Babeland of Brooklyn is celebrating Earth Day the only way they know how: the kinky way. Tonight they're hosting a lesson filled with "eco-sexy tips" and invite their "crafty customers to make DIY floggers from recycled bicycle tubes donated by Ride Brooklyn." If you can't join them at 6 p.m., but are in need of a fast flogging fix, fear not... the shop's Pamela Doan tells us all you need is dowels, electrical tape (comes in lots of colors so you can make it pretty!), and recycled bike inner tubes. more ›

We're not surprised that the NYPD press office repeatedly ignored our requests for comment about why, where and WTF cops were doing cutting bike locks and seizing bikes without notice along Obama's motorcade route. Nor were we surprised that NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the Times, "All vehicles, including 165 cars and 30 bikes were removed as a precaution in advance of the presidential motorcade. Notices were posted two days in advance." (We haven't heard from anyone who saw such a notice about the bikes, and does this look like just 30 bikes to you?) And it's not surprising that the NYPD has been blowing off City Councilman Peter Vallone, either—but that doesn't make it any less outrageous. more ›

Hey everyone: Happy Earth Day! We know how you celebrated the other green day this week, but how will you go about giving back to Mother Nature (who seems pretty pissed off right about now)? Jauntsetter has some tips on how to green your travels, with a list of carless escapes from NYC. They note, "Not only are all our destinations green friendly, but they're easy to get to (either by train or bus), to get around (public transport or cabs abound), and on the wallet (eliminating automobiles means mitigating emissions and dollars spent on gasoline)." On their top five: Montreal, Fire Island (no cars allowed!), Philly, Montauk, and Hudson (we suggest trying to catch one of Pete Seeger's sidewalk shows in Beacon—which used to happen every 2nd Saturday around 5 p.m.). Where else? more ›

Mayor Bloomberg will be in Times Square today, to celebrate Earth Day (which is 40 years old) with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, City Council Quinn, and others, including a virtual Vice President Al Gore. Which makes it perfect timing to look back at Earth Day 2007, when the mayor announced PlaNYC 2030, his list of 127 initiatives for the city to achieve sustainability by the year 2030. (Hey, the Mayor's Office Tweeted this morning, "Welcome to NYC, where every day is Earth Day.") And, for what it's worth, that 2007 speech is also the one where he broached the topic of...congestion pricing. more ›

With Fashion Week tents preparing to come down in Bryant Park, another form of art is getting ready to take over the outdoor space. A public photography exhibition will be unveiled on April 2nd, prior to the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and will include 120 massive aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. more ›

The case for locally produced and consumed food will once again be discussed next Tuesday at a Museum of the City of New York forum that includes Blue Hill chef/owner Dan Barber and Greenmarket director Michael Hurwitz. Another speaker is Ian Marvy of Red Hook’s Added Value, whose farm will be just one of many volunteer sites comprising tomorrow's massive Earth Day initiative called the Green Apple Festival. The forum, an affordable $12, will be moderated by Gabrielle Langholtz, editor-in-chief of Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn (the new Brooklyn issue features a behind the scenes look at Williamsburg biscuit lair Egg, and a tour of Brooklyn’s many tortillerias). Looking ahead, one more tidbit of locavore news— New Amsterdam Market announced today that June 28 will be the date of the first Monthly Market for 2009; details, including a location, are forthcoming. more ›

As a part of greening up the earth, Google Transit will tell you the quickest way to get from Point A to B using mass transit in the city. more ›

With all the alarming facts about catastrophic climate change at our fingertips, most of us know by now that every day needs to be Earth Day. And one of the easiest ways to start minimizing environmental impact is by considering what goes into our own mouths. Here in New York, Broadway East, a new “plant-based” (but not strictly vegetarian) restaurant, has made sustainability a top priority. more ›

The most eco-friendly way to eat on Earth Day – and any day – is by growing your own food, eating it raw and composting the scraps. But for those of us who aren’t urban farmers, there are some good green options happening on or around April 22nd. more ›

The MTA will observe Earth Day (April 22nd) by stocking MetroCard vending machines with five million limited-edition green MetroCards. The cards aren’t “green” in the eco-friendly sense – they’re still not made from recycled material – they’re just, you know, green colored. So they’ve got that going for them. Oh, and some environmental factoids will be printed on the back. more ›

The MTA announced today that it has formed a Sustainability Commission to create a "sustainability master plan" by Earth Day of next year. MTA Executive Director Elliot Sander said, "The MTA’s public transportation network makes the entire New York region sustainable, but in the era of climate change we have a responsibility to go even further. The commission will build on the exciting green initiatives we’ve already completed to make sustainability a permanent part of the MTA’s DNA.” more ›

An ambitious plan to plant one million trees in New York is actually going to rely heavily, or primarily, on the the actions and funding of individual residents. On Earth Day back in April, Mayor Bloomberg announced one of many bold initiatives to make New York a greener city: plant a million trees by 2030. Bloomberg even said that $250 million would be devoted to the project over the next ten years to get it going. A closer examination of the details of the plan show that the project's goals are extremely backloaded, with most of the planting of trees by the city coming after 2017, and individual residents are expected to plant more than three trees for every one that the city plants in the next ten years. more ›

Earth Day may have passed, but there are many ways you can be eco-conscious. Take fashion, for instance. Videographer Kelly Loudenberg gives us a look a few eco-fashion approaches:

