Photograph of sledders, inside Prospect Park on the long meadow Convince your boss to let you take an extra long lunch today: The Parks Department just sent out this press release: Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe invites New Yorkers to come out to a neighborhood park for some winter fun. White-capped hills around the city are open for sledding, snowman-making and more. Parks & Recreation will provide sleds and hot chocolate at selected......

Democrats Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Dianne Feinstein joined nine Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and approved the nomination of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to go to the full Senate. The vote was 11-8, the eight opposing votes from the remaining Democrats on the committee. His confirmation is expected next week. Mukasey - and his supporters - has faced criticism after not declaring waterboarding illegal. Schumer has an op-ed in today's NY Times......

READING: Check out today's interviewee, Peter Yarrow, tonight at Barnes and Noble where he'll be performing and signing the recently published Puff, the Magic Dragon book. C'mon, you know you've always wanted to hear that song live! 6pm // Barnes & Noble [Lincoln Center] // Free MUSIC: Daft Punk will be rocking Keyspan Park tonight, it's sold out but you can still get tickets on Craigslist. Elsewhere in Brooklyn The Hold Steady, The Big Sleep......

MOVIES: With another version of Hairspray hitting the big screen this summer, it seems to be a season of decades past and, of course, hair! Movies With a View brings back the musical tale of Central Park hippies, small town boys headed to Vietnam and the '60s as they show the film Hair tonight. Deejays at 6pm, Movie at Sundown // Empire Fulton State Park, Dumbo // Free It's the last night to catch Punk's......

The Brooklyn Paper reports on an odd incident involving a bride in Park Slope. On Fourth Street (between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West) this past Sunday residents awoke to a woman in a wedding gown sleeping on a ledge of a brownstone. Police quickly arrived, but no one knew what to make of the mysterious woman...Cops carried the woman down from the ledge, and questioned her in Spanish and English. But witnesses said she......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Davidson Ave. in the Bronx, an armed robbery on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, and a shooting at 40th Ave. and 10th St. in Queens. Bye-bye, birdie: Ziggy, the 6-week old red-tail hawk who fell and was saved in Midtown last week, was released into Central Park today. “When voters get confused, they vote no.” That almost seems like a sensible tack to take if you......

Anyone who has attempted to walk or bike from one side of Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza to another knows that it can be a difficult journey, through which a constantly swiveling head is required to keep an eye on traffic coming from seemingly every direction. The above overhead image shows just a portion of the plaza where five different roads converge in an inner traffic loop, including Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park West, and......

Tomorrow night, Brooklyn's Community Board 6 will discuss the future of 9th Street between Third Avenue and Prospect Park West for a while. The Department of Transportation has proposed a plan that would improve pedestrian safety and create bike lanes along 9th Street; you can see the plan here. Streetsblog says it's "a great plan" "from a Livable Streets perspective," but notes opposition from residents who are worried they won't be able to double......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap-- large brush fire in Brooklyn, high angle rescue in midtown, and a perp search on Prospect Park West in Park Slope. The Times has a nice spotlight piece on Queens' local papers-- the big players are the Queens Courier, the Times Ledger chain, and the Queens Chronicle. Objective, from the Resume of Ethan Carter Rutherford III, Age 2: "To pursue a Pre-School diploma at a top-tier institution that will......

ART: John Finneran’s Bad Nights, Vandals is at Rivington Arms for the rest of the week. The quirky art displays faces in unlikely places: a rearranged face on a brick wall in one piece and a giddy star in another. - Stephanie Nikolopoulos Closing January 6 // Rivington Arms [4 East 2nd St] // Free READING: If organic beverages, zine-heads and small press enthusiasts are your thing, then get over to Cup and Pen (a......

The borders between Christmastown and Halloweentown are getting a bit thin again, as Disney has rereleased Tim Burton's animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas in Digital 3-D for All Hallows Eve. Ordinarily this kind of rerelease might seem like a mere marketing ploy, but don't let your jaded side get the better of you, seeing certain movies in 3-D format is actually pretty sweet. Earlier this year Sony released Monster House this way, and sporting......

ART OPENING: The Martinez Gallery presents SELF-PORTRAIT an exhibition that "puts the artists behind the graffiti movement on display, challenging stereotypes about both the form and its practitioners. This collective self-portrait, which includes the work of twelve contemporary graffiti writers, exposes a history that the institutional art world and politicians, ignore and even censor." Featuring CASE 2, COCO 144, GIZ, JA, KEZ 5, LES, NATO, NOXER, RATE, SKUF, TRACY 168 and VFR. - Jason Laning......

So-called "wolf packs" of teenagers have been increasingly mugging people in Prospect Park lately. The Post says many of the robberies' victims are teens, where suddenly "they are surrounded by a larger group of youths" who then take their money and cellphones. However, a mugging last week was on a 53 year old man who was "shoved to the sidewalk, kicked and robbed," which is alarming, if the teens are looking to be more......

- Transportation Alternatives is worried about the "duck" water-land touring vehicles being a problem for bikers - Carroll Gardens is so popular that of course the rats are having a field day - We love this building on Prospect Park West, too - Police are still looking for the man that killed one man and injured another in an East Harlem shooting last night - Citibank and NY Community Bank will help Housing Here......

Yuck! New Year's Eve is only two weeks away, and that means everyone you know will soon be asking about your plans. Normally we stay indoors on December 31, better to avoid being vomitted on by drunken tourists streaming towards Times Square. The Ask.Mefites seem to have similar feelings-- you won't be seeing them anywhere near 42nd Street. Upcoming.org has a growing list of NYE activities-- but nothing seems all that appetizing. If you......

Brooklyn is buzzing over rumors that Caroline Kennedy, husband Edwin Schlossberg, and their kids are moving to Park Slope from the Upper East Side. While there's "no comment" from the family, Brooklyn's biggest booster, Borough President Marty Markowitz, had some:Brooklyn, home to everyone from everywhere, is proud to be the new home of the Kennedys. Park Slope: It ain't Cape Cod, but it's starting to look a lot like Camelot.Park Slope residents are used to......