It's official. Today the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate DUMBO a historic district, pending City Council approval. The area, composed of 91 industrial buildings dated mostly from 1880 to 1920, is bound by John Street to the north, York Street to the south, Main Street to the west and Bridge Street to the east. It is the city's 90th historic district. The district contains the Manhattan Bridge, and its support piers and anchorage......

A rendering of Brooklyn's proposed City Tech Tower, designed by Renzo Piano, at Tillary and and Jay Street sent some into speculation mode, especially since its height seemed to be up to 1,000 feet tall. Which would make just about twice the height of the 512-foot tall Williamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the tallest building the Brooklyn. However, the rendering of the building is apparently old. A representative at Forest City Ratner, the development company which......

Newsday reports that emergency track work at West 4th Street will be causing delays on the A, E, D and F lines. Apparently Brooklyn-bound F train will be running on the E between 36th Street Station in Queens and 42nd Street Times Square, and then the F will run on the A between Times Square and Jay Street-Borough Hall. And some other Brooklyn-bound F trains will "run on the D line from 47th-50th Street-Rockefeller Center......

Yesterday we visited the New York Transit Museum’s new exhibit “Show Me the Money: From the Turnstile to the Bank" which details the fare cycle, from buying the fare instrument to the sorting of the money. If you haven’t been to the museum, it is located in a disused 1930s vintage IND subway station in Brooklyn Heights. The new exhibit was perfectly placed in the museum, next to the display of vintage turnstiles and......

May 19: Taste of Tribeca It's time for the 13th annual Taste of Tribeca, with tasting plates from Tribeca restaurants including Chanterelle, Bouley, The Harrison, Tribeca Grill, Megu, Mai House and Blaue Gans. The proceeds will got to support arts and enrichment programs for the kids at Tribeca's public elementary schools, P.S. 234 and P.S. 150, who have illustrated the new “Taste of Tribeca Cookbook” ($15), which will be on sale at the event.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a finger amputation in Queens, a fall victim on West End Avenue, and a combination "jumper up / gas leak" (!) on Staten Island. Detestable: while announcing all sorts of government reforms at the State of the City address, NYC politicians managed to illegally block three lanes of traffic on Jay Street. The Paintsplasher has struck again-- this time in Williamsburg. Meditate on this: can the act of defacing......

Get ready to rumble: Tonight is the first of two public meetings to discuss the Atlantic Yards project - but this is the only public hearing, where comments will be recorded into the record (a public forum will be held on September 12 - Primary Day - and it's unclear whether testimony with be recorded). While the Empire State Development Corporation seems to support this project no matter what, it's important for residents to speak......

The Times today takes a look at the Brooklyn Bridge Park fight that's been brewing for a while now. A quick recap: Everybody basically agrees that an 85-acre park at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge is a wonderful idea. In 2002 the city and state agreed to pay up the $150 million that would be required to convert the land from Atlantic Avenue to Jay Street into usable parks. But as parks aren't......

Have you noticed the sensors at certain subway stations for the MTA's "contactless payment" system? Or, are you part of the program that is actually using them? In January, the MTA announced the Lexington Line, plus Jay Street/Borough Hall A/C/F and 23rd Street Ely Avenue 2/V stops would be the pilot test stations. We wonder if the testers need the special MTA fob, plus a Metrocard, as people will probably commute outside of the......

Here's an odd video to start your day: "Ushio Shinohara paints with boxing gloves on a street in Tribeca, New York City." Velvet Sea has a bunch of pictures showing some of the other paintings made at the Jay Street event. Bonkers!......

March 10: The Back of the House Michael Harlan Turkell's photographs focusing on the behind-the-scenes world of restaurant kitchens will be on display through April 20th at The Fall Café. The opening night festivities, sponsored by the local Sixpoint Craft Ales, are from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. this Frida. 307 Smith Street, Brooklyn, 718-403-0230. March 11: Raw Cocktail Party at Organic Academics At first we were skeptical about the raw food thing, but then we......

You complain about the dirty subways, the MTA complains about the media: The MTA put the blame on free newspapers for giving subway riders more things to drop on the floor and cause track fires. The MTA says that trash pickups have increased by almost 43% (35 tons in 2004 to 50 tons last year), which may have led to the 40% increase in track fires (the Daily News has lower numbers, which we can't......

Like a really bad joke, sending the writer that pretty much lives on alcohol to a cooking class seemed like a recipe for disaster. And it looked like it could only get worse when the class was shown which knives to hack a coconut open with. Luckily, we sat across a long butcher block table from Matthew Kenny, of Heirloom and formerly of Pure Food and Wine, at The Plant in DUMBO and as......

February 11: Raw Desserts at Organic Academics Somehow raw desserts makes us think, "here, just have a piece of fruit," but Chef Matthew Kenney and his team will show us how to make decadent and healthy creations like cheesecake, chocolate pudding, macadamia cookies and many more. 1-4 pm at The Plant (25 Jay Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn), $65. Call 718-722-7541 or email organicacademics@theplantindumbo.com for reservations. February 13: Bogart at Paradou Paradou kicks off their Movie......

