Last night, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree's lights were turn on for the holidays. With 30,000 lights on 5 miles of wire and a 750-pound star at top, it dazzled the crowd. A family of Hurricane Katrina survivors whose new home was partly built by lumber from an old Rock Center tree was on hand for the lighting; mother Tracey Davison told the AP, "It's been an awesome experience. I have a famous living room......

During previous elections, the colors at the top of the Empire State Building have shone red, white and blue--but this week, for the first time ever, it will honor the U.S. presidential election with a four-night celebration. The general manager of the building, James Connors, says that the 4-night lighting celebration is "due to the excitement" of this year’s race. It's getting broken down like this: last night it got the patriotic treatment, shining red,......

A new study by the DOT [pdf] has revealed an unprecedented surge in the number of cyclists, increasing an estimated 35% in NYC between 2007 and 2008. In the past six years, cycling levels in the city have doubled, and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says the numbers prove the department is "well on the way toward our goal of doubling the number of bike commuters." In particular, the cyclist volume on the Williamsburg Bridge has......

The Empire State Building will celebrate the Olympics by illuminating each of its sides with the colors of a different nation's flag throughout the sixteen days of the Summer Games. This will be the first time the skyscraper will have separate color schemes on each side as it will represent the 66 nations with the most athletes sent to Beijing. A typical color change at the Empire State Building takes six electricians six hours to......

The eight towering sludge digester eggs at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint got even more sci-fi looking last night when the DEP flicked the switch on the new dramatic blue lights illuminating the 145 feet high structures. True to form, New York Shitty was there to get total coverage on the lighting ceremony. And what a wastewater lighting ceremony it was! There was free cake with the digester eggs – which each......

Brooklyn Bridge circa 1896. The 125th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge will be observed this month with a five day celebration from May 22nd through May 26th, Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz announced earlier this week. Completed in 1883, the bridge opened with a “People’s Day” celebration; for a penny toll the general public was permitted to traverse its span. (A few days later, on Memorial Day, 12 pedestrians were trampled to......

The Daily News laments how, in spite of Mayor Bloomberg's promise to turn off lights in city buildings to conserve energy, many buildings are still glowing at all hours--even on Earth Day! The most egregious example is the Bronx Hall of Justice, where one maintenance worker said it "looks like Christmas." The Daily News also found a school, a Board of Education building and 1 Police Plaza aglow late at night. A mayoral spokesman explained,......

Downtown Manhattan residents have heard enough from honking cabs, and one Community Board is asking the Taxi & Limousine Commission to do something about the racket. Community Board 3, which represents the area of Manhattan containing the East Village, Lower East Side, and Chinatown, voted this week to formally request that the T&LC require devices to be installed in cabs that will visually identify them as horn abusers. Currently, police have to audibly witness a......

The traditional way to know what color the Empire State Building is to look at the building's website. But plain text can be lacking, which is where What Color is the Empire State Building comes in. Corey Johnson designed the site, using color and event information from the Empire State Building and overlaying it on an image of the building - there's even a widget. For the recent past and the for the upcoming......

Get ready to groan: "I look forward to 'Phase Two' of the 'blinging up' of the Parachute Jump," said inveterate cornball Marty Markowitz during his recent State of the Borough speech. The 262-foot Coney Island landmark was retrofitted with a lighting system two years ago, but borough president Markowitz and others deemed the effect too subdued and “artsy.” Now the city is soliciting proposals from companies to create a flashier effect. $1.5 million has been......

Kanye Crashes a Museum Party Well this was unexpected! Not afraid to wear a fur coat to the Natural History Museum, Kanye West made a surprise appearance at last Friday's Cool Kids/Kid Sister party. As Kid Sister was finishing up her set, Kanye jumped up on stage to throw in his part of their duet. He then stayed up there to play a short set of all his current hits. DJ A-Trak claimed it to......

We know that Giants co-owner and movie producer Steve Tisch has been trying to ramp up the star power for the Giants sidelines. After Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz were seen at a game last fall, Tisch told the NY Times, he brings "the spices, the taste, the flavor" to the Giants (if the Giants experience were a soup; the other co-owners, the Maras, would bring the meat and potatoes). This past......

Natasha Lyonne – remember her? – has resurfaced, and not at the morgue! In fact, the young hellion seems to be doing quite well for herself – at least that’s the portrait painted by this convivial Times profile, in which reporter Robert Simonson smokes Marlboro Lights with her on the roof of Theater Row, where she’s to appear in the new Mike Leigh play Two Thousand Years. Though off the horse, the actress isn’t all......

Like the GWB and the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge will have LED lights installed next year, but how exactly do the bulbs get replaced? The NY Times says it only takes one man to screw in these bulbs. Okay, maybe he has some help. Ben Cipriano, the leader of a crew of electricians who maintain the four major East River Bridges for the city’s Department of Transportation, and his colleagues make about a dozen......

The most exciting story in New York theater this year had nothing to do with the Broadway stagehands' strike, it was the vibrant growth of what used to be called “experimental theater”, a movement that can now really only loosely be defined by what it’s not: non-naturalistic and not made for TV, with an emphasis on bold physicality, collaboration and, sometimes, multimedia. This aesthetically diverse body of work is generally classified as Off-Off-Broadway (some dub......

