When the Dark Room first opened on Ludlow Street in the summer of 2004, it was a different era of the Lower East Side. Like, an era where you'd see Interpol's Carlos D hanging around at bars and everyone was meeting up with "Michael Caine" in the bathroom, and Pianos didn't totally suck. So, granted the Dark Room has probably significantly changed in terms of what kind of people it draws these days, rumors that it's closing is sort tugging at our former self's drunken heartstrings. According to Bowery Boogie, the place may shutter sooner rather than later: more ›

An elderly woman died yesterday after she tried to use her stove to warm her Lower East Side apartment and inadvertently set herself on fire. Widow Claudette Rivera, 72, allegedly turned to her stove for warmth because her second-floor apartment on Ludlow St. had no heat or hot water. Neighbors heard her screams and tried to help her as her clothes caught fire, flames engulfed her body, and smoke filled the hallways. Firefighters were able to put the fire out quickly, and no one else was injured. Adrian Cutner, 65, who was her neighbor for over 30 years, called Rivera a "very, very nice lady," and told the News, "She went up like a candle...It's a classic New York story." more ›

When you first thumb through the menu at Eat-pisode, the new Lower East Side Thai joint on Ludlow Street, you might cringe that the pages are numbered "Eat-pisode 1," "Eat-pisode 2," and so on, as though they are chapters into gastronomic revelation. Fortunately, all of the cringing stops there, and delectable food by the husband-wife team of Wara and Natalee Supulchai (also owners of Poh Tree Thai Spa across the street from the restaurant),... more ›

Another pizza spot is coming soon to the LES, right in the thick of it all on Ludlow Street between Houston and Stanton. Formerly partners in nightlife spots Happy Valley and Show, Sal Imposimato and Joe Vicari have banded together again to open Pizzeria De Santo. more ›

Tonight he plays The Living Room on Ludlow Street, as a kick off to his tour. Brooklyn Vegan has the rest of his tour dates. more ›

During CMJ, everything becomes a venue - from a living room to an abandoned storefront. During the rest of the year, Todd P keeps that sort of thing going on. And in the more "legit" world of venues, new ones are popping up everywhere. more ›

- "People searching for bedbugs do not know to look along the seams of mattresses, under box springs, behind headboards and picture frames, and even inside alarm clocks and telephones"There are many more, but we were intrigued by the case of Peter Young, whose Ludlow Street apartment was infested. Young slept on an inflatable bed and then a metal cot while the landlord tried to get rid of the bugs to no avail. So Young did what any self-respecting, sick-of-bedbugs tenants would do: He stopped paying rent. A judge ruled in Young's favor, saying, "In this case, the bedbugs did not constitute mere annoyance, but constituted an intolerable condition, notwithstanding the landlord’s efforts to exterminate them," and Young got a rent abatement. Young, who now lives in Brooklyn, told the Times and sleeps on a futon, “Psychologically, I’m afraid of beds. I feel traumatized.” more ›

THEATER: Mime-bashing never goes out of style, but don’t you wonder what stories an off-duty mime could tell you? In “It Goes Without Saying”, actor and mime Bill Bowers takes audiences along a hilarious and heartfelt tour from his Montana childhood (“not exactly a hotbed of mime”) to the rough and tumble life of a mime on the streets of Times Square. The 75-minute tell-all, which the Times calls “zestful and endearing”, received a “rapturous response” when it premiered at the Rattlestick Theater last fall. - John Del Signore more ›

Details: more ›

One of them had the funniest interview to date on Gothamist. Another is on a label with some of our favorite bands. And another just opened for Radiohead at Bonnaroo, well, sort of. more ›

with Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman and Aziz Ansari (pictured above with the band Thunderbirds Are Now! at SXSW). more ›

- Have Metrocard, will eat: the Taste of the New York Subway guide is a directory of New York City restaurants within 200 meters of a subway station organized by stop. more ›

Last year, getting off the subway and taking the usual shortcut through the parking lot home, we stumbled upon a Shakespearean production. Right there, in the glow of the early evening, in a parking lot. It was part of the annual free summer Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot series. more ›

KARAOKE: Tonight is the MCFGHT, a LVHRD event. Michelle Collins is the master of ceremonies, presiding over a roomful of people cheering on those who take part in the nights karaoke showdown. If you've never seen Brian Battjer do karaoke, and we're guessing most of you haven't, you do not want to miss this. He'll be one of the contestants tonight. Check out the flyer here, and buy tickets here. They're $20 ($11 if you're special), but include complimentary drinks from Sapporo Beer, Pravda Vodka, and Hi Ball Energy Drink. So if you're tonedeaf and like the juice, this may just be the event for you. more ›

