Tonight is the housewarming party, so to speak, for the Tenement Museum's new apartment and the opening of its first tour since 2002. This one is titled, The Moores: An Irish Family in America. They tell us that "it’s taken about 6 years from concept to completion for this particular project. That includes research, planning, fundraising, designing, bringing the upper floors up to code, purchasing artifacts for the apartment, developing content." Like their other apartments,......

Orchard Street designer Doron Braunshtein (aka Apollo Braun, pictured) is at it again; in March he launched his "Who Killed Obama?" t-shirt and now he's added a new political statement to his line: the $250 "Jews Against Obama" t-shirt. And that's not the only provocation: Braunshtein also started what he calls a "political movement" as a cute, must-have accessory to the T. His recruitment efforts have gone through his mailing list, Facebook and Myspace. As......

Cartoons just got a little more real with The Three Thug Mice, an online series set in New York City. The 35 animated shorts follow the tales (and tails!) of three rodent crooks named Vic, Tik and Brik. Described as an "ongoing ghetto saga" set in some of the seedier sectors of the concrete jungle, the trio's home turf is light years away from Disney World. (Though that is the Hotel Chelsea in the......

Wouldn’t be caught dead with a “latte” from Starbucks or a Coolata from Dunkin Donuts? Well, you haven’t reached the summit of coffee snobbery until you’ve had the self-proclaimed “ultimate” cup of coffee, expertly prepared by computers and pneumatic tubes at the Lower East Side’s Roasting Plant. Since opening last spring, business has been hopping at the sleek Orchard Street café; coffee aficionados are drawn back as much for the fresh coffee as for......

Today marks the grand opening of the Moscot Museum. You know Sol Moscot, the lens shop with giant yellow bespectacled signs that look over the streets of New York like Dr. Eckleburg's eyes? Apparently they're not much less symbolic -- sticking around New York for the past 100 years is no small feat, and must stand for something. But a museum, really?The Moscot Museum will showcase never before released, historic black & white photographs of......

On the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight/stabbing at Church and Remsen in Brooklyn, a stabbing on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a home invasion robbery on Cruger Ave. in the Bronx. An early morning fire damaged four businesses in Inwood; the FDNY is investigating, but the fire may have started in a business that's been closed for months. Senator Schumer releases a statement about his support for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey (the senior......

BEER: This one is pretty simple...there will be lots (58!) of New York beers, and a few bands to soundtrack your drinking them, at the Seaport tonight. Go, imbibe, enjoy! Friday // 5 to 10pm // South Street Seaport // $55 THEATER: Paso Doble was a sold-out hit at the 60th anniversary Festival d’Avignon last summer; for one weekend only sculptor Miquel Barceló and dancer Josef Nadj have brought their messy spectacle to St. Ann’s......

September 15 & 16: Party at the Red Hook Ballfields Celebrate the extension of the vendors' permit through the end of their season in October and add on extra festivities for Mexican and Central American Independence Day. Caesar Fuentes, the organizing force behind the vendors, promises that "the food vendors committee will host a livelier than usual weekend event - more soccer games, pinatas, music, and a 2 day art exhibit featuring photographs taken by......

September 3: West Indian–American Day Carnival Some may go for the dancing and general festivities, but some of us will be headed to this celebration for the food. The Eastern Parkway service roads will be lined with stands selling dishes from throughout the Caribbean, including jerk chicken, oxtail, fried flying fish, curry goat, roti, callaloo, and more. 8am–6pm, Eastern Pkwy between Utica Ave and Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn. For more info or directions, visit wiadca.org.......

The new J.J. Abrams movie which is still listed as Untitled, but is unofficially being referred to as Cloverfield, was filming on the Lower East Side yesterday and last night. Did anyone catch it? The monster movie is due out January 18th, 2008 - and this past week Abrams spoke of the somewhat mysterious project at Comic-Con. "I just want to say I want a monster movie. I want a great monster movie. I've......

