Williamsburg's condo boom went bust during the Great Recession, but now that high-income New Yorkers have gotten back on their feet, the condos are a-rockin' again. And the neighborhood is being flooded with a new breed of hipster... breeders. Not that the two cliches are mutually exclusive; just check out the crowd at a They Might Be Giants kids' show (half of the band, John Flansburgh, is also a Williamsburgher). The NY Times loves a good trend (especially in Brooklyn), and a new article headlined "Williamsburg, Toddlertown," explains what happens when a man and a woman love each other very much and make a baby in a Brooklyn neighborhood THAT IS NOT PARK SLOPE. How is that even possible?! You could read it all yourself, but maybe it's a little too early on a Friday to throw up in your mouth. Not for us; here are our four favorite regurgitated parts: more ›

The 144,160 parking placards registered in the city inventory have been reduced by over 25,000, Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler announced yesterday. The cutbacks are targeted at what many frustrated drivers see as an abuse of a system that lets police, teachers and civil servants park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. Initial cuts have focused on the 80,770 placards issued to 68 city agencies, exempting the 63,390 placards used by the Education Department. more ›

Turns out the number parking placards sloshing around New York is over 142,000, twice the number guesstimated by Mayor Bloomberg’s office when he announced a 20% cutback on the placards, which allow police, teachers and civil servants to park for free at meters and many off-limits areas. The new total does not take into consideration the number of counterfeit and expired placards, and the city is still not done counting, so this preliminary total is expected to increase even as they try to decrease it! more ›

continues to embarrass the book publishing industry. Writer Margaret Jones, who told her publisher she was a half-white, half-Native American raised by a black foster family in South Central L.A. and former Bloods gang member, was exposed as Margaret Seltzer, white private school graduate from Sherman Oaks, California. more ›

Today the Times’s chief food critic Frank Bruni revisits WD-50 (pictured) and elevates the Lower East Side avant-garde restaurant to three stars (a 2003 Times review by another critic had awarded it two). Chef Wylie Dufresne has made WD-50 a destination with his experimental, transgressive menu, and Bruni concedes that in the past “too many of his creations were gratuitously perverse… many visitors understandably feel that what they’ve experienced isn’t so much a meal as a prank.” But now most of the dishes are “knockouts” and Bruni extols “the tidiest Benedict the egg-loving world has ever known.” more ›

For all the noise of this Yankees offseason, as far as the team on the field goes, all it amounted to was the status quo. Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera are all back -- and richer. Young pitchers Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and center fielder Melky Cabrera didn't go to the Twins for Johan Santana. The 2008 Yankees will be a slightly older albeit considerably more expensive version of the 2007 team. And most fans are fine with that. more ›

Brooklyn Heights residents may have thought their neighborhood had earned a respite from anti-Semitic graffiti after the arrest and confession of Ivaylo Ivanov, who committed and then confessed to a string of vandalism incidents last year that left Brooklyn Heights peppered with swastikas in spray paint. But last week another wall was defaced with a symbol of hate. The incident involved a a brick apartment building at 22 Remsen St. The swastika was first spotted by Donald Brennan, who owns a nearby building. He told The New York Times "'I was sitting in my car at the curb with my family, I looked over my shoulder and I saw it there,' he said, adding that he felt 'absolutely shocked, kind of sick.'” more ›

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The New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s historic concert in North Korea concluded hours ago, marking the first performance by an American orchestra in the impoverished, totalitarian nation. The event also marked a first for much of the press, who are routinely denied access to North Korea and, once inside, usually find their movements tightly controlled. The Times has a stunning slideshow of photos snapped en route from the airport to the center of Pyongyang, something the photographer says is never permitted. more ›

The only way to save Harlem for the benefit of its longtime residents is to economically cripple the neighborhood. So says Dr. James Manning of the ATLAH World Ministry church. He's proposing an economic boycott of the area in Manhattan between 110th St. and 155th St., from the Harlem River to the Hudson River. The plan is that once interloper businesses have been driven out via bankruptcy, Harlem will become a less desirable place to live for people like whites, rising rents will decline, and Harlem will have been purged of the problems that have been driving people out of their homes. more ›

In an echo of its 2006 article about her Senate re-election campaign spending, the NY Times finds Hillary Clinton donors are concerned over her campaign's spending. Some of the line items that emerged after her campaign finance report was published: $100,000 in party platters and shovels for Iowa caucus parties (where Clinton placed third - and where it did not snow), $25,000 in hotel rooms at Las Vegas' Bellagio, $275,000 to a South Carolina firm "that was supposed to turn out black voters for her" (Barack Obama won SC by almost 30%) and $267,000 for adviser Howard Wolfson's January fee. more ›

The NY Times' article about presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain's superclose relationship with a young, attractive female lobbyist (more about her here) has drawn a lot of criticism, especially from McCain himself. His campaign seized the moment to raise money for his campaign. more ›

