We think there is still free access to Times Select articles today, so we urge you to read Dan Barry's column about the NY State Pavilion from the 1964 World's Fair. Here's the opening:

Once there were elevators gliding up the sides of the towers to reveal a city unfolding; now they are rusted in mid-rise. Once there were stairwells winding within those towers; now they are rotted through. The call for a better tomorrow, for “Peace Through Understanding,” is answered by the flutter and coo of its hidden inhabitants. more ›

Last week Gothamist was greatly saddened to learn that Grampa Munster, the actor, restauranteur, green politician, and classic New York personality also known as Al Lewis, had passed on. In writing his death up in an Extra, Extra, we followed the lead of other obits and reported that Lewis was 95. Later that week we saw a few reports trickle in that in fact Lewis was 82. The discrepancy of 13 years seemed a bit odd, but we quickly forgot about it. Until today that is, when we opened up our copy of the Times. more ›

"If you can't beat 'em, psych 'em out" seems to be the tactic of the Brooklyn bagel shop that incited the ire of the MTA when it used MTA symbols. The shop, the former "F Line Bagels," was hit with a cease and desist from the MTA last March and eight month laters, fined and forced to remove the various subway signage the owners bought from the MTA. Deciding that a new sign would only be good if it could capture some of that F line goodness, the owners are installing a backwards-F sign, with one owner saying, "People can pronounce it any way they want. It'll be kind of like Toys 'R' Us." Ooh, that's a good idea - maybe they should sell toys, too, with a giraffe hawking them. more ›

The bigger, new-fangled bagels: "an oversized mass of sweetened dough, with a pale exterior soft as a feather pillow."Some NYC customers expect huge bagels, even though they really weren't meant to be that way. Apparently bagels got bigger to feed "whitebread" tastes, and some bagel makers use a scary sounding "dough conditioner" that gives bagels their "product softness ('Reddi-Sponge' some old-timers call it) and extend shelf life." Good God! Gothamist always assumed big bagels represented the bounty of the city, and during our carb-conscious consciousness, we've opted for bialys - or scooped out the white flesh from the big bagels. But now we know! more ›

Well, it's apparently many things, but for Gothamist, it's an opportunity to plunder the NY Times of 100 archive articles each month! For $49.95 a year, the potential to have 100 archived articles for free (they retail for $3.95) is the best money-making scheme we've heard of in a long time. Just think: Get your $395 worth of old articles for free and then sell them on the street! Even if you're selling them for 50 cents each, you're making money! That said, Gothamist welcomes Times Select with open arms because this is clearly a reward for home delivery and suffering with newsprinty hands and annoying inserts (no, Gothamist does not care that the new Richard Meier building has apartment available for more than $5 million!). And also because we've always wanted to see a little orange icon littered across the screen. more ›

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And speaking of Law & Order, in the NY Times's nice "Conventiontown" insert this weekend, Dan Barry waxes about the funny concept of really knowing New York City:

If residents can be forgiven for presuming to know New York, then visitors to this city, including Republican delegates from around the country, can be forgiven for embracing a similar delusion: of thinking that they, too, know New York, based on a devotion to "Law and Order" and a three-day business trip to a Sheraton near Times Square.

Recently, City Hall has proposed outlawing the Mr. Softee jingle. James Conway Jr., an ice cream executive (some might say he has the best job ever), reveals that Mister Softee has a lobbyist that is working with the City Council and the mayor to reach a compromise on the jingle. Conway also reveals that there is a technology that stops the song when the ice cream truck stops. Well, hot damn! Where has this been all our lives? And who ever thought you could make a living as an ice cream lobbyist? Where do we sign up to be the local voice of the BBQ industry? more ›