Results tagged “theworld”

Banksy, the cheeky street artist/prankster turned multimillionaire art star, was in town last week, presumably for the Damien Hirst-coordinated auction at Sotheby’s to benefit the (Project) RED campaign, which works with corporations like the Gap to raise money for the treatment of A.I.D.S. patients in Africa. The $48 million raised at the event – through the sale of works by Hirst, Banksy, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and others – will be distributed by the Global Fund.

Now that Rupert Murdoch owns The Wall Street Journal, he wants all his toys in one toychest properties in one building, namely News Corporation's Sixth Avenue building. The Wall Street Journal newsroom has always been downtown and is currently located at the World Financial Center.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 120th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on West 31st St. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim at MoMA in Manhattan.
• The New York Yankees took first place in franchise spending, with a total payroll of $218.3 million last year. The World Series-winning Boston Red Sox payroll totalled $155.4 million to finish a distant second.
• The New York Water Taxi is terminating its South Brooklyn service between Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Wall St. at the end of this month.

Arno Herwerth, the Long Island man who the DMV rejected his GETOSAMA vanity plate, then sued them now wants to have a 9-11 commemorative license plate available to the Empire State’s motorists – something several other states have for their drivers. However, in New York then Governor George Elmer Patkai vetoed the idea in 2006 and put the brakes on any new optional license plates thanks to a pro-life groups suing states, including New...

It's been snowing out lately, and thanks to The World's Largest Snow Globe, it's going to be snowing indoors soon as well. Standing at over twenty feet tall, the monstrosity of holiday cheer will be arriving at The Pond at Bryant Park next week (December 14th to 18th). Throughout the week, the snow globe will feature live models in cheery winter scenes, not unlike an Old Navy ad. Why? Good question. In typical holiday fashion,...

December is here, and the responsible citizens behind National Drunk and Drugged Driving (3D) Prevention Month have their work cut out for them, because this month is also National Egg Nog Month. On Monday night the fabulous folks at Mount Gay Rum (no comments, please) will be kicking off the month-long nogathon with an eggsellent event at the swank World Bar, former home of the world’s most expensive cocktail, located in the Trump World Tower....

Back in June, we looked at a fascinating article from Scientific American titled "An Earth Without People." The article was based on the premises of a book by Alan Weisman called "The World Without Us." Both focus on what would happen to the earth if humans vanished from the planet immediately. The SA article even has some cool animation of what would happen to NYC here. This obviously inspired other artistic renderings of what a post-human world would have in store for the city, like the one above.

Jay-Z Around Town With a new, critically acclaimed album out and a refocused approach to his craft, Jay-Z took the stage twice this week in the Big Apple. For the relatively intimate events at Hammerstein and The Apollo, there was no shortage of friends and guests out to show support for Hov's return to form. Diddy, Nas, Lil Wayne and...Lebron James (?!?) all made appearances between the two shows. Lebron skipped a game to attend...

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York is sure going to be a doozey. He may have decided not to visit Ground Zero anymore, but his appearance at Columbia University, to participate in a World Leaders Forum, has many people upset.

Now that Rupert Murdoch is on his way to owning the Wall Street Journal, not only does he get to enjoy owning the successful and admired newspapers, he gets to feel the brunt of its personnel headaches too! The NY Times reports that signs from contract-less employees, including the phrase "Show Me The Money," have been plastered on WSJ office walls, only for someone to tear them down...and for someone else to put them back up and on and on again.

This past Saturday anyone with a music playing device was invited to The World Financial Center Plaza by the North Cove Yacht Harbor. Potential participants were told to be there by 4pm, to wear a red, blue, yellow, or green t-shirt, to bring a watch with a second hand and a camera if possible, and to download an mp3 from their site.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Did you ever wake up one morning and feel like something's not quite right with the universe? The other day, we had that very feeling. During the course of the day we learned that not one, not two, but THREE new Pinkberry locations are in the works in addition to the four existing branches. Do we really need three more Pinkberrys? Some people say yes. We mentioned the word "Pinkberry" in front of a friend last night and her reaction was downright freakish. She spewed adoration for the tangy unsweetened yogurt with cultlike intensity; if there are others like her in the city, then perhaps the exponential growth is a good thing.

MOVIES: With another version of Hairspray hitting the big screen this summer, it seems to be a season of decades past and, of course, hair! Movies With a View brings back the musical tale of Central Park hippies, small town boys headed to Vietnam and the '60s as they show the film Hair tonight.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial roof collapse on Union St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at Coney Island and Brighton Beach Aves. in Brooklyn, and a slashing at Dyckman St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
• Artie Fufkin speaks! Paul Schaffer, who was the musical director of the Blues Brothers, keyboardist for Bill Murray's lounge singer character on SNL, and the bandleader for David Letterman's "The World's Most Dangerous Band" since 1982, is publishing his memoirs. Yeah!
• A local moving company is converting a number of its trucks from diesel to biodiesel fuel in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• The producer of a Broadway show called "My First Time" is employing a mindreader to determine who gets free tickets to the show. Recipients must affirm via a psychic they are virgins.
• A 17-year-old was shot several times in the head as he lay in bed in the middle of the afternoon while visiting relatives in the Bronx.
• Juana Yolfo is a Spanish-speaking 106-year-old woman who was born in Puerto Rico before moving to Brooklyn and then settling in the Lower East Side more than 40 years ago. She's celebrating her birthday this week after more than 50 years as a NYC resident.
• Al Sharpton as Apollo Creed? The reverend is getting in shape to pummel Giuliani if there's any hope the latter's electoral prospects brighten.
• Carroll Gardens parents are in a huff about youthful neighborhood ruffians, who are disrespectul to adults and unmindful of younger children as they engage in shenanigans and otherwise behave like hooligans.

