A week ago, Alain Robert scaled the New York Times Building to make a statement about the lack of government action on environmental issues (here's his website). Naturally, a stunt like that got Robert arrested, but a grand jury has dismissed the misdemeanor charges of trespassing, graffiti, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct. According to Robert's lawyer Daniel N. Arshack, who said jurors listened to Robert's explanation of how the climb was safe, two other charges......

Photographs of the second climber by wubbahed on Flickr Currently, there's another climber scaling the side of the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue at 41st Street, and as one commenter said earlier, "Wait a minute, they put up a building that looks like a giant ladder, and somebody climbed it? Shocker." He/She is somewhere between the 20th and 30th floors. Earlier today, Alain Robert scaled the building (here's a photo gallery) to......

Earlier today thrillseeker/activist Alain Robert scaled the NY Times Building in order to draw attention to the Global Warming threat. He reportedly climbed 52 floors, to the roof, before being detained by police around 12:30 p.m. He did so without the aid of any climbing instruments (except his shoes) and sans the safety of a parachute strapped to his back. On his website, the URL of which adorned his t-shirt, he stated:Today is World Environment......

Photos via Wally G's Flickr and WNBC. At approximately 11:57 a.m. a news alert came in saying there was a large crowd gathered at 620 8th Avenue and West 40th Street. "LEVEL 1 CALLED FOR CROWD CONTROL, AND A POSSIBLE PERSON ATTEMPTING TO JUMP DOWN FROM A BLDG." A reader wrote in minutes later saying, "Someone is climbing the exterior of the NY Times building." It was unsure if this was a stunt, or......

Our warning about today's wicked winds was no joke; as you can see from the photo above our weather writer's vision of Christmas tree tumbleweeds has come to pass. There's so much dust and dirt whipping around on these 40 mph winds that protective goggles wouldn't be a bad idea. It's so windy there are a number of reports of falling debris from buildings (perhaps unsecured construction materials). And reader James tells us that......

Yesterday's gusting winds caused quite a bit of damage besides providing more winter chill. Building scaffolding was knocked over in many places, a tree pinned a man in NJ to the ground, and windows and/or debris fell from two Manhattan skyscrapers, hitting pedestrians. Winds were reported to be at least 40MPH, with gusts at 50MPH, yesterday (wind advisory was in effect until this morning at 4AM). The Buildings Department had asked property owners and construction......

How windy is it today? So windy that windows are popping out of the rather new New York Times building at West 41st Street and 8th Avenue. What's the over-under on windows falling out of other new construction? The wind advisory is in effect until 7AM tomorrow. The Department of Buildings has asked "property owners, builders and contractors to secure all materials that could come loose due to the high winds, such as scaffolding......

Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic for the NY Times, enjoys working in his employer's new headquarters, he writes today, but the building designed by Renzo Piano falls short of the best skyscrapers in the city. For one, it allegedly harbors a streak of nostalgia, which in the world of architectural discourse amounts to an aesthetic identity crisis. The nostalgia in question is a longing not for neo-Gothic frills and cornices, but for the 1950s era......

Yesterday, a housekeeper found a female body wrapped in garbage bags and stuffed under a bed in Room 608 of the Hotel Carter. The woman, described as a white woman in her 20s, was not carrying any identification and the ME's office is conducting an autopsy to determine her cause of death; WABC 7 says that the woman suffered a blunt trauma to the head, but it's unclear if it's the cause of death. The......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A crime scene at the East 69th Street and 2nd Avenue Eckerd Pharmacy in Manhattan, a building facade collapse on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and a hazmat situation at Cornell Medical at York and East 69th The city wants to do repair work to buildings that need it - and charge the landlords - in legislation proposed by the City Council and supported by the Mayor and other housing......

Recently, New Yorkers have been playing that ol' wintertime standard, "Avoid the Slush Puddle of Disgusting and Surprising Depth!" With the arrival of spring and the weather supposedly getting better this week, we hope it's the last time we have to play. We'd like to spend the snowless months contemplating why slushy water at street corners just stands and doesn't go into the catch basins. The thaw has actually been somewhat dangerous: The NY......

Develop Don't Destory Brooklyn will be protesting outside of the New York Times' offices at 1PM today to protest coverage of developer Bruce Ratner. DDDB's claim is that because the Times' coverage of Ratner's plans for downtown Brooklyn has been "misleading" and "inaccurate" because Ratner's company is building the Times' new skyscraper. DDDB wants consistent coverage about the Atlantic Yards project from the Times, and you can read the report here. Hmm, wonder if the......

Developer Bruce Ratner has tapped celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz to photograph the development of the new New York Times building on Eighth Avenue. Why? To attract other tenants for the building. The Post calls the 700,000 square feet available in the building "an entire speculative building," and says the photographs, which will be taken periodically, will be plastered in the area. Could photographs by Annie Leibovitz really attract new tenants? Maybe photographs of cash, but......

Clearly, the new kind of excitement and titillation in New York City is not downtown or in some underground sex trade - it's at MTA railyard auctions! The Extell Development Company made a surprise bid for the Atlantic Rail Yards where Bruce Ratner wants to build a Frank Gehry-designed Nets arena and skyscraper complex. Extell's bid promises to be a much smaller development: Skyscrapers would be 28 floors, versus the possible 60 floors in......