Governor Spitzer is facing opposition in his attempt to snuff out any Javits Center expansion by selling land surrounding the center to fill budget gaps. The administration still plans to renovate the convention center, but it will result in far less space than what was originally envisioned for the expansion, which would have cost between $1.8 billion and $3 billion. Senator Charles Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn oppose the land sale, which would effectively eliminate the possibility of any future expansion. more ›

A rendering for a building that will replace a Cooper Union engineering building has emerged (above). Designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, the 440,000-square-foot mixed-use building will replace the brown tribute to banality that currently hunkers across from the historic 1859 Cooper Union Foundation building. The 51 Astor Place building is to be demolished; the fate of the connected Starbucks (between Third and Fouth Avenues) is uncertain. more ›

It's that time of year again - the Westminster Kennel Club will be naming the Best in Show dog tonight. Today is day two (of two) of the Westminster Kennel Club's 132nd Dog show, and the best in group for the sporting, working and toy groups will be determined. Those dogs will face off against the winners of the herding (an Australian Shepherd), non-sporting (a standard poodle), terrier (a Sealhyam Terrier), and the hound (a beagle) groups. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg's un-campaign for President is losing momentum even before it could officially get started. Bloomberg's position on a run has always been that he is not running at any particular point at that time, even as his Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey aggressively pursues advance work for the campaign that is not happening. Political consultant Doug Schoen confirmed that Sheekey has a formal plan in place already that merely needs the Mayor's go-ahead to begin. more ›

EVENT: Angels and Kings is hosting a Nerd Nite, described as: "the Discovery Channel with beer." This evening brings zombies to life, sort of, with a presentation on the undead titled "Zombies Are Real: Actual Zombies of the Natural World And Why You Might Be One." Drink, learn, be nerdy. more ›

After successful (if not decisive enough overall for the nomination) Super Tuesday primary results, Hillary Clinton is thinking about the immediate future of her campaign, by considering loaning $5 million to the effort. And this comes as her campaign spokesman Howard Wolgson revealed she already loaned the campaign $5 million last month! From the Post, here's Wolfson's quote:

Late last month Sen. Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million. The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton's commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the web stoday and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

New York State Senate leader Joseph Bruno is still under FBI investigation for possibly improper ties to unions that deal with state pension agencies! In 2006, Bruno said of the FBI's look, "I have nothing to hide. They are going into background over the past five or six years," but the NY Times describes the feds' current investigation as widening. more ›

A study to be published later this year in the Journal of Food Safety proves that George Costanza’s cavalier method of double dipping his chip is, in fact, “like putting your whole mouth right in the dip.” For those who may have missed the Seinfeld episode or somehow not seen it reenacted at every party serving dip since it aired in 1993, we’ve posted the scene below. Suffice it to say that Costanza’s preferred dipping style involves dipping his chip in dip, taking a bite, and then going back for more dip with the half-eaten chip. more ›

When Super Sunday rolls around, there will be a lot of questions that will be answered. Will the Giants stop the undefeated season of the Patriots? How will Eli Manning perform in the biggest game of his career? And how Tom Brady's foot be? While there are clearly lots of other questions, one question that isn't so obvious is...who's the hotter quarterback. Is it the boy from New Orleans with Southern charm? Or is it the quarterback from California's Bay Area with the supermodel girlfriend? more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an aircraft fire at JFK terminal 4 in Queens, a robbery on Central Park West in Manhattan, and a missing child on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Surf cams (permanently installed cameras monitoring surf conditions) are a great way to notify surfers of conditions, until one realizes that surfers don't want conditions notified for fear of crowds.
• No matter what you've ever seen in the movies, crashing the guard rails on a bridge to land on the highway below will end with your fatality.

Just a days before the Florida primary, someone gave the New York Times a 1998 NYPD memorandum advising Mayor Giuliani that the department felt locating the city's emergency command center in 7 World Trade Center was not a very good idea. The eight page memo was written by a panel of police experts with help from the Secret Service. Its conclusions were overruled by Giuliani and the command center was destroyed on September 11 as the building where it was located burned and then collapsed. more ›

The NY Times' editorial board has made its endorsements for the upcoming primaries. While the Times' selection of Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama is interesting (the Times cites experience), we're very taken with the editorial about the Republican candidates. more ›

Hey, tourists, NYC may want you to spend lots of money when you visit the Big Apple, but just don't get really sick or else the Administration for Children's Services will take your kids in! Because that's what happened to one British family last month! more ›

The Times ran a follow-up today about their investigation that found abnormally high levels of mercury in fish served at area restaurants. Toxicology reports from 44 pieces of sushi, ordered from places including Nobu Next Door and Sushi Seki, may in fact contribute to some New Yorkers’ 3 times higher-than-average blood levels of mercury. It turns out, however, that most New Yorkers just don’t care. more ›

There are no "garage bands" in New York City. Unlike some of their suburban counterparts, musicians here have to pay the piper for their practice spaces, which can be hard to find in a city where every no-frills square-foot costs something. In fact, to really be a "garage band" in New York, one may end up paying $225K a year. more ›