From a new NYC sports club bearing his name to the last season at Yankees Stadium, Derek Jeter has a busy year ahead of him. Gothamist asked the Yankees captain about his partnership with 24 Hour Fitness to bringing 24 Hour Fitness - Derek Jeter gyms to the city and his thoughts on the "house that Jeter built." more ›

A total no-brainer: The family of 17-month-old boy who was shot in the arm by an off-duty police officer has filed a notice of claim against the city. The Porcellini family will also pursue action against the NYPD and 24-year-old police officer Patrick Venetek. more ›

In 2004, Mark Russell resigned from his position as Artistic Director of P.S. 122 after more than two decades spent developing the theater into a mecca for wildly adventurous performance art. And he hasn't looked back; in addition to serving as Artistic Director for Portland's Time Based Art Festival, Russell has remained a major force in New York with his Under the Radar Festival, now in its fourth year and headquartered at the Public Theater. The event draws performers and audiences from around the world for what has arguably become the most exciting theater festival in New York City, a town lousy with them. Russell's impeccable taste is integral to Under the Radar's success; as Eric Bogosian – who got his start at P.S. 122 in the 80s – puts it: "Russell is a genius at finding the awkward new stuff, the gems and diamonds no one's noticed yet. If the 'artist is the antenna of the race,' then Mark is the antenna of the antenna." more ›

Some time ago the New Yorker ran an amusing “Talk of the Town” feature on nightlife crusader Roy Den Hollander, who, unlike most nightclub scolds, isn’t fighting against excessive noise and loose morals – he’s out to put a stop to the scourge that is Ladies’ Night. And not because he disdains the ladies or the night, but because Den Hollander, attorney at law and self-styled pick-up artist, sees it as yet another way The Man tries to keep down the, er, man. more ›

On January 2, after seeing a young man have a seizure and fall into the 1 subway tracks at at the 137th Street station just as a train was entering the station, construction worker Wesley Autrey jumped in and covered the other man's body with his own. The train passed over them and a hero was born. more ›

More trouble for the Knicks: Captain Stephon Marbury was missing from the morning shootaround in Phoenix, where the Knicks are set to play the Suns tonight. Marbury's apparent absence comes after coach Isiah Thomas may have told him he wouldn't be starting tonight and a Daily News article suggesting that the Knicks were thinking about a Starbury-less team in the future. Coming off a bad loss in Miami where Marbury threw the ball away in... more ›

Staten Island Borough President James P. Molinaro was not happy when DA and former aide Daniel M. Donovan Jr. recused himself from the trial of Molinaro's grandson Steven for violating his probation and intimidating a paperboy he'd previously assaulted. Last week, the borough president placed a full page ad in the Staten Island Advance newspaper expressing his displeasure with Donovan punting the case to the Manhattan DA, feeling that it improperly biased the eventual jurors in the case. Steven Molinaro wound up being convicted and a will be serving several years in prison. more ›

Robert Chambers, whose privileged Upper East upbringing earned the tabloid nickname "The Preppy Killer" when he killed a woman in 1986, was charged with 14 counts of selling and possessing drugs. Since two of the counts are for first-degree sale, which the Daily News reports carries 15-30 years, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau said, "I would expect he would spend the rest of his life in jail." more ›

A New Jersey school's zero-tolerance policy went into effect after a 7-year-old student drew a gun. He didn't literally pull a gun - rather, he drew a picture of himself and another student "David" and the drawing of himself showed him holding a gun. But that was enough for Kyle McDevitt to earn a suspension from Dennis Township Primary School. more ›

Ira Glass is the brains, heart and larynx behind the wildly popular program This American Life; each show employs a theatrical, multiple-act structure to carve strange slices of life out of a unique thematic pie. The show began almost 12 years ago as a Chicago public radio program but has since mutated into an Emmy-nominated TV series on Showtime – a leap that prompted Glass and his team to relocate to New York City, bringing the radio version in tow. But Glass still keeps one foot in Chicago; he’s compiled a new book whose proceeds benefit 826CHI, the free writing program open to all students in Chicago. He’ll be appearing at Town Hall Monday night with Susan Orlean, Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman, who have each contributed to the book, called The New Kings of Nonfiction. (Tickets cost $30; all proceeds benefit 826CHI.) more ›