Last week, the Emerging Green Builders of New York presented the “Project Earth Day” fashion show, an eco-friendly fashion event celebrating Earth Day. Designs ranged from re-worked used clothing to new clothing made from organic or recycled fibers. Runway designer Amber Nelson said, “We tried to create as little waste as possible. We used old shipping pallets to support the stage which is a 100% recycled surface made out of coke bottles and milk jugs.” more ›

As planned since a judge okay'd Forest City Ratner's demolition of buildings in downtown Brooklyn, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn held a protest this morning. FCR says that they own all the buildings and therefore should be allowed to tear them down, but DDDB says one concern is that the land will remain vacant if the project doesn't happen. DDDB's Ron Shiffman told NY1, "I find it very ironic that the day after Earth Day and the day after the mayor, I think, made a magnificent speech calling for us to be the greenest city, that we're destroying buildings that have already been built, buildings that have a lot of energy in them and destroying them, in this case before the lawsuits have been settled." more ›

Wired's science blog tells us that "only two dozen people have seen our planet in its entirety from space" (most have been low orbit views where the entire planet isn't visible). The AP asked them all to describe that view for Earth Day. more ›

The Parks Department says that there are approximately 500,000 street trees decorating New York's five boroughs. That number is based on a 1996 survey. Another tree census was conducted last year and The New York Times puts the current number at nearly 592,000, out of a total of 5.2 million trees in the whole city. The new decade-long tree-planting project would add 210,000 street trees around the city. more ›

The new lighting systems employ computer controlled light emitting diodes (L.E.D.s) that will allow a wide range of colors to be displayed on the upper floors of the building. Currently, a team of maintenance workers must venture out onto the Empire State Building's parapets about 200 times a year to manually switch nine different colored lenses over 208 floodlights. According to the New York Times, the job can take as long as six hours. more ›

This Sunday, the Mayor will formally unveil more PlaNYC details (though the website has been up for a while now). He'll give the speech at the American Museum of Natural History, to which New York Mag says, "while we're excited to see the plan, we confess the museum's symbolism is making us nervous: dinosaurs … carcasses … oy." more ›

After the Sun mentioned the Mayor's upcoming Earth Day PlaNYC speech may include mention of a congestion tax, even more details about what the speech will include have come out. The NY Times says the Mayor is "expected to advocate more than 100 proposals," from cleaning up polluted sites to making buildings more energy efficient. more ›

April 20-21: Wine Rave NYC more ›

Earlier this week, the Post reported on a new trend that even "grandparents, baby boomers and even mothers with carriages" are getting in on: not paying bus fares by using the back door. Dunh dunh DUNH! more ›

The NY Sun is reporting that Mayor Bloomberg will unveil details of his plan to make New York City sustainable through the year 2030 this Sunday. The announcement, which will coincide with Earth Day, will elaborate more on the plaNYC outline he gave in December. The Sun says that the plan includes more than 100 initiatives, but the most controversial one could be congestion pricing, which Bloomberg's plan is expected to include. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired early this evening on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, a homicide/suicide on 225th St. in Queens this afternoon, and a sexual assault early this morning on West 120th St. in Manhattan.
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants black activist Sonny Carson stricken from the list of nominees for proposed street names because she thinks he was divisive and anti-white. Former Black Panther and current Brooklyn Council Member Charles Barron disagrees with the exclusion, noting that Brooklyn is full of streets named after racists and slaveholders, and calls Carson a hero.
• City Council members will vote on a proposal to restrict the growth of pedicabs in the city the day after Earth Day (Sunday the 22nd). Opponents hope the proximity of the two events will sway Council Members in favor of the pedicabs.
• The founder of the Zone Chefs diet service plead guilty along with several mobsters of running a boiler-room stock scheme designed to thin investors' wallets.
• Mayor Bloomberg reactivated a portion of the Staten Island Railroad in order to shift waste transfer from New York to New Jersey away from trucks and towards rail transport.
• Rep. Jerrold Nadler and City Councilwoman Gale Brewer are two more politicians who wrote letters in support of a class trip to Cuba, that wasn't actually a school event and that no one knew anything about at the time.
• Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff says the plan for a Santiago Calatrava-designed gondola is still in the works. The elaborate cable car system would transport passengers to and from Manhattan and Brooklyn via Governors Island.
• Despite pouring boiling water all over his victim to destroy DNA evidence, the Washington Hamilton Heights rapist did leave some at the scene and the police are in possession of it.
• The Tom Cruise-hosted fund-raiser to support a 9/11 rescue worker detoxification program isn't until tomorrow, but the City Council has already issued a proclamation honoring the late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for contributing his vitamin and sauna therapy program to the world.

• Eats on Seventh Avenue South
• They might look like child's play, but these frozen cocktails pack quite a punch for grown-ups.
• Good food around Port Authority? Really?

Despite its size (and irrelevance in national elections), New York City produces about 1% of all of America's greenhouse gas emissions. That's as much as the entire countries of Ireland and Portugal, however considering that New Yorkers account for about 2-3% of the U.S. population, 1% isn't bad. But it's not great either, and Mayor Bloomberg said, "We can no longer deny the science and bury our heads in the sand. Climate change is a real issue with real consequences. And as a coastal city, New York can't just sit back and hope for the best." more ›

- The Tram is running again. Without passengers, of course. more ›