More Rescue Me for Next Season Cable network FX has picked up the Denis Leary FDNY dramedy Rescue Me for a fifth season. The show which films in the city and all over the tri-state area will not be getting the standard cable 13 episode season as it has for the past four seasons, but instead will be getting a 22 episode run split into two runs. Bolaris is Officially Heading South After months of......

Switcharoo at CBS 2 This week, veteran anchors Jim Rosenfield and Dana Tyler, who were anchoring at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., switched newscasts with Chris Wragge and Kristine Johnson, who were anchoring the noon and 5 p.m. We think that moving younger talent to the higher profile 11 p.m. newscast is probably an attempt to get some younger viewers. Channel 2 has been the least stable of the local newscasts over the past ten......

Save Veronica Mars Campaign Does Not Effect Local Mars Bar Availability A campaign to send the CW’s Dawn Ostroff the entire American supply of the popular British candy bar in an effort to save Veronica Mars has not effected local Mars bar availability, despite claims by organizers that they “bought out all the available Mars Bars in the U.S.A.”. Visiting Meyers of Keswick in Greenwich Village earlier this week, we were able to purchase several......

Quoth Tracy Morgan, on the occasion of his second conviction for drunk driving: "Drinking and driving is not cool." Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: unusual trauma in Riverside Park (A CHILD IN A PARK THAT HAS A PIECE OF WOOD IMPALED INTO THE KNEECAP --BNN), aircraft emergency at Laguardia, and 10-75 on lower Broadway. The Morning News offers some well-considered advice for city living-- example: "it is a law of physics that no two......

A look at some noteworthy programs this week: New York City Ballet: Bringing Balanchine Back (Sunday, 7:00 p.m. WNET 13) Kevin Kline narrates this documentary following the journey of the New York City Balet to St. Petersburg, the birthplace of its founder George Balanchine, where they perform at the storied Mariinsky Theatre. Great Performances Garrison Keillor's New Year's Eve Special (Sunday, 10:00 p.m. WNET 13 and NJN) we all know about the other hackneyed New......

Our acquaintances over at The Morning News have developed the city's most hilarious holiday t-shirt: "The Squirrel That Ate Christmas". Buy one today! Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: many suspicious packages all over town, a motorcycle accident on East 47th Street, and a jumper down on East 20th Street. We're not sure what's happening in this photo, but it may well be the cutest thing we've ever posted to Gothamist. AMNY has a great......

- AMNY looks ahead by 24 years at NYC's future - cue the "In the Year 2030" music - A glimpse into the Diamond District from The Morning News - Rikers Island geese control measures work, but what to do with the dead geese? - Governor Pataki tries to give his friends sweet jobs in the state government before the door hits him on his way out - A toddler drowned in a Queens......

Somehow, perhaps due to a rip in the time-space continuum, Reader's Digest found that New York City is the world's most polite city. Not that Gothamist doubted the friendliness or kindness of our fellow residents, but nailing an 80% in the Reader's Digest Courtesy Test, over say, Toronto (77%)? Or Sydney (a paltry 47%)? And what was the courtesy test?The routine in New York was similar to the one followed elsewhere: Two reporters -- one......

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today and the old Gray Lady takes three, but the Washington Post won four (criticism, beat reporting, explanatory writing, and investigative reporting). However, the real story might be the awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage, a public service award shared by the Sun-Herald in Biloxi and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, breaking news photography award for the Dallas Morning News and a breaking news reporting awards fro the Times-Picayune. The three......

This is probably the first time a literary magazine has won our Map of the Day prize! The Morning News put up a nice set of maps by Dorothy Gambrell measuring the bohemianess of various neighborhoods in NYC. The formula she used: [(% of persons 18–24 with some college or associate degree or higher) + 7(% of persons 25+ with a bachelors degree or higher)] / [median household income in dollars] All data was......

Unbelievably, it's the last week of the year! How time flies! We'll be assembling our own Best of 2005 lists (Most Interesting News Stories, Best Shots of Pandas, Most Poorly Thought Out Gothamist Posts, etc. etc.) But until we can get the Gothamist supercomputer to spit those out, here are some lists from our friends (and one enemy!) in and around the city: Morning News Top 10 Albums Best of MUG 2005 Best Books by......

Only thirteen shopping days until Christmas, but you don't have to get us a gift. The only thing Gothamist wants is more pictures of the Dyker Heights Christmas Lights, up on 84th Street in Brooklyn (between 12th and 13th Avenue)-- see the map at right. Blogger 423 Smith is up on the board first, with some wonderful shots from last week. Flickr is letting us down-- only a few paltry offerings on the "Dyker......

The New York Times has a nice spotlight piece about Paul Ford today. We've been big fans of Paul's work at FTrain for years-- and he was nice enough to sit for one of our first interviews: The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC? It's going to be really hard to find beer, like during the blackout, so while everyone......

Recently Time Magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. Now as these lists seem to come out about once a month and mean about as much as the prize in a box of cracker jacks we've learned to generally completely ignore them. In fact, we probably wouldn't have even registered this latest list if it weren't for this genius post on The Morning News. Matthew Baldwin went through the......

- The Morning News has a great interview with photographer Douglas Levere, as well as a gallery of his New York City photographs - A Queens man tried to kidnap a Queens woman yesterday; police do not think it is the same man who raped a 13 year-old - The NJ boy who ran away from home because he was afraid his parents would be angry over his poor report card was found under a......

