As chains take over every nook and cranny of this city, some people in the East Village are forming a united front against them. The Villager reports on the corporate takeover, the resistance and the new spin on this story as old as time. Multiple Starbucks in Astor Place act as a welcome sign to the East Village, but the East Village Community Coalition would like to say good riddance to them, and more than......

Today is a citywide "Day Out Against Hate." City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the Reverend Al Sharpton have spearheaded the event, which was prompted by a number of disturbing hate crime incidents, from swastikas in Brooklyn Heights to a noose found at the Columbia University campus. The Politicker was at one of the events this morning, where Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz "suggested, rather strongly, that city public school students be required to make......

A Harlem Assemblyman is so unhappy with Governor Spitzer that he's laying down what the Post calls Spitzer's "DEBUT DEM DISS." Keith Wright, who is a Democrat, told the Post, "He’s acting like a Democrat Giuliani - it’s either his way or no way. I’m not a big fan. I had a better relationship with [Republican former Gov.] George Pataki.” Ouch! That's a double diss - to bring up Giuliani AND to say Pataki was......

A recent NYU study found that children in the South Bronx suffer from astronomical asthma rates: in one Hunt’s Point elementary school, one in four children showed symptoms of the respiratory disease. The study attributed the frequency of asthma to the maze of highways and truck routes that traverse the area. Another likely culprit not mentioned in the study's press release: the seven MTA and privately owned bus depots in the Harlem/South Bronx area.......

In the 2000 census, somewhere around 150,000 New Yorkers described themselves as working in the arts, design, entertainment, and sports occupations. These people, making up 4.3% of the total working population, are the nucleus of what urban theorist Richard Florida calls the "creative class". This map, showing the density of artists and designers in the five boroughs, confirms what we already intuitively know: the creative class is centered in neighborhoods with the most cultural activity.......

If we didn't read it in the Washington Square News, we would have guessed that either Dennis Crowley or Charlie Todd was behind this. But it looks like NYU RAs were the ones who created a Connect Four board out of Weinstein Hall's windows so students could play from the outside. It was part of an effort to bring the dorm community together (Floor Wars), even if it made some students cranky.“It was definitely not......

Yesterday, it was revealed that former deputy mayor Rudy Washington, the Deputy Mayor for Community Development and Business Services under Rudy Giuliani, had filed a worker's compensation claim to cover medical expenses related to his respiratory ailments - and that the city was trying to appeal it. Washington overseen clean up and outreach work at Ground Zero right after September 11, according to another deputy mayor, and now has severe asthma. This comes after the......