Anucha Browne Sanders gets the cover treatment from the Post and Daily News after a jury believed that Knicks coach and president Isiah Thomas and that Madison Square Garden (the owner of the Knicks) were liable for sexual harassment. amNY, though, chose to put Isiah Thomas on its cover, with an inset of Knicks owner James Dolan, next to the headline "Rotten to the Court" - oh snap! more ›

Bill O'Reilly continued to claim that he wasn't being racist when expressing his surprise that a dinner at Harlem soul food restaurant Sylvia's was extremely pleasant. Media watchdog group Media Matters distributed text and clips of O'Reilly's radio show where the conservative talking head explained, "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." more ›

Diamond asked the residents of New York City's most diverse nabe about their food preferences and solicited recipes. Her project, which is being presented by the Queens Museum of Art, runs through October 14. The goal of "This Is What Eat," is to "unite and empower its readers through food." Based on the diversity of recipes it seems to be a resounding success. The dishes run the cultural gamut from red beans and rice and macaroni cheese to shrimp ceviche and Belgium Chicken Soup. more ›

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow, we think we just heard candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties sigh with relief! more ›

MOVIES: It's a perfect night to head to the movies. Get a double-feature in at the MoMA with Fabricating Tom Zé followed by David Cronenberg's Crash. Let's focus on the former film. Tom Zé (pictured) is a Brazilian songwriter and composer and this documentary (filmed during a 2005 European tour) charts his "personal universe". Zé is an "uncompromising and inspired artist...seen by many (including David Byrne and Arto Lindsay) as revitalizing the ever-evolving Tropicalia movement. Zé, who narrates his own story, is a very special musical phenomenon in a genre mostly associated with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil—both of whom warmly assess the musical genius of their friend." more ›

Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo made a repeat appearance on the Today Show this morning to share her "racy" photographs with Matt Lauer. This is how the Today Show website describes the photographs, which are apparently the ones someone took from Polumbo's Facebook profile and mailed to pageant officials:

The photos really aren’t that bad, by contemporary standards, but they aren’t necessarily good for the 22-year-old theater major’s public image, either. more ›

David Rakoff is the author of the hilarious and best selling essay anthologies Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable, countless articles that have appeared in publications such as Vogue, GQ, and Salon, and has contributed to NPR's This American Life. Gothamist sat down with the writer to discuss his genesis and his moments of doubt. more ›

There's nothing quite like religion and politics to get people worked up. In a debate Monday night at the New York Public Library, Al Sharpton seemingly combined both, saying, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry, that’s a temporary situation." The Mormon in question is Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Sharpton was debating with Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, a book that calls the Mormon faith a "ridiculous cult". more ›

Time announced its second Time 100 list of influential people. (For whatever reason, Time doesn't provide a full list with separate links to all the influentials, so here's a list from FishbowlNY.) Based on our reading, the New Yorkers (and we're including some people who live in Westchester, but work in the city) who made the list include 30 Rock's Tina Fey, subway superhero Wesley Autrey, Senator Hillary Clinton, banker Stephen Schwartzman, director Martin Scorsese, Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, actress-comedian-talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, the American Museum of Natural History's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, actor and stem cell research advocate Michael J. Fox, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who appears in the upper right corner of the cover. more ›

The Washington Square News has brought the scandal involving now-former NYU College of Arts and Sciences Student Council president Meredith Dolgin to a new level with a Flash Scandal at CAS interactive. Want to know the timeline? Or background on the players? Or what's even being investigated (election impropriety, financial malfeasance)? It's there! more ›

edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Smith, to be published by Harpercollins in 2008. But that's just the beginning, as Smith is quick to point out. Gothamist chatted with Smith about his very common last name, print vs. web magazines, and why six words can be enough to tell a good story. more ›

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger muscled into town to promote the Golden state's environmental policies, and he made a strange metaphor in the process. amNew York reported that he compared "'tree-hugging' stigma of environmentalism to the reputation for weirdness that once beset bodybuilders": "The gym used to be thought of as a dungeon for weirdoes and fanatics, but that has changed. Now it's changing for environmentalists." The Sun says it was a joke, but that's pretty lame, though we bet we would have laughed hearing it from Arnold more ›

