Happy Chinese New Year everybody! It might be a little rainy, sure, but that is no reason not to go out and get stuffed today. What? You aren't feeling it? Maybe this little ditty by the U.S.'s very own billionaire-cum-teddy bear Warren Buffet will get you in the mood? more ›

While you're just thinking about where to get Chinese food for the Lunar New Year (Chinatown? Flushing? Sunset Park?), in China, they are taking the upcoming Year of the Dragon very seriously. So seriously that Chinese big spenders have bought all the special edition "Dragon" Rolls-Royce Phantoms which sell for $1.2 million each. more ›

Today is the big Lunar New Year Parade celebrating the Year of the Tiger in Chinatown. Festivities are happening between 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.—more details here. more ›

Chinatown celebrated the beginning of 4708, the Year of the Tiger, with a firecracker ceremony in Sara D. Roosevelt Park. (The firecrackers scare away various bad spirits lurking around.) And while the big Lunar New Year Parade will be next Sunday, there were lion dancers and celebrations yesterday as well. more ›

A Queens Chinese deliveryman is dead after being struck on his scooter yesterday by the drunk driver of an SUV. After hitting Jiangiu Chen, the motorist Richard Conreras allegedly sped off, and dragged the man briefly. Cops found the 28-year-old driver—who was previously arrested for DWI in September—on Greenpoint and Bradley avenues near his home. "I know I hit someone. I was in a vehicle accident, and I’m on my way home," he said at his arraignment today. more ›

If you head to Chinatown tomorrow, be prepared for crowds celebrating the Lunar New Year (4708), the Year of the Tiger. There will be a firecracker ceremony in Sara D. Roosevelt Park (Grand & Chrystie) between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The big parade, with lion, tiger, and unicorn dancers is next Sunday, 2/21, starting at 11:30 a.m. more ›

Yesterday may have been a big TV day, but it was also a gorgeous day to be outside. Those who flocked to Chinatown to see the annual Lunar New Year Parade were rewarded with a vibrant procession of dragons, lions, and performers. Enjoy readers' photographs of the festivities! more ›

Tomorrow, you can celebrate the Year of the Ox by heading to Chinatown for the annual Lunar New Year Parade. It starts at noon or 1 p.m. (Explore Chinatown says the former, Better Chinatown Society the latter)—and you might as well go early and get dim sum!— the route begins at Mott & Hester Streets, going down Mott Street to Chatham Square, E. Broadway and Chrystie Street. There's also a cultural festival starting at 11:30 a.m. at Grand & Chrystie Street. Gong hei fat choi! more ›

The Lunar New festivities are in full swing. Today, there was the fire cracker ceremony at Sara Roosevelt Park and yesterday the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has its Luna New Year celebration. The big event is Sunday's Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown; it starts at 3 p.m. and its path includes Mott Street, Chatham Square, East Broadway, Allen Street, Grand Street and Chrystie Street. more ›

The Better Chinatown Society says that next Sunday's Lunar New Year Parade will honor the two children who were killed when an unoccupied van struck them last week. The group's president Steve Lin told Newsday that parade organizers were meeting to discuss how to recognize the kids, 4-year-old Hayley Ng and 3-year-old Diego Martinez. Little Hayley and Diego were buried yesterday; the Daily News reports that Diego's father Francisco Martinez, "who sobbed and clutched another one of his son's toys, a stuffed blue monkey," is an EMT assigned to Chinatown—he was "off duty the day of the accident, but might have responded to the accident if he'd been on duty." Yesterday, Diego's mother said the day care program didn't contact her about the accident, and mourned how her son died in the hospital alone. more ›

Gong hei fat choi! It's the year 4707 according to the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this year's zodiac sign is the Ox. (President Barack Obama was born in the year of the ox.) There have been a number of Chinese New Year events leading up to today and there will be more this week. At noon, there's a fire cracker ceremony at the soccer field at Sara D. Roosevelt Park—Canal and Forsyth—and there's actually a whole cultural festival there between 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., sponsored by the Better Chinatown Society. Firecrackers help scare away evil spirits. more ›

href="http://londonist.com/2008/02/air_bound.php"> remove one man from Gatwick.

On Sunday afternoon, the fourth day of the Lunar Year, the streets and restaurants of Flushing's Chinatown were packed with families celebrating the Year of the Rat. In case you're wondering, that headline – like many of the Chinese people in Flushing – is Mandarin. It translates roughly to "Congratulations and best wishes for a prosperous New Year." more ›

Maybe you've received a flier to see a show at Radio City Music Hall called Chinese New Year Splendor, which is promoted as a holiday celebration of China’s diverse cultural riches. But mixed within the traditional Mongolian dancing, orchestral music and Buddhist parables are dramatizations of the Chinese government’s oppression of Falun Gong, a qigong-based spiritual practice that is banned in China. And the show’s political content is prompting audiences to walk out by the hundreds. more ›

It's time for the Lunar New Year, which starts February 7th and lasts for 14 days, and this year is the Year of the Rat, 4706. Sure, there are plenty of things to do to celebrate the holiday, but to us, it means one thing -- a new year banquet. We've found a few places that are offering banquets in honor of the Year of the Rat, including variations of traditional Chinese Lunar New Year foods that bring prosperity, happiness and good fortune to all who join together to feast, like dumplings, uncut noodles, whole fish and chicken. more ›

