There's a nifty picture of Walter Malinowski in the Daily News. Who is Malinowski? Why, he's the 59-year-old Buzzcocks fan whose placement of gas containers (for lawn mowing) in the backseat of his 1991 Cutlass Ciera caused Irving Place between 14th and 15th Streets to be closed down and evacuated late Thursday night. The NJ resident, who had been attending the Buzzcocks concert at the Fillmore up the street, said, "I didn't mean to do it." And regarding his damaged car (the windows were blown out for the bomb squad to investigate), "Oh, gee, let me see here - I have an air conditioned vehicle now," but added, "The Buzzcocks! Concert was great!" more ›

Last night, the NYPD and FDNY responded to a call about a "suspicious vehicle" parked outside the Con Edison building on Irving Place between 14th and 15th Streets, a block east of Union Square. The 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera had some gas containers in the back seat. After closing down some streets, partially evacuating a building and having the bomb squad inspect the car, it was determined that the vehicle was not a threat. Oh, and talking to the car's owner helped, too. more ›

As commenters on Gothamist Contribute have noted—"Big police activity around 14th street and Irving - something in a car or truck" and "Flammable containers in a car at 15th and Irving. Bomb squad on scene"—the NYPD and FDNY have been checking out a suspicious vehicle on Irving Place between 14th and 15th Street, right outside Con Edison. It does not appear to be a BMW prototype that was left running with a tarp over it; we hear that there are several gas cans in the rear seat—and some buildings may have been evacuated. Update: The police gave the all clear around 1 a.m. after talking to the car's owner. more ›

In 1993 Matthew Kenney debuted his first restaurant, Matthew’s, to enviable acclaim; before he knew it Food and Wine Magazine had declared him one of the ten best new chefs in America. A flurry of activity followed, as Kenney involved himself with a series of popular restaurants throughout Manhattan that emphasized regional Mediterranean cooking. In 2004 he switched gears, opening Pure Food and Wine, an organic raw food restaurant on Irving Place that continues to impress diners with pretty definitive evidence of raw food’s potential. (The White Corn Tamale with Raw Cacao Mole, Marinated Mushrooms, Salsa Verde and Avocado is supposedly sublime.) His latest project is Free Foods NYC, the non-raw but mostly organic midtown café. We questioned Kenney about Free Foods, his conversion to organic ingredients, and got him to share his recipe for raw pumpkin pie; he swears you’ll never know it’s actually made with carrot juice. more ›

We'll be liveblogging the MTVU Woodie Awards tonight (hopefully Jared Leto won't break our blogging fingers) -- if you're looking for something else to do though, here are some suggestions... READING: Spend an evening with Global City Review contributors Linsey Abrams, Fred Tuten, and Michelle Yasmine Valladare. The publication "celebrates the difficulties and possibilities of the 'global city' and other constructions of community...while honoring the subversiveness and originality of ordinary lives," and reflects on New... more ›

Vynl, 507 Columbus AvenueOn three separate nights cameras caught the critters feasting "on scraps that were left on the dirty kitchen floor and climbing over crates of glassware" at Da Silvano's (pictured top left). The owner there said the problem was caused by nearby construction and recent renovations and claimed he will be throwing out everything edible in the restaurant and starting fresh. Ah, not even the celeb hot spots can escape the wrath of roaches and rodents. more ›

Learn about Friuli-Venezia Giulia through a study of wine and food. Friuli's whites will keep you cool during the summer, but the red varietals hold their own as well. 1:00 - 3:00 pm, $75.00. Register online or by calling 212-473-2323 x106. Italian Wine Merchants - Studio del Gusto, 108 East 16th Street between Park Avenue South & Irving Place. more ›

This weekend is the official kickoff of the first annual NYC Food Film Festival at Water Taxi Beach. This weekend features regional american burgers and asparagus, with Hamburger America (for those of you who missed our QBQ Burger Bash last year), Asparagus! A Stalk-Umentary, and more, including your chance to taste the famed green chile cheeseburger. Drool. You can find the full schedule here. more ›

