Subject: New York City

• New York Bartenders the Best in the Country?

  Don't be surprised if your favorite bartender is nowhere to be found next month. For five days each July, bartenders from around the country flock to New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, considered by many in the industry to be the world's preeminent cocktail festival. The nominees for this year's Spirit Awards, held on the last night of the festival, have been announced and--not quite surprisingly--Big Apple bars and bartenders are well represented. And the nominees are... Best American Cock

  June 16, 2009

• City's Public (and Maybe Private) Drinking Down

  The new Zagat New York City Nightlife Guide is out, and its survey indicates that citizens are not hitting the bars and clubs like they used to. Zagat finds 56 percent of survey respondents going out less, 38 percent finding cheaper places, 27 percent ordering fewer drinks, etc. Given the economy, this is no shock. But we expected this would mean that people would be drinking more at home. Nate Silver, however, has found that U.S. alcohol sales for home consumption took a big hit in the fourth

  June 18, 2009

• Posts of the Week

  Hello, and welcome to Friday afternoon. Here are some of our favorite posts from the week that was. See ya'll back here Monday. We went to the Big Apple BBQ Block Party, ate a bunch of barbecue, and took a bunch of pictures. We ferreted out Albanian bureks at Burektorja Dukagjini--the stuffed pastries are delicious, and, bonus, vegetarian. We crunched on bread pakoras--a truly awesome Strange Snack of the World--at Desi Deli Punjabi Dhaba in Hell's Kitchen. Our Ten Best pizza list of NYC w

  June 19, 2009

• What's Happening This Week--Pairing Wine with Stevie & A Dessert Tour

  As many of you know, our weekly dining and drinking newsletter features all the coolest epicurean events in the city. Sign up for it here! Stevie Wonder Pairing: Songs for the cup of life City Winery June 24, 7 pm If you're like us, then you like your love songs paired with a good glass of wine. City Winery, which has made a name for itself with its wine-and-song pairings, is putting together 30 classic Stevie Wonder tunes with 30 different corresponding wines. Tasting notes will reveal why a p

  June 22, 2009

• ZINES ARE DEAD

  June 17, 2009

• Quick Hits

  Twitpic from GiGi_NYC. Welcome the new bus ad campaign for atheism! Though we think that, as a market for this product, New York is pretty well fished out. This weekend, the Pride Parade -- by which we of course mean the Immigrant's Pride Parade on Sixth Avenue between West 37th and 57th Streets this Saturday. Would you like to help represent the Republic of Georgia? They're looking for people. At a recent Senate health care hearing, instead of focusing on the Senators and witnesses, an NPR

  June 25, 2009

• Brave Blogger Asking for It at Shopsin's

  Photo borrowed from NYC Food Guy Blogger NYC Food Guy has undertaken to eat every item on Shopsin General Store's 900-strong menu and blog about it. Bets are that he won't get very far without pissing off owner Kenny Shopsin, who notoriously hates the food press. Not that you have to be a food writer to incur his verbal abuse, but that's all part of the, um, fun of eating at Shopsin's. Good luck, fellow blogger! We salute you. [via The Feedbag]

  June 29, 2009

• Finally, Jelly NYC's Pool Parties Made Official: Mission of Burma, Deerhunter, Girl Talk, Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, and More

  File under Summer 2009's Worst-Kept Secrets: Jelly NYC is, again this year, throwing a slew of free Sunday-afternoon shows in Williamsburg. As pretty much everyone and your L-Train-puking pug already knew (except AM New York), this season's location is 90 Kent Ave a/k/a the Williamsburg Waterfront a/k/a the place where a few weekends ago I taunted a hippie-pirate-juice truck from a moving car. Anyway.

