See All the New ‘Gossip Girl’ OMFG AdsThe CW has released a whole set of steamy new advertisements for the Greatest Show of Our Time, and they want you to get bleeping excited about it.
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Scary Spice’s Breasts Earn $1M for Ultimo Bra AdSpice’s real name might end in “B,” but her cup size sure doesn’t. Mel B. and her 34DD bust will star in the next Ultimo Bra campaign. A disturbingly literal pairing, isn’t it?
The Tribeca Grand: Now With More ButtOkay, this is an ad for the Tribeca Grand that a Mark over at Copyranter clipped out of City magazine. Our questions include the following:
1) Where is, exactly, the Tribeca Grand in this picture?
2) Are we to infer, from the sheet this woman is wielding, that your massage therapists at the Grand will be naked?
3) And seductively Asian?
4) Who in Tribeca is driving a wood-paneled Buick station wagon, like the one on the lower right?
5) And is she barefoot on cobblestones downtown? Ew!
TriBeCa Grand Hotel apparently offers Naked Turndown Service. [Copyranter]
Back of the House
New York ‘Times’ to Wonder How Bloggers Stay AliveWhen we received a voice mail last week from Kim Severson of the New York Times, saying that she wanted to interview us, our natural response was one of delight. Was the topic to be hamburgers or our upcoming book on same? Or perhaps the larger topic of meat? Or perhaps the ongoing efforts of Grub Street? It was with giddy fingers that we dialed Severson’s number only to find out that the lady was writing an article on how fat and unhealthy food bloggers are, and to ask us, in so many words, why we were still alive. Apparently, bloggers aren’t the trenchermen they once were: Off the Broiler’s Jason Perlow recently had some serious health problems, and even Steven “the Fat Guy” Shaw of eGullet has gotten on the austerity program. But, as we told Severson, the day we start eating salad she’s welcome to our place at the table. Grub Street may cost us the vitality of our once-springy carcass, but by God the work will go on!
first looks
Versace’s Sort of New CampaignThough Donatella brought Daria back to open and close her last show, she’s not totally faithful to her veterans. Versace perfume’s former face Angela Lindvall has been ousted by Lithuanian rising star Edita Vilkeviciute.
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Jill Stuart Ditches Lindsay Lohan for Hilary SwankThough much of the world still hasn’t gotten enough Lindsay Lohan since her nude Marilyn Monroe–inspired pictorial, designer Jill Stuart has. In May 2007 Lohan was the first celebrity to appear in a Jill Stuart campaign; though she never reappeared, the designer said she might. Rumor has it, however, that the brand now has its eyes on Hilary Swank, which would explain the Oscar winner’s front-row appearance at Stuart’s show during Fashion Week.
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Keith Richards Models for Louis VuittonLouis Vuitton is bringing out its grungy side. Annie Leibovitz shot Keith Richards for the brand’s “core values” campaign, which aims to remind consumers of the brand’s signature monogram luggage and balance its fashion-driven ads.
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YSL Takes Met Opera Under Its Wing for Four YearsThis just in: Coming hot on the heels of yesterday’s well-received < ahref="http://nohib.com/fashion/fashionshows/2008/fall/main/europe/womenrunway/yvessaintlaurent/">Yves Saint Laurent show, the maison has announced a four-year sponsorship of New York’s Metropolitan Opera — one the biggest philanthropic moves in the house’s history.
first looks
Ali Stephens’s First CK CampaignAfter checking out the latest Calvin Klein campaign, we were looking forward to seeing how the ck Calvin Klein ads would shape up. Now the first images have hit and they star, as predicted, fall-show opener and current all-around “It” girl Ali Stephens.
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Supima Cotton Gives NYC Its Own Cotton FieldSupima Cotton is opening up a pop-up store in Soho on March 14, featuring pieces by fifteen contemporary designers like AG Adriano Goldschmied, Three Dots, Gilded Age, and Zooey. And what’s a store opening, really, without a crazy promotional campaign? Before the store flings open its doors they plan to promote it with — we shit you not — a cotton field on the corner of Broadway and Houston.