The Bronx Zoo is decked out for the holiday season through January 6th. Every animal under the sun has been recreated in twinkly lights, so bundle up and check out the sparkling safari. Giraffes and rhinos and peacocks, oh my! On top of all that, there are even real reindeer! They stay up late, so you can visit them after enjoying some of the zoo's nightly events. Photos via WallyG's Flickr.......

Chef Jonathan Waxman is known for many things, but the benchmark of his cooking over the years has arguably always been his roast chicken. The cover of his new cookbook A Great American Cook depicts Waxman slyly drawing a Lavazza espresso cup to his mouth, wood-burning oven full flame in the background and a sliced open cheese pumpkin in front. The book also features the chef’s roast chicken recipe. “My culinary anthem,” Waxman waxes in......

With Christmas less than two weeks away, the annual holiday light display is raging through the nights in Dyker Heights, home of TV’s Scott Baio. Every year tens of thousands of people from around the world flock to the outer-borough Brooklyn neighborhood to gawk at the private homes decked out with millions of dazzling lights. It’s an epic spectacle that has to be seen to be believed, and it doesn’t stop at the lights......

Last year we "oohed" and "ahhed" at Prospect Park in Lights, and as of last night -- the seasonal luminescence is back. And this year, even the pink lights are "green":Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tonight flipped the switch on a holiday lighting installation at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. LEDs, energy-efficient and long-lasting lights that are environmentally friendly, are being used to illuminate the Bailey Fountain and a tree underneath the Sailors and......

Chanukah may not be the holiest of days on the Jewish calendar, but we don't think eating pork products is allowed. Still, NancyKay Shapiro found that Balducci's is touting the deliciousness of various hams for the Festival of Lights. She writes that the gesture seems to be from the "the Monumental Cluelessness, Well-Meaning Division." If you're celebrating Chanukah, what are you eating? We're planning on eating pounds of greasy latkes with equal amounts of......

EVENT: Berlin takes over New York this month with the Berlin in Lights Festival. Through the 18th you can soak up the German city through film, music, art, architecture and more. This evening you can check out a couple of Berlin-esque events. First up is the "Urban Design and Memorials" dialogue. A panel discussion which will touch on the "challenges of integrating memorials into the urban fabric, and how Berlin and New York address issues......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a carjacking at Tompkins and School Rds. on Staten Island, a person was killed by a 5 train at Bowling Green station in Manhattan, and an armed robbery at 51st Ave. and Northern Blvd. in Queens. Bidding closed at $2,600 for the new owner of the Seinfeld ASSMAN license plate prop on eBay. Another Mister Softee driver was busted for selling drugs out of his ice cream truck, this......

Is it possible to get a jaywalking ticket on Park Ave. north of Grand Central Terminal? We've never heard of one or seen one issued, probably because there's no Walk/Don't Walk signals at any of the intersections on the avenue between 46th and 56th Streets. Tourists hover curbside, unsure whether they're allowed to cross or not. New Yorkers who work on Park Ave. tend to blithely cross at their own risk, treating a lack of......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

LOL (directed by Joe Swanberg) Half naked, hot young things gyrating on screen are just a click away in the wonderful world of the Internet. But does the proliferation of cheap video and the pervasiveness of text messaging and instant messaging actual keep us from really connecting, one human being to another? This is the intriguing premise behind LOL, a feature film directed by Joe Swanberg, one of the directors in the much-buzzed about "mumblecore"......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Secrets of New York: New York's Firsts: Pioneering Moments (Sunday, 8:30 p.m., WNYE 25) Kelly Choi takes a look at some New York firsts. White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Monday, 7:30 p.m. HBO) To commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the first bombing of civilian targets with nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, HBO airs this look at the two deadly attacks through archival footage and......

Avenue Montaigne (directed by Danièle Thompson) If the rose-colored Paris in Ratatouille has you itching for more stories from the City of Lights, might we suggest renting the fluffy and enjoyable comedy Avenue Montaigne which comes out on DVD this week. Set in one of the ritziest neighborhoods in Paris, the movie tells a number of interconnected stories circling around a young waitress (the pixie-ish Cécile De France) at a local cafe. Wandering in and......

Senator Hillary Clinton is asking the public for some advice on what may very well be the most important part of her campaign: The Song. The choices: "City of Blinding Lights" - U2, "Beautiful Day" - U2, "I'm a Believer" - Smash Mouth's cover of the Monkees' song, "Get Ready" - The Temptations, "Right Here, Right Now" - Jesus Jones, "Suddenly I See" - KT Tunstall, "Ready to Run" - Dixie Chicks, "Rock This Country!"......

A couple of years ago, Bryan Devendorf (drummer for The National) documented the band's trip to SXSW for us. We enjoyed it so much, we asked him to do it again! This time he documented their recent shows with Arcade Fire right here in New York, and even addresses those security guards at Radio City. Related: NYT's article "Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog" Fake Empire.mp3 (from The National's upcoming release, Boxer.) I wake to......

A subway transit worker was killed and another was seriously injured when a G train hit them at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Station yesterday afternoon. It seems that Marvin Franklin, a 22-year-veteran, was fatally hit when he and 37-year-old Jeffrey Hill went to pick up a dolly on another track. The G train's operator did see the men, but could not brake in time; Franklin was dragged by the train, while Hill was hit but is......