Everyone knows: books are boring. So thank heavens that the Library of Congress is doing SOMETHING worthwhile with all our tax dollars: building a "national jukebox!" Spoiler alert—it's not a jukebox, per se, but "a century's worth of audio recordings in a 45-acre vault in Virginia, housing near 6 million rare recording on wax cylinders, paper piano rolls, vinyl and more." And here we were, thinking that we were the only ones who still listened to Handel on our Talking Machine. more ›

While residents of Brooklyn aren't always fans of Hollywood productions taking over their neighborhood, it might be nice to know that it's not all throwaway reality television being filmed in the borough. According to the NY Post, Brooklyn is getting some bragging rights, with three films featuring the borough being added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Those films are 1977's Saturday Night Fever (set in Bay Ridge), 1945's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and 1992's Malcolm X. The three were selected from over 2,000 nominees. The Empire Strikes Back will also become part of the registry—and after this week, that became an honorary Brooklyn movie. more ›

We've fallen down the rabbit hole over at the Library of Congress' Flickr page many times, and now it's time to check in on their expansive video collection again (they just added more recently). This video follows a couple during their trip to Coney Island in 1903. Below is part 1 (here are parts 2 and 3). They note, "the climax shows a bust view of Rube and Mandy eating frankfurters." It's like nothing's changed (except, you know, everything). more ›

Since 2008, the Library of Congress has been putting photos from its collections onto flickr to share them with a broader audience. The catalog covers a wide range of topics, but we decided to look through their New York baseball related photos. Photos include the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Highlanders/Yankees. Here are a few of our favorites from the online collection. more ›

Geez, the weather this winter has been uneventful. There's no letup of dull weather in sight, at least in New York. We took a gander at LAist this morning only to see that Los Angeles has more snow than Gotham City. The massive west coast storm has dropped up to eighteen inches of snow at higher elevations in Los Angeles County. more ›

If you're head over heels for the ballet, we've got some good news: The New York City Ballet announced last week that they would be hosting two open dress rehearsals of Susan Stroman's Double Feature this month. The company began the open rehearsals last year with Peter Martins's Romeo + Juliet, and they hope to continue them annually. more ›

Last night we received a link to a treasure trove of old copyright-free photos being hosted on the Library of Congress's Flickr page. Here's a link to all of their New York images, and some of our favorites are below and after the jump. The pilot project will get 3,000 of the Library's 14 million photographs online. See what both the Library of Congress and Flickr have to say about the endeavor. more ›

MUSIC: There's not a whole lot going on musically tonight, but the show at Cake Shop seems pretty...sweet. By The End of Tonight and Multitudes will be taking the stage -- the former is described as "the perfect marriage between the math-rockiness of Hella with the glistening, soaring guitars of Explosions in the Sky." more ›

Showing how divided its philosophies are, Supreme Court justices ruled, 5-4, to limit the power cities have integrating schools and placing students by race. Schools in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington had been trying to maintain diversity by, as the NY Times explains, "limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a 'tiebreaker' for admission to particular schools." However, the majority found those programs to be unconstitutional and Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." more ›

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

Last month, Representative Anthony Weiner released a report showing that 85% of registered sex offenders live within 5 blocks of NYC schools (here's a PDF of the report). Included in the report was a map illustrating this point; the report says, "Cartographers at the Library of Congress have plotted the location of every school and every sex offender in New York City on a map. Every sex offender is represented by a red dot, every school is a blue building on the following page." more ›

Joe and Coolfer both sent in a link to the new George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress. The collection of about 40,000 images is searchable online, and includes pictures from the 1860s to the 1930s. Search on "New York" and you'll find an amazing gallery of city images-- more than 1100 pictures! The best part is that all of the images are part of the public domain, and available in uncompressed TIFs, in case you want to make prints or use them for an art project. more ›

Gordon Parks, the photographer turned writer- filmmaker- poet- activist- musician, died in New York City yesterday at age 93. The NY Times obituary is comprehensive and chronicles his feats: The first African-American photographer for Life magazine, the first black Hollywood producer-director, one of the founders of Essence.

An iconoclast, Mr. Parks fashioned a career that resisted categorization. No matter what medium he chose for his self-expression, he sought to challenge stereotypes while still communicating to a large audience. In finding early acclaim as a photographer despite a lack of professional training, he became convinced that he could accomplish whatever he set his mind to. To an astonishing extent, he proved himself right. more ›

Justina Mejias, Proud Puerto Rican more ›

Gothamist wishes all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are thankful for quite a few things - funny pictures of Mayor Bloomberg, a really good sandwich, passing Law & Order on-the-street sets, secret music shows, people who let us pet their dogs. Most of all, we're happy we've made many so many friends, new and old, that we've made through the site (new contributors, readers) who teach us new things and encourage us to learn more. Now, onto sneaking bites of stuffing! more ›

The Library of Congress on Columbus Day, another website about Columbus's journey and one we like better about the food he ate. more ›

Happy 4th! Some holiday notes: more ›

It's July 4th, Independence Day. There are lots of activities in the city, but the highlight is Macy's Fireworks over the East River. This year's fireworks display is called "Lights of Freedom." According to information from Macy's, the display will have 50,000 shells, which means 1,600 shells per minute. And the Macy's Fireworks show uses 55 times more fireworks than the average US fireworks display. more ›