New York City is in the middle of Fashion Week, and last night was Ralph Lauren's 40th anniversary as a designer. And, as Style.com reports, he "staged an extraordinarily lavish runway show and black-tie after-party in the Central Park Conservancy" last night. It was such a big deal that Mayor Bloomberg and his lady friend Diana Taylor stepped out! New York magazine's Show & Talk blog wrote this:

Ralph himself seemed blasé. Standing by an unruly, high-spurting fountain (it was spraying guests), he dismissed the idea that he picks special models as openers: His entire shows, he told us, are filled with “the most beautiful models in the world.” Would he be seeing any other shows this week? “No. No one invited me.” (Good thing he threw a party for himself.) But no one beat Matthew Broderick in the “oh-whatever” department: “I don’t know anything about this stuff,” he said, going on to say that even so, he saw the Valentino show in Italy during his summer vacation. How did it compare Mr. Lauren's event? Valentino “was by the Coliseum, which is pretty exciting. This is Central Park.” Touché.

As the museum-going public excitedly awaits the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's expanded southern wing, the NY Times reveals more details. About 5,300 works of Greek and Roman art now will see the light of day, with the gallery reopening tomorrow after a 15-year, $220 million redesign. During that time, an unbelievable 95 percent of the Met’s Greek and Roman collection had been collecting dust, so to speak. more ›

Happy New Year, by Pixietart. If you're going out tonight, send us pix of your revelry: photos (at) goth dot com. more ›

- Newsday is passing along information that the new Mets ballpark will be named CitiField. The source of their information? A blog - though their link to the site is incorrect. Someone wrote into Hot Foot with this bit of information:

I was talking to my father who is working on the new mets stadium and he told me that they just put up a sign saying : "CitiField: Coming in 2009"..also if you didnt know, theres going to be a ground breaking ceremony Monday for the new stadium.

-- If you're going to Brooklyn Eats tonight, we're jealous! more ›

READINGS: Brooklyn-based writer and publicist Jennifer Gilmore reads tonight at Coliseum from her buzzy debut novel, , which follows the intersecting lives of three Jewish American families from the 1920s through the 1960s. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras more ›

The VMA's are in town, but there's more to do beyond screaming outside of Radio City or attempting to hit up one of the red carpet parties... more ›

READINGS: An afternoon event for those of you who don't need to be sweltering in a thankless office - Erica Jong has a conversation with writer Ariel Levy and reads from her new autobiography, . The rain venue is across the street from the park at Coliseum Books. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras more ›

We've got a packed week of awesome events for you, so start tonight (5/10) at McNally Robinson NYC to catch Welsh author Niall Griffiths in a rare U.S. appearance, reading from his latest, Wreckage, starting at 7PM. more ›

. Then, heading uptown to the 92nd St. Y (Lexington Ave. and 92nd St.), everyone's favorite journalist-slash-novelists Tom Wolfe and Pete Hamill are sitting down for a discussion on New York: Fact and Fiction. It starts at 8PM and will cost you $25. more ›

Beloved memoirist Augusten Burroughs will be giving a reading next Tuesday of his latest book, Magical Thinking, at Coliseum Books. And he's going to dish about the new film adaptation of Running with Scissors (Annette Bening will play his mom, Gabrielle Union his mother's girlfriend; Brian Cox is his mom's shrink and Gwyneth Paltrow, Kristin Chenoweth, and Evan Rachel Wood seem to be play his daughters). His last event, at Cooper Union, was totally packed in the steamy summer weather - so if you go, you might want to get there before 6: more ›

, at the Bryant Park Reading Room as part of Coliseum Books’ “Word for Word” lunchtime reading series. more ›

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And Rosenthal reads in the cafe at Coliseum Books tonight, at 6:30PM. more ›