Toby Young's tome on Graydon Carter and life at Vanity Fair, How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, is hitting the big screen just like its female counterpart The Devil Wears Prada. If you don't have a prior engagement and have fantasized about your 15 minutes seconds of fame blurry background screen-time, head over to Empire State Park tonight to be an extra. What have you got to lose, it's a beautiful night anyway! The......

The MTA has embraced Internet technology once again to offer the public streaming webcasts of public meetings at its midtown Manhattan headquarters. Thanks to Governor Spitzer's "Executive Order 3," which requires all public agencies to broadcast meetings by July 1, the MTA is investing just over a hundred thousand dollars to set up and maintain the technology. MTA executive director and CEO Elliot Sander said, "The MTA shares Governor Spitzer’s focus on transparency and access,......

Yesterday, the MTA lowered the first of many parts of the Tunnel Boring Machine into the lower level of the 63rd Street tunnel as part of the MTA’s East Side Access project. The lowering itself could have been dismissed by passersby as just some sort of generic routine construction work, but it was much more than just moving a boring machine. When finally assembled in about two months, the 600-ton automated Spanish-owned and Italian-made......

We can't possibly choose only one music event for the weekend, so check out OhMyRockness for the jam packed weekend listings. We will say, however, that one of the openers for Snowden at Maxwell's tonight...is We Are Scientists, trying out some new tunes. Though closer to home are The Clientele and Beach House at Bowery Ballroom. Listen: Apple Orchard.mp3 - Beach House THEATER: A mysterious little two-actor, umpteen character play called The Eaten Heart concludes......

Nice guys may not finish first, but it helps with voters. The NY Times' Michael Powell looks at Rudy Giuliani's evolution from mayor to presidential candidate and the shift in style he's had to take. For instance, more smiling, less snarling! Powell has been covering Giuliani for the past 15 years and includes observations about Giuliani's body language, style (no more combover!), and rhetoric. A NY Times video that has clips of Mayor Rudy......

If you were watching WABC 7 last night, you noticed that it suddenly went black - and stayed that way until around 1AM. The studio needed to be evacuated after a smoky fire started near the set of Live with Regis & Kelly at its Columbus Avenue and 66th Street location. According to the NY Times, a "light bulb had set a curtain on fire." Here's what WABC 7 said during their segment about......

It's busy today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water main break on Bergen Street in Carroll Gardens, a "fall victim in a hole" in Queens, a carjacking in Bay Ridge (and another one in Staten Island!), and an armed robbery with possible stabbing in Chinatown. Now that the Democrats have recaptured Congress, Charles Rangel is setting his sights on a new goal: standup comedy. Everyone likes the holidays: even rapists! Youngna Park, our little......

This week, Sarah Michelle Gellar is back for more creepy girls hiding in her hair in the new sequel, The Grudge 2. Amber Tamblyn plays her sister, who also travels to Tokyo and is also infected by the grudge inducing curse. While both American versions of the Grudge movies were directed by their Japanese creator Takashi Shimizu, it would seem that the better material would be in the originals, so we suggest renting those instead.......

In this week's Time Out, Mickey Rourke showed off his, er, opinionated nature while trying to promote a movie (the one about a British spy kid, Alex Rider). Not only does he call Pastis "precious" (like, duh) because he can't take his dog Loki there, he also explains a recent run-in:There was an item in Page Six recently about a drunk hassling you at Macelleria in the West Village. That guy was screaming at the......

Sam Champion, the WABC 7 meteorologist weathercaster (thanks for correcting, Toby) (not the band), will be the new Good Morning America weathercaster. Crain's reports that since Champion has been at WABC for 18 years, "his imminent departure could hurt the station as it competes with WNBC and WCBS." Gothamist would have to agree - Sam Champion is a cornerstone of the local NYC weather. The only current city weathercasters we know off the top of......

Hard N Phirm is comedians Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman. In this interview they discuss patriotic dinosaurs, My Dinner with Andre, and Cop Rock. How have the college shows been going? CH: We've only done a handful of them. We did NACA (National Association for Campus Activities) in February. We did about five colleges in the spring and they got progressively better. Colleges think that comedy is this thing that you can just put anywhere......

EVENT: Even if the Freegans have a photo of a pale vegan going through the dumpster for food on the front page of their website, this is actually a really amazing group of people that we could all learn a lot from. Tonight, for example, they will teach you how to build bikes using abandoned parts found around the city. Tools and know-how supplied. 7pm // Bicycle Rescue & Repair [327 W. 36th St between......

See, this is why angry mobs aren't really a good idea. They're just too quick to judge. For example, yesterday afternoon in East Flatbush a livery driver seemingly lost control of his vehicle and swerved into an 8-year-old riding a bike. When the hack finally stopped crashed his cab into a wall a "group of dozens of bystanders confronted and attacked him." And then it gets crazier. The cabby, as he was being beaten,......

We're not sure New York Christians could have asked for nicer Easter weather. The sun was shining, flowers were blooming and when we were out people just seemed to be in good cheer. Or maybe we just weren't sitting in front of our computer all day? (Shhh! Don't tell Jen and Jake!) Anyway, we gather from photos the parade was lovely as well. Yesterday's easter event brought record crowds to Central Park - though......

