While the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular was definitely spectacular (see the photos), the show's organizers moved the displays further south, closer to the Williamsburg Bridge, in order for more of the NYC skyline to be seen in the TV broadcast. Not only did NBC broadcast from Brooklyn, but NBC also added a chyron (graphic) noting that the fireworks were taking place near Stuyvesant Town at least seven times during the half-hour show.......

"spectacular" by i'mjustsayin on flickr The weather held out quite nicely for last night's fireworks show. And while regular midtown viewers may have felt shorted by the southern shift of the East River barges, quite a show was put on for those downtown and in Brooklyn. If you have any exceptional or stand-out photos from last night's display, please tag them "gothamist" on flickr.......

Photo of the JFK Apple vending machine via driopp's flickr. Why go to one of the many Apple stores in New York for your iPod when you can go to...Macy's? Racked is reporting that the department store is installing Apple vending machines, holding everything from iPods to Canon digital cameras to various accessories. (Perhaps the Macy's Pirate was looking to score some iPod booty in the Apple treasure chest last weekend.) While the novelty......

Brooklyn kickball team Los Pirates Mechanicos (pictured) are down one man as of yesterday; Lawrence Jackson (better known as Lance) was arrested for carrying around a rusty pirate sword (also pictured) in Macy's. Unsurprisingly, the NYPD took it for a weapon, not a recreational sports prop. While the "Free Lance!" comments come in on the team's MySpace profile, the NY Post tosses around labels like "bonehead," "rabblerouser" and "kook" amongst their descriptives of the Greenpoint......

Who do you sue when you get badly burned after lighting your cigarette with a stove's burner? Well, if you're Staten Island resident Joel Lederman, you'll sue Macy's because it sold a dangerous shirt. The Staten Island Advance reports that Lederman filed a lawsuit against Macy's for selling a "light-blue, 100-percent cotton Club Room by Charter Club T-shirt " which had a chemical finish that "behaved as an accelerant." The lawsuit claims the shirt was......

It's not rats at a KFC/Taco Bell, but little critters are all around--sometimes in very public areas. Reader Stacey sent us footage of a window at Macy's in Herald Square, where a little mouse is really enjoying the Macy's Flower Show. WARNING: You may think this is cute. Stacey said, "I know he needs to eat, but shouldn't there be plenty of food for him and his family down in the basement?" That's true -......

In the middle of the month, Macy's announced it would be keeping eight locations in New York and New Jersey open from 7AM on December 21th until December 24th at 6PM - for 83 hours straight! Macy's chairman and CEO Ron Klein had explained, "We are giving our customers extra time to shop when it’s convenient for them," and said that the success of the Queens Center mall location staying open last year encouraged Macy's......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a ceiling collapse at Franklin Ave. and Union St. in Brooklyn, a pedestrian was fatally struck on Queens Blvd. in Woodhaven, Queens, and an unusual rescue on the south bound tower of the Throgs Neck Bridge in Queens. An undercover cop forgot to turn off the wire he was wearing while discussing 11 bags of cocaine he seized in a Brooklyn bust that were never turned in. He was......

Will Macy's give its regards to Broadway? The NY Times reports that the developers who are trying to redevelop the James Farley Post Office building into the new Moynihan Station "are in the early stage of negotiations with Macy’s" to move from the store's landmark Herald Square location to the Farley building on Eighth Avenue. Charles Bagli's article summarizes the progress of the Penn Station redevelopment and Farley-into-Moynihan Station project: It's complex, given the......

Operation Lucky Bag, the NYPD program that threatened to ensnare good Samaritans along with subway thieves, is making a comeback after being effectively shut down earlier this year. Initially, the program involved cops leaving bags of merchandise, wallets, or purses on subway benches. When someone picked them up and didn't immediately turn them over to the police or subway personnel, he or she was arrested. According to the police, Operation Lucky Bag netted 101 arrests......

The Post finds out that if sold, the inflated balloon of artist Jeff Koons' Rabbit, which made its debut appearance in the 81st Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, would go for $5 million. The balloon isn't for sale, but the parade is so happy with the balloon that it's interested in ideas from other artists. Um, formaldehyde Damien shark, anyone? Or how about a Takashi Murakami Mr. Pointy balloon? Dan Flavin light balloon?......

Two men walking along the East 79th transverse near Fifth Avenue were robbed at gunpoint by four men around 7:15PM on Wednesday night. The victims, ages 34 and 38, gave up their wallets and a cellphone for the robbers, who are described as young "black males between 18 and 20" years old" who "fled in the direction of the Great Lawn." The 34-year-old victim spoke to the Daily News and explained he and his partner......

Activists trying to turn Black Friday into Buy Nothing Day have their work cut out for them when it comes to consumers like Tom Shea, who waited in line outside a midtown Manhattan Best Buy for 35 hours so he could be the first one inside when the store opened at 4am today. “"If they were selling it, we were buying it," Shea proudly told the Post. His attitude was far from unique; shopoholics like......

Yesterday's lovely weather made the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a big crowd pleaser. An estimated 3.5 million spectators watched as giant balloons, floats, and hundreds of parade performers sauntered from 77th and Central Park West to Herald Square. Some people waited since 4AM in hopes of catching a glimpse of their favorite performers, who included Dolly Parton, Wynonna, the cast of Legally Blonde, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, Good Charlotte, Menudo (really!), the Rockettes......

