New York City

The term speakeasy has long since been co-opted by over-eager publicists desperate to brand fledgling restaurants with some indie cred. But a venture that truly lives up to the title unfolded over the course of six weeks this spring inside one of the NYC skyline's ubiquitous features: the water tower. Dan Glass, writing for Atlantic Cities, took a look inside the secret space, which occupied a water tower in a Chelsea building that's currently under construction. The Night Heron, as it was dubbed, was the brainchild of N.D. Austin, whose urban exploration group Wanderlust Projects have taken daring adventurers on illicit explorations of the Domino Sugar Factory, among other off-limits sites. [ more › ]

NY Post – Moveover, Malibu — Barbie’s hunting for a dream house in Manhattan! Barbie is moving from her California mansion and embarking on a quest for new digs that could land her in a posh penthouse with Central Park views, makers of the doll say. Toymaker Mattel has hired a team of top-notch interior designers to create three “dream houses” — in New York, California and India — and will announce its choice in August. The Big Apple pad is a luxe pied-à-terre catering to a workingwoman, said its designer, Celerie Kemble. “Barbie is a strong, independent woman. She belongs in New York!” Kemble said. “Manhattan is the best of the best for Barbie.”  A rendering of the home features big windows overlooking Central Park and a spacious living room. “She’ll entertain in style with the power players of New York,” Kemble said. “It’s a place for her to meet with great minds.”  She added the pad is “more sophisticated” than Barbie’s three-story, 8,500-square-foot beachside Malibu home. Earlier this year, the doll’s marketing team created a story about Barbie’s big move from her famous pink palace. In the tale, Barbie packs up boxes — mostly full of shoes! — and puts up a for-sale sign on the house, for which she’s asking $25 million. Other finalist designs include a colorful California cabana designed by Trina Turk and a bungalow-style home in India by Lulu deKwiatkowski.  Barbie’s VP of marketing, Lori Pantel, said the story reflects the doll’s evolution as an independent woman. “As a workingwoman with over 135 careers, Barbie is proud to have a Manhattan home,” Pantel said. “It’s a glamorous work space to host movers and shakers.” First of all, lets cut the shit with this idea that Barbie is moving to fucking India. Yea, the smokeshow blonde with 135 careers and $25 million is gonna move to Hyderabad. COME ON! I hate to be rude here but Barbie wouldn’t last one day in India without being raped. And last time I checked that is an instant killer to your brand. Plain and simple Barbie ain’t living in a fucking bungalow in a third world country with Untouchables and people shitting in the streets. The only natural choice for Barbie to continue to grow her image is to come to Manhattan. She’s already conquered Malibu. That West Coast, So Cal, laid back living can only take you so far. Time for Barbie to go corporate in NYC. Become some power bitch in a pants suit who makes her male assistants eat her box on command. Just dominate the working world. Discriminate against fat women and minorities. Become a pretty harsh alcoholic with an addiction to Prozac to calm her down when she goes home. She sleeps around and fucks all the big dogs in the industry but still holds all the cards. Never loses power. Goddam. Thats one sexy fucking Barbie, no? Like Barbie riding a fucking donkey in a Sari can compete with the picture I just painted. For sure not.

