Williamsburg Firefighter Wins Survivor

Last night's winner of Survivor is a hometown firefighter: Tom Westman, 41 year-old Queens born and bred, and a firefighter in Williamsburg's Ladder Co. 108, managed to outwit, outplay and outlast nineteen other people - many of them horribly, horribly annoying (and yes, we're talking about Katie, the runner-up whose $100,000 payday Gothamist likes to think is payment to make sure she didn't win). Westman, or, Tom, as most of America knows him, was possibly the most physically dominating competitor on the show in a while, winning many of the grueling and cockamamie immunity challenges, and even won the support of ex-Survivor wannabes who thought he played "dirty" and was "chauvinistic," because he at least deserved to win, versus Katie who just suck-suck-sucked. Tom's fellow firefighters think the father of three will stay a firefighter, in spite of his $1 million payday.

While much of this Survivor season had been pretty infuriating, the episode two weeks back when Gregg was booted off was pretty awesome, showing the willingness of Tom and the other leading contender, Ian, to risk in order to win. And Ian's decision to step off the pole and ensure that Katie went to the Final Two was incredible. And if Gothamist is spoiling it for anyone, we're sorry, but Tom is on the cover of the Daily News and that meant all bets are off.