[Crooner lothario John Mayer in the Soho (South Of Houston) section of New York State's New York City yesterday; image via INF]

[A to-scale rendering of the planned Burj Dubai skyscraper (to be built in the United Arab Emirates) if it were plopped down in a pre-9/11 lower Manhattan. The building will be some 160 stories high, towering nearly a half a mile above the sand and the oil and the poem islands. It will be a full Chrysler building taller than the current record holder in Taipei. NYT via Media Assassin. Click through (please) for larger image.]

Ryan McGinnis's sweeping panorama of Manhattan is available for licensing at a definition as high as 25162 x 3830, enough detail to wallpaper an entire room. The image is stitched together from 20 separate photos taken from Jersey City. One suggestion: snap the photos from a boat going up the Hudson so that the Midtown skyscrapers (to the left) don't look quite so pathetic.

New York Magazine is now offering year-long subscriptions for less than $13. That's a quarter an issue—cheaper than the price of the Post, for chrissakes! Conscience demands that New York raise its price, just for the sake of Will Leitch's reputation.

Being an eccentric in New York City was once much easier. In the 1970s, the city was crumbling into bankruptcy and awash in crime, and rents were cheap. Painters, performance artists and other quirky types could afford lofts in SoHo. They could take off their clothes in nightclubs and feel perfectly at ease. Today, an increasingly bourgeois New York is comfortable mainly for the polished and the well-to-do. Precious few real eccentrics can afford to remain in the city, even if they wanted to be surrounded by so many squares. Those still here remain a fascination for New Yorkers who pine for the old city even as it disappears. So last month we asked Gawker readers to help us track down some of the most bizarre characters remaining in New York. And you found plenty! With the weekend and Gay Pride parade nearly upon us, the time seems right to show you the results (not that gays are eccentric or anything!). Here are Gotham's 50 greatest modern eccentrics - people like Black Cherokee, the Time Keeper and Toth. Cat-Head Couple, Versace Liberace and Earth Angel. Half before the jump, half after.

Well, we now know why Kirsten Dunst is in town. The actress is filming a movie with Ryan Gosling (and Kristen Wiig!) called All Good Things, a mystery about a missing person and a New York real estate heir. They were shooting in the mostly Giuliani-ified neighborhood of midtown Manhattan today, though the film crew did seedy up the 'hood a bit, turning popular lunch spot Go Go Curry into a place called Body Rub Parlor. Click through for larger image of the new facade.

The former elevated railroad-which stretches from the nightclubs of the horrific Meatpacking District past Google's headquarters in Manhattan through towards the old media towers of Midtown-is to become a park. But plans for the planted promenade-released today-include only one patch of grass, at 23rd Street, where the High Line widens. [New York Times]

Every day, the city of New York loses another soul who's like, "Fuck this, I'm out of here. Austin will be so much better!" Page Six magazine-r Joshua Stein found someone's moving-out-of-New York "To Do" list on the sidewalk. Hey, don't forget to do something about "Jen's wine"—and return those blue jeans! Part two of the note: "How to get people to help you." You'll want to click for this folksy wisdom.

"'Sounds like I've got $4 million coming my way,' the Naked Cowboy, whose real name is Robert Burck, told The Post upon learning of Manhattan federal Judge Denny Chin's decision." [Post]

Do you remember Alex McCord? Of course you do. She's the Real Housewives of New York City reality show star with the sorta-gay husband who likes to pose nude a lot. If she was one of your favorites on RHoNY, fear not. She and hubby Simon and their two poor bastard fake French children will be stomping around Boerum Hill for the show's second season. Never mind that the pair were painted as status-hungry buffoons on the first season; filming begins soon for the second, and Silex are excited:

[Street performers on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, 1959. From the fantastic 'New York in Black & White' gallery at Wired New York]

"I walked through Union Square on my way to acting class and got offered loose joints. Drug dealing was a great tradition in this city. There are other traditions people can get involved with in this city. When I was younger, I used to get a bottle of wine and get drunk under the Staten Island Ferry... so there are things like that you can do." — Actor Alec Baldwin, at a PETA event last night, suggesting alternatives to the "traditional" New York tourist experience of riding a horse-drawn carriage. [Showbiz Spy]

Back in the old days, man, downtown was so much better. So much realer. So raw. In fact, it was so real that we had to paddle a canoe across it. (The pic on the left is of Collect Pond in the early 1800s, which as you can see from the map on the right, was where downtown is today.) Click to enlarge. [via The Bowery Boys: NYC History]

A renovation of a grand Fifth Avenue apartment by a very creative architectual designer, Eric Clough, resulted in a scavenger-hunt puzzle being built into the place. The apartment—for a young family—was secretly outfitted by the designer with coded messages, scrolls, and and an original mystery book that gave clues. It was a magical game for the kids to solve—and the parents didn't even know it was being built into their house! Who was asked to be involved? And who turned it down? Why, Brooklyn novelist Jonathan Safran Foer.

NEA chairman Dana Gioia: "You can now live in Santa Fe and e-mail your New York agent every day." [AP, Times]

and buying America! (They scrapped out of their $2 billion stake a mere six years later; so much for that.) Also: the Italians have already bought the Flatiron building, and Israelis the Lipstick building—yet still, the city soldiers on. Anyway, according to the Post re: the Chrysler Building, "Sources say the deal would leave Tishman Speyer in charge of the building, with the Abu Dhabi fund essentially acting as a silent partner." [NY Post]

Via email: "Just got out of the subway at 23rd and Park. The cops have closed off the area in anticipation that another crane may fall. The thing was wobbling back and forth as the wind from the coming storm threw it around. Debris and dust flying all over the place." [Previously, Previously]

Cranes collapsing! Threatened power outages! Scary parades full of rowdy Spanish-speaking people! Manhattan's East Side is a veritable third-world country this week! Now, our Midtown East correspondent Ray Wert reports that, uh, "boulder-sized pieces of buildings" are falling from his apartment onto cars below. Seriously! A piece fell onto a BMW 3-Series (he edits Jalopnik, you know). His only advice is to avoid both the area and East Coast Restoration. MORE DETAILS HERE. WE WILL UPDATE AS THE SITUATION WARRANTS. STAY INDOORS. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS. IMAGE OF THE DISASTER HERE AND BELOW.

"More than one-fourth of adult New Yorkers — 26 percent, compared to the national average of 19 percent — are infected with herpes simplex virus 2, the virus that causes genital herpes, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced on Monday." [Times]

A lightning bolt struck the Empire State Building in midtown Manhattan last night, sending debris flying. Sadly, the violent storm did nothing to lower temperatures, which are in the mid 90's today. Image via Splash.