This Thursday the Greater New York exhibit opens at PS 1 in Long Island City (and will run through October 18th). This is their third time around with the exhibit, which this year will showcase 68 artists—covering all mediums—who live and work in the city. A few of the artists have also been commissioned to work in residence, shooting photographs and video, rehearsing and realizing performances, and "stretching the notions of sculpture, painting, photography, film, and video-making." It's like performance art art, or something. more ›

With yesterday's launch of the Wall Street Journal's Greater New York section, 79-year-old media mogul Rupert Murdoch held a party at Gotham Hall. Conveniently, another of Murdoch's papers, the NY Post reports, "Murdoch said the aim of the section was to give a "better choice to consumers" and he promised it would deliver a 'fresh, robust, perspective on their city, the country and the world,'" and mentioned that the NY Times' local circulation "had 'declined by 40 percent over the past several years.'" more ›

The Wall Street Journal's "NY Times-killing" New York section launched today. Online, the "Greater New York" offering has a mix of free and paywall articles. For instance, the lead story, about subway bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi getting waved through the George Washington Bridge checkpoint by Port Authority cops, is free, but the story on NY State considering emergency borrowing is subscriber content. And the WSJ apparently thinks its readers take the subway but are confounded by Metrocard swiping, hence an article on Metrocard swiping (free). more ›

After a year of widely publicized construction site deaths, New York City's Buildings Dept. is working to tighten up some work rules that may have fallen by the wayside or are no longer sufficient. DOB Commissioner Patricia Lancaster wants new rules and a strengthening of the enforcement of work licenses for contractors and concrete operators. more ›

The Gateway National Recreation Area is a dual-state and tri-borough national park meant to showcase the Greater New York Harbor for all area residents. It includes the Sandy Hook peninsula of New Jersey that is the outer boundary of New York's Harbor, Long Island's Jamaica Bay that is a wildlife refuge, and Staten Island's parks that offer opportunities to visit historic forts and wildlife nature areas. All together, the group of parks is known as the Gateway National Recreation Area. A conservation organization is holding a public design competition for Gateway National Park. more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg presented PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York, his administration's thinking about what the city needs to do by the year 2030 in order meet sustainability goals. The plan involves 127 initiatives under the areas of Brownfield Remediation, Housing, Open Space, Transportation, Energy, the Water Network, Water Quality, Air Quality and Climate Change, but the big topic was congestion pricing. After much speculation, Mayor Bloomberg even acknowledged that congestion pricing was the "elephant in the room" and explained that the city would ask the state to embark on a 3-year pilot program:

I’ve thought about [the congestion pricing] question a lot. And I understand the hesitation about charging a fee. I was a skeptic myself. But I looked at the facts, and that’s what I’m asking New Yorkers to do. And the fact is in cities like London and Singapore, fees succeeded in reducing congestion and improving air quality. Many people are already paying to drive into Manhattan – there are tolls on most bridges and the four tunnels. But to avoid those tolls, many people drive through neighborhood streets. That not only clogs the streets, it increases air pollution – and asthma rates... more ›

Two long-festering plans could come together: Redeveloping Governor's Island and bringing car racing to NYC. The NY Sun reports that the Indy Racing League might be interested in including a Governor's Island race in its circuit. A spokesman told the Sun:

"Governors Island certainly is something that has come up, but in terms of definitive plans, we still have a long way to go. We've had some discussions with people in the greater New York City area [ including the agency overseeing the island's development]. No single idea has been approved or shot down."

more ›

Earlier in the week the Sun pointed out that while Brooklyn may be "so hot right now" in terms of people and real estate that heat hasn't exactly turned into any money for the print-set. Just as quickly as new Kings County publications come out they seem to close. The latest to fold is the actually enjoyable The Brooklynite ("the a Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee champion!"). But before it goes gently into the night, the Brooklynite still managed to put out an online only final issue. And there are some goodies in it worth reading over including a story on beauty pagents in Brooklyn, one on the 350 botanicas ("Hispanic religious healing shops") that dot our city, and one on the 10,117 Native Americans that live in Brooklyn (who knew?). more ›

On Sundays, Gothamist asks our friends and neighbors for Op-Ed contributions-- essays about things related to life in New York City. For instance, below, local history expert Matt Levy schools you in some mayoral history: more ›

Jonathan Mandell & Mark Berkey-Gerard, Gotham Gazette more ›

Mayor Bloomberg criticized federal efforts to help Hurricane Katrina victims as he also reassured New Yorkers that our Office of Emergency Management had an evacuationg plan for the city if needed. At the West Indian Day Parade yesterday, the Mayor told a crowd:

The sad fact is that the vast majority of those who were left behind in New Orleans were either black or poor, or both. How could we have turned our backs on those who've needed our help for so long, for so many years that they were left to fend for themselves when disaster struck? As a nation, we all are to blame and we all must do better the next time.

Summer in the city is always a slow period for gallery shows. Like any self-respecting Europhiles, many galleries stop opening on Saturdays and occasionally close all together for parts of August. Many of the big buyers have taken their money and fled the city for cooler pastures and almost all of the big art magazines produce only a single summer issue, so those shows that do go up in July and August often tend to just be group shows of works from the gallery's inventory. more ›

Good ol' P.S.1 has been showing works from NY area artists in its Greater New York 2005 show. However, one artist, Mike Bouchet, causing been making a stink. Literally: His work, "Celebrity Hot Tub for Kofi Annan," has been making visitors ill, according to the NY Post. (For your NY Post conspiracy theorists, Rupert hates modern art!) How does Bouchet achieve this powerful audience reaction? The sculpture has a "rotting sausage stewing in a [Jacuzzi] of noxious water." One staffer told the Post, "Sure, it's terrible, everyone complains, someone vomited. It got real bad, we didn't know you had to clean it out. The guards are really mad about this." And other artists in the exhibit aren't that happy either. The best part about this is that Bouchet went back to his new home in Germany when the exhibit opened, and didn't leave instructions on how to maintain the work; the water and sausage were replaced, but the smell was back soon. This is totally like Gothamist's third grade science project, the one we made up the morning it was due - "What will happen to ice when it's left out of the freezer?" Clearly, sausage in a Jacuzzi in a museum would rot. But while Gothamist would like ot claim this is the grossest thing in a public museum/area we can think of, it's not. In San Francisco, there was an exhibit of corpses, which started to leak...and then the Conservatory of Flowers has the world's stinkiest flower. more ›

The Daily News reports that New York Orchid Show is opening today and running through Sunday. At Rockefeller Center. more ›