Photo courtesy nrvlowdown. Cyclists are complaining that NYPD squad cars have been parking on the Queensboro Bridge bike path, forcing riders to pass by through a narrow 18 inch gap. A DOT spokesman explains they requested police presence on the bike path after two collisions between cyclists and workers painting the bridge. In areas where work is being done, there are signs posted "periodically" instructing bike riders to dismount and walk. But the work is......

A woman who used to volunteer at the BARC cat loft has a great tale of a kitten she met on the Queensboro Bridge one morning while running. His name is Jeff Bridges.Jeff Bridges is the kitten I found while I was running over the Queensboro Bridge Thursday morning. How the hell he got on the pedestrian walkway of the bridge–a long, long fall on the right, eight lanes of traffic on the left......

As many people wonder about the state of the bridges in the New York City region, in the wake of I-35 collapsing in Minneapolis, the city's Department of Transportation is trying to reassure residents that our bridges are safe. Though many bridges meet the definition of "deficient" - 19% of bridges are in "fair" or "poor" condition, 15% meet the federal definition of "structurally deficient" - a DOT first deputy commissioner Lori Ardito says,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Tremont and University Aves. in the Bronx, a person pinned by a bus on the upper level of the Queensboro Bridge, and a car overparked into a storefront at 258th St. and Riverdale Ave. in the Bronx. The Queens mother of a kidnapped soldier in Iraq hopes that her son is still alive, even though her son's ID and other effects were found in an al......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

Living on Roosevelt Island may afford you gorgeous views and short commute to Manhattan, but residents really would like more ways out. The Sun reports residents want to build a staircase and elevator to the Queensboro Bridge in case of an emergency. An emergency like evil, goopy water? The president of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association Matthew Katz says, "You can't get off Roosevelt Island fast enough right now. We need to find alternative ways......

He made his name in London, Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo, and now he's making his mark on New York, too, with four major projects in development. Richard Rogers, one of Britain's handful of architect-knights, has just been awarded the 2007 Pritzker Prize, architecture's top honor. For many people, Rogers' most iconic project is still the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which he completed in 1977 while partners with Renzo Piano. The inside-out building lasciviously exposed......

Sad and insane day on the Gothamist Newsmap: "Baby found DOA in Garbage" in the Bronx, a bank robbery in Cobble Hill, and an unusual incident on Riverside Drive: "2 PEOPLE FIGHTING AND DOUSING EACH OTHER WITH GASOLINE AND ATTEMPTING TO IGNITE IT." Here's an unusual method of pedagogy: New York blogs as assigned reading. Tales of skullduggery at the Idiotarod: "The blonde girl on that team, Rebecca, tried as hard as she could......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: possible jumper on the Queensboro Bridge, falling debris in Union Square, and a DOA removal on Lexington. Well, that's disturbing. Brooklyn Record says the scariest bar in Brooklyn is the Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge. Our opinion? We're much more frightened of the taxidermy-ing bocce-ball hipster fiends at Union Hall. Lex visited the Graving Dock at the New York Shipyard in Red Hook, and snapped a nice picture. That's the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual incident on the Queensboro Bridge ("NYPD HAVE 1 IN CUSTODY AFTER CONTROLLING A BICYCLE-CAB IN TRAFFIC" --BNN), two armed robberies in Brooklyn, and "scaffold incident" on 57th Street. Columbia students sure take detergent-stealing seriously: "...your mother should have had an abortion, you parasite. To whoever is touring Columbia's campus as a potential place for your son or daughter, do not come here. Your child's detergent is not......

Brooklyn Ramblings pointed us to this great elevation map (PDF file) of the marathon route on the official marathon website. We all know that the Verrazzano Bridge is the highest point of the race, but that's early in the course. The bumps at 8 (around Fort Green where the courses combine), 16 (the Queensboro Bridge), and 24 (Central Park) are probably harder to summit. The Daily News looks at the crazy costumes worn during......