The Best of the New Spring CampaignsAfter seeing the dazzling new Nina Ricci ads yesterday, we were reminded of how refreshing it can be to see the pretty, new spring campaigns. Our five favorites:
1. Lanvin: With the impressive trio of Alber Elbaz, Steven Meisel and Olga Sherer, it’s no wonder this tops our list. In the campaign’s latest installment, Sherer’s pouty raspberry lips contrast nicely with a lemon cocktail dress. Dazzling, bold jewelry and clear glasses push the eye-catching image even further.
first looks
Nina Ricci’s Spring 2008 Campaign Revealed!After months of anticipation, the spring Nina Ricci campaign pictures have leaked. Our pick for Fashion Week’s model of the week Karlie Kloss and one to watch Courtney Smerski are the lucky girls, wearing gorgeous metallic gowns and soft knits offset by splashy pink shadows.
tube junkie
Katrina Survivors Score a Sundance HitTwo days before Katrina hit, small-time hustler, sometime drug dealer, and non-stop motormouth Kim Roberts bought a used video camera for twenty bucks. Then she filmed as she and her husband helped 25 neighbors survive and escape the waters.
Joe Bruno, Eliot Spitzer Ruin It for Everybody
• One actual result of Troopergate (Brunogate? Spitzergate?): The State Ethics Commission passed a new rule preventing officials from using state aircraft unless the primary purpose of their trip is state business and requiring reimbursement for those parts that are not. [NYT]
in other news
Suits of Armor: The New Suits of SeersuckerSo you’re sitting there on the subway, bored and crowded and sort of hating your life (which is sort of inevitable in New York in August), and you see one of those School of Visual Arts ads promising the much more fun and fulfilling things you could be doing if you just took one of their classes. Yes, I would like to turn my passion into a program, you think. Or: Yes, I would like to learn to take pretty pictures of birds like the guy in that poster. As the always-angry Copyranter points out today, in SVA’s latest campaign, as seen in the Voice, you now also have the option of becoming a knight. Or a blacksmith. Or something. All of which, we’ve got to tell you, seem even less pleasant to be doing on humid 90-degree-plus days than squeezing onto the downtown Lex. Maybe it’s nice to know that things could be worse?
School of Visual Arts Doth Prepare Thee Well, Young Apprentice [Copyranter]
in other news
Disneyfied Subway Station Objectionable, AdorableSo there’s this cockamamy idea that the MTA could raise money by selling Disney the rights the advertise however the company sees fit in the Times Square station. “I would rather try to sell 42nd Street’s subway system underground to Disney for $60 million a year and have them paint it any way that they want to paint it,” board member Norman Seabrook suggested. We noticed this in the morning, and because we’re sort of opposed to the proliferation of advertising into every corner of life, and because we think there’s something untoward about selling public facilities to corporate sponsors, and just because we’re crotchety and don’t like change, we were against it. But then we saw the cute little logo Gothamist came up with for the combination — it’s a Mouseketeers hat! On the MTA logo! Ha! — and we should say we’re now sort of smitten.
Mickey Mouse for MTA? [Gothamist]
the follow-up
Doing the Butt
You may or may not have caught the controversy we like to call Butts Over Broadway. See, an ad campaign was planned for Toto Washlet, a Japanese-made toilet that, essentially, does the wiping for you, and it included a Broadway billboard showing big, happy, and presumably clean and paper-free butts. Thing is, the billboard was to go on a building that houses a church, and the church’s minister successfully sought a restraining ordering preventing the ad from going up. But there’s one thing being ignored in all this: Never mind the ongoing battles of church and butt; what’s a Washlet like? Fortunately, New York is here for you. Stephen Milioti reviewed the Washlet for the mag back in December. His poster-worthy verdict? “The Washlet will make you forget toilet paper forever!” There’s much more explanation in the piece.
