Police say they found an infant girl abandoned in a Brooklyn apartment building just after midnight earlier today. The baby, believed to be about six months old, was found in front of a seventh-floor apartment at W. 33rd Street building in the O'Dwyer Houses; near her were a broken cell phone and a mini Vodka bottle. “She was cute. She was dressed in pink. She didn't even have shoes on, just socks," Angel Cruz told the News. more ›

An abandoned newborn girl was found in a shoebox outside an Astoria building this morning. A next-door neighbor spotted the baby, along with a white and red rose, on the stoop of a home on 28th Street, near Ditmars Boulevard. "[She] saw all the toys in the yard, and decided to leave her with the family with the babies," speculated resident Stephen Katehis. more ›

The seemingly abandoned Chihuahua found earlier this week bleeding in the snow is now being tended to by professionals. The employee of 3rd Ward in Brooklyn who discovered her and took her in sent us this update yesterday, which we're sharing with you since we've received so many emails about her!: "We had a great response from people. The Chihuahua is now with Sean Casey Rescue where they are tending to her wounds and waiting to see if the owners contact them. If not, she will be ready for adopting and a new home." more ›

A small update on the pit bull puppy that was discovered tied to the Williamsburg Bridge during a snowstorm last week... she's with her new family (in D.C.) and looks happy as can be. Her new humans named her Penelope, and Nick at Scouting NY (who helped save and deliver her to her new home) reports that "when she arrived at her new home, she was timid at first, and even refused to go anywhere near the bed due to some sort of past training. They quickly broke her of this, and she spent the night cuddled up with them until late the next morning." more ›

There's an empty lot on Pacific Street (near Smith Street) in Brooklyn that's got locals outraged; they've brought their complaints to the Daily News, and say the overgrown lot has become a haven for some unsavory characters. The empty space is right next door to Pacifico restaurant, and one employee there says she's heard everything from fighting to moaning emanating from the lot late at night. more ›

Photographer Nate Kensinger has photos of a real haunted house* in Brooklyn: the Greenpoint Hospital. Built in 1914, it was in operation through 1982, and currently seven towers on the grounds are used as apartments, a homeless shelter, and a new community space. This is a story about the one abandoned building, however: the former nurses residence. The building has seen lots of blood in its day, and reportedly on February 3rd, 1971 "Frank Serpico's inert, blood soaked form was wheeled into the Emergency Room." The site may be developed soon, so Kensinger's photos could be a last look at what is likely to become affordable residential units. more ›

Open House New York has arrived! There are dozens of amazing locations open today and tomorrow in all five boroughs, so we're not going to be able to visit them all. That's where you can help us: please send your OHNY pictures to photos (at) gothamist dot com, and we'll put up the best ones tomorrow. more ›

Four months after being arrested for DUI in NJ, Dwight Gooden has allegedly abandoned his wife and their 5-year-old son and 4-month-old daughter. Monique Gooden, who is with her parents in Maryland, told the Post, "He's left us with no money. When I got here to Maryland, I had to go apply for social services, food stamps and health insurance for the kids. He has offered no financial assistance to us." more ›

As McCarren Park Pool undergoes a $50MM renovation to become, well, a pool again... the LTV Squad has been taking a look back all week at what it was like during the years it sat there being drained of its former glory. Yep, while you were all enjoying your Pool Parties there was a hidden world underneath the concrete—most notably, a tunnel system starting under the main arch. The LTV Squad was kind enough to let us use some of their photos, but be sure to check out their massive catalog here—and below is some video of what it's like in those underground tunnels. more ›

Yesterday, just after 3 p.m., word came in over the newswire that numerous animals were found in a vacant apartment at Sterling Place and Rochester Avenue in Brooklyn—"some dead and some still alive." Now the Daily News reports that there were 10 emaciated dogs living in the apartment—mostly pit bulls, 7 of them puppies—for weeks without human supervision or care. more ›

Nathaniel Fons, the three-year-old who was abandoned at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Tuesday afternoon, saw his paternal grandparents yesterday. However, he will remain in the custody of the city's Administration for Children's Services as the authorities continue to investigate his situation, which includes two jailed parents. A source told the Daily News, "There are all of these moving parts to unravel." more ›

Delaware police have tentatively ID'd a little girl found Sunday in a men's bathroom stall at a Shell station in Delaware. They believe she's about 2 years old and that she comes from New York or New Jersey, but haven't released other details. According to the Daily News, the child's hair was "pulled up on top of her head, and she was wearing a puffy tan winter coat over a purple shirt with small flowers printed on it. She also was wearing blue jeans with pink, white and purple sneakers with purple laces and white ankle socks." The AP says she's been placed in foster care family while police search for her family. more ›