  July 2, 2009

• Jelly NYC Pool Party Addendum: Leave Your Pink Uggs, Cargo Shorts at Home

  In a blow to snake-handlers everywhere, Jelly NYC has posted this entertaining graphic of prohibited material for this year's slate of free Sunday-afternoon shows in Williamsburg. Banned items include grenades, machine guns, syringes, throwing stars, bald eagles, and--showing that the series is determined to move forward from the sybaritic, sunburned, and tattooed follies of its McCarren Park Pool past--cargo shorts, Uggs, and magic wands, the triple bane of eyeballs everywhere. If you need an

  July 2, 2009

• PRE-TEEN SPIRIT

  July 8, 2009

• See the Phenomenal Hand Clap Band Today, For Free, No Jean Purchase Necessary

  Photo of the Phenomenal Hand Clap Band by Rebecca Smeyne, of course Partially atoning for the basically unforgivable sin of actually requiring everyone who wants to go to next week's Roots/Drake/Passion Pit Webster Hall extravaganza to wear hideous Diesel jeans in order just to receive an invitation to damn thing, Diesel is also hosting free shows at their NYC store this week. Today's band? The excellently fresh NYC disco collective The Phenomenal Hand Clap Band, whose low-key and tie-dyed rave

  July 23, 2009

• Naked Cowboy Holds First Mayoral Campaign Event: Underwear Run

  Having just announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York City, Times Square entertainer The Naked Cowboy is not wasting any time getting his campaign off the ground. He will serve as Grand Marshall of an underwear run in Central Park tonight. The 1.7 mile event, which is apparently an annual tradition attached to this weekend's New York City Triathlon, starts at Dead Road at 7:30 p.m. Registration is closed but spectators are encouraged. With The Naked Cowboy's involvement, organizers hope to

  July 24, 2009

• Trail of Dead, Apparently Antsy After Their Williamsburg Rain Cancelation, Up For "Whatever You're Down To Do" Tomorrow

  Cell phone pic of yesterday's canceled show by Sarah Hanson So after yesterday's Biblical flash floods and tempestuous lightning storm prevented this Sunday's Pool Party's headliners, Trail of Dead, from stepping on the Jelly NYC stage, the band seems a little restless leading up to their show this weekend at All Points West. To wit: They've offered themselves up all day tomorrow for "Interviews, Performances, Etc." More specifically, via press release: "Let us know what you're down to do!" No w

  July 27, 2009

• Inside the Mayor's Studio: NYC-TV's Secrets of New York

  August 4, 2009

• Letters: August 12, 2009

  August 11, 2009

• New Big Pink Video: "Dominos"

  The Big Pink have released a video for "Dominos," the towering monster future jock jam of a song that anchors the rest of A Brief History of Love, due next month of 4AD. How is it? These guys might want to step their visual game up: the duo haven't even been stateside and we're already a bit sick of their soft-focus, leathery, close-up photography. This song deserved slightly better, dudes! Anyway, it'll be a while before NYC gets anything else--they're playing here, but not till December. [vi

  August 12, 2009

• The Blogroll Gazette: A Secret Menu Item at NYC Cravings; KFC's Dirty Double Down Sandwich

  This week in food blogs... Serious Eats asked, "When is it socially acceptable to share food?" Answer: When you're dining with other foodies. And who the hell would want to do that? Midtown Lunch reported that the NYC Cravings truck will continue to serve its secret menu item of a chicken and pork combo -- if you ask for it. The Feedbag went fried chicken crazy this week with a look at offerings from Fatty Crab, Brooklyn Bowl, and Momofuku. Eat Me Daily uncovers KFC's Double Down sandwich, w

  August 21, 2009

• The 'Bitter Feast' Trailer Is Out

  Bitter Feast is a low-budget comic thriller, written and directed by Joe Maggio, about a New York City chef who takes his revenge on a food critic. Mario Batali takes time out of the real-life fine dining scene to play the role of the restaurant owner. [via Eat Me Daily]

  September 3, 2009

• 19 Buildings Go Pink & White for Breast Cancer Events

  ​If you're like most of our readers, you came to this post by accident. But it's a serendipitous accident if you stroll the streets of our fair city at night, because the tireless publicists of the Empire State Building inform us that tonight the skyscraper will glow pink and white in honor of the week-long City in Pink breast cancer awareness event, culminating in the Komen New York City Race for the Cure on Sunday. Also, 18 other properties will similarly light up, including the Citigrou

