Rudy Giuliani's poor showing in the presidential campaign has plenty of people giving their opinions on why it all went wrong. Bronx residents gave the NY Times an earful about the former mayor ("I was waiting for this moment — he stinks...Giuliani was always for himself, never for the people.") while the Daily News reported on the "hick" comments of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said, "The New York lifestyle hasn't gone over [in]......

Mayor Bloomberg will be speaking at a United Nations conference in Indonesia, but he made a stop in Beijing first. He said to the audience at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Some people believe that by mid-century, as [much] as 75 percent of China's population may be city dwellers. Even an occasional visitor to China, like me, is struck by this rapid urbanization. It is one of the largest internal migrations by people in......

Couples planning their weddings and receptions often face a dilemma with their guest lists. With relatives to consider and budgets to stay within, some send invitations to single friends without a plus one. The NY Times spoke to a few people about the single invite. Some understand that given per-head costs of $200, some guests' feathers will be ruffled. But one single woman says, "if Ms. Bridezilla who is so not a virgin but still......

Carlos Lezama, who founded the West Indian Carnival Parade in Brooklyn back in the 1960s, died yesterday at Kings County Hospital at 83. Lezama was born in Trinidad and had participated in the West Indian Carnival in Harlem when he immigrated to the United States. Then Lezama, along with friend Rufus Goring, brought the parade to Brooklyn. The parade has evolved from a five block affair to being the city's biggest parade. The vibrant gathering,......

Ooh, the NY Times reports that Senator Hillary Clinton had lunch with former Senator Al D'Amato and former Mayor Ed Koch yesterday at the Four Seasons, which Four Seasons co-owner Julian Niccolini likened to "the Second Coming of Christ." And how, as D'Amato is a notable Republican power player. Apparently the trio have lunch at least once a year, and Clinton picked up this meal's check. D'Amato and Koch told the Times' Patrick Healy......

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential machinations are getting more serious. He's planning a $2,100 per ticket fundraiser at the Marriott Marquis on December 19 and he's hired Dubya's CFO from his 2004 campaign. Sandra Pack was Bush's treasury director in 2000 and had been working as an assistant secretary in the Treasury Department. The Daily News reports, "Experts surmised that a veteran like Pack would never give up a steady job and dedicate herself to......

The poor Intrepid. Months of planning (not to mention $250,000) were put into planning yesterday's move from Pier 86 on the West Side of Manhattan to Bayonne, NJ, where the aircraft carrier would be repaired and repainted. Former Navy officers who originally served on the Intrepid, as well as Senator Hillary Clinton and former Mayor Ed Koch and David Dinkins, were invited for the farewell ceremony. But the Intrepid only moved 15 feet before......

That City Councilman Peter Vallone! Back in 2003, he proposd a bill to study NYC's secession from NY State. But nothing happened. And nothing happened in 2004 (he didn't reintroduce it in 2005, maybe he had graffiti to fight), but no matter, the Queens councilman reintroduced the bill last week. And at the core, the idea of secession makes emotional sense, as the city shoulders a lot of the NY State tax burden (look at......

Keeping in the electoral mood, Gothamist wants to point out the Museum of the City of New York's exhibit on former Mayor Ed Koch, who is the first mayor we remember (sorry, Abe Beame). The exhibit is called "New York Comes Back: The Mayoralty of Edward I. Koch," which coincides with the book with the same name by Daily News writer Michael Goodwin, and it promises to reveal "the accomplishments and the controversies of the......

The two mayoral candidates, challenger Fernando Ferrer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, headed to the polls this morning, hoping to encourage people to go out and vote, even though Mayor Bloomberg is leading by, as some polls say, as much as 38 points. The Ferrer campaign is hoping that their supporters will vote so the defeat won't be so crushing and Bloomberg's is hoping that his supporters will actually vote after being told Bloomberg will......

Newsday had some photographs of various politicans at the Gay Pride Parade, and we stopped in our mouse-scrolling tracks when we saw this picture of Senator Charles Schumer. Gothamist thought it might be former Mayor Ed Koch, but it was actually our senior senator from Brooklyn! Now, aside from Chuck not having an aide make sure the Senator isn't posing in unflattering angles, we're concerned because he seems to have really let himself go (here's......

From the musical stylings of the composer who brought us Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde, New York City now has a theme song. The city's tourism arm, NYC & Company, commissioned Frank Wildhorn to write a song about how wonderful New York City is, and now we have "New York: For the Time of Your Life." The NY Post says the song is a "splashy, big-band-style number belted out in a brassy, Sinatra-esque voice," and......

Some notes about various candidates vying to be Hizzoner (or could we someday get Herroner?): - Mayor Bloomberg's reelection staff sought advice from a range of influencers and politicians on how to shed the mayor's billionaire image. It seems the number one thing to do is remind people he wasn't born a billionaire, he just worked his way to that. Both former Mayor Ed Koch and former Representative Herman Badillo say that the mayor......

Short of naming saffron the Big Apple's color, Mayor Bloomberg bestowed The Gates masterminds Christo and Jeanne-Claude with the Doris C. Freedman award for enriching the public environment. Interesting facts: Freedman was the founder of the Public Art Fund, and Mayor Ed Koch created the "Percent for Art" law, "which requires the city to spend 1 percent of its budget for eligible city-funded construction projects on art for city facilities." The AP said that Christo......

The Republican National Convention opened yesterday with two of its more liberal politicians, Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain, taking the stage. Senator McCain, whose dalliances with the other side have confused the more right-leaning conservatives, won the affection of delegates by "mauling" Michael Moore, who was at the convention under the auspices of writing for USA Today. On the Today Show Tim Russert called Moore the GOP's favorite pinata; Moore, for his part, seemed......

You know what, GOP, Gothamist doesn't care if you refuse to use our subways. Just because the subways would be scads faster than the bus shuttles you're proposing for your delegates, from their hotels to Madison Square Garden during the Republican National Convention, it doesn't mean speed is important. Gothamist is happy to have the hot, sweaty, stinky August subways left to us and the thousand other people already in the subway car. Former Mayor......

NYC is wonderful for many reasons, one of them being that former Mayor Ed Koch still has a voice at City Hall - as a movie critic. You can see his reviews on the nyc.gov portal. And he's as no nonsense with film as he was with dealing with the city. On Monsier Ibrahim: Frankly, you won’t miss much if you don’t’ see this flick. But in this current dull period of good new movies,......