Looks like The Real World's latest cast has finally settled in to their Red Hook digs. NewYorkology spotted the seven strangers as they left their new residence at Pier 41, "they were heading toward Sunny’s, but instead made the turn, map, toward Van Brunt, with the Ikea straight ahead down Beard Street." They can have their IKEA; just stay away from Sunny's! Anyway, this could very well be their first Friday night in town...you've all......

The Dept. of Homeland Security is funding the installation of a number of anti-missile defense systems on commercial jets flying in and out of JFK Airport. The tests are the third stage of testing of a system that is already used by military aircraft. The defense system consists of equipment affixed to the bottom of the aircraft that electronically jams the heat-seeking component of shoulder filed missiles. The latter are referred to as man......

EVENT: Tonight Coney Island historian Charles Denson will be enlightening all about the "Genesis of the Coney Island History Project" at the American Folk Art Museum. He'll be discussing "the fascinating changes Coney Island has undergone" from its amusement park glory days to its struggle to survive. Expect to see some never-before-seen photos. More info here. 6:30pm // American Folk Art Museum [45 W 53rd St] // $10 MUSIC: We highly recommend getting over to......

Photo via Hamevugar's Flickr. The Brooklyn Museum housed a Ron Mueck exhibit that we pointed out last year and CubeMe just reported on. The exhibition, now closed, included "about 15 mixed media works on loan from the artist’s collection, major museums, and private collections..that explore the ambiguous relationship between reality and artifice, creating figures that express the contradictions between the real world and the imaginary. The figures seem to be alive: every detail -......

Nightmare: Ghost Stories is a walk-through haunted house by the creators of last year’s shriek-out hit Nightmare: Face Your Fear. Now doubled in size, the house boasts 23 different interconnected rooms of ghosts, psycho killers and gory, dismembered limbs – the sight of which prompted one girl in our group to declare, “No Red Lobster ever again!” An extra fee gets you entrance to a separate but much more frightening side-show: a dark labyrinth haunted......

Mayor Bloomberg headed to jury duty this morning, with a smile, a number of bodyguards and press aide Stu Loeser. When he showed up to the waiting room for prospective jurors, apparently a woman called a friend and said he was there for the "same foolishness" as everyone else. Outside the courthouse, the Mayor mused, "It's always more interesting to be on a jury than to just sit there. You wish that we didn't......

The laptop as guest - and sometimes the centerpiece - at dinner parties gets the Observer treatment today. We're all too familiar with friends staring at their Blackberry/iPhone/ Sidekick devices during social situations, but some might tell those toting a Macbook to a dinner party to just stay at home...or not? After all, they do come in handy when a debate is being settled (say, how many degrees of Kevin Bacon is Alan Thicke?). As......

Whether you're a fan of the reality genre or not, voyeurism has injected itself into every form of entertainment since shows like The Real World gave anyone with cable a chance to see the day-to-day lives of total strangers. With everything from HBO's Voyeur to watching a band in a bubble, we wish this were enough to satiate those creepy peeping tom's out there! The NY Times now reports on Lián Amaris Sifuentes and her......

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing? 99. December 11, 1965: The Velvet Underground play their first show, which was actually at a high school dance in Summit, New Jersey. The following year however, the Velvets became the house band at Warhol's Factory. 96. December 14, 1977: "Saturday Night Fever debuts in......

HBOVoyeur launched last week on a previously barren wall in the Lower East Side. The projection on the wall shows a film that tears down the facade of an apartment building and lets any passerby take a peak inside (HBO definitely picked the right city for this, as similar real-life scenes can seen from the street 24/7 here). The idea is a cool one, but can get old fast while watching it - which......

Kate White lives a double life. As Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, she privy's girls nationwide on how to catch the man of their dreams in under five minutes while buying the perfect shade of lip gloss. As a modern day caper novelist, she reminds us all that Nancy Drew is alive, well and possibly living in New York. Her series of books focuses on fictional character Bailey Weggins - a gossip rag writer......

READING: Today NY Mag asks, "What does Tina Brown have to do to get some attention?" Well tonight she's signing copies of her new book (a tell-all on Princess Di) called The Diana Chronicles. 7pm // Barnes & Noble [33 E 17th St] // Free MUSIC: That band in the bubble, Cartel, that you've undoubtedly already forgotten about, is playing a free show tonight. Go visit the bubble boys, help them re-enter the real world......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An escaped prisoner from the 44th Precinct in the Bronx, an electrocution on Richmond Avenue in Staten Island, and a suspicious package at the World Trade Center site What's scarier: Falling in a sidewalk grate in Manhattan or coyotes attacking kids in NJ? A consultant says the city's homeless estimate is flawed, raising questions about the methodology The woman Jets player Justin Miller punched outside a Manhattan nightclub? An......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

