On the heels of Florent's closure comes news that another one of the Meatpacking District’s pre-millennial hang-outs will walk the plank: The Hog Pit, a Southern dive bar and BBQ joint that opened in the late '90s, is the latest casualty of the neighborhood’s astronomical rent increases. Co-owner Felisa Dell sent an email to Eater today confirming the closure, which was brought on by a triple rent increase to 40K per month. The Hog Pit’s......

It sounds like a Project Runway challenge: create a look Princess Grace would have worn. However, the six gowns that are currently being displayed in the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue were created by some of the top designers -- each being paired with a specific look to be reinterpreted in a modern way. To help mark the 25th anniversary of her death, and to raise money for the Princess Grace Foundation USA (which......

New York City is in the middle of Fashion Week, and last night was Ralph Lauren's 40th anniversary as a designer. And, as Style.com reports, he "staged an extraordinarily lavish runway show and black-tie after-party in the Central Park Conservancy" last night. It was such a big deal that Mayor Bloomberg and his lady friend Diana Taylor stepped out! New York magazine's Show & Talk blog wrote this:Ralph himself seemed blasé. Standing by an......

We've known that Westchester enclave Bedford Hills was pretty ritzy, but we had no idea that one of its appeals was an S&M "dungeon" run out the basement at a $3 million estate! Not only that, the dungeon master, "Mistress" Sandra Chemero was renting the place from an "ultra-Orthodox" yeshiva. Oy vey! Naturally, the school served her with eviction papers. The police arrested Chemero on Tuesday for prostitution and weapons possession (a stun gun, not......

29-year-old artist Jacob Thomas has been putting pen to paper since he was a child, planting the seeds for what would become a full-time career. Hailing from Maryland, he did a four-year stint in the Coast Guard, where his creative talents didn't go unnoticed. He was asked to paint interiors of ships and design logos and other artwork for them, which in turn helped spur his own creative impulses. After several years in Pittsburgh, he......

With the US Open heading to its climactic weekend, there have been some fun articles about the ball boys and girls at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Take the NY Times' US Open blog post about "Ballbabes": Male spectators seem to love some of the ladies wearing the Ralph Lauren designed outfits (sleeveless and short, while the ball boys get less revealing polo shirts and shorts) and boo when their favorites get rotated......

There's a wonderful feature on department store Lord & Taylor by Toni Schlesinger in the Observer today. Earlier in the summer, it was announced that the Lord & Taylor chain had been sold to an investor group including the folks that backed the Time-Warner Center; though the deal isn't finalized yet, when Schlesinger wonders if condos could be built on top of the 424 Fifth Avenue location, lead investor Richard Baker says, "Yes, we could......

This week's New York Magazine has a nice little piece about the death of Nolita. Basically rents have gotten so out of hand that all the little boutiques are being forced out of business, and replaced by mini-chain stores like Ralph Lauren and Nike ID. More than twenty-four stores are currently empty in the neighborhood, and people aren't sure what's going to happen next. Apparently the high rents aren't the only culprit:And then there’s......

You know it's the Oscars when P. Diddy busts out the velvet suit! Gothamist loves the Oscars, and we're going to attempt to do a little liveblogging. We might need to order a vat of caffeine and an EMT team at the ready; not because Chris Rock will be boring, but because we think that Gil Cates might kill us with his newfangled ideas and because we're meh about this year's nominees in the big......

Henry Hudson, Model...

In their first annual "Design Issue" (celebrating "fresh life-affirming spirit" of approachable, warm design), Newsweek includes a "Design Quiz." Gothamist chortled through the ten questions; here are three: 1. The 1995 documentary "Unzipped" portrayed the life of what famous clothing designer? Ralph Lauren Giorgio Armani Isaac Mizrahi Calvin Klein 2. What is Razorfish? An architecture firm A Web-design company A clothing design company A company that designs high-tech products like computers and cell phones 6.......