The clock is ticking as residents along the East Coast prepare to suffer the wrath of Hurricane Irene. Will it actually be as bad as everyone is saying? As you can see from these photos, lots of people are taking the "better safe than sorry" approach. So fire up your "Come on Irene" jokes (if you're the sort of person who would make one of those), board up all the windows, and prepare to loot your nearest grocery store. Irene is upon us!

This hurricane thing is really happening: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered a mandatory evacuation of New Yorkers in low-lying zones, while the MTA will shut down subway service at 2pm Saturday.

You hear about this hurricane that's headed up the East Coast? According to a variety of scientific and mathematical calculations, Hurricane Irene might completely drown New York City and much of the Eastern seaboard. It's a dire weather prediction geek-off.

There are states of emergency all up-and-down the East Coast.

Michael Pena, the off duty NYPD officer charged with raping a Manhattan woman last Friday night (not to be confused with the on-duty NYPD officers charged with raping a Manhattan woman) allegedly showed a gun, pulled the woman behind an apartment building, and raped her. Police arrived and found him still in the act, drunk, with his gun and badge next to him.

Things are going about as expected for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman when he decided to take on the full brunt of the White House and the largest megabanks in the country by trying to investigate the full load of their mortgage-related crimes over the past decade: Somewhat difficultly.

Male or female, gay or straight, it doesn't seem to matter: Basically all of Gotham is citing 30 Rock in their online dating profiles. Because talking about television is sure to get you laid!

Everyone thinks that their subway line is the slowest, smelliest death trap of garbled announcements and naked crazy people. They are wrong. But this year two trains did tie for the distinction of being the shoddiest in all of New York City.

A man in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights brought the terror that Shake-n-Quake '11 failed to deliver by allegedly stabbing four elderly people—three women and a man—with a ten-inch knife, killing the man. He also punched out a 22-year-old neighbor. Witnesses say he was "emotionally disturbed." Bit of an understatement there.

If you were a former three-term governor of New York and had dealt with all of Albany's crap for 12 years, wouldn't you hate politics and life so much that you'd want to go fishing or golfing or part-time corporate lobbying all the time, alone, while anxiously awaiting your death that just can't come soon enough? Yeah, you would! But if you're George Pataki, you apparently want to run for president. Hmm.

You know how much we love a time-lapse video of New York! Here's one of the work done on the 9/11 memorial between 2004 and 2011. Why doesn't this thing have the dramatic soundtrack and whirling lights we're used to?

Photographer Stephen Wilkes takes photos of the same spot in Manhattan for 10 hours and then blends the photos together in one seamless collage, giving the effect that it's one of those time-lapse videos all in one frame.

A tipster spied this September 11th memorial wine special at a New York City restaurant.

A federal judge has tossed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's class-action lawsuit accusing Bloomberg LLP of systematically discriminating against female employees who became pregnant.

In case you weren't sure, old guys proudly purchasing young girlfriends for many thousands of dollars with the help of the internet is a totally mainstream phenomenon, now. A Manhattan "mixer" for SeekingArrangement.com (ticket price: $80 for daddies, $40 for babies) drew 400 people on Monday night, the New York Post reports:

New York City already has four huge Apple stores, which are doing fine keeping the city's residents stocked with overpriced pieces of metal. But that's not good enough for Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz. He's begging Steve Jobs for an Apple Store.

There's a new(ish) trend happening, guys! At movie theaters. Soon gone will be the days of stale popcorn with chemical butter sauce and watery Diet Coke. Instead we'll be feasting upon croquettes and deviled eggs. Movie theaters are getting fancy.

Everyone loves a good roommate horror story. This one is a classic in the genre. What would you do if you got an email from your new roommate offering to cover some of your rent? Don't answer until you've read the whole email.

A city watched transfixed on Wednesday as a suicidal man dangled from the ledge of the 70th floor observation deck of Rockefeller Center. Thankfully, emergency workers got to him before he could jump. On Sunday, another despondent New Yorker tried to jump from a tourist destination — and this time, they succeeded.

A "friend" of George Soros says the 81-year-old Hungarian mogul used to make his Brazilian ex-girlfriend Adriana Ferreyr sit at the children's table during his Sunday brunches in the Hamptons—ostensibly because she's 28, which is very young.