Could today's Beijing be what New York City was at the turn of the 20th Century? According to this article in Vanity Fair, there are certainly many similarities to draw upon. Kurt Andersen starts off noting the correspondences between population growth and development of city infrastructure. In 1904 New York's first subway line opened. Likewise, Beijing's new subway system is spreading out at a breathtaking pace (a point which subway fanatic and Beijingologist, David Feng,......

Any fan of electronic music in China has heard of Antidote. Headed by DJ Ozone, aka Michael Ohlsson, Antidote is a crew of electronic musicians and DJs based in Shanghai. This Thursday April 17th at The Shelter, they're introducing a new party-as-concept: City Sound Sessions. Michael explains. What is City Sound Sessions? City Sound Sessions is almost a nostalgic look at a vanishing music culture. At our events, the DJs will play music that represents......

Photograph of investigation at Times Square recruiting center by kerfuffle & zeitgeist on Flickr Gothamist found that an explosive set off outside the Times Square army recruiting center may be similar to five past bombings in New York City.Seattlest worried when severed right feet and bottles of rat poison started washing up on local beaches.Shanghaiist was surprised by Bjork's rooting for Tibetan independence at her concert (see video), and the political fallout has only......

In Paris, New York City and the Hague: In Singapore, Manila and London: In Honolulu, San Francisco and Melbourne:......

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hilary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

Photograph of memorial outside Heath Ledger's NYC apartment Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the Super Bowl, but damn! The New Kids are reuniting!Although Sylvester Stallone is a native of New York City, his Rocky character lets many Philadelphians consider him a native son......

By Michael Ohlsson It's 1987 in my family’s suburban California home. I've just started high school. I'm in my bedroom making a mix tape. I'm trying to mix Afrika Bambaataa's “Planet Rock” with Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express” (the original song that is sampled in Planet Rock). In the room next to mine, my little punk sister is listening to crap my hip hop friends and I make fun of, like the Sex Pistols and Violent Femmes.......

Someone told us recently that there was a new Mexican burrito place called Cal Kitchen that opened up not that long ago on Dagu Lu, and being long-time residents of California, we decided to see if it lived up to its billing as place for authentic Californian/Mexican food. Long story short, it doesn't. We ordered a big chicken burrito that in better days, might have been a contender—but as it was, it was a soggy......

There isn't a live music update this week, but it's art shows galore TONIGHT. Three picks that aren't in your conventional Moganshan Lu / Taikang Lu destinations. ART LABOR GALLERY, from 5pm 10–36 Yongjia lu by Maoming Lu (永嘉路10-36号，近茂名路) Phone: 6431 7782, info@artlaborclub.com, www.artlaborgallery.com Art photographer Yuichi Hibi from New York City presents a selection of his works from his internationally acclaimed book imprint. Influenced by film noir and described by critics as “weirdly charged......

Jakob Montrasio points us to a most unbelievable ranking of the world's top 25 cities with skyscrapers published by the German magazine Spiegel: 1: Hongkong, China. 7422 skyscrapers. 2: New York City, USA. 5445 skyscrapers. 3: Singapore 3503 skyscrapers. 4 million people. 4: São Paulo, Brazil. 3012 skyscrapers. 10 million people. 5: Seoul, Korea. 2831 skyscrapers. 6: Istanbul, Turkey. 2093 skyscrapers. Over 10 million people. 7: Tokyo, Japan. 2074 skyscrapers. 12 million people. 8: Rio......

Dear Readers, You may encounter some weird things (weirder than normal) on Shanghaiist today. The entire Gothamist network of websites moved servers over the weekend, and we are still trying to work out all the kinks. You'll see that clicking on the headline of this post likely takes you to an odd looking page that might remind you of Shanghaiist pages past. This seems to be the case for posts starting on April 13. Unfortunately,......

Some days, you just want to eat a big-ass burrito. Perhaps this is primarily an American craving (as many, we're sure some readers would point out, big-ass cravings are) but, trust us, sometimes the best cure for a Sunday morning hangover is an oversized soft flour tortilla filled with just about everything. We never thought this was an option here — Shanghai's selection of Mexican restaurants is ... well ... Shanghai really has no Mexican......

Shanghaiist loves lists. We've embraced the love of lists ever since we picked up Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity. So when browsing the morning news yesterday, our honed powers of list detection and surveillance led us to discover that Shanghai has been included in yet another list. Not just any pokey little list might we add, but The Economist magazine's 2007 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey (WCOL) for expatriate workers. So let's get to the......

We don't know honestly. We ride Shanghai's metro every day and have only used Beijing's a couple times back in 2004. Still, seeing Beijing ranked No. 9 (and Shanghai unranked) in this list of the top 11 underground transit systems in the world surprised us a bit — because all the China subway hype we hear is about Shanghai's fast-growing system (or maybe that's just because we live in Shanghai?). Here's what the list, from......

