Initial reports of Sik-gaek, a Korean restaurant in Flushing's Murray Hill, implied that it’s a buffet-style barbecue spot. After walking from the 7 train to the corner of 149 Pl. and Roosevelt Ave., an entirely different kind of restaurant was encountered. Sik-gaek isn’t a barbecue joint, it’s the Korean equivalent of an izakaya. A quick Chowhound search reveals that this type of drinking establishment, known as po jang ma cha, can be found in basements......

Okay, not all the details of East Side madam Kristin Davis's black book are revealed, but quite a few are highlighted in the Daily News today. Davis, busted earlier this week for running a prostitution ring in Manhattan apartments, reportedly has the "largest black book in America." In reality, the black book is actually a computer spread sheet that "logs more than $1.1 million in business" from a variety of men, some of whom gave......

According to its website, Murray Hill's Tonic East “is the most well rounded sports bar in the area, with an attractive scene of locals.” But it seems black was not deemed beautiful by the management: they recently agreed to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to the tune of $35,000. Responding to complaints from blacks who say they were denied entrance “based on violations of the unwritten dress code,” Cuomo’s office......

An opening for the new 2nd Avenue Deli is in sight! This week, they've been putting the final touches on the new Murray Hill location, but today Gothamist stopped by for a quick preview of the legendary deli. During the friends and family only preview, they don't have a their full 5-page menu ready yet, but they did have the classic items including matzah ball soup, pastrami and tuna sandwiches. One new item is......

Good news for old-school New Yorkers: the new 2nd Ave Delicatessen is expected to open sometime next week in its new Murray Hill Location on 33rd Street, near Third Avenue. Lovers of the deli’s famous matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches were devastated last year when, after a half-century in business, the 2nd Ave and 10th Street legend was snuffed out. The closure came in the wake of a bitter rent dispute between deli......

Today, the Daily News put Amarjit Singh on its cover and asks New Yorkers to help him. Who is Singh? He was the cook at the Texas Smokehouse BBQ in Murray Hill until October 6, when a mentally ill man, Lee Coleman, stormed into the kitchen and grabbed four knives. Singh tried to stop Coleman, but Coleman slashed him in the head before heading outside to repeatedly stab pedestrian Susan Barron. Coleman only stopped when......

A few days after showing surveillance video of a robber holding up a number of stores, police have arrested the suspect. Brooklyn resident Herbert Rodriguez was charged with robbery and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to 17 robberies, all below 23rd Street in Manhattan (there's a map at the end of this slideshow) over the past three months. In one video where the suspect robs a Murray Hill ice cream store, the bandana......

Talking Radio reported that Air American Radio host and liberal Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Avenue while walking her dog. Soon after, fellow AAR host Jon Elliott stated that Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, lost teeth and insinuated that the attack was part of "the right wing hate machine." And soon after that an AAR blogger, Nancy Scola, posted: "Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate......

Transit police officer Gregory Chin is being hailed as a hero for stopping a crazed man who had just stabbed two people in Murray Hill from inflicting more violence. The Post and Daily News interviewed Chin, who was off-duty when he saw Lee Coleman attacking 67-year-old Susan Barron with a variety of knives (knives that Coleman stole from a restaurant) on Saturday morning. Chin explained that he and his girlfriend had left the Gemini Diner......

A homeless man was shot in the stomach by an off-duty transit police officer after he stabbed two people randomly in Murray Hill yesterday afternoon. The assailant, identified as 38-year-old Lee Coleman, was wounded and is in serious condition; he was charged with attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. Coleman's rampage began around 10:30AM. He first walked into a Starbucks on Second Avenue at 32nd Street and tried to take knives from......

The engines fueling Jane Jacobs' legacy are at full throttle, with the Municipal Art Society's new exhibition, titled "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York." The show, opening this week at the Urban Center Galleries, delves into how today's (and tomorrow's) city fits into Jacobs' ideas and also examines how the public can draw on her values, given the major developments and rezoning now in progress. In case you've been sleeping for the past......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building in Murray Hill; a "serious trauma" not far from Shea Stadium in Queens; a bank robbery at Avenue A and 4th Street; and at 777 6th Ave there was a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person). Remember those chemicals found at the United Nations? It turns out that they were probably just cleaning supplies. Hopefully these aren't the same tests the organization uses for biological weapons. If......

A 21-year-old MIT student was found dead on a Union Square building rooftop on Sunday night. Police believe that James Albrecht fell from the 243 East 14th Street onto the roof of a neighboring building, but it's unclear whether Albrecht fell or was pushed. Friends tell the Sun that Albrecht was at a Murray Hill restaurant for a party Saturday night, and then left around 2AM. According to the Post, a witness saw Albrecht on......

This week Bruni goes to P*ong, the dessert/savory restaurant brought to us by pastry chef Pichet Ong (formerly of Perry Street and Spice Market), awards the restaurant one star. Finds the restaurant "tantalizing, often irritating," and says it challenges one's ideas of what should be sweet and what should be savory. But the desserts are the restaurant's strenth, says Bruni, and also it's too crowded and the service is not good enough to make staying......

Virgin Mobile's "You Rule" campaign has been in town for a few weeks, but the confusion still runs high. Ad agency Havas McKinney developed an ambitious outdoor campaign that involves specific posters and billboards to praise residents of various New York neighborhoods, such as Chelsea, Murray Hill, Lower East Side, Upper East Side, and Bed-Stuy. But some people have been insulted by the ads (such as one Chelsea resident who called Virgin Mobile to......