When we started doing this weekend blogging thing way back in July we knew, we just knew, that if we stuck with it long enough eventually Denton would notice and maybe give us some blog-company to play with on the weekend (no offense to you, our fair readers, but it can get very lonely here on the weekend web). But we had no. Fucking. Idea. Seems Denton has gone totally batshit and given the......

With obvious glee today's Times and Daily News went to task covering the Page Six payola scandal in greater detail. Both papers managed to get a fair amount of milage out of the story. The News includes some great excerpts, like this one of Page Sixer Jared Paul Stern:"You know, for whatever reasons, and it's not because there's any kind of agenda overriding or a conspiracy — I am saying you're not on the good......

NBC will officially announce that Meredith Vieira will be the new Today Show co-anchor, filling Katie Couric's 7AM to somewhere in the 9-10AM area shoes, later this afternoon, though Vieira announced the move during The View this morning. Newsday's Verne Gay says that Meredith Vieira might be the most perfect replacement for Couric ever, which could be good or bad. But the biggest fun is asking people what they think of the move. Should Katie......

Never one to be outdone by the New York Times, Murdoch's kids today also unveiled a new look. For flagship FOX station WNYW FOX 5. Check out the screenshots provided by Gothamist tipper, the ever-vigilant Toby: The Tobster points out that the new look and graphics brings the station more in line with the Fox News Channel. And cause everyone likes to laugh at others troubles, he also notes "The 5PM newscast was filled with......

When we look at the medal totals for the Winter Olympics, we sometimes wonder what the United States would do if snowboarding wasn't included...but out of the men's mogul's competition, comes the inspirational story of Toby Dawson, who was abandoned as a child in South Korea, is searching for his birth-parents, and won the bronze medal. Dawson has been searching for his birth parents and hopes that appearing - and now winning - will help......

A reader writes: Within 24 hours, I've been effected by two manhole fires, with the first killing my power on Flatbush in Park Slope yesterday, and the second blocking my lunch route on Rector St today. Has anyone else reported any, is there something going on?Maybe it's the combination of tons of snow and pure New York City heat? Maybe the city ran out of manhole epoxy. Manhole season started later last year. And a......

Comedy Legends Live: The inimitable Carl Reiner speaks with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman. Reiner—comedian, actor, novelist and director— was a creator, writer and producer for The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1999, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Come check out a legend. Tonight // 8:15pm // Kaufmann Concert Hall [ Lexington Avenue at 92nd St] //......

Toby at Random Observations captured this great moment in local TV news: Sue Simmons doing her best groundhog impression during the Live at Five broadcast, writing, "It is something that I always look forward to every year." When Gothamist caught the 11PM broadcast, Chuck Scarborough created quite a fanfare for Simmons to repeat the impression. And suddenly we realized that while WNBC mentioned Punxsutawny Phil, they neglected to mention another Chuck - Staten Island Chuck......

2:04 AM - The media is being told they have to wait a while before the TWU will talk. So with that, Gothamist is going to bed to get ready in case there is a strike - we're going attempt to check out the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning, which is supposed to be really cold tomorrow morning. Dress warm and dream of the strike being resolved by the time you wake up. Thanks for......

Toby spotted this great lego firetruck on Brickshelf a few minutes ago-- the same artist also did a pretty good ambulance. We also tracked down some Lego taxis, an NYC streetscape, and this rather amazing NYC mini-city. And what the hell-- here's a cute little NYPD police cruiser. You can never have too many Lego creations! Never!......

Now that the snow is a slushy, disgusting mess, Gothamist has distance from this morning's troublesome commute (note to self: Wear wading boots and carry snow boots). But Toby at Random Observations has amazing analysis of the local news' weather coverage. Crazy graphics? Check. Maps of snowfall? Check. School closing alerts? Check. Not only did CBS take honors for being in "Weather Orgasm mode," "Dave Price made an appearance making a fool out of himself......

As expected, many people took the opportunity to call the Mayor yesterday, after he bragged how he took calls from constituents at home on his listed-in-the-phonebook number. The NY Times reports that the Mayor's communications director said Bloomberg's townhouse received "more calls than we can count" while the Post was able to fix the uncountable number as "more than 100 calls." A Post reporter tried calling a few times, but only got a busy signal......

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The beloved Douglas Adams book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has already been made into a BBC series (now on DVD), and will be made into a film this April. Casting thus far: Martin Freeman (The Office) as Arthur Dent, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. The role of Zaphod Beeblebrox has not be cast yet. The British directing duo, Hammer & Tongs (aka Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith),......

Gothamist saw American Splendor this past weekend and enjoyed this twist on a biopic. The film offers Paul Giamatti as underground writer/cartoonist (though he doesn't draw) Harvey Pekar, as well as the real Harvey Pekar giving narration, as well as other real-life people making appearances alongside the actors who portray them. Giamatti is so perfect as this beleagured, lonely crank, with mouth partly open, perhaps in pain, that it's almost painful to watch. And......