The video below taken in Union Square this week—the rider has also been spotted around the LES as well as Park Slope—makes us think of the classic Jewish song "Dayenu" (stick with us here...): more ›

It's so lonely around here without the cold, inviting stare of Marina Abramović, isn't it? Luckily, last week Miranda July's public art project was unveiled in Union Square, and it's pretty fun! It's titled 11 Heavy Things, and consists of 11 sculptures that encourage viewer interaction. The installation will be set up through October, and July told ArtInfo that kids will probably use them as "play equipment or something" (which is probably safer than the playground equipment currently at the park!). If you head over there to interact with the pieces, send us your photos or tag them with "Gothamist" in Flickr! more ›

So much drama in the playground this year! First there was that whole thing about the prison-themed jungle gym in the projects, then over in Brooklyn Bridge Park they installed the world's most dangerous playground, complete with burning metal orbs... and now parents utilizing Union Square Park have some complaints. more ›

Ugh: The Post reports that a "tech-savvy skirt-chaser fitted his boots with cameras and victimized women as they walked through Union Square Park, cops said yesterday... He was carrying a viewer, which was connected by wires through his pockets to tiny cameras lodged in the tongues of his boots, cops said." Eric Pierson was charged with unlawful surveillance last week and found with "recordings showing the legs and underwear of another eight victims." Speaking of, doesn't the iPod Nano with video capability seem like it might encourage this kind of behavior? more ›

Early this morning, four people were hit by gunfire and another person was stabbed while in Union Square Park. WABC 7 says that a fight "broke out in a McDonald's at 17th and Broadway." And then someone fired into a crowd in Union Square Park - it's unclear if the fight from McDonald's traveled into the park. more ›

With the heat that's hitting the city this week, we can understand the desire to walk around with as little clothes as possible. But on Park Avenue between Union Square and 23rd Street (and the surrounding areas), there's one man who seems to walk up and down with his shirt off all the time. The man is over 6 feet tall, disturbingly muscular, and is dubbed He-Man by the locals. Not only does He-Man walk around shirtless, he also has an odd collar around his neck (almost like a bow tie without the tie). He doesn't have a page boy haircut like cartoon He-Man, but he does have a mullet! A website to track his whereabouts even exists. It seems like everytime we're in the area, we see He-Man walking around. Sure enough, just yesterday, we saw He-Man walking around with his buddy on Park Ave around 18th Street. more ›

It's back to the Upper East Side dog run fight: Remember how dog owners are battling over a future 6,200 square foot (!) dog run on the Upper East Side, because tiny dog owners want a separate space for their petite pooches while large dog owners want a continuous space? The Parks Department has decided to put up a temporary fence (1,200 square feet for the small dogs, 5,000 for the big) to see how things go, but New York magazine reveals results of a dog census.

Lori Light, owner of a nine-pound Maltese named Rupert, has taken a dog census of 103 buildings near the park. The result (small dogs: 1,148; big dogs: 328) shows, she says, that “78 percent of the dog population is getting less than 19 percent of the space.”

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Rivington St. in Manhattan, a fatal stabbing on Malcolm X Blvd. in Brooklyn, and a stabbing on 102nd St. and Corona Ave. in Queens.
• Cobble Hill residents on Douglass St. will no longer be able to save on their electric bills by relying on the super-bright lights of American Apparel as their street-level reading lamps. The retailer is turning them off and neighbors must now fend for themselves.
• The revamping of Union Square Park means that the the two painted labrynths and one maze at the north end of the park will be history. Their creator is willing to bargain: "I'd settle for one!"
• A scholar from The New School has been charged by an Iranian court with being a spy.
• The Daily News reports that getting drunk and having sex with someone you just met in a bar can have unintended consequences.
• The New York Times offers advice on how best to catch a largemouth bass in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
• A man with a highly drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis is being treated at Bellevue Hospital after possibly exposing other trans-Atlantic air travellers to the disease.
• Are NYC cabdrivers the subjects of a hack crimewave?