June 7 - June 11: Broadway Panhandler "Yard Sale" more ›

THEATER: Listen up: The World Financial Center’s unique Word of Mouth Festival is going on through Saturday only. Taking inspiration from the festival’s location, The Women’s Project is presenting a series of short plays by women playwrights called Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$. They’re all site-specific works about the relationships between women and wealth (or lack thereof); audiences are escorted through various spots around the World Financial Center to watch each performance. (There's an article today's Times Metro section.) Another intriguing production is Bird Eye Blue Print, which occurs in an abandoned office suite on the first floor of One World Financial Center. “In these rooms, a mysterious woman known only as ‘the blue dress lady’ has made her home. Join her as she tours you through her realm of disappearing birds, empty phone jacks, false doorways and lost sisters. Is it an office suite? Or an elaborate optical illusion?” (Playwright Jeffrey M. Jones highly recommends the play; he also stresses that while they are limiting the advance reservations for Bird Eye Blue Print, nobody who showed up without a reservation was turned away on the night he attended.) - John Del Signore more ›

THEATER: There’s a growing cultural phenomenon in Japan called hikikomori, in which young people (as many as 1 million) withdraw into their rooms and refuse any contact with the outside world, sometimes for years. (In America, it’s called adolescence.) The Attic, by acclaimed Japanese playwright Yoji Sakate, is about “a mysterious company that sells tiny ‘attics’ over the internet to people who want to withdraw from society. One man embarks on a quest to find the source of these dwellings after his brother commits suicide in one. On the path to discovering the source are several attic dwellers including a teenage girl and a kidnapper, samurai, polar explorers, soldiers fighting a multi-national war, and many other commonplace and fantastical characters.” John Beer at The Village Voice says, “It might come in a coffin-like box, but this witty, bizarre, and intensely moving production is a rare gift.” - John Del Signore more ›

The police are still trying to understand what happened during yesterday's morning stabbing of a 16-year-old student. Mark Tyrell, who attends Chelsea Career and Technical high, was stabbed repeatedly on East 14th Street after emerging from the Union Square subway station. Police believe the incident started on the subway platform when Tyrell ran into some people. When Tyrell was chased out, he was attacked outside a pizzeria, where an employee told the NY Times, "One of them grabbed a screwdriver or a nail or something and started hitting him." more ›

This morning around 9 a.m., during the morning rush hour, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed in Union Square. Police say that the teen had gotten out of the subway and got into what WABC 7 calls a "verbal dispute" that caused the group to chase the boy towards his high school. (WABC also showed footage of his bloody jacket and backpack at the scene.) more ›

THEATER: Self-proclaimed “super-ultra-nerd” Brooke O’Harra has spawned Panic at P.S. 122. Written by Rafael Spregelburd, her production invokes the mood of low-budget horror movies to tell the tale of a mother and her two children as they attempt to recover the key to their safety deposit box - from the hands of the dead! Panic is part of the Buenos Aires in Translation (BAiT) festival, featuring the U.S. premieres of four playwrights from Argentina’s capital, which has become the theatrical “epicenter of Latin America”. The three other plays are also running through Sunday. - John Del Signore more ›

READING: The New School's wonderful public lectures and reading series are back in swing as the school year revs up, and tonight, the ethereal Mary Gaitskill will discuss her book (a National Book Award finalist) with moderator Jeffrey Renard Allen. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras more ›

READINGS: Jennifer Paddock will be at the Borders to read from her sophomore novel, , which follows a young writer, Caroline, as she leaves her MFA program and seeks out stories in the devastated wake of Hurricane Ivan. Paddock combines her story with Caroline's writing, which is an interesting technique, if not a little meta. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras more ›