Open Water [NYM]
In Billboard for Bidet, Church Sees Times Square’s Seedy Past [NYT]
In the Magazine
Lily Allen Eats Blue Ribbon Sushi Four Times a Week
Our interest was piqued when we read the last line of Jada Yuan’s piece about Lily Allen’s two weeks in New York. “‘Don’t worry,’ she says, cheerily chomping on chicken satay at Cafe Gitane, a few hours before double-fisting pizza slices at Joe’s. ‘I’m still eating like a fucking pig.’” Vulture, our entertainment blog, has some choice outtakes from the interview, but none of them clear up our curiosity about Lily’s New York diet — here, then, are some food-related kernels that didn’t make it into the magazine piece.
in other news
‘Post’ Either Loves or Hates Paris Hilton
Just wanted to make sure you got a good look at what might well be the single greatest New York Post cover ever. “If Paris wasn’t born, she would have to be invented,” Andrea Peyser writes in her column. “If she did not form naturally, we’d have to build one of her.” We can’t tell if Peyser’s “we” refers to American society, dismissively, or to the Post’s circulation execs, appreciatively. Maybe a little of both?
(Also: Isn’t that cover line effectively calling Peyser a bimbo? Fun!)
She’s the Naughty Gift Who Keeps on Giving [NYP]
Related: Paris Was Pig in a Pokey [NYP]
party town
Can You Define ‘Irony’?• Generation Harvest Summer in the City event. Metropolitan Pavilion North. 110 W. 19th St., nr. Sixth Ave., 6 p.m. Tim Robbins, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks, B.J. Novak, and others are expected. Coming just after the slacker era of Generation X, “Generation Harvest” consists of 29- to 31-year-olds who dress like Ethan Hawke’s character in Reality Bites but are corn farmers.
Or check out our Agenda listings for tonight, selected by New York’s culture editors.
developing
On Perry Street, the Death of Real-Estate Bling?Luxury-condo marketing went through the looking glass at a brokers’ breakfast this morning for 166 Perry Street, a new 24-loft, bumpy steel-and-glass condo set to rise just east of Richard Meier’s sleek towers in the far West Village. The building has private swimming pools for its penthouse duplexes and art-installation screens over the ground floor, but, interestingly, Corcoran Sunshine marketers are pushing it as, well, simple. “There’s an architecture-collector market,” marketer James Lansill told us in Jean-Georges’s Perry Street restaurant, which will deliver room service to the building. “It’s not about bling at all.” Oh, no. Not at all. —Alec Appelbaum
apropos of nothing
Brazilians Fear Becoming Fat AmericansNope, not another round of Dove “Real Beauty” ads. And not an Adbusters spoof, either. Salles Chemistri (which also does ads for General Motors) produced these campy, hyperoffensive ads for the Brazilian yogurt company Itambé, to run with the tagline: “Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.” But we prefer this American version: “Brazilian ads: As progressive as Hollywood!” —Rachel Wolff
photo op
Our Bodies, Our Storage
We spotted this latest installment in Manhattan Mini-Storage’s inarticulate we’re-trying-to-show-we- share-your-politics-but-we-fail-at-it ad campaign (has anyone actually ever figured out that Cheney ad?) on our way down the West Side Highway Sunday night, and we were as confused by it as the Copyranter is today. Our best guess at its message: Once Alito & Co. overturn Roe, at least a storage locker will be preferable to an alley! And you know how we all love decreasing-civil- liberties humor.
Better interpretation? Let us know.
Back Alley Advertising [Copyranter]
Saatchi & Saatchi Loves New York, ‘Lovemarks’So Saatchi & Saatchi has landed the “I Love New York” account. And it seems the international ad firm (which takes credit for electing Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin, among other things) has a unique qualification for the job. Turns out Saatchi & Saatchi doesn’t do brands anymore — it does lovemarks. “Brands have run out of juice,” proclaims the first sentence on Lovemarks.com, a has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed site created by the firm to explain its mission. “Check out the Love/Respect Axis” — seriously, check it out — and learn “the hallmarks of a lovemark.” Those, it turns out, are “mystery, sensuality and intimacy.” And what is “I Love New York” if not the ultimate lovemark? It doesn’t get more intimate, sensual, or mysterious than a first-person-singular pronoun, a big red heart, and an abbreviation. Indeed, we’re so excited about Saatchi’s forthcoming campaign — nothing will be unveiled till winter 2008 — that we might just leave a lovemark right where we sit.