A five-year-old special education student in Homecrest, Brooklyn was left alone on a school bus for an hour yesterday morning while the bus driver and his wife enjoyed breakfast in a nearby diner. Iman Mirza, who is developmentally disabled, is recovering from a fever after the incident, according to her father—the temperature was about 20 degrees in Brooklyn when she was left behind. more ›

Remember that free building in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens? Unsurprisingly, the whole thing was a prank. Reportedly a local resident was fed up with the rundown building (located at 205 Parkside Avenue) and decided to put up a sign and a Craigslist ad advertising it for free. The prankster told the Daily News: "We want to see something positive happening with the building [not just a] festering rathole on what could be a lively thriving commercial strip." more ›

First the Upper East Siders were ranting about sidewalk congestion, and now the Upper West Side is joining in on the complaint chorus. A writer for West Side Spirit has a bone to pick with enclosed sidewalk cafés; because what else are you going to get worked up about these days? La la la, there are really no other problems except dining establishments jutting out on to public property. Really, nothing. more ›

A worker for a Queens daycare center was a little daycareless Friday when she left a four-year-old girl behind on a 42nd Street subway platform. Jailyn Howard and her twin sister were part of a group of children on a field trip to Manhattan, supervised by a lone employee of the Whitney Foundation, a daycare center run out of a house in Jamaica, Queens. According to one account, the worker, Roxanne Jack, was distracted by a fight between two of the children while herding them on board. But Jailyn's cousin, who was also on the field trip, tells CBS2 that Jack was preoccupied and rushing: "She was telling us to hurry up, hurry up. Because she has to be somewhere... All of a sudden she knows Jailyn is missing and she started just panicking." Fortunately, Jack and the kids got off at the next stop and came back to 42nd Street to find Jailyn in the care of police. CBS2 reports that the Whitney Foundation does not seem to be a licensed daycare center and "if that is the case," mom Janel Howard says her kids won't return there. Because it's okay to be negligent as long as you have a license! more ›

Far Rockaway has gotten a Mad Max treatment over the years. Nate Kensinger has some amazing shots of the eastern edge of Queens, which "was once a flourishing summer community. Today, its landscape is like the half-abandoned city of Buffalo, with vast empty lots and a large number of abandoned homes. In 2008, according to the NY Times, the Far Rockaway's city council representative called his district 'ground zero' of the subprime mortgage crisis." It's hard to picture the beach bungalows before they were boarded up, in their old time glory when the area was dubbed The New Hamptons. Maybe the Beachside Bungalow Preservation Association can bring them back to life. more ›

Our very own Jake Dobkin braved some disintegrating buildings in Harlem this past weekend. Both the ballroom (in the first photo) and the school (shown in all other photos) are located in Central Harlem about 10 blocks apart from each other, and are clearly abandoned now. He notes of the former: "This building looked like it had been empty for twenty years. Trees were growing out of the floors and poking out of dozens of holes in the roof. All the windows were gone, and the floors that weren't covered with snow were thick with dust and the skeletons of dead pigeons. There wasn't any evidence of human habitation-- no footprints, homeless encampments, or graffiti." more ›

What's more intriguing than an abandoned island with a rotting castle sitting just north of New York City? Bannerman's Island sits in the Hudson, just about 50 miles north of here, and American Heritage explains "this island fortress was once the private arsenal of the world's largest arms dealer," Frank "Francis" Bannerman. more ›

Why would a triplex in the West Village, measuring about 3360 sq ft, go abandoned for decades? More importantly, what's inside? amNY takes a look at the mystery of 43 MacDougal Street, which has had locals rumor-mongering about it for ages.

"I heard that it used to be a hangout for the mafia, and there was a police shootout there, and they had to close it for evidence," said Tal Kon, 22, who has lived on the picturesque block for a year. more ›

Another heartbreaking tale of animal abandonment reached our inbox this weekend, but this one could have a happy ending. Here's the story:

While walking my dogs this afternoon I found a cat with magical green eyes, a cat that looks to be a housecat, who has lived her entire life safe and cared for, suddenly now abandoned on the New York winter streets in her cat carrier with the door open left to die. more ›

An attempt by NYC Transit to communicate accurate bus arrival times has been partially abandoned out of concerns that it just was not feasible to accomplish by the MTA. A pilot program has been in place on six separate bus lines, but those notification services have been scrapped because the digital displays at bus stops were just not capable of providing accurate information to riders. While in the planning for a dozen years, the actual equipment wasn't rolled out until this past October. NYC Transit doesn't know when its notification system could come back online. more ›