Queens is getting their own customized license plate, which Queens officials hope will promote tourism. The license says "Discover Queens" and "See the World," and costs $43 for the first year, and $25 for the following years (more if you want a vanity number). It's definitely a cute license plate, but Gothamist is unsure if a license plate alone can encourage someone to visit a borough...perhaps the URL for Discover Queens should have been put there instead. We also bet Marty Markowitz is working on a Brooklyn license plate now - "Fuhgeddaboutit" and/or "Oy Vey!" will be featured alongside images of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Cyclone, or a slab of cheesecake. more ›

And a few months ago, the U.S.P.S. announced new stamps with the works of Isamu Noguchi. The wonderful Noguchi Museum in Queens, which has just reopened, also has a sculpture that Noguchi did of Bucky Fuller. These stamps are so elegant, Gothamist is motivated to to get started on our holiday cards. more ›

Gothamist was there for the re-opening of The Noguchi Museum today in Long Island City. The Noguchi is definitely one of the city's greatest and least appreciated museums- a quiet, serene place to appreciate some great abstract modernist sculpture. The best part is the renovated rock garden. We relaxed on a bench while beautiful hipsters floated past, talking about modern art. Up on the second floor, there are a bunch of installations, and showcases of Noguchi's furniture and product design work- we took a few more pictures and put them in after the jump. more ›

The Post reports that the New York City Marketing Development Corporation is recruiting different celebrities and NYC notables to explain why they love the city in order to develop ways to drum up tourism. A recent poll that the NYC MDC conducted says that "crime is still the No. 1 reason why tourists stay away," prompting the MDC to go to people like Russell Simmons (Phat), Sofia Coppola, Mark Messier, Dick Wolf, and Ric Burns (documentarian), as well as George Steinbrenner (Yankees), Danny Goldberg, David Stern (NBA), Nick Jones (SoHo House), Deputy Mayor Patti Harris and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and draw out what they love about NYC. The interviews are expected to be a part of a global advertising campaign that may include TV, outdoor, and tie-in books. Burns told the Post, "New York City is about as big a brand as you're going to get. The richness, the denseness of New York's intellectual, spiritual capital is so strong. New York's greatness is not that it is better, but that everyone comes here. Everyone is us." Gothamist agrees that NYC is great, but we hope that the voices of regular New Yorkers are captured, because a lot of NYers we know have great suggestions on what tourists should really see in NY. Then again, some may want to keep those at least semi-secret. But the least the NYC MDC can do is tell tourists to visit the other boroughs, the Noguchi Museum or Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. more ›