Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! more ›

spot for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The NY Sun reports that Bloomberg and Quinn will have Lorraine Bracco as celebrity back-up at a cocktail reception at Millennium Park - and "Cosmopolitans, Manhattans, and 'Big Apple' Martinis" will be served. That's the way to a politician's heart - make 'em realize the bar scene in NYC will be better than in Denver or Minneapolis, the two other cities in contention. In June, the city tried to woo the Democrats - here's their itinerary. more ›

Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne has been awarded the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the field of architecture. Gothamist guesses that the awesome design for the Caltrans District 7 building in downtown L.A. tipped it in his favor this year (here's a profile of the building, see some work in progress photos here), but he's had a very storied career. As for Mayne's NYC projects, with his firm Morphosis, Mayne has designed the new building at Cooper Union (above) and submitted a proposal for an Olympic Village for NYC's 2012 Olympic bid (below. Here's the NY Times story about his win, the first by an American in 14 years (Robert Venturi in 1991).
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The NY Times on the announcement and Curbed with the LMDC press release. Learn more about Gehry from this Guggenheim show. And Chicago has lots of Gehry in the heart of the city, with Millennium Park; Chicaogist on Frank Gehry more ›