Timed perfectly to the demise of the Hotel Chelsea, word comes today that Godmother of Punk Patti Smith's tale of coming of age with Robert Mapplethorpe in New York in the '60s and '70s, Just Kids, is heading to the big screen. more ›

A picture of chef David Waltuck’s restaurant was on the cover of New York Magazine the week of December 31, 1979 with the headline ‘The Daring Young Man on Grand Street.’ Gael Greene wrote a review of the warmly lit restaurant Waltuck was frenetically running with his wife Karen, two waiters, and a lone potwasher inside a former bodega in SoHo. Chanterelle was two weeks-old. Waltuck was 24. more ›

In the masses of offerings at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, there's quite a few strong New York-centric selections both in and out of competition to seek out. Granted at $25-$14 per, tickets for the festival don't come cheap, so if you're going to see something at the fest make it a local joint. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning.
• NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC.
• When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in his bedroom yesterday, we were thinking along the lines of Robert Mapplethorpe. It's actually less artsy than that.
• A bronze statue of Andy Warhol will be installed in SoHo's Father Fagan Park on 6th Ave. between Prince and Spring Sts. next month.
• Jean-Georges Vongerichten has pulled lobster dishes from all seven of his restaurants' menus and many other restaurateurs are following suit or hiking prices as the lobster fishing industry is having a particularly bad year.
• A drunk driver killed a woman who was driving with her three children early this morning in Queens.
• Brooklyn's oldest restuarant, Gage & Tollner (est. 1879), closed in 2004 to make way for a T.G.I.Friday's chain restaurant, but the successor never caught on in the neighborhood and closed. Now residents wish the space could be filled by an old-school chop house; some place with history and a little class.
• NY Giant Michael Strahan's ex-wife is a little cash-strapped with their divorce entangled in the courts, so she had a yard sale to sell off her and her ex-husbands personal possessions while their daughter sold lemonade.
• Eater has pictures of the plywood coming off the old 2nd Ave. Deli to reveal the gleaming new Chase Bank branch underneath.

The below is from a BBC documentary on the Hotel Chelsea, it includes footage of Andy Warhol (inexplicably wearing headphones) sharing a meal with William S Burroughs and Nico singing "Chelsea Girls". more ›

THEATER: The Pearl Theatre Company, known for their deft handling of classic plays, has revived Molière's satire School for Wives. The play deliciously skewers the aristocrat Arnolphe, who so fears he’ll marry an unfaithful woman that he locks a little girl in a convent for 13 years, keeping her utterly isolated until she comes of age. The hi-jinks begin when he’s finally ready to fulfill his master marriage plan and finds himself outmaneuvered by a cunning young rival, bumbling servants and the bride-to-be herself. The Times says it’s “quite funny.” - John Del Signore more ›

Like a crackhead in Amsterdam, the art world is generally known to suffer from a nearly crippling case of ADD. Today's shocking sensation is tomorrow's freshman dorm decoration and it's easy to look back on past controversies and not be able to see what all the fuss was about. Once avant-garde Impressionism is now mundane enough to be found on everything from magnets to postcards, while the stunts of more recent artists like Jeff Koons and Damien more ›

Well, it's finally here. That day we've all be eagerly anticipating since last year, hoping and praying for its joyous return. Yes, it's....THE DAY AFTER TAX DAY! more ›