Maybe it's just the law of numbers at work, given the amount of construction - new and renovation - that is happening in the city. But in the past hour, there have been four separate incidents of buildings/scaffolding collapsing:Queens: A wall collapse on 109th Street of building under construction; two people reported injured. Manhattan: A scaffolding collapse at Franklin & Greenwich; unknown if there are injuries. Manhattan: Falling debris at 53 Orchard Street off a......

May 12: Brooklyn Pigfest It's the 7th year for this pork-filled event, which also serves as a fundraiser for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. Swine and birds will be tenderly slow-cooked by Waterfront Ale House's own Sam Barbieri and his champion BBQ team, and there will be plenty of cold beer and live music to go around. Tobacco Warehouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park, 1 - 6 p.m., tickets $75, available online in advance and at......

Diane Wongprasert is no newbie to the restaurant business. Owner of Regional Thai Taste, Pad Thai, and Sa-Woy, Lower East Side newcomer Sticky Rice is the latest in Wongprasert's Thai ventures. With yet to procure a liquor license (your server might ask you to sign a petition), the Orchard Street joint is still BYO, but in Gothamist's opinion, that makes Sticky Rice an even better bargain. Dishes prepared in the northeastern Thai tradition contribute......

January 13: Seasonal Game Cooking Class Chef Franck Delatrain of Café Centro will be cooking up seasonal game in a two hour cooking class. The menu consists of: Chestnut and Celery Root Soup with Melted Leeks and Foie Gras; Sturgeon Saltimbocca with Sage, Smoked Duck and Beluga Lentils; Fresh Pappardelle Pasta with Wild Boar Civet, Apple Smoked Bacon and Black Trumpet Mushrooms; Grilled Quail with Golden Beets and Frisee Salad, Poached Quail Egg and Spiced......

A yuletide favorite since 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas, airs tomorrow night at 8pm (as we mentioned in yesterday's tv listing). Seem a little early? Hey, it's after Thanksgiving...so Christmas is only a hop, skip and jump away. We've been prepared for this since the seasonal lights went up on Orchard Street just after Halloween. Remember when that song "Hey Ya" was EVERYWHERE? The above clip is that Charlie Brown Christmas/Hey Ya mashup that......

This weekend Orchard Street, between Rivington and Delancey, became a Bollywood set. Store owners were heard complaining to the police that it would "Disturb their business", but everyone else enjoyed the scene. The officers let the store owners know that they should file a complaint with the NYC film commission if they had a problem, though they clearly didn't realize the film set was bringing more foot traffic to their storefronts. Here are some photos,......

Tonight the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens will be screening for the first time in the US, director Jonas Mekas's most recent film, A Letter From Greenpoint. It's a lovely, personal movie filled with vignettes and Mekas's musings about leaving SoHo for Brooklyn after 30 years. He moved from Lithuania to New York in 1949, where he organized the first downtown avant garde film screenings, founded the Anthology Film Archive, worked as a......

No question about it, New Yorkers like to bitch. Bemoaning Gotham's noisy neighbors, putrid stenches, dirty streets, etc., etc., is a habit New Yorkers have enjoyed as long as there have been New Yorkers. Especially popular is the letter of complaint to Hizzoner, a habit that lives on to this day. Seriously, people have been writing these letters for centuries now. A number of just such letters have been unearthed from more than 30,000......

July 7 - 11: Fancy Food Show Every specialty food you could possibly imagine will be at the Javitz Center this week at the annual Fancy Food show. Sample some of the latest specialty products on the market and attend educational programs and seminars. Javits Center, 655 West 34th Street. $35/person before July 7, $60/person after, so buy your tickets now. July 9: Orchard Street Market Opening Welcome the new Lower East Side Greenmarket to......

This one's gonna be short and sweet: here's a new, low-key bar offering cheap drinks and we like it. From the owners of Welcome To The Johnson's comes another bar below the Lower East Side, to BelDel, if we're still saying that. We like the comfortable seating, extended happy hour (4pm-9pm Weds-Sun, $2 beers, $2 well drinks) and their choice of a house beer, choosing, like Abilene, the very inexpensive PBR alternative Genessee Cream Ale......