The man police believe raped and tortured a Columbia graduate student last week for 19 hours was arrested last night. Police officers saw Robert Williams trying to break into a building in Hollis, Queens and was taken to the 103rd Precinct, where he was recognized from a police sketch released earlier this week. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large sinkhole at University Ave. in the Bronx, a carjacking on Foch Blvd. in Queens, and a hanging on Park Ave. in Manhattan.
• Not only was Gov. Corzine not wearing his seatbelt, his state trooper driver was doing 91 m.p.h.(!) right before the crash. The speed limit on the Garden State Parkway is 65 m.p.h.
• Nine people were injured this afternoon when the Staten Island Ferry made a "heavy landing" at the St. George terminal. Neither the boat nor dock was damaged and the incident is being attributed to the weather and currents.
• Mayor Bloomberg's appointment as head of the Word Trade Center Memorial Foundation last October is proving very profitable. Fundraising had stalled before his appointment, but the organization's fund has more than doubled since Bloomberg came aboard, to more than $300 million.
• A 16-year-old was fatally shot in the neck yesterday afternoon in Brooklyn. Police are searching for another teenager, but there is no known motivation for the killling.
• Site onNYTurf has a map titled "Pedicouncil or Pettycouncil" that shows where City Council members stand on a law restricting pedicabs in the city.
• The Brooklyn bookstore owner who plead guilty to helping fund terrorist organizations was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
• Brownstoner salivates at real estate porn involving a limestone mansion in Fort Greene.
• Curbed reports on the Chinatown apartment on Grand St. that suffered an impromptu demolition party as a hipster describes [we] "Tore the place down." There's also a crazy video of the incident taken by a passerby wondering why glass was flying out the window.
• Authorities are wondering how an off-duty parole officer staying late after a party in Asbury Park, NJ managed to accidentally discharge his weapon and shoot three restaurant workers with a single shot.

The city launched a new Public Space Recycling pilot program yesterday that puts blue and green recycling cans in high traffic areas in hopes that people will dump their newspapers and empty glass bottles in their instead of regular trash bins. The program will start in April and last through June, and Mayor Bloomberg said, "The most important thing is, if this works, it will let us do something much more ambitious citywide and really make a difference in how much we recycle, and how environmentally friendly this city is." more ›

Gardeners who tend to an East 79th Street sidewalk gardens have been waging a war against a woman who tears off climbing hydrangea vines off trees. Gardeners Charles Dean and Skip Wachsberger have posted signs saying ,"MADAME, your attacks on our climbing hydrangeas are VANDALISM. Please stop it! The gardener." That might be the the most polite "MInd your f***ing business" sign ever! more ›

There's a Page Six today about Rachael Ray being attacked by a dog. Apparently an unleashed dog in Union Square Park (we will guess it was at the dog run) was very aggressive and caused quite a bit of havoc. Ray's rep told the Post, "Rachael and some others shooed it away, but it came back and attacked Isaboo [Ray's pitbull mix]. Other dogs were involved, and Rachael jumped in and was bit by one of the dogs on the leg." more ›

The big pillow fight happened yesterday, and there are plenty of photos up already. Check some of them out below, and more here. more ›

In the wake of a federal judge criticizing the NYPD's videotaping procedures last week, I-Witness Video looks at what the NYPD actually uses to record public events and calls it "360 degrees of surveillance," best illustrated by what the police used during the 2004 Republican National Convention. more ›

THEATER: A one-of-a-kind theatrical event is happening this weekend only in a clothing store and barbershop on the edge of Chinatown. Called American Standard, this solo, seven character ‘sideshow’ is the work of Canadian-American troupe bluemouth,inc., which has been building a reputation for staging innovative theater in bizarre locales. (Other productions have taken place in hotel rooms and the basement of an office building.) In their latest foray, “a preacher, a tourist, a politician, an entertainer, an immigrant, a poet and a terrorist inhabit a storefront installation, spilling onto the street and lurking within the basement.” Martin Denton praises the show as “dense, artful, absorbing, and fun. The penultimate scene is so thrillingly unexpected that to say anything about it risks spoiling American Standard's neatest surprise; suffice to say that you've almost certainly never witnessed anything like it in any theatre of any description.” more ›

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Police arrested 16 year old Francisco Baez for the murder of Taishawn Bellevue. Bellevue was killed during an shocking Wednesday afternoon brawl in the Union Square Greenmarket, where about 50 teens convened with belts, bats, bricks and more. The fight may have been prompted by some students feeling insulted by others, which then led to groups of students from nearby Washington Irving High School and Brooklyn's Science Skills High School to meet. more ›

September 16: Waldemar and Nadia at Telepan - Late Summer Cheeses more ›

Yesterday may not have been hotter than Monday, but when you've got stifling heat for two days straight, it's all around sucky. Add to that power outages on subways, at airports, and in neighborhoods, and you've got some very cranky New Yorkers. Parts of Queens had limited power last night and were asked to "lay off non-essential appliances" today, and the N/R/W trains were out for a while, and even City Hall turned off some of the lights. Now, Gothamist remembered that Con Ed claimed there would be enough power for this summer some time last week; Con Ed blamed yesterday's problems on "isolated glitches," but the NY Sun has an editorial about the city's energy plans - and how Mayor Bloomberg blocked a proposal to enhance the city's energy infrastructure with another plant. Thank goodness for the cold front coming in. more ›

Another final Friday of the month, another Critical Mass mashup with the law. Though he wasn't able to attend this one (and sadly, neither were we) Bikeblog has the story on how this month's Mass went down. In short: Same old, same old. Tickets left and right for "improper or lack of warning devices" and riding in the street.