Pork Shoulder is and will be a relative bargain compared to almost every other cut of meat. It's tough, requires long cooking times, and is huge and hard to manage. But this week at C-Town it’s approaching a whole new realm of cheapness. At $.79 a pound, you'll run out of people to feed before you'll come any where near the $10 mark. You’ll have to fight for it though. Sure it’s cheap, but it certainly doesn’t come neatly in fillets, or even semi-manageable hunks. The smallest one we could find at C-Town was an ounce over 10 pounds. And because it's wrapped in plastic, the butcher is not going to be of much use. more ›

New York City still can't enough of Wesley Autrey's subway heroics. Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg awarded him with the city's highest honor, the Bronze Medallion, and said:

Wesley's astonishing bravery - saving a life in the face on an oncoming subway car - is an inspiration not just to New Yorkers, but the entire world. His courageous rescue of a complete stranger is a reminder of how we are surrounded by everyday heroes in New York City, and I am deeply honored to recognize one of them today.

I'm not looking at this like I'm the hero, cause the real heroes are the young men and women that are fighting in Iraq now. What I did is something that any New Yorker should do, you know what I'm saying, if you see somebody in distress, do the right thing.

With the passing of 38th President Gerald Ford, many are examining how a fateful Daily News affected the New York City's economic recovery in the 1970s and Ford's own re-election hopes. more ›

You may recognize Jon Glaser from his appearances on Conan, Wonder Showzen, or Cheap Seats. You may have even heard his track on the Invite Them Up CD compilation, where he reads a series of letters written by his recently deceased father to the band ZZ Top. By the track's end, one thing is certain: Jon Glaser is a comedic genius. more ›

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is probably turning in his grave right now. Plans for the Moynihan Station have been "derailed" as plans to discuss it have been postponed. Officials had been hoping that the Public Authorities Control Board would approve the project this year, so it would happen under Governor Pataki's term. But with opposition to and many questions surrounding the project, the NY Times reports "the Pataki administration took the proposal off the table again yesterday rather than risk a vote against it." Hello, brinksmanship! more ›

Well, looks who is Mr. Helpful all of a sudden: MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow is opposed to service cuts the MTA was planning to consider in its budget. The service cuts, which were reported yesterday in the NY Times, would have been extensive, piling on many minutes of waiting time for subways and buses as service. Critics - including our readers - freaked out, and especially considering plans to increase the subway and bus fare by 5%. Yesterday Kalikow said:

“What I’m doing, officially, is letting New York City Transit know that the M.T.A. board, which runs New York City Transit, does not want a fare increase or service cuts and they need to find other things to do, if necessary. Those two things are not things we’re going to be interested in.... more ›

At yesterday's memorial service at St. Paul's Chapel, President Bush said hello to retired firefighter Bob Beckwith. Beckwith is the firefighter standing with Bush on September 14, 2001, standing amidst the rubble. The Daily News spoke to Beckwith, who now does give speeches, but donates the proceeds:

Beckwith had served New York City honorably but in relative obscurity for three decades as a firefighter at Ladder 117 in Astoria, Queens. more ›

Excellent - the New Yorker has updated its 2003 story on Bill Jones, the Whole Foods employee who became an institution at the Chelsea location for directing shoppers to available registers, providing comfort with his reassuring, "Number 5 is yours!" and a wonderful smile. When the Time Warner Center Whole Foods opened up at Columbus Circle, we suggested that they should clone him. But wouldn't you know, Bill Jones himself was working at the Columbus Circle location, greeting shoppers at the store's entrance. This is where an online-only New Yorker story picks up:

In February, 2004, a Whole Foods opened in the Time Warner Center, at Columbus Circle, and the company offered Jones a healthy raise and transferred him and his sonorous baritone uptown. The Columbus Circle store boasts almost twice as many checkout counters as in Chelsea, but Jones isn’t line-directing—the cashiers there take turns. Instead, five days a week, he stands at the base of the escalator that leads into the subterranean supermarket, to greet customers and offer directions. “When they come off that escalator, their mind is someplace else,” Jones says. “What I was doing in Chelsea was much more fun.”