It's getting a little easier to be green these days. There are ten new greenmarkets opening around the city, spreading around the summer bounty of fresh produce. One of the city's goals in creating the new markets is to make seasonal produce more accessible to low-income city residents. To this end, many of the greenmarkets will take senior coupons, WIC coupons, and EBT cards. The new Greenmarket locations, hours of operation and opening dates......

It's not secret that we love panoramic imagery of NYC-- and one of our favorite sources has long been Urban75. Their NYC panorama page has dozens of 360-degree images of the city-- and the November 2005 update added at least a dozen more. Some of the new ones: Orchard Street (seen above), Mercer Street, Battery Park, Ellis Island, Grand Central, East River, Williamsburg Bridge. Awesome!......

Late this afternoon we started getting text messages about a building collapse on Rivington near Orchard Street. Turns out it was the interior of the First Roumanian American Synagogue, just up from THOR. For those who missed the chaos, check out this set from Lawrence on Flickr. Here's some info about the temple: First Roumanian-American Congregation (89 Rivington, between Orchard and Ludlow Streets). Built as a church in 1857 and home to successive religious......

We are sick of winter. Even if it is not that cold, we're sick of all the seasonal things- the layering of clothes, the sneezing in public, the lack of roof bars. Seriously. We miss the drinking plus art of the Met roof garden, we miss the fake fronds, the fake everything really on the roof of the Delancey. But, mostly, we miss that drinking in that rare, only sometimes available space is an option.......

Apparently short of dating Peter Braunstein, the best way to ruin your life is to try and open an intimate, Vienna-style coffeehaus on the Lower East Side. Yesterday's Slate piece by Michael Idov is really cringe-inducing; in it, he tells of the year of horror that ensued when he and his wife opened Cafe Trotsky on Orchard Street just below Houston. Apparently, the economics of the independent coffee shop make bankruptcy almost inevitable: A place......

Abe Lincoln Jr (the guy who does those cute little streetart birds all around downtown) has an opening tonight at the Orchard Street Gallery-- 7 to 10pm @ 139 Orchard Street. Kidrobot is sponsoring, and the first 50 people through the door get a free toy. Everyone else gets tacos. Yes-- we did say tacos: The Grand Opening of TAQUERIA PENDEJO! I will be transforming the gallery into the Lower East Side's newest "authentic......

FAIR: The WFMU Record & CD Fair is this weekend. Hundreds of music dealers will be there to help with your vinyl fix. Sift through obscurities and maybe you'll find what you've been searching for on eBay for the past 4 months. All Weekend // Friday 7-10pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-7pm // Metropolitan Pavilion [125 W 18th St] // $5 ART OPENING: Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth collaborates with Leah Singer for Drift. Ranaldo brings......

September 30 - October 1: Grand Central Oyster Frenzy What could be better than a weekend full of bivalves? Start on Friday night by eating your fill of 15 types of oysters paired with over 20 wines from 7:00pm to 9:00pm (tickets are $80). Then, come back on Saturday at 1 to watch the annual shucking contest, a "slurp-off," cooking demonstrations, and more. Call 212-490-7108 for tickets and visit www.oysterbarny.com for full details. Grand Central......

It was another two very busy days for Gothamist. Again, we're gonna focus on just the highlights because there were far too many bands we saw this weekend to mention them all. First on Friday were Two Gallants. They put on one of the best performances we saw all week. With just drums and a guitar with Adam Stevenson's distressed voice, they played a set of contemporary Dylanesque Americana that was remarkably articulate and precise.......

PARTY: Good Peoples and Beautiful/Decay magazine bring you "the sickest party of the summer"! Or so they say. Here are some of the ingredients: -2 hour open Bacardi & Mountain Dew Bar -Gift bags -the legendary PRINCE PAUL on the tables -Screening of Bomb the System and music videos from Culturama, Mockumentaries from Prince Paul RSVP for the guest list at rsvp@good-peoples.com Friday // 9pm to 4am // TriBeCa Cinemas [54 Varick St] // $5,......