Rap artist RZA, who is a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, has an interesting sideline occupation: recreational chess champion. RZA (pronounced RIZ-a) sat down with New York Times chess man Dylan McClain to talk about his love of the game. At the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the duo played a game and discussed how RZA became involved with chess and what it means to him. One can see a virtual representation of the game that RZA......

Bronx-born writer Richard Price, famous for his gritty urban novels Clockers and Freedomland, as well screenplays like The Color of Money and award-winning episodes of The Wire, has now turned his eye for detail on the turbo-gentrifying Lower East Side. Lush Life, his first novel in five years, was described by Times critic Michiko Kakutani as “a visceral, heart-thumping portrait of New York City... no one writes better dialogue than Richard Price.” The story concerns......

Uh oh - there's definitely a little drama for five well-known performers as the Albany DA's office continues its probe into steroid trafficking. The Times Union reported yesterday that Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Timbaland, Wyclef Jean and Tyler Perry were "among the thousands of customers of the pharmacies" DA David Soares' office has investigated. Oh. In other words, the celebrities are just the bold-faced names, and the sources say there isn't evidence that they......

THEATER: The salty, electric dynamo that is Elaine Stritch shows no sign of waning – about to turn 83-years-young, the show biz legend has kicked off 2008 with a reprise of her Tony-winning cabaret show. Backed by a six-piece band and performed in two acts for a dining audience at the newly restored Café Carlyle, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, co-written with the New Yorker’s John Lahr, is a hilarious, old-fashioned ride through star-studded post-war Broadway,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan. Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a ceiling collapse at Franklin Ave. and Union St. in Brooklyn, a pedestrian was fatally struck on Queens Blvd. in Woodhaven, Queens, and an unusual rescue on the south bound tower of the Throgs Neck Bridge in Queens. An undercover cop forgot to turn off the wire he was wearing while discussing 11 bags of cocaine he seized in a Brooklyn bust that were never turned in. He was......

Britain's Paula Radcliffe made a stunning race to the wire to win the 2007 ING NYC Marathon in 2:23:09. Australia's Kurt Fearnley repeated as the champion in the men's wheelchair division. Kenya's Martin Lel won the men's division, finishing today's race in 2:09:04 with a 12 second margin of victory. We'll have more results as they become available. If you have any photos of Gothamist readers competing in today's event, please tag them "gothamist"......

There's an excellent Vows column in this week's NY Times Weddings & Celebrations. It's the one for Fran Boyd and Donnie Andrews, two Baltimore residents whose difficult lives were the basis for the HBO dramas The Corner and The Wire. Boyd and Andrews were featured in a page one story in the Times last week, and the Vows column explains more of how they met and how they supported each other during prison sentences,......

We all knew the real estate bubble was causing insanity, but we should have known it's encouraged people to divorce. There's a NY Times Styles section article about some who wait until the market's at its peak to divorce - that way, they can benefit from an even bigger profit when selling their homes. There are quotes from Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, who showed that couples with a drastic rise in net worth were......

-Devil Rays 11, Yankees 4: Manager Joe Torre's history makes clear that he doesn't care too much about home-field advantage in the playoffs. Last year, he started a second-class lineup against Boston when a win would have given the Yankees the edge in their first-round series against the Angels. This year, his team will go down to the wire battling the Tigers for the American League's best record, but Torre's lineups won't reflect it. Mike......

On Sundays, Gothamist publishes essays about topics relevant to life in New York. The one below is by our favorite poet historian, Matt Levy-- master of the extended metaphor: Welcome back Ladies and Gents, to the hip happening hotspot that’s absolutely not possible: New York City outside the space-time continuum! I am your host and it has been my extraordinary pleasure to allow you, the good readers and citizens of Gotham City, to enjoy......

You know the baseball season is coming down to the wire when the Post and the News can't be bothered to come up with different headlines. In any event, the A.L. East title really is coming down to this weekends games. Today's is on at 1:15 on Channel 5 while tomorrow's game is on at 2:05 on YES.......

Last week, the NYPD announced they had broken up a multi-million dollar drug ring in Queens. Drug busts are always good for news conferences, especially when the NYPD can spread the drugs, guns, and cash recovered, but this bust was particularly interesting: Apparently the drug dealers really loved to watch the HBO drama, The Wire, and would get tips on how to evade the police from the show. "Believe it or not, these guys copy......

The DEA announced that AP > National > DEA: N.J. Heroin Is Purest in U.S." href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-New-Jersey-Heroin.html?ex=1103889347&ei=1&en=0ae66130f0c8f852">New Jersey has the purest heroin in the country. Because NJ tends to be the first stop in the US for drug traffickers, the heroin is usually not cut, therefore making NJ's heroin purity over 71%, which is twice the national average; heroin in NY is 61.5% pure. This means that there are more overdoses and drug choices. Gothamist does......

As various journalists and pundits grope for turns of phrase that capture the race for the Presidency ("too close to call!" "down to the wire!" "neck and neck!"), Gothamist would like to take the time to remind everyone that polls are open from 6AM until 9PM tomorrow (FINALLY!). The NY Times has an article on what you should do and have when you go to vote, which is part of a section called "Making Votes......

John F. Kennedy Airport's Terminal 1 was evacuated yesterday when the bomb detection machines noted the presence of explosives on a piece of luggage that was left behind. It turned out that the owner of the luggage worked in construction and had access to explosives (for "legitimate" reasonsas the wire reports say), and there were trace amounts on the luggage. He was at JFK for a connecting flight to Paris; he made the flight, the......

Like a lot of people, I'm conflicted about the war in Iraq. I marched against it, but now that we're there I feel we have to do what it takes to fix the situation before leaving. In the meantime, I feel terrible about servicepeople who are on extended tours, risking life and limb for what I feel is is an unnecessary war. Is there anything I can do for our troops? David, Manhattan Books......

In honor of Labor Day, Newsday asks different celebrities what their worst jobs were. Gothamist especially likes the humiliating job stories, because it gives us hope that bigger and better things are out there. Some of the notable professions: Jerry Orbach, Law and Order Hauling gravel." Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com I really enjoyed my summer working at McDonald's, but on my first day a 5-gallon ketchup dispenser fell off the wall, crashed onto the floor and......

It's all about Baltimore lately. If it's not the Times' Bryan Miller looking at Baltimore area restaurants, then it's another critical rave (and query: Why aren't more people watching?) for HBO's Baltimore-set drama, The Wire. Or it's the Yankees sweeping the Orioles (George Vecsey gives a little Baltimore local color in his piece about how Yankees fans worry and worry and worry). Gothamist knows one Baltimore blogger, and that's eebmore, who has noticed that......