Even back in 1984 there was mainstream media attention on the ever-changing landscape of the Lower East Side and East Village. Real estate was "exploding," chain stores were popping up, and galleries were abundant. The New York Magazine cover story on May 28th of that year was titled: The Lower East Side -- There Goes the Neighborhood. Luckily, someone recently scanned the entire article, which could almost read like it was written today, if......

Okay, maybe pets aren't so into the holidays, except when it comes to scraps that fall to the floor or the prospect of a new chew toy. But that doesn't mean that pet owners aren't enthusiastic about projecting the spirit of the season onto Fido and Fluffy. Clockwise, from the top left, we have: Delco the West Brighton wanna-be (and possibly reluctant) reindeer, photograph by walkwpack, a reader on SILive.com; a cute Christmas tree......

Artist Phil Kline has brought us an Unsilent Night every year since 1992. He describes his experiment as an "outdoor ambient music piece for an infinite number of boomboxes. It’s like a Christmas caroling party except that we don’t sing, but rather carry the music, each of us playing a separate track that is a voice in the piece." City blocks are usually loud enough, but tonight get ready for a full-on sound symphony to......

It's a Halloween Hump Day! We will have more details about the Halloween Parade and other events in the city later, but we thought we'd point you to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown videos on Youtube (part 1, 2, 3), in case you missed ABC's airing last night. You can also get it on DVD, and there's also the book It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic. Halloween......

The annual Tompkins Square Park Halloween dog parade was yesterday, and the pups were out in their costumed best! iPup might be one of our faves (more pics after the jump...) Photos via Gregory Hull's, Manhattan About.com's, dasgutt's flickr.......

The Critical Mass Halloween Ride is tonight! If you go, get some good pictures! THEATER: Sam Marks’s new play The Joke peels back the thin gauze separating comedy from an open wound. Set in the last throws of the Catskills comedy circuit circa 1965, the story concerns the disintegrating comedy duo of Steady Eddie and Doug the Mug. Doug has let his envy of Eddie get the better of him and begins adding more of......

Saturday night’s Vendy Awards ended in victory for “Dosa Man” Thiru Kumar, the all-vegan, South Indian crêpe vendor of Washington Square South who had previously taken the runner-up title for the last two years. At the awards ceremony capping off a 5 hour eat-a-thon, Kumar was presented with the silver “Vendy” trophy by last year’s winner Samiul Haque Noor, from Sammy’s Halal. All 5 of this year’s nominees competed for attendees’ votes with their food......

September 27: Joy of Sake Talk about joy -- over 300 sakes will be poured at the largest sake tasting in the United States, coming our way tonight. Over 100 of them are generally not available outside Japan and about 150 are silver and gold award winners in the National Sake Appraisal that takes place each year. Never fear, there will be appetizers to soak it all up, from the likes of Bao Noodles, Bond......

THEATER: The fall theater season gets curiouser and curiouser with the start of The Alice in Wonderland Puppet Festival at HERE. (The festival, which is not recommended for children under twelve, will feature a tea party after every show.) Tonight curiouser & curiouser fuses text from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s diary entries and his muse Alice Liddell’s memoirs to try to decipher what destroyed their unique friendship. - John Del......

You nominated your favorites and now the finalists have been revealed: - NY Dosas, at West 4th Street near Sullivan Street, South side of Washington Square Park; - Kwik Meal, on 6th Avenue and 45th Street; - Super Tacos, on 96th Street and Broadway (we've been waiting for this one to hit the list); - King Falafel and Schwarma, at 30th Street and Broadway in Queens; and - Veronica’s Kitchen on Front Street and......

TIP: According to Paper's Mr. Mickey, Chloë Sevigny is having a tag sale on her block this Saturday. We're guessing there will be lots of vintage Balenciaga. Check out her apartment in House & Garden...pretty nice! EVENT: The Howl Festival (which took last year off) continues on throughout the weekend. Tomorrow around 2pm you can catch Moby with his band The Little Death in Tompkins Square Park. Check out the full schedule here. All Weekend......

MUSIC: Scottish indie sensations Camera Obscura bring their pop and their rock to the Seaport tonight. They're joined by The Last Town Chorus. After that, there's only one more show down there this season! Friday // 7pm // South Street Seaport, Pier 17 // Free MOVIE: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is playing tonight, and you've got a golden ticket! Stock up on sweets and enjoy the 1971 classic down by the river. Friday......

THEATER: The annual Soho Think Tank Ice Factory, arguably New York’s most impeccably curated theater festival, has been hosting an exhilarating array of new shows every weekend since July 4th . Starting tonight you can sink your teeth into Vampire University, in which “a struggling vampire family descends on an evangelical college in the Midwest, the dad’s mid-life crisis of immortality triggers a desire to come back to life and the gulf between first and......

READING: Check out today's interviewee, Peter Yarrow, tonight at Barnes and Noble where he'll be performing and signing the recently published Puff, the Magic Dragon book. C'mon, you know you've always wanted to hear that song live! 6pm // Barnes & Noble [Lincoln Center] // Free MUSIC: Daft Punk will be rocking Keyspan Park tonight, it's sold out but you can still get tickets on Craigslist. Elsewhere in Brooklyn The Hold Steady, The Big Sleep......

MOVIE: It's certainly not the kind of night for an outdoor movie, so we suggest sitting in the cool a/c and watching the 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead. "Gone is the possibility of mankind’s dominance in this sequel to Night of the Living Dead; the zombies are in control now, with a group of AWOL soldiers and TV producers on the run from the staggering hordes. A deserted shopping mall offers a safe hideout,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible grenade is noticed and reported on 33rd Ave. in Queens, an armed robbery on East 61st St. in Manhattan, and a carjacking on 133rd St. and Neptune Ave. in Brooklyn. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is employing the celebrity skills of Matt Dillon to help save St. Brigid's Church in the East Village. Eastbay is marketing Converse All-Star high tops that appear pre-worn and fairly dingy as......

