If the mafia bus tour isn't for you but you still need a way to satiate your mobster curiosities, head over to the brand new Museum of the American Gangster. This place is the real deal, housed in an old speakeasy that was run by gangster Walter Scheib back in the 20s—there's a preview this Sunday but it opens for good in the Spring. more ›

Click on the images above for all the details on Hells Kitchen's new wine bar, Ardesia, and the crazy Carnival above Bowlmor. more ›

Another St. Marks Place icon may have bitten the dust with word that DJ Lenny's Music Stand being shut down by the NYPD. The small stand has sat for over a dozen years on the corner of St. Marks Place and Third Avenue in between former punk club/cheap shots bar The Continental and what is now the restaurant Tahini, selling color-coded mixtapes and bumping hip-hop out onto the street throughout the night. Down by the Hipster reports that "several plain clothes officers confiscating all of Lenny's music and just about everything else from his small booth." The end of an era in the East Village seems to be (d)evolving rapidly in recent months with Kim's Video moving off of St. Mark's, toy store Love Saves the Day closing and the unclear status of the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. more ›

Quintessential St. Mark's Place dive bar Holiday Cocktail Lounge has reopened after going dark around the beginning of the year, EV Grieve reports. The nightspot has been the Holiday since 1965, when it was bought by Stefan Lutak, who's now in his '90s and was recently hospitalized. Vanishing New York finds that while he's doing better, the fate of the Holiday is still uncertain. Vanishing also finds Lutak's history of the bar on one wall: "A lot of 'Punk Rockers,' drinking beer and making noise, began crowding all the time in front of the Deli. People were getting very nervous. One night I invited them all into our bar and they come all the time now and behave very well." For the time being, the Holiday's open only on Friday and Saturday nights, so if you want a fitting place to drown your sorrows over Love Saves the Day's closing, you'll have to wait until the weekend. more ›

The rabble-rousers protesting against the proliferation of "yuppie wine bars" in the East Village may now need to expand their opposition to include crappy pizza wine bars. A lone worker inside the St. Mark's Place Pizzanini on Saturday said the joint's "Wine Bar" awning has been up for a couple weeks. But when we requested a couple glasses of Montepulciano to wash down our lasagna slices, he informed us that there was no wine. Or beer. An outrage! Yet, as the above photo indicates, their target market is already totally flocking to the place in anticipation. more ›