Lovemarks.com [Saatchi & Saatchi]
Cheerio! Loyalty and Mutiny at Saatchi & Saatchi [NYM]
the morning line
The Best of Times Is Now
• Mayor Bloomberg is seeking to boost his proposed property-tax cut to as much as 8.5 percent, says the Post. The goal is to roll back a bit of 2003’s infamous 18.5 percent hike, something the City Hall promised to do “in better times.” [NYP]
• Ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi got the $16 million account to overhaul the 30-year-old “I Love New York” campaign. (Spitzer says, a bit haughtily, that he won’t appear in the ads.) Let’s hope they do better than Saatchi’s recent Kurt Cobain fiasco. [Crain’s NY]
• Mistaking her for an intruder, a New Haven cop opened fire on his own daughter, who was sneaking into the house after a late date. The girl, 18, has a bullet in her thigh. [NYDN]
• Railway boozers, rejoice! The proposal to curb the oh-so-European practice of selling alcohol on Metro-North is pretty much kaput in the face of a commuter outcry. [NYT]
• That outcry, however? Could have been just drunken babbling. Almost a thousand LIRR and Metro-North passengers got so trashed on the trains last year they needed medical attention; some 287 were ticketed for booze-fueled shenanigans. [Newsday]
in the magazine
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Brooklyn DevelopersThe ever-cantankerous Copyranter points us today to a subway advertisement for Twenty Bayard, billed as “Williamsburg’s premier parkfront condominiums.” He’s mostly upset by the obnoxiously and self- consciously diverse foursome in the ad’s Warhol-esque portraits, but we’re more troubled by the ad’s tagline, “Radically chic. Chicly radical.” Not to get possessive about this, but when did Radical Chic become a desirable thing? The term was coined in a 1970 issue of New York, when Tom Wolfe wrote about “that party at Lenny’s,” a fund-raising soirée Leonard and Felicia Bernstein threw at their Park Avenue duplex for bigshots to raise money for — and actually mingle with! — Black Panthers. The piece is devastating and hilarious, an classic indictment of do-gooding but oblivious limousine liberals. Need to refresh your memory? From the magazine’s archives, here’s the original article.
Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s [NYM 5/6/1970]
The Four Fashionable Faces of Williamsburg [Copyranter]
in other news
Rupert Loves an Underperformer “Executives at Dow Jones declined to comment for this article” is probably the least surprising sentence to be found in today’s Times. The article in question is devoted entirely to guessing if, and by how much, the Wall Street Journal is in the black. The answer is stark: “barely, and maybe not for long.”
As a whole, WSJ’s parent Dow Jones just about breaks even; so does its iconic media property, which, despite a weekday circulation of two million, suffers from a bad case of advertiser flight. (The Website fares better, of course.) So far, WSJ’s 2007 ad figures are about 10 percent off the already none-too-rosy projections. The moderately juicy inside-baseball part, buried in the last few paragraphs of the Times piece, blames the musical chairs at the top of the Journal’s ad division, specifically the loss of exec Judy Barry to a squabble with Dow Jones CEO Richard Zannino. Needless to say, Murdoch’s ghostly visage hovers over the story’s every downbeat sentence: make the rupees, or face the Rupe.
At Journal, Slim Margins Open Door to Murdoch [NYT]
photo op
One of These Things Is Not Like the OthersThe curmudgeonly Copyranter noticed this ad for the NYU Child Study Center posted on the Upper West Side. “Social phobia is intense shyness and pathological self-consciousness,” reads the explanatory text. (Click here for a larger, readable version.) Indeed. It is hard to be a black kid in the land o’ Zabar’s.
