A few days ago The Apiary suspected that someone was out to get Rififi after reading some new comments on an old post about the multi-purpose venue, and hearing their liquor license was about to expire. One of the managers, Karin Stanley, quickly responded -- confirming the site's suspicions:

Unfortunately you are correct, there is a smear campaign being perpetrated against Rififi by some of the tenants in the surrounding buildings. They are intent on ousting Rififi during this period of license renewal, soliciting surrounding tenants to make complaints, abusing the SLA complaint webpage, and invoking archaic and racist cabaret laws (please refer to this site for a history of the cabaret laws in New York City). Many of these people seem to believe it is illegal for people to eat, drink and make merry. more ›

Sure, there are probably a few jokes about John Mayer, but last year John Mayer himself decided to hit the comedy circuit, and now it looks like he's kicking off 2007 with a little bit of funny as well. Varsity Basketweaving caught his set at the Comedy Cellar on January 5th. Here are some of the "10 things John Mayer did during his Jan. 5 stand-up set at the Comedy Cellar" after crashing the 11:30pm set (via The Apiary): more ›

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Car Alarms on summer nights from the Gothamist Contribute stream-- mails yours to photos (at) gothamist. more ›

- The Village Voice gets director Victor Buhler (he did the documentary Rikers High) to do a feature about the kids getting their GEDs at Rikers more ›

New Yorkers are reacting to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in a number of ways. Shipments of supplies have headed to the region, and firefighters with disaster training have gone to help as well. However, there are the realities what Hurricane Katrina has done to impact resources: City taxi drivers, hurting under the high gas prices, are lobbying for a surcharge of $1.50 for rides while gas prices are $2-4 or a surcharge of $2 if prices go above $4. more ›

Thank you to everyone for coming out to the first ever Gothamist.com Comedy Show last night. We had a great time laughing our collective asses off as Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel hosted a great night with comedians Chelsea Peretti, Nick Kroll, Aziz Ansari, and Jessi Klein. more ›