Alt Coffee, the Alphabet City hangout notable for its quality Internet access, scary bathroom, and diverse clientele, closed this week is closing soon. Owner Nick Bodor is not losing his business, but simply rearranging it to fit the style of a changed neighborhood. He will be re-opening after renovations transform it into Hopscotch, a coffehouse where it's likely a diaper-changing table in the bathroom will replace the sign instructing "No OD's Allowed." The cafe’s owner,......

We received a press release about the closing of yet another establishment in lower Manhattan today. This time it's not a high profile venue like CBGB, but a little vegan bakery on St Marks that is being forced out due to high rent. The League of Humane Voters of New York City (LOHV-NYC) and Rev. Billy are teaming up to save Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen along with Council Member Rosie Mendez and Assemblyman Brian......

To the relief of dog owners and to the dismay of the Juniper Park Civic Association, Queens Supreme Court Judge Peter J. Kelly ruled that off-leash hours for dogs between 9PM and 9AM are allowed, saying that the Parks Commissioner has the power to allow pups to frolic freely. While the Juniper Park Civic Association called the ruling "complete lunacy," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said, "Tired dogs are good dogs." The Juniper Parks Civic......

Calling J. Jonah Jamison! Animal points out some rubbery impediments to people's daily lives: Artist Jasmine Zimmerman's rubber band installations. There are photographs of the Essex Street subway station entrance, parts of Tompkins Square Park, and other walkways covered with the bands. Animal has her full artist's statement, but here's an excerpt:The installations alter urban traffic environments, such as crossing staircases or busy sidewalks on the streets of Manhattan, inviting the pedestrian to reinvent......

Thanks to a suggestion by our beloved publisher Gothamist Weather has recently become addicted to the weird daily weather video from PhearCreative. Usually filmed in Tompkins Square Park, the video features an engaging pre-teen girl presenting the weather forecast along with a series of groan-inducing snarky remarks and jokes. The weirdness is with the snark, as it usually contains references to pop culture, drugs or sex. The pop culture remarks would be fine if they......

It's hard to believe, but Joey Ramone has been dead for five years. Today is his birthday, and to celebrate and remember him, Ramones super-fans are visiting spots in Queens and Manhattan. Nonsense-NY has the details: 1. Meet around 11:30a in Forest Hills, Queens for the pilgrimage, on foot, from the original Rock and Roll High School into Manhattan. Be prepared to tell stories of punkrock glory (real or imagined) and to participate in......

THEATER: Mike Daisey, the versatile, unpredictable monologuist (and onetime Gothamist interviewee), has revealed a lot about his own past and personality over the course of his years of performing and writing. Now, in the last entry of the season at Galapagos' "Evolve" series, he's going after new material -- a select array of "Great Men of Genius" other than himself. Last week he explored the life of Bertolt Brecht; tonight, he takes on circus impresario......

ART: The 10th annual Tribeca art walk is this weekend. Toast, the Tribeca Open Artist Studio Tour, is a free, self-guided tour of approximately 100 artists' studios throughout Tribeca. Talk to the artists in their own spaces, and of course - check out their art while you're at it. Saturday through Monday // 1 to 6pm // Map // Free BOOKS: Remember Book Fairs? We used to go them all the time, our first was......

- Building workers had a rally over their contract yesterday; as of today, both sides are talking - the deadline is midnight tomorrow - The space that used to house a deli on Fifth Avenue and 13th Street in Manhattan had a huge fire last night - The Department of Education will try to entice math and science teachers with over $14,000 in housing money ($5000 upfront plus up to $400 per month for......

Sad news from the New York Post today: the 157-year old St. Brigid church on Avenue B and 7th Street will be razed. A Manhattan Supreme Court judge refused to block the demolition, so short of a miracle, nothing is going to save this beautiful building. The archdiocese is saying they don't have the seven million dollars required to bring the building up to code-- despite neighborhood claims that the true price tag is......

Bring back the Tompkins Square Park band shell! That's what the lead article in this weeks Villager argues, and we've got to say we wholeheartedly agree. Forty years after the original band shell was put up and nearly fifteen years after it was taken down in response to the Tompkins Square riots, there is a growing desire to see a designated performance space return to the park. And why not? The original band shell......

Here's an extra huge panoramic shot from King Kong-- all 2048x1157 pixels of it! The angle seems to be north-west, because there's something resembling the George Washington Bridge in the far, far background. If you live on the Upper West Side, try to find your apartment building!-- yup, that was a huge mistake. You can see the tops of the two towers at 23rd and 14th streets, and Tompkins Square Park, and smokestacks in......

Reminder!!! Unsilent Night, the amazing participatory performance piece by Phil Kline, is tonight-- starting at 6:45pm at Washington Square Arch, and ending around 8pm at Tompkins Square Park: Every year since 1992 I've presented Unsilent Night, an outdoor ambient music piece for an INFINITE number of boom box tape players. It's like a Christmas carolling party except that we don't sing, but rather carry boom boxes, each playing a separate tape which is part of......

Forget about those Nazi twins, the hot sisters in the paper today are the Chamberlain sisters who were hit by a balloon during Thursday's parade. Speaking of, the Mayor has set up a task force to see what was up with the parades safety issues.Reports the Post: Stars are just like us... except some of them don't know how to tip.And the "Rent" nostalgia beat goes on as the Times sends a reporter to......