With yesterday’s innocuous New York Times review of Katz’s Deli and the news last week that the 2nd Avenue Deli will be "recreated" in Murray Hill, it seems that forces of pastrami have won some kind of cosmic victory over the over the forces of real estate; forces that threaten to destroy old-fashioned New York dining institutions. The outer boroughs are home to a scattering of delicatessens where the pastrami sandwiches rival, and at times......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Reptiles on 39th Avenue and 111th Street in Queens, a person shot at Boyland and Sumpter in Brooklyn and police are searching the water near Battery Park City because a woman threw a baby carriage into the Hudson; it's unclear if a baby was in it, but dietrich on Flickr has pictures of the search Apparently police are investigating whether the children - including a 22-year-old Parsons grad -......

A new showdown between bird lovers and building owners may be brewing. Apparently the Shelburne Hotel in Murray Hill is taking down some vines that are supposedly eroding the building. But the Post reports that neighbors are concerned because American songbirds nest in the vine. Alberto Acosta said that when workers started to take down the vine (see this picture at the Post), "The birds were in a panic. They were screeching. My children started......

A Long Island couple is suing a Manhattan fertility clinic for using the wrong sperm during in-vitro fertilization. Nancy and Thomas Andrews were having trouble conceiving a second child, so they went to the New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine to have Nancy's eggs fertilized with Thomas's sperm. But when baby Jessica was born in 2004 to the couple, they suspected something was wrong. From the Daily News:Thomas Andrews is white and his wife......

The Wind That Shakes The Barley (directed by Ken Loach): This weekend as all of the Celtic-themed Murray Hill bars fill with green beer drinking louts honor your Irish leanings at the movies with Ken Loach's new film, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Winner of last year's big Cannes film festival prize the Palm D'Or, the film follows two brothers caught up in the "troubles" in rural Ireland during the '20s. The always excellent......

An embryo uh-oh! A lesbian couple is suing a Murray Hill fertility bank because Repro Lab allegedly lost six of their embryos. Eggs that had been harvested from Adriana Pacheco were to be implanted into Pacheco's partner Cathy Berger last spring, but the company said the embryos were lost. Even after looking twice, the lab couldn't find them! The couple, who had signed an "Embryo Storage Agreement" in 2003 (which would have allowed them to......

Some exciting news from the NY Sun: The 2nd Avenue Deli may have a 2nd life as a restaurant in Murray Hill. Annie Karni reports that the Lebewohl family is about to close on 162 East 33rd Street, a five story walkup building near Third Avenue. Clearly, buying is better than paying $33,000 in monthly rent, which is what caused the deli to close last January (the rent was increased from $24,000 and there......

Surprisingly, TWU Local 100 president Roger Toussaint gets to keep his job. Speaking of getting lucky, remember when Natasha Lyonne got arrested for threatening to sexually abuse a neighbor's dog? She finally showed up for sentencing, and because she had already completed a rehab program and paid a $2000 fine, the judge dismissed the charges. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a jumper down in Brooklyn, a " Male Down Elevator Shaft" on 77th Street,......

The Health (and Mental Hygiene) Department released some interesting reports that detail New Yorkers' health by neighborhood. You can check out a profile for where you live, which turns out to be a 16-page PDF listing various stats, like alcoholism, smoking, death rates, and other health issues, as well as giving other interesting demographics (population with age breaks or ethnicity, compared with NYC as a whole). There are also a series of maps that......

- Old business first, somehow this got missed last week. Mrs. Leuzzi over on Snack wonders about bathrooms at the SS now that it is Shacktoberfest. She recommends fast food establishments on the block and even provides a map. We always thought it was rude that they did not offer even hand sanitizer to customers in light of the missing facilities. This week, we hit the mailbox….not ours but others for seriously good entertainment. -......

If you want fresh, it makes sense to go straight to the source. So if you crave fish and chips, why not go to a fish shop? Wild Edibles, the premiere purveyor of fresh seafood in the city, also offers a full menu of ready-to-eat dishes at its Murray Hill location. There are plenty of fancy options from shrimp gazpacho to macadamia-crusted soft-shell crabs, but what really hits the spot is plain fried fish. Here......

Murray Hill can make even the most uptight New Yorker at least offer up a chuckle, if not an all-out belly laugh, with his well-honed ladies' man-about-town sthick. With his jocular, wink-wink style, he's never at a loss for words, whether working a raucous, drunken bingo crowd, prepping audiences for bands like Le Tigre, or hosting burlesque pagaents. Known for his anything-might-happen style, Murray can regularly be found emceeing his way across the city's stages,......

- If Connie Chung was in on the joke with her singing last week, then she is the funniest woman ever - NYC school kids love to dance at school - check out this NY Times video of kids during Dance Festival, but be warned, you'll want to boogie along (Gothamist's coordination is akin to that of a kindergartener) - Gotham Gal finds Chinatown Brasserie good but not great - Hey, that school in......

COMEDY: Our favorite duo, Gil Faizon (Nick Kroll) and George St. Geegland (John Mulaney), will be bringing their "Oh Hello" show to UCB. Drop by, even if it's just for their famous Tuna-tina recipe. In addition, there will be NEW drink recipes...and special guests. Photo of the duo, taken at Movable Hype, via Bluejake. Friday // 7pm // UCB Theater [226 W th St] MUSIC: If you got shut out of Band of Horses tonight......

After we posted about Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album cover yesterday, we thought we'd do a series of posts on album covers featuring this city. Next up is The Doors Strange Days cover, photographed by Joel Brodsky. Since Jim Morrison refused to appear on the cover of the album, Brodsky drew inspiration from Federico Fellini's 1954 circus film, La Strada, and photographed a group of acrobats and jugglers on the streets. Apparently they had trouble......