in the NYC Teaching Fellows program. Here's an excerpt from a sad post by Eliot at Visual Resistance: I’ve been making ghost bikes for strangers for a year and a half. Eric’s is not the first that......

Police have charged Eugenio Cidron with vehicular manslaughter after driving the West Side Highway bike path for at least a mile and fatally hitting bicyclist Eric Ng on Friday night. Cidron, who had been drinking at a company party at Chelsea Piers, was also charged with drunk driving and reckless endangerment. Cidron's brother told the Post, "This is the first time I ever heard of him drinking and driving. He was saddened by what happened,......

Last night, an NYU graduate bicycling on the West Side Highway's bike path was killed by a drunk driver. Police say that 27 year old Eugenio Cidron turned onto the bike path after attending a party at Chelsea Piers after 9:30PM. According to the Daily News, Cidron's white BMW hit 22 year old Eric Ng so hard that his "bicycle and one of his black Converse All Stars flew onto the adjacent West Side Highway."......

No it wasn't your imagination, that was a parade of police horses you saw parading down lower Manhattan yesterday. The horses, which hail from more than 12 states, are in town for the police equestrian competition in New Jersey this weekend. Since they were around anyway, the crime fighters and their riders took the opportunity to check out the NYPD's Mounted Unit headquarters near the Chelsea Piers before it moves and then went to......

Interesting - the Post has a sorta followup to yesterday's Daily News story about Fashion Week being tents non grata at Bryant Park next February. Though yesterday's Daily News article had Vogue editor Anna Wintour saying that Mayor Bloomberg would support fashion - and tents in Bryant Park - in spite of the park's desire to keep the ice rink up, the Post says Diane Von Furstenberg couldn't convince Bloomberg to keep the tents......

The Daily News revealed the top ten ideas in the running for the redevelopment of Governor's Island. Only 25 proposals were submitted, and while the other ideas may still be considered, these the ones the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation is "concentrating" on:Nickelodeon Recreation/Miller Global Properties: Development of a Nickelodeon Family Suites themed resort complex. The company presently runs a similar operation in Orlando, near Disney World. Federal Development LLC/City University of New......

MeFi yesterday pointed us towards one of those great 9/11 stories that was already slipping from our minds: In 1931, as the George Washington Bridge and the Empire State Building were being completed, the FDNY christened its fastest, bestest water-pumping fireboat, the John J. Harvey. Able to pump nearly 20,000 gallons per minute, the JJH was the definition of the modern fireboat ("Her output is equal to about 26 [or five alarm's worth] of......

The NYPD's Mounted Unit will be ensconced near the NYPD's Tow Pound as part of a move from its current Chelsea location. The Mounted Unit was stationed at Pier 63, right at West 23rd Street near Chelsea Piers, where they had a temporary lease on a space with an indoor riding trak and stables. But the Hudson River Park Trust wanted to take the land back for further renovations, leading some to worry the police......

Way back in 2004, the city announced its super duper special NYC Tax Credit Program for film and TV producers (as well as commercial, music video, etc.) in order to motivate productions to happen here, versus Los Angeles or (gasp) Toronto. And it worked really well: Lindsay Lohan made a movie, Martin Scorsese shot a set-in-Boston movie mostly here, CBS brought us Love Monkey (then cancelled it), there's another Dick Wolf TV, plus countless......

Could it be that the city would really attempt to bring the Olympics to NYC for 2016? Gothamist supposes that means the city has about 2 years to find another site to put a huge stadium on, so politicians, community groups, and everyday Joes and Janes can complain about it. We suggest somewhere slightly more innocuous but still controversial - like Inwood or something. Roland Betts, who had a hand in the city's bid (and......

One of the founders of the proposed-then-denied International Freedom Center at the Wrold Trade Cener site, Tom Bernstein, has resigned from the board raising money for the memorial. The co-founder of Chelsea Piers, Bernstein is the second board member to quit; the first was Agnes Gund. The turmoil over what kind of culture will be at Ground Zero continues, but the Daily News reports that the Smithsonian has been asked to advise on exhibits. While......

- It's the first day of school for NYC public school students, teachers and parents - One death and many injuries at a four-alarm fire on the Upper West Side - Anna Wintour had trouble figuring out how to sit while at the U.S. Open last night; maybe she was enjoying the $10 beers! - Chelsea Piers is sinking, which alarms Gothamist greatly: Law & Order films there! - All we want for the Armageddon......

Brilliant: The pretend New York's Finest at Law & Order are in trouble with the law. It seems that the crew was using "unlicensed walkie talkies" that actually disrupted NYPD transmissions, and a police officer ended up going to the soundstages at Chelsea Piers where Law & Order films. The FCC is fining producers $10,000 for the infraction. Gothamist wonders if Representative Tom Delay has anything to do with this, as he's been crying like......

Just a couple blocks south of the much-coveted MTA railyards, two other rich dudes are fighting over the right to develop Pier 57. The Daily News calls it the "heavyweight real estate duel of the season" (we guess the DN thinks the Hudson Yards is the duel of the year), and gives some good background of the two developers, Roland Betts of Chelsea Piers (and Dubya crony) and Stephen Witkoff, a real estate developer, as......

Pier 78, at the far west end of West 38th Street and where the NY Waterway is located, is up for sale, per the NY Post. It's a 24,450 square-foot piece of land that be expanded to 49,000, just as long as it's for "anything related to entertainment, dining or [business] that is water dependent," says a representative from Cushman & Wakefield, who are brokering any deals. With about ten minutes of actual thought about......

Today's NY Times piece about New York Region > Lions in Front, and Ice Out Back?" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/nyregion/10bryant.html">proposed plans to put a portable skating rink in Bryant Park during the winter has some great information about where you can skate in New York City: - Rink at Rockefeller Center (Fifth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets): $14 on weekdays, $17 on weekends; does not include skate rentals - Wollman Rink in Central Park (east side of......

Ben McGrath, The New Yorker...

As most of you may have read, today is the launch of Gothamist Sports. We are going to cover some of the local sports news as well as some other events in the sporting world outside the New York Area. We also hope to provide some information on recreational sports activities in New York. The site has been in beta for two weeks and Kyle has already gathered some information about summer leagues at Chelsea......

Looking for a way to get in shape that doesn't involve a treadmill? Want to make some new friends from different walks of life? No? How about recapturing the athletic glory of your youth? OK, now that Gothamist has you attention, check out the following sign up dates from the Chelsea Piers Athletic Leagues. ADULT BASKETBALL 4 Divisions: Recreational Under 30, Recreational Over 30, Intermediate, & Women START DATES: JUNE 1, 2004 / SEPTEMBER 13,......

Summer usually brings some pretty awesome storms. While they are sometimes fun to be in, no doubt cool to watch, and provide some invigorating excitement to a downright abusively hot and humid day... they can also be very dangerous. In August, 2002 a 25-year old on a roof in Chinatown was struck and killed by a lightning strike, not from a high rise, but a 6 story building. There was much speculation that the absence......