It IS Hard For Black Kids to Fit in on the Upper West Side [Copyranter]
Cognac Burglar Breaks Into Osteria Del CircoIf you own a bar or restaurant, and a shady figure emerges with a hot deal on a bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII, think twice before taking it – there’s a good chance it was stolen from Osteria del Circo late Friday night. Owner Mauro Maccioni, scion of Sirio, tells us that someone bashed in the eatery’s window, opened the vestibule door, and made off with two bottles of cognac — the Remy, which retails for around $2,000 a bottle, and Martell L’or, which usually retails for between $1,000 and $1,200. “I never heard of anything like it,” Maccioni tells us. “They didn’t even try to take anything else.” Only two explanations suffice for the bizarre crime: Either cognac connoisseurs are getting bolder or criminals more jaded in their appetites. Either way, lock up the liquor cabinets. And if you do see that bottle, as Mauro says ominously, “the Maccionis would like it back.”
Maddened Teens Attack Clinton Hill’s Locanda Vini e OliiClinton Hill: Teens getting more than frisky this spring: Two hooligans terrorized Locanda Vini e Olii by attempting to crash outdoor metal chairs through the glass façade during Friday’s dinner service. [Brooklyn Record]
Dumbo: Foragers Market has an inspired banana display. [Dumbo NYC]
East Village: The new bar entered through Crif Dogs and known as PDT does not take its name from ”Please Don’t Tell.” A pierced girl says it’s Porno Dog Tavern. [Down by the Hipster]
Harlem: West 145th Street welcomes a Starbucks. [Uptown Flavor]
Long Island City: Fresh Start natural grocer is opening a garden to allow you to enjoy the prepared foods outdoors and, one hopes, to lend out to community groups. [Joey in Astoria]
Midtown West: Aureole is moving to One Bryant Park. [NYM]
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: Papa’s market not only has nice cheese, but Papa wants to ride the wonderful wave that is gentrification and renovate. [Across the Park]
Openings
Just In: Curry Craziness in Midtown
Reports from the scene of the newly opened Go!Go! Curry indicate that lines for the first branch of the Japanese takeout joint are at lengths unseen since the days of Beard Papa’s opening. “Over 40 people in line,” said one curry craver about half an hour ago. “I had to get lunch elsewhere.” We just called the restaurant to discover the line is still down the block. “Maybe you will wait 30 minutes,” we were told. Is it worth it? Well, it’s true that servings of curry over rice (with your choice of shrimp, chicken, pork, etc.) are just 55 cents until 9:55 tonight, but wait till nightfall and you’ll get even more bang for your half-buck: The Website attempts to curry favor by informing us that there’s free parking on 38th Street after 7 p.m.!
Go!Go! Curry, 273 W. 38th St., nr. Eighth Ave.; 212-730-5555.
sex diaries
The Lesbian PlayerOnce a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Lesbian Player: female, 27, Spanish Harlem, product-development manager, single.
DAY 1
10:00 a.m.: Met ex at airport. Kissed and hugged. Kissed more.
12:00 p.m.: Car broke down. While waiting for AAA to show up, we played “I remember when” and she stroked my arms with very light tickles. We made plans for nookie later on in the day but got distracted by the car.
7:00 p.m.: After dinner we cuddled and watched some TiVo. Light tickles turned into heavy petting and then lots of kissing and full-body tickles. My shirt came off right away, and we were rolling on the floor making out and rubbing each other’s bodies. We very quickly ran to the bedroom. I pleased her first. And she liked it. I picked up some new finger tricks from my current Lady Friend (a friend with benefits) and used them on her. She liked them. Then she pleased me and we cuddled. I fell asleep almost immediately.
10:00 p.m.: Felt guilty about not telling my Lady Friend. I think she has feelings for me that she is not telling me about.
