The Whitney, being so modern, has joined forces with The Gap, the founders of which talked about opening their own museum just last summer. The retailers aren't quite trying to set up shop in the new downtown outlet, but they are getting their T's imprinted with famous artist designs thanks to the museum (and the nonprofit Art Production Fund). The Artist Editions T-Shirts feature 13 contemporary artists who were previous Whitney Biennial participants: Chuck Close,......

Last night was the star-studded, couture-clad Costume Institute Gala at the Met; the theme was "superheroes," to accompany the museum's latest Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy exhibit. J. Lo commented on her own superhero ensemble, saying, "the only thing I could think of was Wonder Woman with my cuffs." Scarlett Johansson sort of showed off her rock, Beyonce paraded her independence -- coming without a wedding ring or Jay-Z, and Gisele Bündchen expressed her desire to......

Renderings of the Whitney downtown provided by the Whitney Museum. In March it was announced that The Whitney received a generous donation from Leonard A. Lauder (to the tune of $131 million). The donation came with a caveat -- they wouldn't be able to sell their Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue; however, it looks like they received the funding they needed to move forward with a satellite museum in the Meatpacking District. The......

Following the announcement of a $100 million donation for the New York Public Library, The Whitney has just announced their own sugar daddy: Leonard A. Lauder. Lauder is the chairman of Estée Lauder cosmetics, and through his American Contemporary Art Foundation he'll be donating $131 million (the largest donation the museum has received in 77 years, and one of the largest ever to a New York museum’s endowment). Endowment donations are notoriously difficult to solicit,......

Costumed performers and tour guides are fighting for unionization at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, where they work to recreate the squalid living conditions of turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants, the very group that was integral to 20th century unionization efforts. Dozens of the tenement employees protested last night outside a fundraiser for the museum at Chelsea Piers. Most of the guides work part time for an average $17 per hour, with no regular pay increases,......

Congratulations, America! You're having less sex than almost anyone else! According to the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey, Americans get it on less often than most, with only 53% having regular, weekly action (and with only 44% actually reporting being satisfied with their sex lives). In fact, the average American gets it on only slightly more often than the Japanese who were at the bottom of the list. Greeks preferred to be on top with......

"The Blue Wall of Violence" courtesy of MoCADA Yesterday, The Daily News printed an article that began, "A cop-bashing art exhibit at a taxpayer-funded museum in Brooklyn portrays the city's Finest as trigger-happy racists who have put bull's-eyes on the backs of black New Yorkers." The exhibit is a retrospective of the artist Dread Scott's work called "Welcome to America," and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is calling the paper out......

MOVIE: After Marion Cotillard took home the gold for best actress in La Vie en Rose last Sunday, French cinema is sure to be all the rage. Today the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2008 series kicks off with a screening of Roman de gare (pictured). Buy tickets and get the schedule here. Friday// 6:30 and 9pm // Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts [70 Lincoln Center Plaza] // $12 (stand......

The art world is breathing a sigh of relief today as the announcement of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's director stepping down was announced. For many, Thomas Krens has been more of a dictator than director; with a focus on franchising a "McGuggenheim" business over exhibiting modern art or focusing on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building itself.The Guggenheim flagship -- one of New York's top tourist attractions -- was falling apart. (Its crumbling facade is......

Fifteen years ago today, a truck packed with explosives detonated under a tower at the World Trade Center. While it failed to knock down the towers (the parking garage suffered the most damage), six people were killed and over a thousand injured. A retired Port Authority official, Peter Caram, spoke about the first bombing with amNY and said, "The country as a whole was never put on a security alert [after the '93 bombing]. We......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

Back in 2004 we talked to KEXP deejay John Richards, who was here broadcasting from the (then named) Museum of Television and Radio. KEXP is a Seattle listener-supported station, but while they're based in the Pacific Northwest, they are heard worldwide via their online stream. This month came the announcement of Radio Liberation, a collaboration between KEXP and Radio New York. Launching on March 24th the station "will air KEXP-produced programming Monday through Friday on......

EVENT: The Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Sale is going on all weekend, so now is the time to go searching for that first edition you've been wanting on your bookshelf. You'll also find out of print books, maps and much more! Friday through Sunday // P.S. 3 [490 Hudson St] // Three-day pass $12 ART: Monday's interviewee, James Top, shows off his work tonight at the opening of his first solo NYC show, titled......

Buildings, clockwise from upper left corner: Prada Store Soho, American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center, Hearst Building, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Morgan Library expansion, Apple Store Soho, Conde Nast Building, and Seagram Building; in the center, Grand Central Terminal interior and the Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building. The Seagram Building. The Apple Store Soho? The Center for Architecture's executive director Rick Bell made a list of 10 great buildings to see in New......

Photos via the Guggenheim Museum. Everyone's bursting with anticipation for the opening of Cai Guo-Qiang's new exhibit at the Guggenheim; the site-specific installation serves as a mid-career retrospective and is now just four short days away from being unveiled. The NY Times has a lengthy profile of the artist (who has lived in New York since 1995) which begins with this insight: "his favorite artistic moment is the pregnant pause between the lighting of......

On Tuesday, the New York City Transit Museum opened a small exhibit dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of Metro-North Railroad in its Annex at Grand Central Terminal. It features some artifacts from both the pre-MTA takeover (which created Metro-North) days to today and provides a Cliffs Notes version on how the railroad that serves the northern suburbs and Connecticut operates. It also touches, albeit a bit too briefly, on how the railroad is like the......

