The New York Times can't catch a break. Just before the launch of Rupert Murdoch's planned Wall Street Journal metro section, the cash-strapped publication lost its stranglehold on one of the few places where people still read print newspapers—Starbucks. For nearly a decade, the Times was the only national paper sold at 6,500 Starbucks locations nationwide, Advertising Age reports. But starting soon, the chain will begin hawking copies of USA Today beside the Gray Lady. A Times spokeswoman said the paper is "delighted" to share Starbucks' shelf-space. "Customers will have more choices, just like they do online and on every newsstand," she said. But how will the Times feel when Murdoch starts trying to get the Journal into Starbucks? more ›

The Mets have finally landed a much needed arm to lead their rotation. USA Today is reporting that the Minnesota Twins and the Mets have agreed to terms for pitcher Johan Santana. The two-time Cy Young winner comes to the Mets at a high cost, with the Mets delivering outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey to the Twins. Conditions of the deal include the Mets and Santana reaching agreement on a contract (rumored at six or seven year contract extension in the area of $150 million) and that Santana passes a physical. According to USA Today Santana and the Mets have between 48-72 hours to reach an agreement. more ›

"Sleight of hand," "litany of needless fights," "ugly racial polarization" - just some of the phrases in this week's New York magazine's cover story about Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor turned presidential candidate. Chris Smith's article serves as both refresher to New Yorkers about Giuliani's reign as mayor with some fun tidbits (did you realize that then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik commissioned 30 miniature busts of himself?) as well as a cautionary tale to non-New Yorkers.... more ›

Two movies set in New York are coming out today, and both are getting a lot of press, promo and opined upon. more ›

Choice Royce found this timely wheatpaste on Wall Street - check out Bernie Kerik's cable knit sweater! Today, the former mayor attended the September 11 commemoration ceremonies at Ground Zero. more ›

American Idol has been on the decline ever since Kelly Clarkson stepped off the stage. It's understandable, the first time is always more exciting -- and c'mon, one can only take so much of Paula's craziness, Simon's snarkiness and Randy Jackson's what's up dawg's. more ›

Hopefully Monday's season opener of Sesame Street will help in sweepin' these clouds away! The new season will begin how it always does, by determining the educational needs of their tv-watching tot demographic. more ›

Internationally beloved Angelina Jolie and her less philanthropic beau, Brad Pitt, are in town. They're making headlines, too, with things like wearing inexpensive clothes and going to the doctor. Fine, we'll bite... more ›

Ten years ago today Jeff Buckley drowned while taking an evening swim. Buckley had many ties to this city, first moving here in 1990 (though only staying for seven months at that time). He was back in the spring of 1991 to perform his first show, a tribute concert to his father, Tim Buckley. The event was held at St. Ann's Church on April 26th, 1991, where the singer announced: "This is not a springboard, this is something very personal." more ›

With his recent health woes, all George Steinbrenner does is issue statements through his spokesperson. Today, however, the AP has an interview the Yankee principal owner. In the interview, the 76 year-old Steinbrenner talks about manager Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, Roger Clemens, and Jason Giambi. It wasn't so long ago that Steinbrenner issued a statement saying that he believed in Torre and Cashman. more ›

Earlier this year when Gothamist visited executive chef Doug Psaltis at Geoffrey Zakarian’s Country, we learned that French Laundry vet Hsing Chen had just been named Executive Pastry Chef for the fine-dining restaurant upstairs, as well as for the downstairs, more casual Cafe. “My focus is more on light, fruit based desserts, with different textures and temperatures,” Chen told Gothamist. She also mentioned her desire to locate, soup up, and outfit a dessert cart from Country’s vast arsenal of fine dining service ware. Laden with sweets and confections, the cart would make after dinner stops at every table upstairs at Country; customers could pick and choose anything from lemon macaroons to miniature pots de crème, in addition to the regular dessert course. more ›

Deuce Seven on the Williamsburg Bridge, by Will Sherman. And more here.
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Our forecasted high of 64 degrees in Central Park was reached at one o'clock this afternoon. That's plenty warm for late-November but falls short of the 1896 record of 72 degrees. Fear not, fans of record-breaking warmth, the National Weather Service is currently predicting that we will tie Friday's record high of 69. The Weather Channel isn't quite so optimistic, calling for a high of "only" 63 on Friday. more ›

After watching Borat, we wondered which parts of the movie were real and which were staged. We may never know, but now it seems the part where the frat boys pick up a hitchhiking Borat was semi-staged, as the two of the three are suing to stop the movie from showing their images as well as unspecified monetary damages. The fraternity brothers, who have since left or graduated from University of South Carolina, say that they were tricked into participating. more ›

House Calls more ›

We're so confused by all the stories on the city's housing market. more ›

With the fifth anniversary of September 11 drawing near, many related books are being released this and next week. One of the most intriguing is The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Both have a rich history in comics: USA Today explains, "Jacobson, 76, created Richie Rich and was executive editor of Marvel and Harvey Comics, and Colon, 75, drew Casper and Wonder Woman" - but the book is a graphic interpretation of The 9/11 Commission's report on the events of Septemer 11, because they found it difficult to get through the 568-page report. Colon said, "For a government report, it was well written, but still hard to follow — lots of Arabic names, and a lot of things going on at the same time in different places." Slate has been excerpting the book, and from those excerpts, it seems to work very well. more ›

USA Today explores the history of everybody's favorite photo sharing service, flickr. more ›