ByArianne Cohen
the sports section
Rangers Lose; New Yorkers Shrug
The Rangers’ season ended yesterday afternoon with a 5-4 loss to Buffalo in the NHL’s Eastern Conference semifinals at Madison Square Garden. You may or may not know this; it being a hockey game, you may not care. Indeed, New Yorkers seem to care about this so little that our mayor couldn’t even be bothered to bet a Junior’s cheesecake on the series. And that’s exactly why, we realized as we sat in the last row of the Garden yesterday, watching a handful of exultant Sabres fans, we were almost happy for the other guys: We New Yorkers, that is just didn’t want it. We didn’t need it. In Buffalo, the Sabres are a point of civic pride, perhaps the point. Here, the Rangers are a perpetual second fiddle. There’s football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring. Today’s tabloids tell you all you need to know: a couple of inches on the back page for the Blueshirts; the rest of the back cover and most of the front for Roger Clemens. When yesterday’s buzzer sounded, Rangers fans sighed, moved on, and shifted their attention to baseball. But in Buffalo it’s not so easy. If the Sabres lose, that’s it till football season. And we know how that tends to work out. —Joe DeLessio
intel
Biker Boychiks
If he was wearing a black leather yarmulke, Gil Paul, a fortysomething Jewish biker dad in black leather chaps and a black leather jacket, kept it under his stocking cap. Paul rode his tricked-out Harley Road Glide into town to participate in the Israel Day Parade with a dozen of his fellow Hillel’s Angels, a Jewish motorcycle club from Wyckoff, New Jersey. They rendezvoused at Temple Beth Rishon early Sunday and parked their kosher hogs at the marshaling point on East Broadway and Clinton Street, opposite the Young Israel orthodox shul on the Lower East Side. Then the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance — a contingent of 150 motorcycles made up of Jewish biker clubs from all over North America — kept on truckin’ to 57th Street, to join the parade down Fifth Avenue.
Mediavore
Restaurant I.D.-Theft Ring Exposed; Ted Nugent–Influenced CuisineWaiters in 40 restaurants formed a huge identity-theft ring, recording credit-card numbers and making $3 million in purchases. [Fox NY]
Donald Trump gets a sweetheart deal from the state to build Trump on the Ocean, a huge restaurant and banquet hall, on Jones Beach. [Newsday]
Chef J.J. Rachou is still feeling the sting from his Department of Health closure and can’t bring himself to reopen Brasserie LCB yet. “If you lift every can, you find a cockroach,” he says. [NYT]
announcements
Introducing VultureThere are innumerable places to find cultural coverage online, but there are very few, if we may be so bold, that do it right. This is why we’re so proud this morning to welcome our newest bloggy brother in New York’s brood: Vulture, your daily source for arts and entertainment news. Vulture soars both high and low; it’s perhaps the only site offering critical analysis of the latest fake memoir, an MP3 of the hottest indie-rock single, breaking news when your favorite performance artist straps a dog to his head, and YouTube videos of Joey Lawrence break dancing all in one spot. And it’s all presented with the magazine’s trademark smart and informed perspective on all the city’s cultural offerings. It’s written by Melissa Maerz, a former editor at Spin, and Dan Kois, a former literary agent and a film executive, and they’re waiting for you at nymag.com/vulture.
the morning line
Mike Goes Green
• After a long and suspenseful run-up, Mayor Bloomberg finally revealed his 25-year plan for “the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city.” On tap: enclosed highways, more green space, river cleanup — and $8 congestion charge. [NYT]
• Four Brooklyn policewoman have filed complaints against three of their superiors for allegedly calling them — you’re not going to believe this — “nappy-headed ho’s.” (As in: “Don’t give me no lip before I have to call you [one].”) Great: postmodernist slur use. [NYDN]
• A Mets fan is pleading not guilty to “interfering with a professional sporting event”; he has allegedly tried to blind two Atlanta Braves players with a flashlight. He’s represented by Legal Aid, which can always use a diversion, and faces a year in jail. [WNBC]
• Dina Matos McGreevey claims she had learned of her husband’s sexuality early on, perhaps by 2000. Also: The Post should really stop calling McGreevey “McG” lest Charlie’s Angels director McG sue. [NYP]
• And The Producers ended its Broadway run yesterday after 2,502 performances, leaving behind only fond memories. Well, and two movies. [amNY]
in other news
Who Loves Ya, Joe Bruno?
