On a frigid night this week, Gothamist and two friends decided to duck out of the cold and pop into Mole, a twenty-five seat Mexican spot on Allen Street owned by the husband-wife team of Nick Cervera and Lupe Elizalde, also proprietors of Taco Taco in Yorkville. Strung with lights out front, and decorated inside with colorful Mexican tiles and exposed brick, Mole is cozy, but has an extensive menu with specials changing nightly.......

During the holidays, we are all bombarded with requests for charitable giving. Sure, it's a great way to do something good and squeeze in one more tax deduction before year's end, but given the number of requests, making a choice about how to spend your charity dollars can be somewhat daunting. The Times focused this week on the dizzying number of food-related charities making year-end requests. Alongside the more traditional hunger-related organizations, "[c]haritable groups dedicated......

The city’s food charities are dealing with dire shortages this year, exacerbated by cutbacks in federal food aid. Many places like St. Benedict the Moor Neighborhood Center in the South Bronx are almost barren; according to today’s Times, the center’s pantry used to be stacked up to the ceiling with food but now holds just “a few sacks of potatoes, some cornflakes, juice and peanut butter.” To help fill the void, City Harvest, the non-profit......

The 2nd Ave. subway isn't scheduled to receive any passengers until 2014, but some residents are relishing the prospect of a new line, while others suspect it could deliver trouble. People living on East End Ave. or York Ave. are cursed with a hike to the nearest subway station, but also somewhat insulated from the increased crowding and pricing pressures that easy access via a subway accompanies. The construction of the 2nd Ave. subway could......

The engines fueling Jane Jacobs' legacy are at full throttle, with the Municipal Art Society's new exhibition, titled "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York." The show, opening this week at the Urban Center Galleries, delves into how today's (and tomorrow's) city fits into Jacobs' ideas and also examines how the public can draw on her values, given the major developments and rezoning now in progress. In case you've been sleeping for the past......

Well, there's nothing like having a barely-one-hour blackout on a sultry weekday to make you consider stocking up on flashlights, batteries, water, and maybe a Go Bag. Con Ed is still investigating the cause of yesterday's brief power failure to parts of the Bronx and Manhattan; Newsday reported "the blackout was caused when breakers opened at an Astoria substation and cut off power to stations servicing Yorkville and parts of the Bronx." It's unclear......

We're getting reports of a blackout on the Upper East Side, from the East 60s up to Harlem, on Third Avenue (mostly about transit blackouts) and York Avenue in the 80s. Subway service is affected - the 4/5/6 line is down. A reader whose friend was at Randalls Island says a Con Ed station exploded. UPDATE: 4PM WNBC reports that the outages are all along the East Side. OEM says "transformer explosions caused at......

- Six-alarm fire in the Bronx rages through apartment building, leaving residents homeless and over 30 firefighter injured - Fascinating Observer article about Bloomberg's former deputy mayor Esther Fuchs - Nixzmary Brown's stepfather and mother plead not guilty to charges of her murder - The gentrification of Yorkville - good bye character, hello everything from a mall? - Star Jones getting hit in the face with a football - something for everyone! - And congratulations......

The AP got a hold of some federal data to create an interactive database of industrial air pollution in the country, and it turns out that the Giants Stadium is more polluted than Manhattan. The NY Post went through and plugged a couple areas in, finding out that - Fifth Avenue in the 50s is 1.4 times more polluted than the average US neighborhood, whereas Gracie Mansion/Yorkville is 1.2 times more polluted; City Hall is......

Gothamist loves travel - but hates travelling. Who actually enjoys shuttling to the airport, long flights, the interminable wait for your luggage when you finally arrive at your destination? Let's not even discuss the whole packing process! And, so when we really need a travel fix, without the hassle, Gothamist finds itself availing itself of the various international enclaves throughout the five boroughs - Koreatown, the remaining UES outposts of Yorkville, Manhattan's Chinatown, Flushing's Chinatown,......

While Gothamist is familiar with some apartment buildings having rules about pets, they basically begin with "Dogs must be on a leash" and end with "Clean up their messes if they leave any in the elevator or public halls." We love petting dogs in the hall. That's why the Times story about an Upper East Side condo's Gestapo-like rules upsetting. Some of the rules from the Ruppert Yorkville Towers Condominium: - Dogs will be required......