Janelle snapped a clear picture of the new recycling bins at the Jay Street station, and these babies are stunning! Judging by the contents, they are intended for paper recycling. We're guessing they are built of see-through materials for terrorism-related reasons. We've never noticed any recycling bins in the subway before, so these might be the first ones in the whole system-- although the MTA has long had newspaper recycling programs set up on......

Special boon for the cross section of the population that are subway nerds and Citibank customers: Select Citibank customers in the NYC area will be chosen to try out the PayPass "contactless payment" system for some NYC subways! A few months after announcing that they would conduct a $44 million pilot test, the MTA revealed that the Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan, along with the Jay Street/Borough Hall A/C/F and 23rd Street Ely Avenue E/Vstops,......

Hmm, this is quite a follow-up to a summer story about men cruising certain subway stations for sex: An undercover cop broke up what the Post delightedly calls a "group grope orgy" at the Jay Street-Borough Hall station in Brooklyn. The Post also enjoys mentioning that the "six men outside the men's room coming and going in two- to three-minute intervals" were doing this "right below NYC Transit headquarters." Words escape us. At least two......

This morning's West 4th Street subway fire caused a lot of excitement downtown. First of all, the new helicopters: The nation loves seeing New Yorkers have problems with their underground trains. Second, Sixth Avenue's streets were closed, with traffic backed up for blocks. Third, tons of firefighters and police officers on the scene. Subway service was restored by 11:30AM, but with the Sixth Avenue lines running on Eight Avenue. Reroutings, via NY1: - The......

The news is showing smoke coming from the West 4th Street station on Sixth Avenue, and NY1 says that a storage room may be on fire. Which means there's no B, D, F, or V service between 34th Street and Broadway-Lafayette; NY1 says the F is moving on the A line between Jay Street and 42nd Street, which means the A, C, and E still seems okay (updated: So A, C, and E service......

The New York Transit Museum has been a staple of Elementary school trips for as long as Gothamist can remember, but in conversation with friends we find it rarely gets the love it deserves from the average New Yorker. Absurd, we say, since where else can you see (and enter) a hundred year old train? Look at every kind of token ever used in New York (oh tokens, those were days)? Not to mention stare......

Everyone wants what they don't have. And, when you live in Manhattan, there is little you don't have at your fingertips - especially food-wise. Not so, in the outerboroughs - even where there is moolah to spare. Case in point: the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO. Considering that the area can lay claim to several new über-expensive, luxury highrises under development, it sports only one small grocery outlet. Mind you, both Jacques Torres' chocolate shop and......

Today and Thursday are Rent Guidelines Board's hearings for the public to weigh in on the proposed increases to rent stabilized apartments. The board is looking at a 2-4.5% increase for one-year leases, and a 4-7% increase for two-year leases, and you can expect the tenants to argue for lower increases and the landlords to argue for higher ones, with some clever signs and passionate discourse. Today's hearing is in Brooklyn, at the NYC City......

Sometimes there are things happening in this city that would (and could) only ever happen here, whether we like it or not. Thankfully we usually like it. The following are a few events taking place tomorrow that not only seem pretty cool, but somehow encompass why we love this city so much. First up is 1 More Time for the 9: "A gospel revival and art attack train party". From the people who brought you......

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The MTA and riders will be entering another new era of subway service as token booth clerks start to move outside to help customers and new unmanned token booth kiosks are unveiled. NYC Transit President Lawrence Reuter said that since most riders use unlimited ride cards, token booth clerks have been selling less cards - and now they'll be able to help commuters who swipe swipe swipe to no avail. The booths are a new......

If it's Wednesday morning, it means the commute. And many commuters are probably frustrated, as an F train derailed around 34th Street this morning. The train derailed at around 4AM, but now the F and D trains are running on the A line between Jay Street and 59th Street. And how did this occur? The AP reports, "Transit workers had been changing a rail, but had not locked it in place, causing the fourth car......

Tonight there's a book release party for G.O.P. D.O.A. by Jay Brida. The book is described as a NYC-based thriller of murder, hypocrisy, and sexual heat set on the eve of the Republican National Convention. When a well-connected �escort� is found murdered on the night before the opening ceremonies, RNC operatives must move fast to cover up a potentially politically fatal secret. A Brooklyn-based political fixer named Flanagan is hired to wade through the pasty......

The MTA, in celebratiing 100 years of transporting New Yorkers around town, have a few centennial goodies for us: This weekend centennial Metrocards will be rolled out (there are twelve versions). And if you ride on the A line between Jay Street-Borough Hall and Columbus Circle, you might be riding in one of the vintage subway cars from the 1930s. These cars have wicker seats, porcelain handles and ceiling fans, and have been at the......

First, DUMBO says no to film and TV crews who want to shoot in the neighborhood. Now the hip/hyped area doesn't want Jehovah's Witnesses living there. According to the Post, Jehovah's Witnesses want to build a 1,000 unit residential buliding at 85 Jay Street, and have applied for city rezoning. DUMBO residents are upset because the building won't have any retail space, though it will look like a castle, have 10 to 14 stories and......