The marshlands in Jamaica Bay that make up a portion of the Gateway National Recreation area and includes the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge are disappearing so quickly that some estimate all of the marshes could disappear in as few as five years. The New York Times reports that recent satellite images indicate that about 33 acres of tidal wetlands in the bay are disappearing annually, almost double the prior estimate of 18 acres per year......

The New York Times has a great story about police officer John Nevandro, who has been patrolling the boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn for 21 years. When he started walking the beachside beat, he had to chase off perverts looking to glance up women's skirts from below the boardwalk. Now he knows the boardwalk so well that he can tell which sections need repair from the sound planks make as he rolls over them......

There are some very observant drivers on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and BQE. WCBS 2 reports that a number of drivers called 911 to report that a freighter ship was sinking in the New York Harbor. But it turns out the freighter, Dockwise Swan, is actually supposed to sink a little bit! The ship is a "semi-submersible," and can submerge to allow cargo to be taken on or off using the "float-on/float-off," "roll-on/roll-off," "skid-on/skid-off, or "lift-on/lift-off"......

The Daily News reports that the cause of death is still unknown for a young minke whale that made its way to Brooklyn's Gowanus Bay. But the necropsy confirmed that the whale was a young female and that there were no signs of significant trauma. Now tissue samples of the whale will be sent to pathologists to conduct more tests. And someone at the Army Corps of Engineers emailed us to dispute what we wrote......

Today on Gothamist Newsmap: A ceiling collapse at Bowling Green/Battery Park on the subway's 4 line this morning, a bank robbery at 206th St. and Bainbridge Ave. in the Bronx, and a report of a missing child at Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn. Imminent end of an era as the actual physical floor of the NYSE gets quieter daily. Original "Buffy" Kristy Swanson to appear on L&O as Anna Nic a drug-addled blonde bombshell with......

No holiday gridlock here! A month after it refused to budge from Pier 86, the U.S.S. Intrepid has successfully been freed from the mud and is on its way to Bayonne, NJ for repairs. Six tugboats with over 30,000 horsepower helped the 27,000 ton vessel down the Hudson River. The Intrepid Foundation's president Bill White yelled, "This old baby is moving!" and other crewmembers reportedly cried. One man who served on the Intrepid during......

The underwater windmills, er, turbines, are coming! Way back when, water currents were a standard and very prevalent way to produce energy (hello, ye olde mill). It still is (hello, hydroelectric dams), just not so much in our neck of the woods. So how cool is it that New York City is going to be the first city to test out a set of underwater hydroelectric turbines? Assuming approval from the Army Corps of Engineers......

I've been sitting on this MetaFilter post since yesterday: Hurricane Risk for New Orleans. Surely you've noticed even Drudge has gotten whipped into a 10,000 BODYBAGS!! frenzy. As a Louisianian, I appreciate the interest--until it devolves into rubbernecking, or when people start trotting out the same old "It's a corrupt city that will never get its act together," "anyone who lives there is an idiot," let 'em all die BS. Everything you've heard about New......

Another pretty freakin' nice day. Mostly sunny, high of 80, with 49% "maximum" humidity. Ah. So the NYTimes says the U.N. now wants to focus on helping developing countries improve their weather forecasting technology in order to prevent future disasters--Typhoon Winnie in China in 1997, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras in 1998, the 1999 Venezuelan mudslides. Sounds good, right? They've even established a relatively unknown department called the World Meteorological Association to head up this charge.......