Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Now that former mayor Rudy Giuliani is getting ready to officially throw in the presidential nomination race towel after his third place finish in the Florida primary, Giuliani watchers seem to be enjoying the chance to analyze his campaign's stunning collapse. Giuliani had led national polls and seem to be a strong contender last year, but when it came down to performing at primaries and caucuses, voters weren't very convinced. Some highlights from the......

One of the NJ prisoners who escaped from a Union County jail by chiseling through cement blocks (hiding their progress by taping posters over the growing hole) three weeks ago was captured last night. Thanks to a tip, police found Jose Espinosa in an apartment just a few blocks away from the jail. Espinosa and Otis Blunt somehow acquired wire and were able to use it to "scrape the mortar around two 8-inch-by-16-inch cinderblocks," which......

While the maple syrup smell remains a two-year-old mystery to us, 30 Rock entered the fray with a hypothesis. On last night's episode, Liz Lemon, who smells waffles from her Upper West Side apartment, calls Tracy Jordan to remind him to practice his Re-Run dance for the What's Happening! sketch. But Tracy, in his NJ home, says that the smell of waffles is distracting him. Then Liz gets another call - it's Jack Donaghy,......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg met with Joseph Zadroga, whose son James was a NYPD detective and worked hours of rescue and recovery after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. James Zadroga's death has been controversial, as the NYC medical examiner's office ruled that his death was not due to exposure to toxic WTC dust but prescription drug abuse, findings that contradicted the expert opinion of two other doctors. Bloomberg entered the fray when he said that......

For better or worse, talk of NYPD detective James Zadroga's death continues to linger. For the past two weeks, the family of Zadroga, who worked hours of rescue and recovery at the pit after the September 11 attacks, and the city's medical examiner's office have been disagreeing about Zadroga's cause of death. Now Mayor Bloomberg has stepped into the fray, discrediting Zadroga's hero status. Two medical experts have supported the family's believe that Zadroga's death......

Just after Ethan Hawke declared more love for the Hotel Chelsea and more fear about the changes there being the final nail in the coffin of "old New York," The Observer suspects his exes ex of helping to hold the hammer. Earlier this summer hotel developer André Balazs was spotted in the lobby of the hotel once it was under management of his pals Richard Born and Ira Drukier of BD Hotels (together the trio......

A look at some noteworthy programs this week: Mystery: Foyle’s War: Invasion (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNET 13, Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., WLIW 21) The fourth series of this great British World War II period mystery drama makes its way to this side of the pond. The first of four episodes has Detective Foyle and his team investigation a murder on an American base. The 4400 (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., USA) This sci-fi series about people who were......

Virgin Mobile's "You Rule" campaign has been in town for a few weeks, but the confusion still runs high. Ad agency Havas McKinney developed an ambitious outdoor campaign that involves specific posters and billboards to praise residents of various New York neighborhoods, such as Chelsea, Murray Hill, Lower East Side, Upper East Side, and Bed-Stuy. But some people have been insulted by the ads (such as one Chelsea resident who called Virgin Mobile to......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

Last Monday, Gothamist set down with award winning sportscaster Len Berman. A New York native, Berman attended Stuyvesant High School and started his broadcast career while a student at Syracuse University. He got his start in television news as a reporter (and later news anchor) in 1970 at WLWD-TV (now WDTN-TV)in Dayton, Ohio. Three years later, he moved to Boston’s WBZ-TV, where he served as sports director and called Boston Celtics and New England......

Today in New York anchorman, Rob Morrison, has gone and turned in to a music blogger overnight. In one of his latest posts he declares that Wolfmother does in fact rock. "Attention brothers and sisters of Rock. If you, like me, feel as if you are drowning in a sea of sensitivity; awash in the moody minor-chords of bands like Coldplay, The Fray and that guy who jumped off a cliff because he saw a......

We've been following a debate about leaving Park Slope pretty avidly. On Christmas Day, writer Douglas Rushkoff blogged about being mugged the night before while taking out the trash on his Park Slope street. Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it......

