If you thought a little NFL lockout was going to keep Rex Ryan from leading the Jets to TOTAL VICTORY, you've got another thing coming. Because Rex Ryan carries a big stick, hits it out of the park, and never says die...or something. The coach said at the NFL league meetings, “They talk about walk softly and carry a big stick. I love that. I agree with that 100 percent. But I guess I feel more like Babe Ruth. I’m going to walk softly, I’m going to carry that big stick and then I’m going to point and then I’m going to hit it over the fence." more ›

It's our 26th President's birthday, or at least it would have been if Theodore Roosevelt lived to be 152 years old. Earlier today the New York Public Library Tweeted a link to their profile on his birthplace, 28 East 20th Street in Manhattan—did you know he was the only President born in New York City? The library writes: more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Hillside Ave. in Queens, commercial robbery on 16th St. in Brooklyn, and a bomb threat on 70th St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan.
• We hope some Brooklynites' leases are ironclad, because getting tatooed with an image of your building is the new fashion.
• Mayor Bloomberg conjures the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party by suggesting the likeliehood of a third party candidacy for President.
• Students are sick after partaking in free samples of a milk-beverage product.
• Toll Brothers wants the Jehovah's Witnesses' Brooklyn waterfront property and we can only pray that the buildings will have ludicrous Splendido-ish names
• 7 line trains are set to run on a near-constant basis while the Yankees visit Shea Stadium..
• The federal government is paying a large sum of money every month to house homeless people and criminals in a building once owned by Vincent Astor on 45th St.
• Wild accusations and recriminations are flying not in the pages of the New York Post, but about it, and The New York Times observes; plus, many more pages of fun at The Smoking Gun
• Brooklyn is now officially the new suburbs as dangerous art is removed from a show in an effort to be "careful" and not offend sponsors.

A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›

Now, Gothamist has not read Chris Elliott's new book, The Shroud of the Thwacker, yet, but it sounds so much like one of our favorites - The Alienist by Caleb Carr, which was about an investigation of a grisly serial killer in turn of the century Manhattan. Here's a description of the Thwacker:

The book debut from the Get a Life and Cabin Boy star is billed as a parody, but this murder mystery wrapped in laughter is simply straight-up enjoyable. Jack the Jolly Thwacker is leaving dead bodies all over 1882 New York City. Chris Elliott, a modern-day researcher, is tracking the serial killer through time. Elliott's wry humor fastens on the burgeoning, Boss Tweedified city, giving it a hilarious and vividly imagined set of anachronistic technologies and accoutrements (New York's Mayor Teddy Roosevelt, who has mysteriously disappeared, has a navel piercing). The narrative leaps back and forth in time, as 1882 police chief Caleb Spencer chases the Thwacker through the streets, and Elliott, convinced the killer is from the 21st century, chases him through time. Elliott's ability to time travel is facilitated by Yoko Ono (don't ask) and a willing suspension of disbelief, but the results are very amusing (if often infantile in the style of There's Something About Mary), with asides on every page that bring in everyone and everything from Typhoid Mary to Skyy Vodka. If Shroud feels like an extended, Americanized Monty Python skit, it's also a rousing good yarn.

- A woman and her 8 year-old son seem to have been killed by her boyfriend, who used a machete. News reports wonder if the boyfriend should have even been on the streets. more ›

Steven I. Weiss, Journalist/Blogger more ›

Tina Brown, Editor/Writer/TV Host more ›