  September 9, 2009

• Jim Carroll, 1950-2009

  Jim Carroll -- prototypical NYC punk-rocker, Basketball Diaries scribe, and CBGB poet laureate -- died of a heart attack Friday night. He was 60. Lots of intense eulogies will follow in the days to come: He's an excellent jumping-off point for an "Old New York City vs. New New York City" screed, the danger and grit and volatility we've lost, and how much we should miss it. (No question Carroll is irreplaceable, and if this news gives you the powerful urge to hear a hot-shit live band blaze thr

  September 13, 2009

• Outdoor Smoking Ban Draws Fire, Will Go Through Anyway

  The Health Department's proposed ban on smoking at city parks and beaches seems not to be finding a receptive audience. "NYC=Nanny State?" asks the Daily News, which given our trans-fat ban and fresh-air bars seems an almost absurd question. "ALSO BREAKING: New York To Be Renamed 'Pussy City,'" says The Awl. A commenter at libertarian Hit & Run says, "Federal agents raid homes in New York City as part of anti-terror probe. Let me guess: the terrorists were smoking." "Bloomberg Takes Another Cue

  September 15, 2009

• Vinyl Life, Furthering the Death of AutoTune

  September 15, 2009

• Are Ewe Kidding? Yet Another Takedown... This Time, Lamb

  felixrenicks/flickr​From the man who brought you the Takedowns Chili, Bacon, and Tofu comes his most sheepish amateur cooking competition yet: the Lamb Takedown. On October 4, you're invited to wolf down some 20 lamb recipes from home cooks from around the city at the Highline Ballroom. George Motz, author of Hamburger America and founder of the NYC Food Film Festival will help judge the entries. There are no spots left to enter, but you can always show up to eat and help pick the People's

  September 17, 2009

• Tombs+Burnt By the Sun

  September 29, 2009

• The Blogroll Gazette: The Vendy Effect & What Will Padma's Baby Look Like?

  This week in food blogs... Eat Me Daily noticed a food corp-funded ad that asks "When did the Big Apple become Big Brother?" meant as a response to the city's "Pouring on the Pounds" ads. The Food Section discovered that Kraft has hired a team of mom-bloggers to come up with Velveeta recipes. A Hamburger Today offered its definitive guide to burger styles, from the slider to the steakhouse (and the mini, in between). Eater sneaked a peak at The Standard's Black Bar, designed by owner and hot

  October 2, 2009

• CHILD'S PLAY

  October 6, 2009

• Number of Stimulus Jobs Produced: 30,383. Number of These in New York: 54

  While the nation was preoccupied with hot air, the White House released its first list of actual jobs created thus far from the federal stimulus. Tallying up to a paltry 30,383 jobs, they've got a long way to go to reach the 3.5 million they'd hoped to create by the end of the year. To be fair, this list shows the impact of only one small part of the $787 billion stimulus package: According to the Times , these jobs were created by "$16 billion worth of stimulus contracts that were awarded dir

  October 16, 2009

• Crazy Yankee Chick: Andy Pettitte's Pulchritude...and a look at Game 3 of the ALCS

  ​When you live by yourself, you can go hours without speaking. You don't realize it, but then sometimes you wake up on a Sunday after a baseball game and call your parents at noon only to discover you lost your voice. Actually, "lost" isn't the right word. I know exactly where I left it...somewhere in the left field second tier of Yankee Stadium. Game 3 of the ALCS is Monday at 4:13, so I'm figuring that it's a blessing in disguise that my voice is taking a personal day or 2. Because a

  October 19, 2009

• Best of NYC 2009

  October 20, 2009

• Your "Best of NYC" Choices

  ​Today brings the Voice's fabled "Best of NYC" issue, with all the paper's brilliant writers--and myself--chiming in on our favorite bars, personalities, souvlaki, and toilets. Assuming you live here--or at least drop by on occasion to pump up our economy--what are YOUR "best of NYC" choices? This is your chance to mouth off, give something a plug, and feel like a big-time journalist or something. And if you already participated in our readers' poll, it's your chance to do it again!