- Bob Denver passed away at age 70; Gothamist spent so many hours of our youth watching Gilligan's Island on Channel 5 that we really feel like we've lost a bumbling friend who looked great in the color red - The police have arrested a man in connection with the shooting death of a 10 year-old bystander in the Bronx - Lance Arthur explains why San Francisco is superior to New York City at The......

Gothamist fought the stinking heat Tuesday to...sit in only marginally less heat at Florence Gould Hall (we sat among people who did not bring the smell of the 6 train, but there was no AC). The gracious staff of the French Institute/ Allaince Francaise were very accomodating, though, and kept things on-topic with the personalities and finesse of Audrey Saunders of Bemelmans(The Morning News included Bemelman's in a great, if somewhat dated, article about hotel......

This week, we've been reading Inigo Thomas's diary in Slate; he's been writing about "Bohemian New York," and the entries are part travelogue, part history of a different kind of life: There's no bohemia in today's New York. Nothing resembles Greenwich Village in its various incarnations from the turn of the 20th century to the 1960s, or the art-scene East Village of the late 1970s and 1980s, or Williamsburg in the early 1990s. You can......

Danny Gregory, one of Gothamist's favorite writer-illustrators, recently came out with a new book, Change Your Underwear Twice A week. Change Your Underwear (and we like writing that as well as saying that out loud) is a collection of old school filmstrips from the 40s-70s that helped many Baby Boombers and Gen X-ers understand how to live life. You can see some of the filmstrip at his site. And Gregory spoke to NPR about the......

Very cool article in the NY Times today about the Gotham typeface, which was inspired by simple sans-serif types seen everywhere in the city, and the young typeface was chosed for the cornerstone for the World Trade Center. It was developed by Tobias Frere-Jones at Hoefler Type Foundry, who didn't even know that the typeface had been used for the cornerstone until getting an email from a client and then seeing pictures of it on......

With the penultimate episode of The Apprentice tonight with TWO firings, there's a ton of news floating around. Like how the runnerup gets to work at KFC as the CSO for a week (salary: $25,000 for the week) and the whole Ereka-Omarosa fight (check out how Carolyn says Omarosa has "bad management skills" - sigh, Carolyn, you rule, even if you do work for Donald Trump). There's a "You're Fired Funny! Salute to the Apprentice"......

Is there only one rivalry left in baseball? George Vecsey thinks so (for the record, Gothamist thinks there are at least two rivalries in baseball). Vecsey contends that the only rivalry that is worth watching is the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry and to an extent, parts of his article are true. There is tremendous buzz around the two teams this year, with each team making off-season moves. Then there are the Mets, who Vecsey says......

Manhattan User's Guide asked eight New York bloggers what their 10 favorites things are in the city, and the lists give nice notice to what makes the city their beloved home: • The Morning News' Andrew Womack picks St. Helen Cafe in Williamsburg, "Recommended if you like: elk in your artwork. And I do." • Remy Stern of New Yorkish likes "All the fantastic coffee outlets not affiliated with multi-national corporations bent on world dominance"......

Paul Ford...

This post on Danny Gregory's book, Everyday Matters, is way overdue. Gothamist read it last fall, but, in a strange twist, other things got in the way. We say strange because if there's anything to be taken from the inspiring memoir/essay about life in New York, it's that life is to be savored. The book opens with this statement: "Two years before I started drawing, my wife was run over by a subway train. Sounds......

The most productive most people are on the subway is scanning a few headlines in the paper or getting through a chapter of a book. Maybe some can manage to put on their mascara, but that's real talent. That's why The Morning News's feature on Witold Riedel and his drawings that take seed from his subway journeys is fascinating. Riedel has some beautiful thoughts about New York and riding the subway, like "New York......

Birth control and condom sales will experience an increase around the city: The New York Times looks at the recent trend of adult children coming to live back at home (which seems to accompany parents continuing to support their children into their, eek, mid 30s). The NY Post, in a story about how city schools seem to be focused on the attractiveness of bulletin boards over the increasing school violence, has this picture of Lt.......

Lloyd Grove gets political and examines Wesley Clark's recent subway journey. And it's official: The Democratic presidential hopeful is a Metrotard (TM The Morning News). After claiming he was riding the subway "Simply because it's the best way to get around the city," Clark tried to swipe his Metrocard at the turnstile, only to get "PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN." Then his aide tried a few times to work the Metrocard. Grove asked if the general......

The Morning News the fabulous Great Pupkin event in Fort Greene. The Great Pupkin is an opportunity for dog owners to dress up their dogs in various Halloween finery (just as Halloween is an opportunity for girls to slut it up ), though writer Todd Levin notes, "There is something tragicomic about a dog in a sombrero...The psychological implications of a dog in costume might be horrible if they weren�t so completely adorable." And......

The Times looks to see whether or not blogs with editors are really blogs, this after the Sacremento Bee's disclosure that they edit columnist Daniel Weintraub's blog. Many organizations have different approaches, so do edit, some don't. Spokesman Review managing editor says "his bloggers need no editing [since] most have 10 to 25 years of reporting experience and apply the tenets of good journalism to their Web logs." The Dallas Morning News doesn't edit their......