MUSIC: Of course we're going to recommend you come hang out with us tonight at our 5 year anniversary show. Come on by and check out Pattern is Movement and The Forms, along with a special guest band at midnight. On top of all that, you'll get Craig Wedren deejaying between sets. What more could you ask for? Buy tickets here. Friday // 9pm // Union Hall [702 Union St, Park Slope] // $10......

The February edition of the MTA’s monthly television show, Transit Transit (Saturdays, 3:30 p.m., WNYE 25) , has a segment about Marvin Franklin, the NYC Transit Authority track inspector who was killed last year in an on the job accident in Brooklyn. The piece talks with some artists who knew Franklin and his co-workers and covers the opening of an exhibition of his work at the New York City Transit Museum in December. In case......

Get ready to groan: "I look forward to 'Phase Two' of the 'blinging up' of the Parachute Jump," said inveterate cornball Marty Markowitz during his recent State of the Borough speech. The 262-foot Coney Island landmark was retrofitted with a lighting system two years ago, but borough president Markowitz and others deemed the effect too subdued and “artsy.” Now the city is soliciting proposals from companies to create a flashier effect. $1.5 million has been......

MUSIC: Come enjoy the Whitney after dark tonight as the museum's live showcase series invites Dan Deacon (pictured) to the stage. If you haven't seen Deacon before, get ready for some Casio keyboard electro-rock compositions and an art dance party. Friday // 7pm // Whitney Museum [945 Madison Ave] // Pay what you want EVENT: The Moth Story Shop presents “The One that Got Away: Stories from South Street Seaport” tonight. The following storytellers will......

ART: "Drawing Art and Politics" seems like a fitting event to have on the calendar today. "Spend an evening with New York’s renowned graphic artists Jules Feiffer, David Levine, Stan Mack, and Edward Sorel, as they examine the ways in which complex social and political issues are depicted by artists in today’s media. Jules Feiffer will moderate a discussion that explores the roots of political art and social realism in the context of John Sloan’s......

This weekend marks the start of many pre-Lunar New Year Festivities in the city. The New Year begins on February 7 (more information here), and there will be the firecracker ceremony and cultural festival in Chatham Square on that day, plus the Lunar New Year Parade and Festival in Chinatown on February 10. There is also a Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing on February 9. Today through Monday, the Museum of Chinese in America......

Kanye Crashes a Museum Party Well this was unexpected! Not afraid to wear a fur coat to the Natural History Museum, Kanye West made a surprise appearance at last Friday's Cool Kids/Kid Sister party. As Kid Sister was finishing up her set, Kanye jumped up on stage to throw in his part of their duet. He then stayed up there to play a short set of all his current hits. DJ A-Trak claimed it to......

ART: The Bronx Museum of Art is getting on board the First Friday bandwagon. They'll be opening their doors every first Friday of the month for free, and add a little something extra each time. Tonight their theme is “Say it Loud! I’m Black & I’m Proud” in celebration of Black History Month. There will be a tribute to the late James Brown, and a showcase of independent artists paying tribute to black music. Friday......

FOOD: Those with a taste for expensive ham and the means to pay for it will be tantalized by tonight’s one-night-only 5 course tasting menu at Suba, a Spanish restaurant on the Lower East Side. Chef Seamus Mullen has obtained the prized “Rolls Royce of Ham” – Jamón Ibérico – and will be offering it tonight with Ossabaw Island hogs and Iberian wine. There are just a few seatings still available for tonight's event, which......

Photograph of a section of the Texaco map by Sybil Young/NYC Parks & Recreation For the 1964-1965 World's Fair, architect Philip Johnson designed the New York State Pavillion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Besides the well-known observation towers (think Men in Black) and the Theaterama, he commissioned a "130-foot-by-166-foot terrazzo replica of a Texaco New York State road map." However, after vandalism and weather, the past decades have damaged the map to the point......

MOVIE: Every national election year reminds us of that part in The Dark Crystal where the hideous Skeksis systematically drain the Gelfling’s “essence” and drink it to increase their power. If you don’t know the scene we’re talking about, you need to go see it on the big screen tonight – a regular-sized TV monitor just doesn’t do Jim Henson’s creepy masterpiece justice. The one-night-only screening will be introduced by one of the film’s puppet......

Though there's a "tentative deal" for President Bush's proposed economic stimulus plan in D.C., Mayor Bloomberg thinks it's a bad idea. During a speech last night (accepting an award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors), he outlined why the package was a problem. From the NY Sun:The $145 billion proposal being negotiated centers around the idea of providing several hundred dollars in tax rebates to individuals and families in a bid to spur the economy......

Above, photograph of Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson and Scaled Composites' Burt Rutan in front of a model; below thumbnail is a rendering of the WhiteKnight At the American Museum of Natural History yesterday, British entrepreneur Richard Branson unveiled the aircraft for his Virgin Galactic space travel venture and promised, "2008 is really going to be the year of the spaceship." Scaled Composites (which designed the spaceplane, SpaceShipOne, that had a human-piloted space flight a......

FOOD: Drinking With the Professor: a Look at Jerry Thomas and His Liquid Legacy: Join cocktail maestro Dave Wondrich as he shares recipes from his latest book, Imbibe! plus a few that were cut in the editing process. Wondrich has an in-depth knowledge of nineteenth-century classic cocktails, so step up and taste the benefits. - Laren Spirer Friday // 6:30pm // Astor Culinary Center [399 Lafayette St] // $75, tickets available online THEATER: As you......