Thomas Kaplan is the chair of the 92nd Street Y's board of directors. He is devoted to gaining control of the Orthodox conversion process and saving panthers. His 32-year-old nephew Guma has gone crazy, and he's tangled up in it.

Former NY Times food critic Frank Bruni has signed a schmancy deal to bring his memoir Born Round to the small screen. What actor is going to play the tortured former fatty?

There are certain tics that New Yorkers have that you don't really find in other cities—asking people what they pay for their apartments, for one—and there's one that we just. can't. take. anymore. It's the "I've been living in [insert gentrified/hipsterfied/whatever-fied neighborhood here] for 10 years—it's soooo annoying now! But I can't leave, because I pay $650 a month for my one-bedroom apartment, because the landlord is this little old lady who hasn't raised the rent since 1989."

Let's just assume, for one moment, that we were single and in our 30s or 40s, and we were looking for a nice, hot piece of ass to take home to mom. We would have already written off the Meatpacking District and the Lower East Side as potential hunting grounds; ditto for stroller-happy Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens. But not even the strongest whiff of desperation could get us to attend the 92nd Street Y's Deeper Dating event, if only because the Deeper Dating website promises "a series of exercises enabling people to meet many opposite sex participants in an enjoyable and less-superficial way."

The Coop was scheduled to speak at the 92nd Street Y tonight. But his talk has now been cancelled, because bad weather has prevented him from flying back from his most recent reporting assignment, in New Orleans. We're tempted compliment the FAA on the impressive work its officials are no doubt doing to keep planes and passengers safe, and to get them to their destinations as soon as possible, but we won't. Becauase we realize that to listen to people thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, we got to tell you, there are a lot of people there who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated. And we get the anger that's there.

We've finally been pointed to yesterday's news that the 92nd Street Y is shutting its (theoretically) younger and hipper West Side space, Makor, and selling the building. While this is clearly a blow to the pretense that there are hip, young Jews on the Upper West Side, the real question for us is whether the move was ultimately caused to the space's recent programming choices or the parent org's recent hiring moves.

Wonderful news. A mere six months — nearly to the day — since we got him fired from Conde Nast, where he was a freelance market researcher, Gawker mascot Andrew Krucoff finally has a new job. He'll be the web content developer at the 92 Street Y, which means he'll be writing for the Y's blog and also working on web marketing efforts. Most important, though, it means we'll perhaps finally stop feeling guilty about this whole thing, and that maybe Krucoff's Mom won't hate us anymore.

Contrary to what our nifty little advertisers would have you believe, we will not be appearing at 92nd Street Y tomorrow, and not simply because it's above 14th and terribly inconvenient. As it turns out, the venue was actually charging $25 (American!) for admission, which we find mildly absurd. The octogenarian retirees who make up most of the 92Y regulars are, of course, happy to pay that for, say, Phillip Roth. But for some dirty-mouthed kid they've never heard of? Survey says no.