There was an interview with Denfield Otto in the Daily News over the weekend; Otto was the transit cop who helped save people during a December 21, 1994 bombing on a 4 train at Fulton Street. We realized that we had forgotten about the 1994 blast's details, and it's just eerie: Edward Leary, unemployed and faced with various family medical bills, was carrying a homemade bomb in the 4 train in hopes of extorting the NYC Transit Authority. The bomb exploded prematurely, though, and police realized Leary was the culprit after he went to Brooklyn for medical treatment. We dug up this old USA Today story, which put the 1994 subway bombing up against the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the recent Unabomber attacks. For his defense, Leary said the combination of drugs he was on (Prozac, Effexor, Buspar) made him "unaware" of the consequences of bombing the train. Leary was found guilty and sentenced to 94 years in prison, though he's currently serving a 25-50 year sentence. Anyway, Otto had been traveling on the 4 train during the blast (he was headed to Transit Police chorus rehearsal!) and was able to get an extinguisher from a token booth. He told the Daily News, "I heard two bangs, the second louder than the first. The train filled with smoke, and I could see passengers on fire. I remember touching my chest and face. I was 10 feet away, but I wasn't on fire. I was lucky." more ›

Some people watch the Super Bowl for the game, some people watch it because they know there will be Buffalo wings at the gathering, and some people watch it for the ads. You can thank Ridley Scott, Chiat/Day and Apple for making Super Bowl Commercial Analysis as big as Monday Morning Quarterbacking. There are many places where you can watch last night's ads - Google Video, USA Today, AdAge, the NY Times - but Gothamist wants to talk about our favorites. We'd have to say the Burger King Whopperettes were awesome during the last 20 seconds, but the build-up was pretty annoying; BK bonus: the website lets you build your own burger. And because we things about stupid humans, Gothamist is a fan of the Bud Light's Magic Frdge spot. We would have hoped the Mastercard spot with MacGyver could have had Selma and Patty in it (the Simpsons did the MasterCard spot last year) and we think the FedEx spot was kind of goofy. The ESPN Mobile spot's usage of Chad and Jeremy's A Summer Song was cute, but it only made us want to see Rushmore again - or listen to the soundtrack. The Diet Pepsi ads were also dumb, but for a maybe fun NYC fact, we think the P.Diddy one was shot at the Power Station (it looked like it anyway...and sorry, Jay Mohr, your big news will be your engagement to Nikki Cox, not these ads). And who knew it was a Nassau Country Girl Scout Chorus that sang "True Colors" for the Dove ad? more ›

To heck with the old New York or LA fight (or even the once strong NY v. SF meme), USA Today is trying to stir up some trouble by pitting our fine Capital of the World against the Second City (the capital of the Midwest?). more ›

Gothamist loves puzzles. In high school we were one of those kids who sat in the back of the room and did the Times crossword (ok, so that could describe most of our high school, but that's Stuy for you). And so it's no surprise that we've become completely addicted to Su Doku this summer. What does surprise us is that the game seems to be sweeping the nation. According to USA Today (which also publishes the game) Su Doku books are flying off the shelves. Where three weeks ago there were no books on the topic on their book list, now there are six. more ›

Gothamist wonders if Subaru is giving Manhattan a bad name by naming its new SUV the Tribeca. As Jalopnik wondered if we really needed another SUV around, we worry what's next: The Williamsburg, a sporty, slightly beat-up but cool ride? The Park Slope, the stroller friendly station wagon? The LIC, a big van for transporting canvases or music equipment? Snark Hunting has a funny post about car naming, as there is a Montauk out there, pointing out that Subaru's addition of "B9" to the name (the B9 Tribeca) just tumors it by taking a "potentially great name and sillied it down." more ›

The first trailer for Peter Jackson’s King Kong finally hit the internet, featuring Adrien Brody, a digital King Kong and Naomi Watts as his love interest, a few Jurassic Park leftovers, and Jack Black (who is so hard to take seriously). We’re quite optimistic LOTR’s Jackson can pull off an updated version of Hollywood classic and so far, Jackson insists he's refrained from reinventing the storyline: “Our story follows the same structure. It starts in New York, goes to Skull Island, and there are dinosaurs on the island. Then it comes back to New York and there's the Empire State Building and the biplanes and the whole thing."
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It's Chinese (and many other kinds of) New Year, and Asians all over the world are partying like it's 4703. Gothamist urges you to do the same this Year of the Rooster - just head to Chinatown, eat a lot of food and you're pretty much covered. There will be a firecracker ceremony (to scare away the evil spirits) today at 2PM, and a parade this Sunday. On both days, you'll see lion dancers (more scaring of the spirits) and storeowners giving the lion dancers lucky money for scaring the spirits away. Think mystical mafia-like payments to keeping the establishment safe. More Chinese New Year in Chinatown details here at Explore Chinatown, plus where to get Lunar New Year goodies. more ›

This year's ads were lame, considering that we have no idea what 90% of the ads were for. Sure, there was beer, but what beer? And Ameriquest - thanks for sponsoring the halftime show and everything, but we have no idea what you do. People who work in the ad business or write about the ad business like the FedEx ad that mocked the conventions of ads: There's nothing like Burt Reynolds in a tight leather jacket, a dancing and talking (yet not masturbating) bear, and subtitles that says "FedEx is better than everyone else." Oh, wait, message got lost; we were just obsessed with Burt's rug. Gothamist is also confused about Tom Cruise in The War of the Worlds; if there are aliens, are you sure it's not a Scientology movie? Finally, let's talk the Degree Mama's Boy ad; how disturbing was it when the Mama doll was pushing the Mama Boy in the shopping cart? more ›

After their third one-point loss in seven days on Friday night, Lenny Wilkens decided he had seen enough. He met with Isiah Thomas after the game, then announced his resignation on Saturday. more ›