We recently got the opportunity to take a peek at Japonais, the much-anticipated Chicago import from partners Rick Wahlstedt, Miae Lim, and Jeffrey Beers. A great deal of detail went into the majestic space -- approximately 11,350 square feet (includes both inside and outside areas), which seats close to 300 patrons -- decked out with gold banquettes, red plush chairs, and multiple seating areas, including the bar and lounge, main dining room, an upstairs lounge, and a sushi bar. The centerpiece of the main dining room is a striking tree sculpture featuring custom blown glass pods created for the restaurant by Beers and his team from Urban Glass. more ›

ART OPENING: The Martinez Gallery presents an exhibition that "puts the artists behind the graffiti movement on display, challenging stereotypes about both the form and its practitioners. This collective self-portrait, which includes the work of twelve contemporary graffiti writers, exposes a history that the institutional art world and politicians, ignore and even censor." Featuring CASE 2, COCO 144, GIZ, JA, KEZ 5, LES, NATO, NOXER, RATE, SKUF, TRACY 168 and VFR. - Jason Laning more ›

We were walking up in Gramercy before and noticed that the police had blocked off Irving Place between 15th and 16th Street. We asked an officer on the scene what happened-- he said a piece of the wall of the building across from Washington Irving fell off. First reports indicated that someone was hurt, but we were unable to verify that. Interesting coincidence: this is directly across the street from the notorious "stooling" incident three years ago. Remind us to always wear a helmet when walking on that block!
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TOURNAMENT: When we were younger, we totally kicked a*s at Memory, but we're not sure that we'd do too well competing against the mental athletes at the National Memory Championship. The tournament consists of memory challenging tournament-style competitive events including memorization of: 99 names and faces, a shuffled deck of cards, an unpublished poem, speed numbers, and a list of 500 words. They will be broadcast on HDNet, Tuesday, April 18th at 10pm but you can catch them live this weekend. more ›

Found on Craigslist at the UCB Theatre, Thursday at 8pm - $5 more ›

Andrew Rasiej, Candidate for Public Advocate more ›

The city is no longer awash in saffron, but we promise there is still a lot to do this weekend... more ›

Also in the school news, five schools were taken off the most dangerous NYC schools list, including Washington Irving High. A pregnant woman walking along Irving Place was hit on the head by a stool that was thrown out of the school two years ago. With a 43% reduction in major crime, and given the Mayor's school security initiatives, this too will become a statistic the mayor uses a lot this year. more ›

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Tommorrow night from 6:30 - 9:00 at Cibar there's a wine tasting to promote Alexander Payne's new film, Sideways. Payne brought us About Schmidt and Election, both of which Gothamist thought were hysterical even without free booze to soften us up. The ad, which you need to print out in order to attend, bills it as a "special wine tasting," which we hope can be interpreted as "free wine tasting." If so, we'll see you there. more ›

Gothamist, like many other New Yorkers, will be strategically avoiding the various lifestyle headaches that promise to accompany the Grand Old Party to our beloved city. For those natives fleeing the island as the Republicans descend, we'll take a page from the administration's book and offer our suggestions for a Gothamist Food "Go Bag" stocked with some of our favorite hometown provisions: more ›

We visited the Holy Land, a.k.a the set of Law & Order. Check out some of this past week's Gothamist Interviews. Plus the week in full. more ›

After conquering the West Village (with Po, Lupa, Otto, and Babbo) and Midtown West (Esca), Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich set their sights on Irving Place by taking over the former Irving on Irving space with Casa Mono, a variation on Spanish tapas bar. Gothamist checked out Casa Mono one evening to see that the Batali-Bastianich touch and name bring the foodies comin'. more ›

It gets worse with the Irving Place stooling: The woman who was hit by a stool thrown out a 6th story window at Washington Irving High School was seven months pregnant. Fortunately, doctors expect the woman to recover without any harm to the baby. The Daily News learned the kids involved with the incident probably watch too much TV: "Police sources said the two students told detectives they were reenacting body slams and smackdowns they had learned watching pro wrestling on TV when the chair went out the window." A high school staffer tells the Post, "The school is known as the dumping ground for the bad kids in Manhattan. That's not fair." more ›

The victim is currently in the hospital. Apparently, the kids there like to throw things, since there was a telephone in the trees as well. more ›