A veteran of Nobu and Ruby Foo’s, Chris Cheung was hired 5 months ago to replace Patricia Yeo at Monkey Bar, the red satin and black lacquer midtown institution known primarily for its, well, monkey theme. In an effort to reemphasize the food quotient of the restaurant, the 38 year-old chef maintains an inventory of global tastes and reassembles them using the template of traditional Chinese food: The curly fries, for example, that come with the burger are made with taro, and the burger itself is served on a bao bun made in-house. The result is not fusion, or an eclectic cook-by-numbers approach to food; Cheung seems to spend a lot of time thinking about ingredients, so the food at Monkey Bar isn’t really served with anything added for dramatic effect, and the plate presentations are relatively uncomplicated. Cheung calls his style “Evolutionary Chinese Cooking.” more ›

This weekend marks the start of many pre-Lunar New Year Festivities in the city. The New Year begins on February 7 (more information here), and there will be the firecracker ceremony and cultural festival in Chatham Square on that day, plus the Lunar New Year Parade and Festival in Chinatown on February 10. There is also a Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing on February 9. more ›

might do to you. Other traditional bake-books operate within the wholly confined orbit of strudel and streusels; A Baker’s Odyssey has strudels galore but is also about forgotten or esoteric American immigrant recipes, so it also covers kulich and chin chin cookies, shoofly pie and puran poori. Recipes involve techniques and ingredients that have sort of fallen by the wayside in an age of 30 minute meals: The book’s cannoli shell dough is made with Madeira, and ANZAC cookies are made with Lyle’s Golden Syrup. more ›

There's an amusing NY Times story about many Chinese adoptees turning 13 and having bat mitzvahs, in keeping with their Jewish families' traditions. There's video and a slideshow of Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro's preparation and bat mitzvah activities. It's an article about the melting pot that is New York and the oddness of having a variety of strong influences. Well, it's odd to everyone else, maybe. From the NY Times:

Yet for Cece, as everyone calls Cecelia, and for many of the girls like her, the odd thing about the whole experience is that it’s not much odder than it is for any 13-year-old. more ›

• If you break down the numbers, the MTA pays an average of $2,000 to escort homeless people from the subways; in related news, Camp Laguardia, the biggest shelter to serve NYC, is being closed
• The Brooklyn Bridge Park could actually cost $300 million - not the $150 million budgeted - to develop
• Yesterday, a water main broke in Central Park, causing flooding to the whole 96th Street Transverse

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unusual odor in the Bronx, two pedestrians struck (one in Manhattan, a fatal one in the Bronx), and three alarm fire at a tire yard in Brooklyn
• The Department of Education will reinstate 17 bus routes, finally realizing that giving 5-year-olds MetroCards is a very mean lesson
• We're so with East Village Idiot on this one:
• Weird: In a story about the doctor who police believe was attacked in his Upper East Side triplex, a neighbor tells the Daily News, "There was a suspicious guy who came a few times in the last six months. I told the police about him. They told me not to speak about it."
• New and expecting parents: ModernTots in Dumbo is having a sample sale this weekend!
• Busta Rhymes was busted for driving without his license in TriBeCa; he told the cops, "You hide behind the shield. This is bulls---." Then he told the judge he thought the cops were robbers in disguise.
• Representative Anthony Weiner may run for Mayor in 2009; so far, other suspects include City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and City Comptroller William Thompson
• And if you're planning ahead, this Sunday is Chinatown's Chinese New Year Parade
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• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A truck vs. building in Staten Island, a hazmat situation in Queens and a child was stuck in an elevator in Times Square
• The 50 day protest over the Sean Bell shooting ends today - his family and friends held a daily rally, one day for each bullet fired by the police
• copyranter dares you to put some sizzle on your wrist with a bacon wristband

Yesterday, thousands were in Chinatown to ring in the Year 4705. The Year of the Pig is a very good year, according to the Chinese astrology, lots of prosperity and good luck. more ›

While Chinatown's annual Chinese New Year Parade won't be until next weekend, there are still plenty of activities to celebrate the year 4705. If you're heading to Chinatown tomorrow (New Year's Day), be sure to head over to Chatham Square (the intersection of Bowery, Mott and East Broadway) for the New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival. For the first time since the city banned fireworks (and firecrackers), there will be firecrackers in Chinatown. A "controlled" display of 300,000 firecrackers will go off in Chatham Square between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. We can honestly say that you haven't experienced a Chinese New Year until your ears ring from firecrackers. Sunday's events don't stop with the firecrackers either. There will also be fireworks in Chinatown's Columbus Park (Mulberry and Baxter Street)at 7 p.m. The fireworks display will reportedly reach 10 stories high. more ›

It's the Lunar New Year this weekend, the first day of 4705 being this Sunday. The Year of the Pig is a very good year - pigs are fat and round, which means a prosperous and benevolent year. Some even think it's a good year to have babies, too! Chinatown will be celebrating the Year of the Pig this weekend and for the next few weeks. There's the Flower Market at Columbus Park today and tomorrow, and on Sunday, there's a New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival. The big parade will be two Sunday away on February 25, so get ready. more ›