If you didn't have the 500 or so free hours necessary to explore the virtual architecture of the NYC doppelganger "Liberty City" in the latest version of Grand Theft Auto, here's the quickest way to do it: by helicopter. After the jump, a video of a virtual helicopter tour of the artfully rendered version of Manhattan-you can see the Chrysler's building spire from above. At the end, the chopper's passenger ends up in the river:

Kermit the Frog, Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Fozzy Bear, Mariel Hemingway, Michael Murphy, Gonzo and Janice team up in this hilarious new comedy about love and sex in Manhattan. If you ask me, that Janice kid is going places fast! Trailer after the jump.

So HX magazine has a column called "Homo Dish" and in it is this item about Village Voice gossip Michael Musto: "We hit up Pieces Thursday night, where we ran into gal pals Michael Musto and Chuck Attix, who we'd just kiki-ed with at 'cuda the night before. They told us they'd been trying to beat their personal record of nine bars in one night, and Pieces had put them over the top with 10. Congrats, you crazy drunks! Chuck later slurred that their real dream was to hit 10, and that they were determined to do so this summer. Don't judge. At least they have a hobby." But Musto begs to differ!

Aww... It's the class of 2008! All growed up and coming to NYC for that awesome career and super apartment like in Friends or Sex and the City? Sorry, little camper, we don't serve your kind! "The thousands of new graduates who will be driving the engine of the city's rental market from now until September will quickly learn that renting in New York is not like renting anywhere else. The second shock is likely to be how small a Manhattan apartment can be. It is not uncommon in New York, for example, to shop for a junior one-bedroom or a convertible one-bedroom, neither of which is a true one-bedroom at all but really a studio that already has or can have a wall put up to create a bedroom."

"'You have to be very careful,' said Mrs. Asen, who has lived for more than three decades in Lincoln-Amsterdam House on West End Avenue near 65th Street. 'You just don't know when the light is going to change and you can be stranded in the street.' Mrs. Asen is one of more than 200 elderly residents of the Upper West Side who took part in a yearlong study about pedestrian safety in their neighborhood, where 13 percent of the population is over 65. Armed with maps and disposable cameras, a small armada of those men and women were dispatched to document specific dangers on their streets." An armada of the undead! Ack!

"Meet me on the Avenue of Architecture, where we will visit a distinctive retailer such as Brooklyn Industries before eating at a distinctive local restaurant like Two Boots pizzeria." That's what you'll be telling your friends in the next 12-18 months, if the Times Square Alliance has anything to say about it. The Times reports today that the TSA has embarked on a rebranding campaign for the portion of 8th Ave. between 40th and 53rd streets. And hey, why not "Avenue of Architecture," seeing how that area has incredible new buildings like... the New York Times headquarters, for example! We're not sure a tagline like that is gonna be enough to pull in the crowds, even once the hip, distinctive "stationers and gift boutiques like Montblanc" move in. What kind of slogan would be more appropriate for this post-porn neighborhood of dreams?

Author John Strausbaugh, speaking on a panel made up of contributors to a new book about how New York was better back then, basically declared the entire island of Manhattan culturally dead because everyone has been priced out of it besides that Hearst girl and Jared Kushner. And then he described gentrification in v. v. loaded language: "What's kind of going on now is a benign ethnic cleansing of the borough of Manhattan, and that mix is going to be gone for a very long time."

"The early-20s hipsters left in Manhattan are a more dance-club oriented crowd. People who are paying Manhattan rents are interested in glamour, not rock 'n' roll." The knives are out: It's a war between Manhattan and Brooklyn hipsters.

Today's Sun highlights a trend among the rich of our fair isle: people buying second or third homes not in the country, but in the... city? Take must-be-crazy-rich Robert and Suzanne Cochran, who have lived at 1000 Park Ave. (pictured) for 17 years. They already have a country house, but now they've also bought a 5,200 square foot loft in Tribeca. The other day, Mrs. Cochran was "scouting out fabrics" for the home:

More shocking footage from Code.tv, this time a few blocks east on 27th Street, where clubgoer Pedro Andrade ("Me and my friends, we were trying to run away from the Chelsea night life scene") and owner Fabrizio Brienza take us through Happy Valley. When our tipster says, "This guy makes AJ look like... less of an asshole," we are not sure if she is talking about Pedro or Fabrizio, but we agree completely.

Curbed reports some disturbing news: Cybele, the Soho based statue by Mihail Chemiakin that has delighted more than a few polymastia fetishists lo these many years, has been removed. Curbed's tipster says "They just pulled her off the sidewalk and put her on a flatbed truck. That's 16 less tits and 6 less ass cheeks for Soho." A simple case of refurbishing or something more sinister? If you've got any information, drop us a line.

Since we shocked and awed you yesterday with footage of our i-banker friend A.J., we've received mountains upon virtual mountains of emails asking for more. And what better way to find out more about a man, or at least what a man wants everyone to think of him, than a MySpace profile (account deleted)?

We are not exactly sure what Code.tv is all about (tagline: Your source for privileged lifestyle intelligence), but Clublife directs us to a video promo for the nightclub Cain (tagline: i-bankers gone wild at NYC's most decadent nightclub).

Sometimes, the gods are tired of whispering that you should get the hell out of New York, and they raise their voices a bit — not once, but twice. Turns out that Kathleen Caronna, whose apartment bedroom was destroyed by the impact of Cory Lidle's plane, was also the same woman nearly killed by a rampaging six-story Cat in the Hat balloon during the 1997 Macy's Thanksgiving parade. (Not to be confused with the rampaging M&M balloon during the 2005 parade.) Caronna was in a coma for a month, though she eventually recovered and won an undisclosed but no doubt handsome settlement from Macy's. In a stroke of luck — or at least, less bad luck — Caronna wasn't home during the plane crash, though she was en route there. Perhaps it's time for a nice home in the country, with no tall buildings, aircraft, or parades.

While there's still no evidence that Yankees relief pitcher Cory Lidle was committing suicide when his plane crashed into an Upper East Side high-rise, the still unresolved (or at least unannounced) issue of who was piloting the plane (either Lidle or his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, pictured above) will have significant financial consequences for Lidle's family. Much like the Phillies' draconian contract penalties for engaging in high-risk activities, there's a caveat in the death benefit plan under which Lidle was covered via the players' union. Lidle's family would normally receive $1.5 million in the event of his accidental death — unless said accident occurred during aircraft travel where Lidle was "acting in any capacity other than as a passenger." Something to bear in mind for those professional ballplayers moonlighting as flight attendants.

This is from a letter printed in AM New York this morning. Take about having your finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist! We're have no idea who Stanley Saji of Brooklyn is, but we're pretty sure you don't want to get on his bad side.

If there's one thing we know about athletes, it's that they're always up for taking their own lives. Terrell Owens taught us that. And while authorities aren't saying Cory Lidle committed suicide, they're not saying he didn't commit suicide either. Therefore he did. That's what we call journalism. A tipster reports some journalism perpetrated by CNN's Nancy Grace:

• According to the AP, it's still unclear if there was any distress call or not from the plane before the crash.

It's a tough call as to whether or not this is worse than ESPN's "Lidle, Munson share a connection" (um, yeah), but, at the very least, it certainly out-tackies the News'

• The National Transportation Safety Board presented preliminary findings at an 11 p.m. press conference, saying that the engine, mounting, and propeller of Cory Lidle's plane were found lodged into the burned-out 30th/31st-floor apartments that the plane struck. The fuselage, wheels, other parts, and the bodies of Lidle and his flight instructor were found on the street below.