Did you see the season premiere of "I'm From Rolling Stone"? A combination of job interview, intership and reality tv...the show didn't disappoint with its "oh no (s)he did not!" moments. Jann Wenner was rarely thanked for giving them the opportunity, instead the contestants say things like "For reals?" and "Should I bring clothes and condoms?" as a reaction to his call. And then contestant-number-whatever told Joe Levy he was drunk when he wrote his......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

In this interview, Emmy award winning writer and comedian Greg Fitzsimmons discusses the importance of honesty in comedy, what "edgy" means to him, and the time he got into a fist fight onstage. How helpful did you find your college experience to be in your career as a writer and comedian? Very. Going to an urban school gives you a chance to be in the energy of the real world. I was going to comedy......

Along a dark and lonely strip in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, underneath the El train - at 1087 Broadway, to be exact - sits a shop. What kind of shop it is is hard to say. There might be a guy at a table drinking a can of beer and reading a yellowed paperback. Another table could have a cat stretched across it. There's a small counter on your left, with a couple of......

Last night we went to the Bowery Ballroom to check out one of the new buzz bands, Band of Horses. The sold out show was pretty packed, so we went to the balcony bar to find some room. About two minutes after we found a nice spot to stand, a pack of guys came shoving their way through, camera lights shining on their faces and a television crew following them. The fans at the......

On Sundays Gothamist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in New York and reviews of recent books and performances. The judgments expressed below are entirely those of the author. Living in New York, where there’s constantly something to do, a show to see or an underground club to party at or a protest in a park, it’s hard to imagine living someplace where boredom reigns, and drives people nutty. In Don Zolidis’ A Night Near......

Last November, Gothamist fell in love with the idea of congestion pricing for the city. The Partnership for New York City has been investigating the opportunity to make the city less crowded with cars - or if it is crowded with cars, then drivers will have to pay. However, there is quite a bit of opposition to the plan, and with the Mayor saying that the city would investigate using congestion pricing to relieve city......

Now that the holidays are over, the hangovers subsiding and thoughts of American Express bills floating in our heads, the transition back to the real world can be a startling experience. Say goodbye to fresh baked cookies in the shape of snowmen or warm apple pies to fill our tummy and hello to promises of visits to the gym. Being one not to adapt to change all that well, Gothamist has decided to make......

This month InFocus has a good interview with Harold Ramis, the polymath actor/writer/comedian behind Caddyshack, Stripes, and our favorite NYC movie of all time, Ghostbusters, this side of anything involving the subway. Ramis discussed ideas for Ghostbusters 3, the sequel that never got made, where Peter, Ray and Egon would go to hell.He does tend to think big [referring to Dan Ackroyd's idea that hell would extremely special effect driven] when he’s writing these, doesn’t......

FESTIVAL:: The 9th Annual D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival begins today and runs through the weekend. The schedule includes our faves: the Architecture Walk (today at 4pm), open galleries and lots of music lined up by Todd P. All weekend // d.u.m.b.o Arts Center [30 Washington St, Brooklyn] ART: For more than thirty years, Creative Time has helped artists animate unusual public places, from unlikely landmarks to neglected, abandoned areas. The Plain of Heaven......

At this point, Gothamist is more enthralled by the Real World Road Rules challenge than either of the actual shows that lend it their name. I mean come on! Tonya pretends to be so misunderstood! Katie and Veronica hate each other! Coral secretly has really bad bangs! Now that's good television. Still, when it comes down to it we have a deep love for all things Bunim-Murray which is why we recommend checking out The......

The long-awaited return of the third season of Chappelle's Show will actually be an even longer-awaited return, as Comedy Central has yanked the premiere and stopped production. Augh!! Even though it's funny, seeing "The Niggas" for the literally 50th time is wearing on us! But enough about us, as we'll take The Mad Real World any day. Variety's article (registration req'd) said Chappelle had to "seek treatment for unspecified personal issues." Personal issues after getting......

Just in time for SXSW, we have launched Austinist. While Gothamist hopes there will be copious coverage of the bats, the site, edited by Ben Brown, will be covering all sorts of things in the indiest town in Texas. Like the big Whole Foods, looking out for stupid antics from Real World roommates (currently filming there), or secret SXSW shows. Brown is also speaking at the SXSW panel, Humor on the Web. We are so......

Chris Hampton, WYSIWYG Creator and Curator...

Gothamist can only suspect that the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards were so stultifyingly boring is because somehow, Miami and the huge US Air Arena sucked the energy out of everyone. We think the overly manufactured entertainment industry is digging its own grave (A&R guy: "Hey, we need another 'rock' group...it's be a bunch of guys with spiky hair and punkish clothing...let's give 'em a wacky one-word name, too!"), because watching commentary-less CSPAN coverage of......