Curbed – Whether they’re “misunderstood icons” or “a rustic, turn of the century nod to convenience and practicality,” no one can deny that water towers are ubiquitous in New York City. Perched atop virtually every rooftop, they’re a necessity that provide water for both residences and fire departments, taking advantage of gravity to funnel water into buildings’ upper stories. But thanks to the innovative, totally ballsy folks over at Night Heron Speakeasy, Atlantic Cities reports, one (unused) aboverground cavern in a Chelsea building under construction temporarily found a new lease on life: as an illicit, invite-only watering hole. The exact location was discreet; space were limited; stair-climbing was required and thus heels were discouraged. Because of the off-limits nature of water towers, patrons were de facto trespassers. This was the latest initiative from an intrepid urban explorer-cum-entrepreneur who loves to make new use of abandoned places and is also involved with the Wanderlust Projects, which took people on a behind-the-scenes tour of Williamsburg’s Domino factory earlier this year. Building the space took three months; it operated for six weeks this spring. Let’s allemail the speakeasy to try and get them to restart the project in a new location; in the meantime, work up a thirst (and some serious envy for those folks who got to go) with some photos of this top-secret circular bar with stellar skyline views. Listen if there’s one thing I hate, its giving people a hard time for the way they drink. Like when I tell people I just drink Bud Light or whatever standard bottled beer there is, and micro brew craft beer tough guys tell me I’m pathetic, it drives me insane. You wanna drink weird flavored beers for their hops and their barley and whatever, go for it. Why do you feel the need to crusade against Bud Light when I tell you I don’t like that shit? You wanna get drunk off of wine or girly liquor? Enjoy. I fuck with that stuff all the time now that I’m getting old and hungover. You wanna drink bottles at the club? Thats cool too. I like wings and beer but if you like bottles and cocktails on a rooftop somewhere, I am not gonna knock it. At the end of the day we’re all just trying to get drunk and get laid anyway, so who really cares how you get there? But that being said, you are a fucking asshole if you’re climbing the rooftops of NYC buildings to drink inside of water towers. Climbing ladders and walking through decrepit hallways and shafts all so that you can drink inside of a giant barrel. What a bunch of hipster dickheads. Hey idiots! You know why they needed speakeasies? Because of fucking prohibition! The reason they were in shitty hidden hole in the wall bars is because they couldn’t be in a normal fucking bar. You think they thought it was “cool” or “rustic?” Fuck no.They thought it was hidden from police and if they didn’t have to do it, they would be in a normal bar. Bottom line is nobody in their right mind wants to drink inside a giant wooden barrel on a roof unless they are explicitly trying to be different or unique. And that is one scenario where I can most certainly criticize someone for the way they drink.

It's 352 pages. Sweet peas! Officially, it's a staggering 161 days between now and the publication date of the Gramercy Tavern Cookbook on October 29, but we're nonetheless excited to get a glimpse of the long-awaited book's cover. The deal was announced two years ago this week, and since then, well, we've been waiting patiently for the 125-recipe book, which will clock in at 352 pages of wisdom and instruction from chef Michael Anthony and official Gramercy Tavern "history" penned by Danny Meyer. We also know there's a recipe for sweet peas, and we can't wait. [Amazon, Earlier, Related] Read more posts by Hugh MerwinFiled Under: bookshelf, danny meyer, gramercy tavern, gramercy tavern cookbook, michael anthony

Kingston Lounge photographer and urban explorer, "Richard Nickel, Jr.," recently got inside the abandoned Baggage and Dormitory Building on Ellis Island, and has returned with a dark history lesson as well as a nice spread of photos from the inside. [ more › ]

Chef, author, and stylish man-about-town Marcus Samuelsson on one of his favorite neighborhood spots, Charles' Country Pan Fried Chicken: "People are there all day. I have a little bit of collard greens and a little bit of peas and then I go over and watch basketball. There's a legendary outdoor basketball court here in Harlem where basketball players like Kobe Bryant go in the summer to play with the street guys. It's one of my favorite things." [Paper]

