We're used to videos of New York being sped up with the flashing lights of time-lapse movies, but this video of Brooklyn does the opposite and slows everything down. God, it's so like Brooklyn to be contrary.

At the height of the Second World War, FDR gave a stirring radio address in which he reassured the American public that "no matter how dark the hour, we can take great comfort in knowing that an overpriced gym chain will eventually capitalize on it a decade later with some self-serving, bullshit coupon they damn well know no one will ever use." And what do you know? History has once again gone and repeated itself. Congrats, New York Sports Clubs! You are true patriots, through and through.

George Soros, Al Gore's favorite billionaire, was sued for $50 million in Manhattan yesterday by his ex-girlfriend, Brazilian soap star Adriana Ferreyr. She claims that Soros reneged on his promise to give her a $1.9 million New York apartment and that he beat her.

In an announcement serendipitously timed to coincide with the last, gasping vestiges of what once was the American dream, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the Statue of Liberty will close down until further notice for some desperately needed repairs.

Thousands of New York tourists and office workers watched in horror on Wednesday afternoon as a distraught 23-year-old man dangled 70 stories above Rockefeller Plaza, threatening to jump onto the site of the famed skating rink below. The man wore "an American flag bandana on his face and...a tie," and had "several bags, one of which has a jug of water, and was handing policemen letters with...messages on them," Gothamist reports. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader Questlove also noted via Twitter, "holy lord—-why is this on the camera feed like in HD?!!?!?!?? like i can see his nose hair! wtf!," later adding, "Whew!!!!! They got him!!!!!!!!! Now beat his ass for ruining my lunch."

Now you can own the very pot Alec Baldwin refuses to shit or get off of. The 30 Rock star is unloading his 3,000 square-foot apartment in the El Dorado on Central Park West. Asking price? $9,500,000.

Here's a vintage 1962 filmstrip about all the technology and innovation in New York City. How exciting and Don Draper! Too bad most of the video is about an insurance company changing offices. Wake me up when we're in the bankrupt '70s.

Alec Baldwin is not running for mayor of New York. But he might in the future. God, this guy needs to make up his mind. He's running for Congress, then he's not running for Congress. He's interested in running for office and then he's running for mayor, and now he's not. We don't care anymore.

When the subway pulls into your station, you never know what you're going to find. You might end up sitting next to a passed out junkie in a wheelchair, you might get stuck on the dreaded "stinky car," or, worst of all, there might be a bunch of tacky assholes who took over the train with their party.

A year and a half after dumping longtime boyfriend Tim Robbins, actress Susan Sarandon is moving. What's she getting for her $1.75 million? A nicely-sized one-bedroom with a terrace, not to mention a great location in the Village "just a few blocks from SPiN, a ping-pong bar/eatery in which Miz Sarandon is an investor." An investor, yes, of money, but also of her heart: Sarandon is, of course, dating the youthful table-tennis entrepreneur Aaron Bricklin, one of the club's founders. The living room is 374 square feet—it'd be snug, but you could definitely fit a ping pong table there. [Real Estalker; photo of Sarandon & Bricklin via Bauer Griffin]

"Chronicles of the A train. Chronicles of the A train," says the world-weary straphanger after witnessing this severely one-sided "fight" that is today's entry into the hefty catalog of recent subway insanity. I bet what would help to not have a clearly insane and/ or intoxicated man get his ass beat by the most frustrated of an entire train car's worth of frustrated riders is to shut the train doors more frequently than once every four minutes. That would deprive us all of our day's unsettling voyeurism, though.

Singer-songwriter and frequent American Idol muse Gavin DeGraw is in Bellevue Hospital after being "viciously assaulted by multiple attackers" in NYC late Sunday night, TMZ reports. DeGraw lives in NYC. UPDATE: The Post has more details.

"I never gave up hope. I prayed, meditated, and now he's with us again," 47-year-old Bonni Marcus said upon being reunited beloved monkey doll Bongo, who went missing in Park Slope last week. Bonni and monkey doll dad Jack Zinzi the toy from monkey doll rescuer Luis Barreto's Park Slope apartment on Saturday. The New York Post reports:

Here's a New York Post EXCLUSIVE that will shock you: An Upper East Side mom named Elissa Drassinower was banned from Fairway Market for accidentally walking out of the store without paying for a half-gallon of milk and some beer. It appears that she put the items underneath her baby carriage because the "handbasket was getting so heavy." She forgot to pay for the beverages and walked out of the store, leading a guard to accuse her of shoplifting. Drassinower was then slapped with a lifetime ban from the store. And that's not all! A security guard even took her picture.

"You can't keep a good creative down," as the old saying goes. When pushed out of their community by covert gentrification, overt invasion, and other insidiousnesses, good creatives will simply move elsewhere and establish new, even more authentic communities. This is how the Land of NoBro came to pass.

In a motion to dismiss a court case this week, we learned that a woman is suing Planet Sushi on New York's Upper West Side. Why? Because she thinks there was semen in the spicy sauce that came alongside a delivery order of tuna rolls. Per the filing:

Rupert Murdoch came outside his NYC apartment building, looked up, saw a peacock, and was like,

Old lady Aniston has somehow managed to sink her gnarled old hooks into actor/writer Justin Theroux, and though she just recently bought a bachelorette pad for herself, rumor has it she's shopping for a Manhattan townhouse she can share with her man.

Occasional Tea Party pitchman Jimmy McMillan, otherwise known as the "Rent Is Too Damn High" guy, is now battling his landlord over the rent on his St. Marks Place apartment, for which he pays $872.96 per month. McMillan told the Post he's had the place since 1977, and that his rent back then was around $275. "Maybe the landlord doesn't know, but he can't bulldog me because I know the law," he told the paper. His landlord is apparently arguing that the St. Marks Place apartment is not McMillan's primary residence because he keeps an apartment in Brooklyn that doubles as his party HQ. McMillan says that his landlord just wants to get more money from a new tenant (!!!). Good luck with all that, and welcome to the real world, Jimmy.

Actress and noted hostage-taker Faye Dunaway says she can't be evicted from her rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment because she doesn't even live there. Dunaway claims that her slumlord "refused to paint the house, and bugs were everywhere." Rich people. [NYT]