Jen has already posted her Top Stories for 2007-- but here's the list according to you, the readers: By Comments* 1. Pet Food Recall After Cat and Dog Deaths, by Jen Chung (614) 2. Rev. John Carmichael, Church of Scientology, by Jen Carlson (312) 3. Wild Wednesday Weather, by Jen Chung (255) 4. Maple Syrup Was Better: Smell of Gas Covers NYC by Jen Chung (191) 5. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninites Don't Scare......

Could American Apparel have a better location for their advertising than the corner of Allen and Houston? Their ads in the location has made some members of the community upset and may have caused The Splasher to return from hibernation. And they have the echo-chamber that is the NY blog community talking about their "racy" ads all the time. Indeed, any publicity is good publicity. They've since replaced the defaced leggings billboard with a......

Need a last minute costume idea and in a New York state of mind? Here are a few NYC-themed ideas for your Halloween fête... R.I.P.ped from the Headlines • Thor Equities Need: Winged Thor helmet and hammer, brochures or maps (which can be printed out) of Coney Island -- and something to destroy them with. • The Staten Island Ninja Burglar Need: Ninja outfit, complete with nunchucks. Fake stab wound to the chest. Map......

Last month, we mentioned that some Lower East Side and East Village residents were upset with the American Apparel billboard on Allen Street showing a topless woman's backside and legging-clad gams. Now GammaBlog took this picture of the now-defaced billboard. Not only is it splashed with some neon green paint (le retour de The Splasher?), someone wrote, "Gee, I wonder why women get raped." GammaBlog believes that someone(s) "must have rappelled over the side......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large snake was reported on West 118th St. in Manhattan, an assault in transit on the Brighton Line in Brooklyn, and an armed robbery on Whittier St. and Lafayette Ave. in the Bronx. The Splasher's identity is revealed! Scroll down to the bottom of our post on the anti-street art vandal for his name and picture. Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro wants security cameras installed at a......

Some more details about the stink bomb incident at the Shepard Fairey show Thursday night. Twenty-four-year-old Alan Cooper of Bushwick was arrested for attempted arson, after he tried to set off a stink bomb in a DUMBO gallery. Cooper was acting with an accomplice, who got away. From the Daily News:Cops later led Cooper away in cuffs, but not before the artist, Shepard Fairey, confronted him. "I put a lot of time and energy......

At around 11pm we got a text message from a friend at the Shepard Fairey opening in DUMBO, saying that the "Splasher got caught at the show tonight". So far the information we're hearing is that two guys attempted to set off a stink bomb at the show, but were stopped by security. It remains to be seen if the stink-bombers are the same guys who set off a stink bomb at the Faile......

Shepard Fairey won counterculture acclaim in the ‘90s for his iconic OBEY Giant campaign which spread virally around the world in what he dubbed "an experiment in phenomenology”. The many faces of Andre the Giant on street lights and buildings have become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to recall a time when they weren’t always in the corner of your eye. Now his success as an established artist – movie posters, album covers, Fender guitars......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a carjacking on 130th St. and 15th Ave. in Queens, an overturned auto on Spring St. and West Broadway in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Caton Ave. in Brooklyn. Remember when Paris Hilton forgot that she'd left her Tinkerbell with her grandma and papered her neighborhood with Lost Dog flyers? New Yorkers hire private detectives and publicists to get the job done right. A tiny dauchsund is missing. New......

Walking around town the last few days, we've noticed a bunch of recently defaced streetart pieces. These might be the work of The Splasher, but if you look closely, you can see that something has changed: the paint has been applied with a brush! That's right-- either the Splasher needs a new moniker, or he has inspired a copycat. And a special bonus-- on Kenmare, we spotted another example of vandalized vandalism- a group of......

Street artist Highraff recently came to the United States for the first time to raise awareness about the culture of his hometown São Paulo, Brazil, where he’s been painting in the streets since 1997. The twenty-nine-year-old artist, whose given name is Rafael Calazans Pierri, currently has work on display here in New York as part of Ruas de São Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery. If you think his......

We wrote about someone we called "The Splasher" splattering - and essentially damaging - street art back in January. Since then, we've been following the Splasher's activities, as well as how street artists are reacting. Now the NY Times enters the Splasher fray again, this time with an article, "Defacer With Mystery Agenda Is Attacking Street Art" and a big front-of-Metro-section photograph of one of the Splasher's attacks in the Lower East Side. Sorry,......