a short but certainly valued life, by sidewalk_story at flickr

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an explosion on 116th St. in Queens, a double shooting on 198th St. and Valentine Ave. in the Bronx, and a missing child on Houston St. between Nassau and Merck in Manhattan.
  
• A NJ father caused a lockdown of a Newark high school after he sent some teenagers a text message threatening to show up at their school with a bat and a gun unless they followed through on their $30 marijuana deal.
  
• A Harlem toddler survived a nearly 20-foot fall after crashing through a window gate that gave way, when she landed on a rubberized garbage can lid before bouncing to the sidewalk.
  
• A killjoy NJ prom bus driver called the cops after smelling marijuana being smoked on the bus. Cops arrived and arrested 23 teens for underage drinking.
  
• The New Yorker has a previously unpublished short story by Vladimir Nabokov.
  
• A very conspicuous looking Long Island bank robber was eventually nabbed after he dropped a band-aid meant to disguise his fingerprints at one of the banks. Cops used the dressing to ID the suspect with a DNA examination.
  
• The NYC godfather of mob films, Martin Scorsese, will be creating a new HBO series titled Boardwalk Empire with the help of a former Sopranos writer. It will chart the seedy underpinnings of Atlantic City and be produced by Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson.
  
• Excerpts from a community discussion over the communal use of Park Slope stoops for sitting and resting.