I heard the ride was about 300 people. There were some mysterious vehicles looming around Union Square Park. One Time's up volunteer armed with a video camera went over to investigate a creepy looking mini van on the East Side of the park. As he got closer some dudes jumped out and grabbed him and took his camera. Why would guys in casual wear and jeans be so upset for being documented? They claimed they weren't cops...then more people began to gather around demanding the justification for the hold up...Then they said they were cops. WHAT??!??

If you've been to an anti-war protest in the last couple of years, you probably recognize Geoffrey Blank. He's a fairly constant presence, especially in Union Square Park-- a big, bear-like guy who really knows how to work the crowd. Apparently he's a bit too loud for the cops, who have arrested him more than seven times for disturbing the peace. Newsday is reporting that Blank is now facing up to four years in prison for his crimes: more ›

Do you want your dog to be the envy of all the other dogs in the dog park? Well then, you might want to consider taking the next few days to groom that pup of yours, because this Thursday there's a canine casting call. Magic, the Old Navy mascot, has retired...and his replacement is needed. more ›

Whoa, who knew that people would take their anger out on poor plants and trees in the park? The Post reports that David Sasson was arrested for "committing horticultural homicide" at Union Square Park. Sasson, who lives on East 14th Street, has apparently been damaging hydrangea bushes, dogwood trees, holly bushes, roses, butterfly bushes, a magnolia and other flora over the past three weeks. Two Parks Enforcement officers caught him at 1:30AM, and the Parks Department said Sasson "was in the process of ripping branches off trees," adding that Sasson just "reached up into the tree branches and pulled off the limbs." And the "destruction or abuse for trees" is serious - that, coupled with his second-degree criminal mischief charges, could add up to seven years in jail. more ›

A state judge ruled that the city cannot bar Critical Mass ride, which comes after last month's ruling that the rides do not need permits. The NY Times details the ruling:

Calling the city's legal strategy against the ride "highly irregular" and "as unnecessary as it is inappropriate," Justice Michael D. Stallman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan refused to bar an environmental group and four people from taking part in it, from gathering at Union Square Park beforehand, or from announcing the rides on the group's Web site, as the city had requested. more ›

With news of the bike-ticketing blitz this week, some of us expected a major crackdown at last night's Critical Mass Ride. Luckily for the bikers, it sounds like cops decided to take it easy-- though there were some scattered reports of harrassment, we haven't heard reports of a lot of arrests. BikeBlog reports: more ›

Cindy Sheehan, the mother who camped outside of George Bush's "Western White House" to demand he discuss her son's death while serving in the Iraq War, had been in town since Sunday, giving anti-war speeches to hundreds of people. But yesterday, her planned speech at Union Square was cut short by the NYPD who seized the audio equipment of event organizer Paul "Zool" Zulkowitz. The police say that Zulkowitz didn't have a permit to use a sound device and was given a summons. According to Indymedia reports, 60-70 people chased the police and chanted, "Police out of the park" and "Who's f-cking park? OUR f-cking park!" Sheehan was hustled out of the park quickly. more ›

To celebrate its 2nd anniversary, The Biltmore Room will serve a complimentary glass of Veuve Clicquot Champagne to each dinner guest through Sunday, September 18th. Starting September 18th, the restaurant will offer all bottles of wine at half-price every Sunday, until Thanksgiving. Ah, we love anniversaries. The Biltmore Room, 290 Eighth Ave. (bet. 24th & 25th Sts.); 212-807-0111. more ›

Sylka and John, Flag Makers more ›

Tomorrow afternoon, Gothamist is participating in the NYC Bike Month by leading a tour of prominent graffiti sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens- Mike of Satan's Laundromat will co-host. Stops will include Chelsea, the Meat Packing District, SoHo, LES, DUMBO, the Navy Yard, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint, before ending at 5 Points in Long Island City. We leave from The north side of Union Square Park, at 11AM. Bring a bike or rollerblades- and a camera! more ›