  October 21, 2009

• The Sexiest Multigender Night Scene Below Houston Street!

  ​CLICK HERE to check out my essay in our annual "Best of NYC" issue--a piece that allows me to really stretch and write about a downtown nightclub with a lot of gays in it! But this one actually has a sort of mixed-ish crowd, and what's more, it represents a blending of old-school partying and nouveau touches that make it an interesting palate cleanser en route to the next big trend in nightlife, whatever that may be. So drink up the article, leave a tip, and then help pull me off the ch

  October 21, 2009

• Suspiciously Jersey-ish Guys Compete for "Vinny" at New York-New York Casino

  The New York-New York Casino in Vegas is holding a competition between two guys, Vinny Red and Vinny Blue, one of whom will be chosen to serve as the casino's official Vinny, an "ambassador of fun" and "representative to interact with guests for information about the hotel." They unleashed this at a press conference yesterday, and as you can see from the video, both Vinnies seem a little more North Caldwell, New Jersey than New York, New York, though the hot dog eating contest was probably mea

  October 21, 2009

• Lil Wayne Is Probably Going To Jail

  ​For a year, or perhaps eight months with good behavior. For felony gun possession. Stemming from his arrest after his Beacon Theater show in July 2007. Let's just say that even after he gets out, I wouldn't plan on him playing NYC again anytime soon.

  October 22, 2009

• Weekend Special: Dumping on the Desperate Dumpling Debacle

  ​ A person in a dumpling costume terrorized the assembled throngs. Saturday, the "D" in Sara D. Roosevelt Park stood for "dumpling," as the first annual NYC Dumpling Festival commenced in the park at noon under changeable skies. The event was sponsored by Chef One, a Brooklyn-based manufacturer of frozen dumplings and other edible Asian products. As usual, the hoopla surrounding the festival produced plenty of publicity: in spite of occasional drizzle, the event was well attended.

  October 24, 2009

• Author Julie Klam Picks New York's Best Bookstore and Best Reading Spot

  This week is the Voice's Best of NYC issue, our annual opportunity to bestow arbitrary awards like Best Public-Access Show and Best Alt-Museum. In turn, we asked a few of our favorite New Yorkers to name their favorite local things. ​ Julie Klam is the author of Please Excuse My Daughter, a novel about growing up crazy spoiled in New York City, so she's more than qualified to pick best secret shopping spot, and best store window displays. Best bookstore? I feel like the answer to thi

  October 25, 2009

• City challenges state over upstate oil drilling

  Despite preliminary guidelines released by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which declined to ban natural gas drilling inside the New York City watershed, Acting New York City DEC Chair Steven Lawitts says that drilling for natural gas upstate could pollute water for 15 million people, including 9 million in the city. The cost to the city of treatment facilities to clean water polluted by drilling in the Marcellus Shale, which reaches through Virginia, New York, Ohio, and Pe

  October 25, 2009

• Danielle Grabianowski

  October 27, 2009

• 'Auf 002 Presents Dinky'

  October 27, 2009

• Former NYC-TV Aide Cops a Plea

  ​Trevor Scotland, former chief operating officer of NYC TV, the city television station so heavily boosted by Mayor Bloomberg, showed up in federal court yesterday to plead guilty to stealing tens of thousands in ad revenue from the station. Scotland, 39, looked every bit as dapper as he did in "Man Up!" - the TV show about men's styling that he produced and moderated and which won a local Emmy award this spring and which was hailed by the mayor as another example of the station's hip new