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Londonist wants you to know where to......

If we had a dime for every new shop that claimed to be home to "the best sandwiches in Shanghai" we'd still have nowhere near enough money to afford lunch at City Deli, the latest eatery claiming to have "the best sandwiches in Shanghai." And you know what? Their Reuben (pictured) is pretty damn good. Real rye bread. Real Thousand Island dressing. Real sauerkraut. And real swiss cheese (although maybe not enough). The bread slices......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of Handmade......

There is a scene in the movie The Aristocrats where comedian Gilbert Gottfried recalled telling a joke at the Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner just a few weeks after the September 11 attack on New York City. He joked that he was having trouble booking a direct flight because "they said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first." The audience responded, understandably -- the event was in New York -- with......

Colonel Sanders has found his conscience: after being threatened by lawsuits in the US, Kentucky Fried Chicken announced that come April of next year, all of its restaurants in the US will cease using oils containing the harmful trans-fats that have been linked to heart disease. Earlier this year, McDonald's ran into some trouble when it was discovered that there was one third more trans-fats in their fries than previously thought. This was the result......

A few weeks ago, we told you that several US airlines are jockeying for one opening route to and from China early next year: Northwest from Detroit to Shanghai, United from Washington, D.C., to Beijing, American from Dallas to Beijing and Continental from Newark to Shanghai. Why are we rehashing old info? Well, yesterday Shanghaiist received, not one, not two, but three emails from family and friends asking us to sign this petition, which supports......

Via the Wooster Collective, we learned of what appears to have been a pretty cool art experience earlier this month at the Shanghai Sculpture Place. Unfortunately, everything we have read (including notes from the organizer) suggests it was just a one-night event with "lots of Tiger beer," which, we suppose, some people believe to be a good thing. The art on display at the party was created by the Brooklyn-based collective (we want to start......

A couple scoops on the local dining scene from SH mag's Jarrett Wrisley, one scoop that looks more promising than the other. First up, via Jarrett's new blog is the New York City Deli, which opened recently at Fujian Lu and Jinling Dong Lu. If the photos on the online menu are any indication (and we all know they always are) this place just might serve up a proper deli sandwich. They boast "100 grams......

Or the better question is: What would you suggest a visitor to Shanghai do if they only had one night to spend in the city? (And, no, your first stop can't be a travel agency so they can extend their stay.) We ask because the June 5, 2006 edition of TIME Europe has a feature called -- you guessed it -- "One Night in ... Shanghai." Three "people in the know" told the magazine their......

The week starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. Houstonist is there to start compiling the punditry when when the guilty, guilty Enron verdict comes down. This guy seems to be able......

According to this post in the Shanghai section of Baidu's "posts" pages, the following are the numbers for Shanghai's GDP and per capita income starting in 2004 and assuming a 14 percent growth rate until 2010-2011, when the World Expo will boost the GDP growth to a whopping 35 percent! The first figure is in "100 millions", so the first number is 702.92 billion. The last sentence indicates the corresponding figures for New York City,......

We just came across an interesting New York Times article about art, design and architecture in China. Much of it deals with the work of Ai Weiwei, an artist and designer (and son of famed poet Ai Qing), who has created a number of interesting living spaces, such as loft complexes, where the living space is near to or combined with gallery space: Mr. Ai designed a voluminous gallery on the first floor of Mr.......

There has been much ado in recent days about Shanghai’s “vertical traffic jams.” No, not the mad rush to get to the top floor of the Shanghai Post Museum (though we hear that place has been off the hook since our scoop). Rather, getting stuck in an elevator queue at the office. If it’s not enough to spend 30 minutes in gridlock on the way to work, Shanghai's 4,000 high-rise buildings -- twice as many......

Mercer Human Resource Consulting just released its annual standard of living report, which ranks the quality of life in the world's major big cities. Shanghaiist has kept up the results the last few years, and there haven't been any major changes. Bloomberg reports: Zurich, the home of UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank by assets, is "the world's top city for quality of life," Mercer said in the report. Baghdad was "the least attractive city for......

Luigi Di Serio is an "entrepreneur" who does "ad hoc writing, website development and theorizing." He also has a degree in Urban Planning, which, we suppose, makes him vaguely qualified to rank the world's top skylines. Regardless, his list can serve as a good conversation starter. Four of his top 18 (and two of his top three) are in China: 1. Hong Kong, China 2. Chicago, USA 3. Shanghai, China Not to be mistaken for......

Shanghaiist remembers with fondness the days in the schoolyard before the advent of computers. Oh how much fun we had, playing handball, flicking marbles across a concrete path, and moving small piles of dirt about the place. Who needs a new-fangled state-of-the-art role-playing video game like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (with full facial animations and lip-synching, a sinister plot involving an unknown assassin of the emperor, and incredibly life-like battle scenes where gamers wield......