Starting in the afternoon, the masses traveled to the Upper West Side yesterday to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons get inflated on West 77th and West 81st Streets between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. By 6PM, crowds were penned in for blocks - it took us about 30-40 minutes of shuffling and snaking around before we could get close to any balloons. We suspect the Broadway stagehands' strike as well as......

Another gloomy day today. A bit of fog this morning may delay flights out of town. You may also have weather-caused delays if you're going to northern New England (ice and snow), Chicago-Detroit-Milwaukee (rain) and the front range of the Rockies from Denver northward (snow). If you're staying in town you can expect cloudy skies and mild temperatures with a high in the mid-50s. It won't cool off much tonight, making for a comfortable......

Tomorrow is one of our favorite days of the year: The annual Thanksgiving Eve inflation of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons! This year, there are twelve giant balloons: Dora the Explorer, Kermit the Frog, Healthy Mr. Potato Head (he's wearing a jogging suit), Scooby Doo, Ronald McDonald, Pikachu w/Poke-Ball, Energizer Bunny, Flying Ace Snoopy, and JoJo's Circus will be joined by new balloons Abby Cadabby, Shrek, and Super Cute Hello Kitty! As if Hello......

The great-grandson of one of an early owner of Macy's is being accused by a 52-year-old jewelry designer of imprisoning the woman and torturing her with, of all things, a lobster trap. Bette Marchek claims that William Straus kept her captive on his Westchester estate, starved her, beat her, and eventually attacked her with a lobster trap while the pair were on City Island in the Bronx. That was the figurative straw that broke the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, an overturned auto on the LIE and Oceania St. in Queens, and a fall victim on 170th St. and University Ave. in the Bronx. Two NJ teenagers attempted to escape the wrath of a parent, who caught them drinking alcohol last week, by tieing together bedsheets in order to rappel down the side of their highrise building. The incident ended badly, although......

Green M&Ms have held this mythic place in many people's candy-eating consciences, whether due to fables, Van Halen's concert riders or advertising. And now green M&M's will be associated with a very real place in New York - Central Park. Tomorrow, M&M's World Store in Times Square will start selling a special new color, Central Park Green, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Central Park Conservancy. These M&M's have a mottled......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Lexington and 55th St. in Manhattan at 4:03 pm (and a second bank robbery seven minutes later on 27th St. and 6th Ave.), a special delivery (as cops helped a mother give birth) at Henry and Rutgers Streets in Manhattan and a home invasion/homicide on 100th St. in Brooklyn. Former Staten Island ferry captain Richard Smith was released from prison after serving his term for......

It was rainy during the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular, but that didn't stop the breathtaking event that rumbled and lit up the sky. The rain may have even scared off some spectators, though there were still plenty who wanted great views of the 40,000-shell extravaganza. From the Daily News:One actual kid, Flory Joseph, 8, of the upper West Side, gave her mom an I-told-you-so look and said, "She didn't even want to......

If you're planning on watching Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular in person or on TV, there are some fun new fireworks this year. Pyro Spectaculars, the company that designs the fireworks, will be using nautical mines in the show. Nautical mines are actually fired down at the water, instead of up in the air. Executive producer Robin Hall explained that they "explode on the surface of the water, where the fragments will remain illuminated......

So now that we've told you all about the fireworks happening tomorrow night, we've got some bad news, and it's not about the impending weather, either. With all these red, white and blue bursts...we wondered if there's any room for green in the celebration? Fireworks aren't traditionally environmentally friendly, and they "heavily contribute to perchlorate contamination of surrounding water bodies." Some parts of the country have adapted by using cardboard and paper mache, instead of......

The 31st Annual Macy's 4th of July Fireworks extravaganza is just around the corner. This is the largest display in America and takes a year to plan. This year's show will stretch wider than usual in a "high definition" format, choreographed to the New York Pops (simulcast on 1010 WINS, TV broadcast on NBC). The Daily News has an interview with Gary Souza, fireworks designer for the event; he says, "We have a new......

Williamsburg's state park sort of opened back in May, with weekend-only entry times. The park will go full time starting July 3rd, just in time for the following days fireworks. There will be plenty of time to stake out some precious real estate for the extravaganza too, as the park will open at 10am on Wednesday. Come Wednesday evening, Northside Williamsburg will become the 50-yard-line luxury box for July 4th fireworks viewing in New York......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Israel Baseball League Opening Day (Sunday. 11:00 a.m., 4::30 p.m., WNET 13; 10:00 p.m., WLIW 21) This special looks at the newest professional baseball league’s opening day where the Modi’in Miracle played the Petach Tikva Pioneers in the first Israeli professional baseball league. Concert for Diana (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WNBC 4) Princes William and Harry are the driving forces behind this concert featuring their favorite musicians perform......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

Well, this is certainly makes the prospect of trying on clothes worse: A 16-year-old girl was attacked by a naked man in a dressing room at Macy's Herald Square. Ashley Sims tells the Post that she was trying on a dress for a special occasion in the junior girls' department when Dennis Green, who had been in an adjacent dressing room, "ripped open the door" of her room. "I had just started changing. I had......