A 19th century Greek revival building on Pearl Street – the road that formed the oyster shell strewn border of New Amsterdam in the 17th century – will soon be torn down, according to the A.P. The former warehouse at 213 Pearl was built in 1831 and was integral to what Ric Burns calls “the first district in the world devoted exclusively to commerce.” Once the city approves the permit, demolition could start as early......

“Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film," Ric Burns' film on the artist, will be shown tonight and tomorrow night on the PBS's“American Masters” series. According to the Times, Burns had a hard time getting the film made, and still needs to raise $225,000 to finish paying for the $3.6 million film. Warhol's artist stature was questioned by many, as they don't consider "his riffs on celebrity and commerce to be art." The film serves as......

There's yet another interesting bit in this weeks City section FYI column, this time on one of our fair city's old school private clubs, the Century Association. Housed in a land-marked 1891 McKim Mead & White Beaux Arts building on W. 43rd street the association (also called the Century Club) was "originally an arts and letters society founded in 1847." The invitation-only club admitted its first female members in 1988 and currently has around......

Gothamist has been sucked in to the History Channel's documentaries about the gangs of New York recently. Being history buffs, we want to learn more, but how do we do that without having to watch the Scorsese film again (which omitted a lot of facts)? With the Big Onion Walking Tours! The "Official" Gangs of New York Tour A tour exploring the legends and lore of Five Points and Herbert Asbury’s 1928 classic The Gangs......

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......

Gothamist will have to wait until the Beastie Boys' new album, To The Five Boroughs, is released on June 15, but we can enjoy this great vista of what Lower Manhattan looked like back in the day. Seeing that picture, we want to read The New York Trilogy, The Intuitionist, The Alienist, The Age of Innocence, and Turn of the Century, not to mention watch the New York documentary by Ric Burns, again. The......

Huh. The New York Times decided to do a web search with the words "New York" and "Did you know" (no word if it was a Google search; it probably was, but the NYT can't really endorse one search engine over another...) and came up with some "baubles." Yeah, it's underwhelming and it seems like a throwaway in USA Today, but Gothamist did like these two facts: - There are 6,374.6 miles of streets in......