At 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday night, Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain will take a big league mound for the first time as a starter. Whether he succeeds or fails at his new job may very well determine the fate of the Yankees’ season and Brian Cashman’s future with the club. Taking a dominant setup guy out of the back of the bullpen and putting him into the rotation is not a popular decision in some circles,......

If you’ve ever spent a day working in an office, you'll immediately recognize Beverly Wilkins, the titular character in The Receptionist, Adam Bock's darkly comic study of corporate culture in the age of Cheney. Beverly, played here with spellbinding hilarity by Jayne Houdyshell, is the polite but potentially nasty gatekeeper for the "Northeast office" who, when she's not gossiping with friends and her coworker Lorraine (Kendra Kassenbaum), puts callers through to her boss's (Robert......

Gothamist friend and occasional Opinionist Andrew Bast has recently pulled off a nice relaunch of his site, The New York Inquirer ("We don't break the news; we put it back together") and in the process put back together some interesting stuff worth checking out. This week, for instance, has focused pretty much exclusively on the diamond trade including a five-part series on the darker side of 47th Street, one of the many hearts of......

The Gothamist mailbag is always an amusing read. Most of the emails are friendly tips, but once in awhile we do get some hate-mail. Remember that silly Opinionist piece we wrote last month about abortion? That one has definitely generated its fair share of negative comment. Take for instance this one, received with the subject line "Jerk!" this morning: You slumlord, capitalist pig! Carving up female bodies isn't good enough, you have to slobber your......

Various city agencies have long been trying to crack down on counterfeit goods, from handbags on Canal Street to clothing in the Garment District. Recently, a judge ruled that landlords of buildings that house counterfeit vendors can now be held liable. Landlords will have to post signs saying these are counterfeit vendors and possibly evict the vendors as well. Hmm, Gothamist hates to be cynical, but those signs will be exactly what tourists want to......

On Sundays, Gothamist runs opinion pieces on issues relevant to life in New York. The views expressed below belong entirely to the author. Sunday’s Opinionist columns are meant to be snippets and ideas about New York life, but you’ll permit me a slight diversion from topic to discuss something also fundamental to New York life – reading. Get on any subway or bus at any time of day and you’ll find about twenty people with......

As the country mourned the 2,000 soldiers who have died in Iraq since 2003, Cindy Sheehan, the mother who has turned her grief over her soldier son's death into a public anti-war crusade, is telling people not to support Senator Hillary Clinton. Sheehan told the AP, "I believe that any candidate who supports the war should not receive our support. It doesn't matter if they're Senator Clinton or whoever." Essentially, Sheehan feels that Clinton has......