That bus exhaust fume you smell is that sound of a bus price war! Greyhound has entered the fray of discount bus routes, dropping their prices as low as $15 for one way and $30 for round-trip for the NYC-Boston route that the Chinatown buses have dominated with their low low prices. Fung Wah currently charges $15 for a one-way ticket. Are you more likely to ride Greyhound at these price? Or will you......

Now that the big tree is lit, Rockefeller Center draws tourists like moths to a flame. You may even find yourself under its sway. The tree is pretty impressive after all—more than 65 feet tall and adorned with more than 30,000 lights. But when the crowds swarm and the cold bites, remember relief is not far away. Just duck into La Maison du Chocolat, around the corner on 49th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues,......

The Mayor of New York has always been a player on the national stage. And when it comes to political theatre, the Constitution requires that the show must go on. The right of the public to view debates and other political events is central to democracy. You have a none other than New York politicos Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch to thank when televised debates or election coverage interrupts your favorite shows. It was a......

Grieving mother turned anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan cleared things up and said she was "roughed up" by a supporter, not the police, when a rally was broken up at Union Square on Monday night. Her assistants had pulled her out of the fray quickly when the cops descended. However, Sheehan did say that police force seemed "pretty excessive" over an audio permit equipment issue. The organizer did actually apply for a permit, but was denied......

The 137th running of the Belmont Stakes had been promoted as the rubber match between Giacomo and Afleet Alex, but the duel never materialized. Afleet Alex left the field in the dust, running the fastest final quarter mile at the Belmont since 1969 and winning the race by seven lengths. To many fans, the race was an anticlimactic finish to the Triple Crown season. For the first time since 2001 there wasn’t the possibility of......

The big news rocking the world of Democratic mayoral hopefuls is that Reverend Al Sharpton won't endorse a candidate this year. In other words, the Reverend Al is just like Gothamist and many other voters: Wondering if there are any strong messages in the Democratic candidates. He noted that this will be the first time in 20 years he will not be involved in a Democratic primary, but, of course, Sharpton did leave himself an......

Fascination article in the NY Times about how video has given a truer perspective on what happened during the Republican National Convention protests. The video has both shown that the police did not employ "explicitly violent" tactics as well as helping prosecutors get guilty pleas or convictions from some protesters. But there were some cases where video actually cleared some people, like this story about Alexander Dunlop who was swept up into the fray......

For anyone who walks past the lower end of Union Square with some regularity, Geoffrey Blank's is a pretty familiar face. He's the guy with the bullhorn who heads up those anti-everything (war, corporations, Bloomberg, etc..) rallies a few times a week on the steps, exhorting anyone who will listen, as well as many who'd rather not, to resist government fascism and end U.S. military involvement in other countries. The gatherings regularly attract a wide......

Sundance is definitely in full swing - you can tell by all the blurry-eyed revelers wandering up and down Main Street. We're trying to make all the rounds, but it's difficult because we actually have paying work to do at the festival. Today, we thought we'd serve up our report in terms of bests and worsts: Best party - Palm Pictures Like defamer, we hit the Palm Pictures party last night. We had a bunch......

Just what the city has been waiting for: A fight between a cupcake shop and an ice cream shop! Crumbs Bake Shop and Crema Lita taking it to the cupcakes. Crumbs used to supply cupcakes to Crema Lita, the ice cream chain which had to change its "low-fat" claims when it was found their ice cream was fatty, but then Crema Lita CEO Jeffrey Britz decided to use cupcakes from his own bakery, the SoHo......

As we enjoy these last dog days of summer, savvy New Yorkers know that it's not too early to think about ordering tickets for some of the cool shows arriving on the fall theater scene, just around the corner. Playwrights Horizons, one of Gothamist’s favorite non-profit theater companies, has announced the opening production of their new season. People Be Heard, a new comedy with songs, will have its world premiere there, with previews starting Tuesday,......