Thousands of Eric Garner protestors descended on midtown Manhattan Wednesday night, blocking streets and standing off with police while just blocks away, a star-studded lineup of celebrities blithely sang Christmas carols for a live NBC broadcast.

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…

[A PETA volunteer does her best Cheetara impersonation during one of those "fur is bad, sexy girls are good" protests at Rockefeller Center today. Image via Getty]

[The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City was lit on Tuesday night, bringing Christmas cheer to Christians, and reminding everyone else to pick a movie and a Chinese place for the 25th. Photo via AP.]

The holiday season is officially upon us! Tonight, the 74-foot, 12-ton Norway Spruce that serves as this year's Christmas tree at New York's Rockefeller Center was lit—with 36,000 bulbs!—by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and... Jeff Zucker? Watch inside.

[We may not be ready for Christmas yet, but Rockefeller Center certainly is after a 12-ton, 74-foot Norway spruce was hoisted into place today. Image via AP]

Do not get Americans upset about their TV. They will stage demonstrations with witty signs and chanting and everything! Today the country was wracked by Conan O'Brien protests, the like of which have been unseen since Vietnam.

[The network trotted out big guns Rob Thomas, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Zach Levi, Jane Krakowski, Michael Buble, and another selection from Aretha Franklin's curious hat collection for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony last night. Image via Getty]

[30 Rockefeller Center in December 1933. A photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho. Via Shorpy]

Restaurants and bars in Liberty City are like other landmarks based on places in New York, the real-world city on which the universe of the latest Grand Theft Auto game is based. The names, locations and designs are all slightly off, like a riddle made for trivia-night nerds. Ed Levine has risen to the challenge. …

We know you can't get enough of today's burning taxi photos, so here are some incredible shots from the folks at WNBC, who rushed down to Rockefeller Center from, you know, upstairs, and eventually decided to put them online. [WNBC]

Two views of Rockefeller Center after today's mad cab blowup.

From the mailbag: "Holy crap. I was having lunch at Rock Center with pasta on my lap when this car explodes right outside of Anthropologie about 20 min ago. I'm back at my desk now having a diet coke— wishing it was scotch. People rushed towards the scene to take cell phone pics. A second boom. Not funny stuff.…

A recent transplant to the city, Dashiell continues his quest to discover the "real New York." Tell him where to find it at newguy@gawker.com.

Slate has a luverly little piece praising the genius of Rockefeller Center — how its simple, smart planning makes for the perfect urban center, its beautiful architecture lending itself to the "glory" of Christmas and whatnot.