First Grilled Cheese left Ludlow Street, and now BroomeDoggs is leaving Broome Street. The little block between Ludlow and Orchard has recently had a storefront facelift...with little shops opening in places where nothing was before. We thought for sure the overpriced Bakery next to this place would close first, looks like we were wrong. more ›

Grilled Cheese opened its doors there in June of 2000. On their site the GC team has left this note: more ›

A few times a week, Gothamist publishes music reviews by our contributor Jeff Baum. The opinions below belong entirely to the author. more ›

There's more information about the mysterious deaths of Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez, the two 18 year old women who were found unconscious at a Lower East Side apartment and later died. The girls' families say they were not drug addicts, but friends and the two men who were last with the girls say they had been using drugs. The police think uncut heroin or cocaine may have led to overdoses. One of the men, Roberto Martinez, told the Daily News that he only met the girls when Alfredo Morales called him to come to the apartment because the women were having seizures. The NY Times has an extensive article about the conflicting thoughts from family and friends about the deaths and how the women met the older men (at Ludlow Street Bar, Dark Room). The ME's office is still working on toxicology tests. more ›

From bridges to pandas, Gothamist loves a lot of things (what can we say, we're passionate people) but if there is one thing we have an undying love for its the history of our fine city. Which is why it was with great pleasure that we found the lead article in the Times City section today on the University of Michigan's Making of America digital archive. Sponsored by Lawrence J. Portnoy, a Manhattan lawyer, the archive currently include over 300 books from the turn of the century on the state of New York City. We're talking about titles like "The nether side of New York; or, The vice, crime and poverty of the great Metropolis" from 1872, "Who's who of the Chinese in New York" from 1918 and "Working girls in evening schools: a statistical study" from 1914. The Times selections from the archive include such juicy tidbits as what a 20s "shop-girl" ate to stay on her feet (gumdrops and éclairs), the best way for a prostitute to rob her john blind (have a co-conspirator hidden in the walls of her bedroom) and how much it cost to live in luxury while incarcerated in the Ludlow Street Jail (anywhere from $15 to $100 a week depending on how much luxury one wanted). more ›

If you dined at Tenement on Ludlow Street the past two months and paid by credit card, check your statements. The NY Post reports that a waitress was arrested after stealing the credit card information of at least 37 customers. The police say Dominika Szymanska "used a 'skimmer' — a hand-held mechanical embossing device — to make copies of the diners' credit cards" between March and May. Crazy! Gothamist would say pay cash, but when ATM scammers are about, maybe we should go back to using stones and shells as currency. Tenement owner Paul Uljaky said, "This is obviously not something I had anything to do with," because something like credit card fraud could really screw up the next round of Zagat ratings. more ›

Some downtown residents mourned the loss of a two year old rooster who made friends with the Chinese and Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood (he was crushed by his "owner"'s car - accidentally). The NY Times said the rooster held "Ludlow Street in thrall". Gothamist found an exchange about what to do with the rooster's body telling and we liked this description:

"People would say, 'I feel like I'm in Puerto Rico,'" said Chico Soto, who is a warehouseman for Smart Food, a restaurant supply company down the block from Loi's garage. It looked liked a fighting cock, he said. "I know how they look. It had that fighting look: big body, tall, long legs." more ›

We don't often talk about readings on this site because, well, readings are generally kind of boring. Seriously, you can comment all you want about how they're not but we probably won't even read your comments because comments about readings are even more boring. Enter super fast reading series. We're pretty sure the last Ritalin Reading was last June, so we'll give you a refresher. 6 readers, 4 minute readings, 24 minutes of your time and invaluable love advice to last you forevermore (love advice given to you by bloggers and comedians, hmmm.) more ›

Gothamist had dinner plans with a friend recently, and when we met up, he mentioned that he was feeling somewhat under the weather and could really go for some comfort food. We performed a quick mental scan: Lower East Side. . . comfort food . . . Ludlow Street . . . Bingo! We headed over to Grilled Cheese NYC. We had been there ages ago, but since our last visit, they had added sit-down table service, where previously it had been more of a counter-type operation. more ›

Photo by Lars Klove for The New York Times more ›

Rob Sacher, Co-owner Luna Lounge more ›

Ask Gothamist tackled bedbugs a few days ago. And check out the Health Department's information and suggestions on how to handle bed bugs. Some Mexican businessmen had claimed that there are bedbugs at one of the Helmsley hotels, but they settled for $150,000. more ›

Bruce Bennett, Writer/Typist/Guitarist more ›