A friend of mine is turning 30 and wants to find a space to throw a party. Do you know of any bars/clubs in the city or Brooklyn that are relatively cheap to rent out for a night and will let her have her own DJ? A backroom or downstairs would be ideal. Any suggestions would be great. Sadly, all we do for birthdays is gather people at a bar, not rent out a room.......

Today, many businesses are closed in honor of President's Day. Wall Street is closed, as are banks, government offices and schools. There's no regular garbage pickup, but the Department of Sanitation will be picking up garbage that has been stranded due to last week's storm. Alternate side of the street parking rules are suspended, and mass transit is on the weekend schedule - sorry, 7 train riders. President's Day is the day that celebrates......

Many things happened last Tuesday night at a CUNY Graduate Center auditorium lobby reception. Kim Peek, the 55 year-old savant who inspired Rain Man, walked through the crowd to answer strangers' questions about forgotten rural highways, old telephone directories, and birthdays. His father Fran talked about Kim’s abilities and home life in Utah, and passed the nine-pound Academy Award given to him by Rain Man’s screenwriter to anyone who wanted to hold it. Elsewhere......

Yesterday morning, Mayor Bloomberg dedicated a memorial for American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed on November 12, 2001 in Belle Harbor, Queens. The Dominican Republic-bound plane had taken off from JFK Airport; turbulent air led the co-pilot to use the rudder to keep the plane up, but the rudder broke off. All 260 people on board - 251 passengers and 9 crew members - were killed when the plane crashed into the quiet residential......

If you tuned into Good Morning America this morning, you may have noticed Diane Sawyer extracting something from a safe. And, yes, that red and furry object was the new Tickle Me Elmo T.M.X. - T.M.X. for Tickle Me eXtreme. Not only the the doll talk in the third person and giggle, Elmo basically has a crazy laughing fit - slapping his knee, falling on his back and convulsing, getting back up, falling on......

There are few birthdays we look towards with dread (ok, maybe our 30th). But as AIDS hits its 25th year since being discovered in the 1980s, detection, treatment, and understanding of the disease has come a long way yet has miles to go. There were 25 million new infections in the past 5 years with 15 million deaths over the same period. Currently 38.6 million people worldwide are infected (which is up from 37.3......

Ever since the Queen Mary 2 came to town, Gothamist has found themselves docked in Red Hook every weekend, be the reason birthdays, bike rides, or just Really. Big. Boats. The best reason, however, is Van Brunt Street's Pioneer Bar-B-Q, adjacent to taxidermy-heaven Red Hook Bait & Tackle, and also the self-proclaimed "most comfortable bar and restaurant" in Brooklyn. Pioneer not only offers a backyard garden sporting long picnic style tables, graffiti-ed walls, and......

This past weekend as the NJ Nets trounced the Boston Celtics, the Nets' masoct, Sly the Silver Fox, celebrated his 9th birthday. Like many 9 year olds in New Jersey, he had Carvel ice cream; unlike many 9 year olds, he had the Nets Dancers on hand. What's charming is that various mascots from all walks of sporting life come to help celebrate birthdays - there's the Raptor from Toronto, Clutch from the Houston......

New York comedians have shown benevolence all year, participating in relief efforts for just about everything. Add one more show with a purpose to the list as the Gotham Comedy Club [208 W. 23rd St.] hosts the Stand Up for Peace 2nd Annual Comedy Benefit this week in support of Seeds of Peace. Since it’s founding in 1993, Seeds of Peace has devoted itself to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership......

Recently, I went to a gathering at a bar on Long Island where my friend held her birthday. We each paid $20 to get an "open bar" bracelet (as a member of the birthday girl's party). My birthday is coming up soon, along with 3 friends' birthdays, and we were interested in doing the same thing - not on Long Island, but in a bar in NYC. Know any places that do such? - Peter......

Gothamist is always in the market for a new cookbook, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Here are a few suggestions that might inspire you to try a new recipe and impress your holiday guests later this week. Jamie Oliver, also known from his early TV series as The Naked Chef, has released his fifth book, Jamie’s Dinners. With an emphasis on family cooking, fast cooking, and fun cooking, his latest book is littered......

One of Gothamist's guilty pleasures used to be The Real World, but now, for a while, its lustre has faded. There's a good analysis of why the Real World has sucked so much at MSNBC.com by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, who thinks, as many do, that needs to lose those stupid group jobs that no one likes and is always late for. Also, the show was at its best when it was set in NY for......

Gothamist was wondering if the girl (right) in a picture at That Strange Girl was in fact Rachel Kramer Bussel (left), writer and bonne vivante who livens things up at various parties, including Gothamist happy hours and birthdays. If the girl from That Strange Girl were joined by a cute blonde, we'd know for sure.......

The eagerly anticipated collaboration between Joshua Albertson, Lockhart Steele, and Jonathan Van Gieson, Book of Ages 30, is out in bookstores (free same-day delivery in Manhattan from Barnes and Noble with purchases over $25), on the shelves of Amazon (and other online retailers), and perhaps even at a library near you. And naturally, the website goes live with a blog about all things 30. You can also explore more about the book which promises to......

She's too modest to write anything about it, but today Jen Chung turned 27. Other famous people with birthdays today? T.S. Eliot (turning 115), George Gershwin (relatively young at 105, but dead), and Serena Williams (a baby at 22).......

Super fertile pandas are producing many baby pandas. The new world record is Qing Qing (pictured), who has given birth to 13 baby pandas in nine births. Damn! This leads Gothamist to hope that some day, people can have pandas as pets and that we will be caring for a panda in our apartment. We'll get bamboo shipped to us, we'll create air-conditioned "grottos" in the corner of our NY apartment living room - next......

The Times Styles section strikes again: Thirty is the new ugly...wait, the new black! People are celebrating their thirtieth birthdays with a bang , as better life expectancies, readjusted career and life expectations, and a sucky economy not giving people the kinds of freeflowing dot-com boom parties there once were so they are throwing ones for themselves. Even our friend, Greg, aka "G-Money" was asked what his 30th birthday MO was: Greg Clayman, a founder......