MUSIC: Courtney Love makes her return to the New York stage tonight for a little birthday celebration show at Hiro Ballroom. The rocker turned 43 on Monday of this week, and there's only one way to see if she's acting her age! Last time she got a little crazy at a suprise show at Plaid, and when she turned 40 she took a trip to Bellevue.

Scientific American has an fascinating feature An Earth Without People, not to mention these renderings of what the city might look like sans humans. The drawing above is what Fifth Avenue/St. Patrick's Cathedral would look like and the drawing below is what the subways would look like after just two days.

In May word was spreading that the famed Gotham Book Mart would be shutting its doors as the owner, Andreas Brown, was forced to pay overdue rent. At that time, the entire contents of the shop ("from rare first-edition John Updike novels to the worn-out oriental rug on the third floor") were sold for $400K at a court-mandated auction. The Post called it an "undignified last chapter for the institution - beloved by the likes of Edward Gorey, J.D. Salinger and Jackie Kennedy Onassis."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its 20th annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Places in the United States and Brooklyn's Industrial Waterfront topped the 2007 list of sites. The organization describes the industrial waterfront's history:

For more than a century, the New York City region was one of this country’s dominant manufacturing hubs. Due to its location on the East River and the New York Harbor, Brooklyn was the city’s industrial center with scores of maritime operations, factories, warehouses and sugar refineries. In the second half of the twentieth century, industry declined, and what’s left of that striking architectural and historical legacy is now at risk. Also at risk are the places that make Brooklyn “work,” the buildings and sites that house manufacturing and industrial jobs.

TONY blog has a report on the most endangered sites in the world. The World Monuments Fund released its 2008 list yesterday, which is packed with far off places.

On Saturday I found myself cycling through the drizzling rain to The World Financial Center, an office building on the western edge of the former World Trade Center site. The occasion was Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl’s astonishing site-specific performance piece, Bird Eye Blue Print, presented in several rooms in an abandoned office for small audiences of 22 at a time. Upon receiving my ticket in the building’s lobby, I was asked to jot down my “point of origin” on a scrap of paper and wait.

THEATER: Listen up: The World Financial Center’s unique Word of Mouth Festival is going on through Saturday only. Taking inspiration from the festival’s location, The Women’s Project is presenting a series of short plays by women playwrights called Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$. They’re all site-specific works about the relationships between women and wealth (or lack thereof); audiences are escorted through various spots around the World Financial Center to watch each performance. (There's an article today's Times Metro section.) Another intriguing production is Bird Eye Blue Print, which occurs in an abandoned office suite on the first floor of One World Financial Center. “In these rooms, a mysterious woman known only as ‘the blue dress lady’ has made her home. Join her as she tours you through her realm of disappearing birds, empty phone jacks, false doorways and lost sisters. Is it an office suite? Or an elaborate optical illusion?” (Playwright Jeffrey M. Jones highly recommends the play; he also stresses that while they are limiting the advance reservations for Bird Eye Blue Print, nobody who showed up without a reservation was turned away on the night he attended.) - John Del Signore

Rolling Stone has officially turned 40! We can't honestly say it's aged very well, but it sure is partying like it's 1967. Last year, at 39 and issue number 1000, Jann Wenner wrote, "The fact that we had John Lennon on the very first cover [pictured] was serendipity. We had a publicity photo from his role in the anti-war film How I Won the War. That photo, we now realize, speaks so clearly to the paths of culture and politics that came to define Rolling Stone."

A look at some noteworthy television programs this week:

The latest issue of Brownstone, NYU's magazine devoted to minority issues, is out and it's all Asians, all the time.

Car makers are flocking to the city with the New York International Auto Show opening this weekend (media previews start tomorrow) at the Javits Convention Center, and there's one particularly NYC-focused exhibit: Taxi '07.

Next week we'll be posting videos from our Austin show (as well as some other SXSW goodies), and for now - here are two of the performances from our last Movable Hype show (as always, shot for us by Autopilot).

MUSIC: Of course we suggest you come hang out with us tonight at our 4th Birthday Party, and 11th Movable Hype show. The show starts at 7:30pm, here are the details and some mp3s:

We recently saw The World Without Magic for the first time, though they've been playing around the city for a while now. Their creative pop noir translates well on stage, and even if it all is a tad dark, you can't help but smile a little. They're playing our show on Thursday, give a listen: Never Begun.mp3