The ING New York City Marathon is just five days away, and many people are probably thinking about their viewing strategies. The marathon website has different suggestions for watching the professional marathoners and friends and family. If you're cheering someone on, the ING NYC marathon suggests:Mile 8 in Brooklyn , where the three starts converge, is a great place to catch runners looking fresh for photographs. A variety of subways can get you there:......

+ Looks like Hevesi could be in big trouble for not reimbursing the state for his wife's chauffeur. + Via the Gothamist Newsmap: a worker was killed when he fell off a scaffold on the Queensboro Bridge. The Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd was closed for an hour after an EDP made a bomb-threat. + Curbed has the story of that huge, mysterious building on the corner of 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue......

A Queens man who was a cameraman for NY1 fell off the Queensboro Bridge yesterday and died later at a hospital. Christian Milin had been walking home with a friend, after hanging out at Manhattan bars, when police believe he slipped and fell onto an exit ramp, suffering "massive injuries." The Post reports the friend (described as "shaken" and "distraught") as saying:Honestly, we probably shouldn't have been walking on that point of the bridge. I......

Bad early morning traffic accident: A driver headed to the Queensboro Bridge was thrown to his death. According to WABC 7, the driver was "taking a sharp curve on the entrance ramp" to the Bridge in LIC, when it crashed in the left wall around 4AM; he was "thrown 30 feet to the parking lot of the Silvercup Studios at 42-22 22nd Street." It's unclear how fast the driver was going, but with roads being......

The Queensboro Bridge is open today after its four alarm fire yesterday afternoon. It's unclear what caused the fire (hypothesis is that construction materials caused it), but thousands of drivers were inconvenienced as the bridge was totally shut down for a part of the time. There were no injuries. Perhaps the Department of Transportation (or whichever agency) should think again about keeping flammable tarps on a bridge for over a year. The bridge carries 189,250......

Editor's note: We welcome our first "Lex and the City" column, which is about legal issues the city has faced. Today's column is especially timely, as it's the last Friday of the month - Critical Mass time! This week in Washington, John Roberts was confirmed as the Chief Justice of the United States. While the media will focus on the big cases and the big personalities that decide them, it's easy to overlook the law......

Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter definitely makes a point of depicting the city in grand panoramic style, with plenty of overheads and shots on bridges. There are street scenes, as Nicole Kidman goes in and out of her apartment on Stuvesant and 10th, rides her Vespa up Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue, and walks in and out of the U.N. building. There is even a few scenes in the outer boroughs, with nods to Crown Heights......

Sure, there are lots of big movies opening tomorrow - The Aviator (DiCap flies a plane), Spanglish (Adam Sandler plays a Thomas Keller-like chef - ha! - and Tea Leoni hopes this will make her a star), and Lemony Snicket (okay, the baby biting the table is cute) - but Gothamist's pick for a must-see film this weekend is The Sweet Smell of Success. Sweet Smell is playing as part of Film Forum's Essential Noir......

The Department of Transportation reports that bike ridership over the East River is at the highest level in the 23 years of keeping bike ridership numbers. The DOT points to the renovated bike paths in Williamsburg and on the Manhattan Bridge; the Queensboro Bridge's biking popularity more than doubled year-to-year. The DOT tells Newsday these figures are a reflection of people willing to try the city's different paths and Transportation Alternatives' Noah Budnick says, "These......

Gothamist Goes on The Angel Project
Scavenger hunt as installation art: Gothamist investigates.
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Dave Frieder is a man after Gothamist's own heart: He has traversed most of the bridges in New York, capturing beautiful photographs of the bridges and the city. Because of September 11, bridge security has tightened up, making it hard for him to get back on top of the world. He has been able to visit the George Washington Bridge lately, which is his favorite. Frieder eventually wants to put out a coffee table......

Not as nice as anything rion takes, but on my way to the airport yesterday morning, I managed to get this picture from the car. And then later that day, I took this picture of the lights from the plane. The plane's landing was pretty choppy, but I think it looks cool. In sort of related news, workers at LaGuardia Airport were charged with stealing more than a million in mini-liquor bottles and selling......