Less than an hour after the New York legislature passed a marriage equality bill 33 to 29 during a late session on Friday, Twitter started filling up with messages about how the Empire State Building had “gone rainbow.” “OK, pictures of rainbow Empire State Building are getting me misty,” screenwriter Diablo Cody wrote. “A rainbow shines on the Empire State and the Empire State building tonight!,” another tweet read. And another: “Empire state building goes rainbow. Go us!”

Less than an hour? The Atlantic explains how the display was executed so fast. Link -via @Bad Astronomer

They say that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. For one NYC resident this is very true as he is able to make a living finding lost gold and bits of jewelry in the street and cashing them in.

A Queens man has discovered enough hidden treasure — bits of diamonds, rubies, platinum and gold — on the gritty sidewalks of Midtown’s Diamond District to make a living.  ”The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold,” a giddy Raffi Stepanian, 43, of Whitestone told The Post last week when a reporter discovered him on all fours — armed with tweezers and a butter knife — digging through cracks in the sidewalk in a driving rainstorm.

Link

…OK, maybe not cool, but this art project takes the sting away from seeing a telltale envelope stuck under your wiper blades. The Parking Ticket Emotional Reclamation Project (PTERP) writes a little note explaining the project on one side of a card that fits neatly into New York City parking ticket envelopes, then asks kids, artists and random people to draw something on the other side. PTERP’s people then scour the city looking for cars that have received a ticket and place the art in the envelope with it, hoping that the good of the art will balance out the bad of the ticket.

Link via Gothamist

New York comedian and filmmaker Mark Malkoff (who drinks a lot of coffee) wanted to illustrate how slow MTA buses are. So he raced against a bus while he rode …a child’s Big Wheel! The race went a mile down 42nd street. Can you guess who won? -Thanks, Mark!

We have seen examples of the New York City snowfall in the Snow in the Subway and the December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse posts here at Neatorama. A different view on this extreme weather comes from Henry Hargreaves – an artist based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – who took photos around his neighborhood and gave them a touch of Star Wars.

Link – via Dvice

Meb Keflezighi won the New York City Marathon on Sunday. He is the first American to win the title since 1982! But around 42,000 runners took part in the marathon, some wearing elaborate costumes. Buzzfeed collected photographs of the most outrageous marathon costumes for your viewing pleasure. Link

(image credit: Flickr user monicamüller)

You can check out previous years’ pantless rides and other great pranks on ImprovEverywhere’s YouTube channel.

[YouTube]

14to42.net is a website that “intends to survey all of the signs in New York City from 14th Street to 42nd Street”. The earliest photographs are from the mid 1980′s.

Link – via kottke.org