  October 29, 2009

• DJ and QxRxBx Host Sir Loins Will Happily Show You the Best Seat in the House

  We recently published Voice's Best of NYC issue, our annual opportunity to bestow arbitrary awards like Best Way to Watch Smutty Movies and Best Erotic Bloodletting. In turn, we asked a few of our favorite New Yorkers to name their favorite local things. Ugh, sorry. That's the flyer. Sir Loins, Go-Karff, and A. Martini don't like any of the gay bars in the city, so they created their own night, QxRxBx (Queers, Beers, and Rears), a glam-rock night that started at the Cyn Lounge in Williamsbur

  October 29, 2009

• Things to do on Tuesday for completely free

  ​November 3, as it often is, is election day, and an awful lot of people suspect that most of us won't take advantage of it. Which, you know, not to be a hopeless politics geek about it, but I went before work at seven this past voting day, and my husband went after work at five, and there were 20 people between us. That's kind of embarrassing. So please, vote. Things being what they are, it truly doesn't take much time, and it really does matter. In NY (polls are open from 6 am to 9 p

  November 1, 2009

• Paterson Releases Delicious Stimulus $ Report: NYC Gets $8.16 Billion

  Governor Paterson released a report today showing where the $18 billion that New York State got in stimulus money is going. You'll be pleased to hear that the counties comprising New York City receive by far the most American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds -- $8.16 billion. Hooray! Second place is Suffolk County, with $1.1 billion -- clearly, it takes money to make money. Poor Niagara County, one of the hardest-hit counties in this recession, gets a mere $632 million. Of course whe

  November 2, 2009

• HOT COCO

  November 3, 2009

• STRINGING COUTURE

  November 3, 2009

• Video: Bike Polo in Sara D. Roosevelt Park

  NYC The Blog finds something we hadn't noticed: Bike Polo in Sara D. Roosevelt Park downtown. There's a U.S. Bicycle Polo Association, which claims the game's a hundred years old, but they seem to play on grass; Wikipedia traces "Hardcourt Bike Polo" to "early 2000s Seattle" and links to a "malletcam" video. The Park polo players' site is here. Apparently the game is sufficiently popular that the Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Department encourages matches, but the Kansas State Collegian r

  November 10, 2009

• 'Blackened Music Series Presents Skeletonwitch+Black Anvil'

  November 10, 2009

• PEOPLES IS PEOPLES

  November 10, 2009

• And Now, A Lovely Tuesday Night Out At Greenhouse, APT, And Highline Ballroom, Featuring The Roots, Of Course

  Somebody tell Puja how to do this. Greenhouse is one of those places that make us normal folks nervous. While some revel in the exclusivity of red-roped clubs, the thought of waiting in a felt-carpeted line doesn't exactly thrill me--over-glammed Jersey girls, statuesque Chelsea boys, and men with blinding jewelry (who announce their intention to buy a $40 bottle of vodka for $300) reign supreme here. Not to mention that lawsuit thing they're dealing with, or that the maze of ropes and stoic,

  November 11, 2009

• Under the Toque: Sam Mason Out at Tailor; Ryan Skeen Pissed at Allen & Delancey, New York

  ​Sam Mason posted his official farewell on eGullet earlier this week, saying: "it's no surprise for me to say that I am no longer a part of Tailor restaurant. I left about 3 months ago... I am currently working hard on my T.V. series, and by no means plan on it being my only creative outlet. I do plan to start a new venture soon." [eGullet] Apparently blowing off some steam, Ryan Skeen said on Twitter that he: "always believed that when they take the love out of it [you] have to stop, I j

  November 12, 2009

• Quick Hits

  Weird Al and a team of experts provide a brief history of autotune. (h/t Joe My God.) Folks outraged at Palin in shorts on a Newsweek cover have resorted to their greatest weapon -- Photoshop! This one is our favorite. A Citizens Union report says that in the past 10 years, 14 state legislators have left office due to "ethical misconduct, criminal charges or similar issues" -- five of them in the 2007-2008 season. They suggest ethics legislation of the sort the legislature previously faile

  November 17, 2009