What a great week to be Joe Bruno, majority leader of the State Senate and Albany’s top Republican. First was a birthday — his 78th, on Sunday — and then came the “Thank You, Joe Bruno” campaign. Some evidently moneyed well-wishers, reports the Daily News, are praising the senator via newspaper ads and car stickers. And, last but not least, the same fans have disseminated a memo to state Republicans with instructions on how to thank Bruno properly and what to thank him for. (“Tens of thousands of new jobs for our children” is one example, because apparently the state GOP favors child labor.) With the FBI investigating his consulting business, his very tight relationships with campaign donors, and allegations of massively unethical quid pro quos, this has got to be the best week Bruno’s had since last December. So who’s the secret Santa? Not Bruno or anyone on his staff, the senator swears. “We’re trying to figure it out ourselves,” notes Jay Jochnowicz, the state editor at Albany’s Times Union, which printed one of the ads and is now tracking down the entity that placed it. “It’s pretty mysterious.” We’ll assume it’s the Democrats: After all, they’ve got to be thanking someone that the face of the Republican party in New York is Joe Bruno.
Bruno Has Some Secret Admirers [NYDN]
neighborhood watch
Downtown Graffiti Goes CommercialChelsea: Maritime partiers, take note: The Frying Pan, that “legendary party vessel,” has moved from Pier 63 a few blocks north to 66. [Curbed]
Downtown Brooklyn: City Council is in no rush to hold hearings about the future of the Duffield Street homes that may have been Underground Railroad stops. [The Daily Gotham via Gowanus Lounge]
Dumbo: Local megadeveloper Thomas Arden is the subject of a new adaption of the 1739 play Arden of Feversham, now titled The Lamentable Tragedie of a Dumbo Real Estate Mogul. [The Real Deal]
Greenpoint: Vice’s online video channel will run a new exposé on the toxic sludge that lies beneath the ground here and in Williamsburg. [VBS.tv via A Brooklyn Life]
Nolita: Seven graffiti artists are painting a fake subway car on Houston and Lafayette as guests of Adidas, much to anti-graffiti councilman Peter Vallone Jr.’s dismay. [Razor Apple and Newsday]
Soho: Has the city’s plan for a bike lane on Houston Street been quietly abandoned? [On NY Turf]
Neighborhood Watch
Tribeca’s 66 Turning Japanese in MayBedford-Stuyvesant: The list of what to drink at Thursday’s Wine & Cocktail Tasting fund-raiser includes Cockspur Rum and Beam Wines. [Bed-Stuy Gateway]
Chelsea: The Frying Pan, the vessel recovered from the bottom of the ocean and turned into a bar in the eighties, has moved over a couple of piers and requires some work. [NewYorkology]
Chinatown: Highgate Holdings will transform the Baxter Street Holiday Inn into a boutique hotel with a “hip” restaurant possibly from Tao’s Marc Packer or Richard Wolf of Stanton Social. [NYP]
East Village: The new Cooper Square hotel may get an outlet of L.A.’s Table 8. [Down by the Hipster]
Harlem: Arlene Weston’s Southern-Jamaican Maroon’s is expanding uptown to West 145th Street and may be open by June. [Uptown Flavor]
Tribeca: 66 will be turning Japanese in May. [Eater]
Williamsburg: The Brooklyn Kitchen will host a cupcake cook-off tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.; you may get handouts if bakers decide to bring more than the required six contenders. [Gothamist]
party lines
Skating With Mariska, Carson, Johnny, and the Kids
At last, an upside to this inconveniently truthy weather: an outdoor ice-skating party in April that felt as frigid as an ice-skating party ought to. “Skating With the Stars Under the Stars,” held at Central Park’s Wollman Rink last night, wasn’t a competition; it was a free-skate night benefiting Figure Skating in Harlem, a skating and educational program for girls, many of whom were on hand in snazzy ensembles to skate and get celeb autographs. The celeb contingent included lots of skaters — plus, of course, Mariska Hargitay. But the quotes of the night belonged to Carson Kressley and Johnny Weir; they’re after the jump.
