This weekend marks the start of many pre-Lunar New Year Festivities in the city. The New Year begins on February 7 (more information here), and there will be the firecracker ceremony and cultural festival in Chatham Square on that day, plus the Lunar New Year Parade and Festival in Chinatown on February 10. There is also a Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing on February 9. Today through Monday, the Museum of Chinese in America......

Rainbow cookies are quite possibly our favorite cookies. Ever. Whenever someone brings a cookie assortment from an Italian bakery we always eat all the rainbow cookies first and usually discard the rest. The best rainbow cookies money can buy are available at Isaac's Bake Shop, 1419 Avenue J in Brooklyn, NY, right across the street from Di Fara's pizza, and just a few blocks away from where we grew up. (We still think it's......

There's been a lot of ink, virtual and otherwise, already spilled on Governors Island. But today, NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff proclaimed that the new site "could well become the most inspired public park built here in generations." He also said the plan is "humble in scale but big on ambition." But didn't he say last spring that the designs lacked ambition? Hmm. We have to give him this: Of the five proposals,......

Forget the new JJ Abrams film about a fictional monster attacking New York...the Mulberry Street monster is a real-life city menace: the rat! Many rats actually, like more rats than they have at Peter Luger and Da Silvano's...combined! The movie, which came out last year, is summarized as follows: "a deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their......

Many of you are probably familiar with the horchata you can buy at Burritoville, a pale, dairy imitation of the real thing made with fat-free milk, rice powder, cinnamon, and sugar. It's potable, but doesn't even begin to compare with horchata made with actual rice and almonds, cinnamon and vanilla, with no milk in sight. Horchata is a sweet, creamy beverage that we love to drink when eating spicy foods (and whenever else we can......

With the Nathan's Famous 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Competition just three days away, excitement is building over who will take home the Mustard Belt this year. With perennial champion Takeru Kobayashi hampered by a reported jaw problem, the Mustard Belt is up for grabs and local contendors may have a shot. Californian Joey Chestnut broke Kobayashi's hot dog-eating world record a month ago, but the New York Post profiled two men, "Crazy......

SoHo, Lower East Side, Nolita, and other residents and workers, you'll want to make sure you have your library card, because today at 3PM, the New York Public Library opens its 87th branch in SoHo. The Mulberry Street library, located at Mulberry and Jersey Streets just south of Houston Street, is 12,000 square feet of books, DVDs, computers, WiFi access and more. We visited the branch last Friday when NYPL staffers were getting ready......

Yesterday, a building at the southeast corner of East Houston and Mulberry Street collapsed, causing street closures while the Fire Department and Department of Buildings inspected. The NY Times describes it as a partial collapse and, luckily, no one was injured. Workers have been preparing the building for demolition, but a stop work order had been issued two weeks ago (the DOB required "bracing and shoring" of the building). Curbed has been following the......

-- Yikes: Mena Suvari has really grown up! -- Famous Italian trouble maker (and Upper East Side resident) Oriana Fallaci has died. -- Speaking of Italians, the San Gennaro festival has begun! It's open for the next 10 days on Mulberry Street south of Houston. -- Yesterday we walked by the "Lactose Tolerance" campaign HQ on Broadway. We were hoping it was going to be a real organization fighting for lactarded rights, but it......

- Restaurant Girl visits relative newcomer Rewind, an "Asian-influenced Italian" spot on the Lower East Side and isn't wowed by the "sensory overload of flavors, seasonings and ingredients," giving it a 3 out of 10. Ouch. - NYCNosh urges you not to become a fruit outlaw by purchasing fresh Mangosteens, which are illegal here in the States: "[I]n order to help you avoid any produce-related legal trouble in the future, you should probably studiously avoid......

We spied somone (from the TatsCru, we think) spraying an image of the Mona Lisa on Mulberry Street earlier, and we thought, oh, cool, maybe there will be a series of old paintings. But we were too naive, because when we approached the ladder, the graffiti artist was examining the picture he was supposed to copy...and there's a mention of The Da Vinci Code movie! Augh! Gothamist read The Da Vinci Code, and you know......

Gothamist has been entranced by the coverage of the John Gotti Jr. racketeering trial. From what we've read, being in the mob is exactly the way it is in the movies! Here's testimony from Michael DiLeonardo, Gambino loan sharker and star government witness, via the NY Times:He went to an apartment on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, a few blocks from the Ravenite Social Club, home base of the Gambino family. There he waited in......

January 20: Wild Game Tasting So maybe you've had pheasant or squab, but what about antelope? Or llama? Taste them all during a five course meal, complete with wine pairings, at WildFlower. What does one pair with llama, we wonder? 8pm, $70 per person plus tax & gratuity, call 212-475-2355 for reservations. WildFlower, 192 Bleecker Street January 23: Australian Shiraz-a-Thon In honor of Australia Day 2006, taste shiraz a-plenty paired with food and learn from......

There's a great article about the wonderful retail space, Emerge NYC, at 65 Bleecker Street, in the NY Times. While Gothamist has taken into wandering into Emerge NYC during our lunch hour, ooh-ing and aah-ing over hot messenger bags, delicate earrings and cool clothes from young designers. Started by Nicholas Petrou, who created The Market NYC, which is at 268 Mulberry Street and most people call "The Young Designers' Market," it allows new talent to......

The George Eastman House archive has a wonderful series of 130 photos by Andreas Feininger, taken mainly during the 1930s and 1940s. For instance, Broadway, the Brooklyn Bridge, LES, Williamsburg Bridge, more LES, downtown, skyscrapers, Mulberry Street, and elevated trains. Feininger was an interesting guy; a European immigrant, he didn't come to New York until he was 33. Before turning to photography, he worked as an assistant to Le Corbusier. After he came to......

Gothamist Eats at Eight Mile Creek
Gothamist assumes that all Australians are convicts and drunkards, so we thought we'd fit right in at Eight Mile Creek....

Gigante Says He Was Crazy...Like a Fox if only because that's something Gothamist would write. [Jake]: for fans of Gigante, you can walk by his old headquarters at 208 Sullivan Street- the "Triangle Civic Improvement Association", between Bleecker and West Third. Gigante actually lived right across the street, at 208 Sullivan, and would often take walks through the neighborhood. This being Manhattan, there is a lively debate about which mob family had the best clubhouse......

Much to our pleasure, Daily Candy reports the opening of Rice to Riches, the Mulberry Street rice pudding joint. There are flavors like Strawberry Floozy, Stubborn Banana with hint of Coconut, Chocolate Carnivore with a trace of Dark Raisins, and Obscene Orange with a tinge of Carrot. I'm a rice pudding purist myself, but I'd be up for Stubborn Banana with a hint of Coconut. My people have been using rice for many years: Witness......