Pres posted this on Friday afternoon so I know a lot of people saw it but I feel like a lot might have missed it on a Friday afternoon. The reason I’m reposting it is twofold – 1) Despite the fact that you’re all borderline retarded people, the commenters actually provided some solid feed back that we took into consideration. We’re gonna look into doing it in a bar, looking into guests, girls, new segments etc etc. So any more suggestions or feedback is welcome again here. 2) Lot of people are assuming this is just the end of KFC Radio. That Pres shut down my show and cuckolded me and shit. Not the case. Me and Pres have been talking about this for months. As it took time to materialize I started to recap blogs on KFC Radio and started interviewing guests and what not just to keep it growing. But I’m more than happy to transfer that idea over to this Barstool TV format. There’s no denying the fact that having us in the same room with multiple cameras is 100,000,000 times better than talking over each other on Google Hangouts. So the way I see it is this – the Bro Show is gonna be the new Stool project to try to blow this site up into the mainstream. Get bigger guests and create content that appeals to a more general audience. That means recapping the viral stories and viral videos that people from all over the internet are gonna wanna watch. Not just Stoolies. Thats the thing about KFC Radio and Pres’ original videos he makes up in Boston – if you don’t know us, you don’t care about those episodes or videos. Hopefully Barstool TV will change that. Hopefully we can appeal to a much broader audience. Meanwhile, KFC Radio lives on as a show for the diehard Stoolies. We’ll continue with your voicemails and all sorts of deranged questions about putting your kids in the microwave and fighting midgets and all the other wacky stuff we’ve talked about over the last year. Think of it like Bro Show being the higher quality TV show you like, while KFC Radio is the weird ass shit you’ll watch late on premium cable where absolutely anything goes. The thing is, when voicemail quality was slacking, I tried to fill in the gaps with blog recaps. So you guys need to make sure voicemail quality stays as high as it did back a few months ago since I wont be doing that anymore. If you’re a KFC Radio fan and want it to continue on, call the hotline and help keep it going: 646-80-STOOL (646-807-8665) Or tweet @KFCRadio with content for our next show. But the key to it lasting while I travel back and forth from Boston every week now is making sure you guys give me enough to work with.

The city sold the piano, an out-of-tune Mason & Hamlin Model BB from 1965, in a surplus auction to a buyer from California. A bench was included in the sale.

Photo via Facebook When artists Cheri Pann and Gonzalo Duran bought their home in the eccentric beach enclave of Venice, Calif., they knew they had to do something to liven up the blah, beige stucco. Their plan? Deck every surface with crushed tile, mirror, coffee mugs, and more, ultimately concocting the nuttiest, most vibrant house remodel the state has ever seen (yet). Since the duo began their creation in 1994, the Mosaic Tile House, which was open to the public for the neighborhood's recent Art Walk & Auctions event, has seen countless pieces of chipped garage-sale pottery (tea cups, figurines, and more) sacrificed for the greater good, not to mention visitors stopping by to check out what has become a symbol of the area's idiosyncratic flavor. "It's never too much," Duran once told the L.A. Times.. "You can't go ordinary on top of spectacular. You have to keep trying something different." Photos via The Mosaic Tile House ↑ The kitchen, complete with chipped, chunky open shelving and a mosaicked ceiling and breakfast table. During the renovation, Duran spent eight to 12 hours every weekend adding to the masterpiece, which, by the way, includes a bench made from a converted bathtub (below). Photos via The Mosaic Tile House The L.A. Times described it best when it profiled the place in 2003: "The Mosaic Tile House, as it is called, has shades of Antonio Gaudi's spectacular spires, the Watts Towers and the Emerald City, complete with yellow brick—well, tile—road [...] Brightly hued mosaic tiles, figurines, miniature tea sets and smashed-up plates are cemented onto walls, inside and out. Coffee mugs, handles poking out for the grabbing, line window frames. What was once the front lawn is coated in shards of mirror, handmade tiles and pieces of garage sale pottery, in vivid yellows, reds, greens and blues." · Let there be color [L.A. Times] · Mosaic tile house open for Venice Art Walk [L.A. Times]

Current and former employees of Wolfgang Puck Catering and Events filed a class action lawsuit against the company in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday for allegedly withholding tip money. The massive company has been charging a 22 percent service fee to all of its clients, which range from big-name companies like Google and Rolling Stone to venues like Irving Plaza and the Gramercy Theater. But servers and bartenders for the company apparently haven't seen a penny of that tip money, nor have they been paid for the up to 30 hours of overtime they worked per week. Worse, the Post reports that this is not the first time a member of the Puck family has been caught skimming from the tip jar. The group's sister company, Restaurant Associates, was just involved in a similar class action back in 2011 for witholding tips from employees who worked at the US Open in Queens. · Wolfgang Puck catering firm slammed for skimming tips [NY Post] · All Coverage of Lawsuits [~ENY~]