[UPDATE BELOW] The artist who installed the "I Love NY" bag that caused a bomb scare in Williamsburg on Friday has finally been released from jail. After three days at Rikers, Takeshi Miyakawa finally appeared before a judge in Brooklyn court today. Before releasing the suspect, Judge William Garnett called his lawyer and the prosecutor to the bench and spoke about the previous judge's decision to jail Miyakawa for 30 days for a mental health evaluation. "Some people might call it a little bizarre," Judge Garnett was overheard telling the attorneys, referring to Miyakawa's art installations. "And my colleague's decision is arguable." more ›

Yesterday, the hipster capital of North America was under siege after someone called in a report of a suspicious package on Bedford Avenue between North Fourth and North Seventh Streets in Williamsburg. NYPD and FDNY descended on the area only to discover that the suspicious package was nothing more than a plastic bag. Now, the person who originally called in the scare explained to us why he did so: "I even said to the cops when they came: it's Williamsburg, so it's probably some stupid street-art project. The fact is, though, if something like that was taped to a column on a subway platform, they would have cleared out/shut down the entire system to investigate." more ›

A flight from Istanbul to New York's JFK Airport was diverted to Dublin earlier today, thanks to a suspicious item in the plane's bathroom. According to the Irish Times, it turns out the item was a "passenger's mobile phone plugged into the shaving socket." more ›

A strange scene unfolded yesterday morning at the 68th Precinct stationhouse in Bay Ridge, where a 40-year-old man allegedly walked in and yelled, “I have a bomb!" The Post likens the incident to "the set-up for a really tasteless joke" (the Post editors would know!) but to us it sounds more like the set-up for a really stupid movie, starring Adam Sandler as a fake bomb fetishist who falls hard for a foxy divorced bomb squad detective (played by Reese Witherspoon). At any rate, police "whisked" fake bomb threatener Steven Angelides outside and ordered him to place the "bomb," which was inside a bag, on the street. more ›

Port Authority police supervisor Lt. James O'Neill reportedly ordered a PATH train with a suspicious package proceed from Jersey City to the World Trade Center, even though a bomb-sniffing K9 unit was just minutes away from the station. In an exclusive, the Post reports that passengers were evacuated from the train at Exchange Place just before 8 p.m. on Wednesday after a "suspicious box" was spotted. But despite protestations from subordinates, O'Neill reportedly cleared the train for departure before the bomb squad arrived—and sources say he made the call from his desk at Journal Square, three miles from the bomb scare. more ›

Should flight attendants have to be fluent in religious rituals? We wonder because for the second time in a little more than a year a flight has been disturbed when Orthodox Jews praying with tefillin were confused with terrorists getting ready to terrorize. Last January a flight out of LaGuardia was diverted to Philly over the prayer ritual and then yesterday a similar confusion struck an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to LA. After concerns were raised the airplane was swarmed by police, FBI and customs agents when it landed at LAX. more ›

TSA agents are unsure why a man decided to bring the body of his dead dog with him in a cardboard box on a flight from Newark Airport to Los Angeles on Tuesday, but he reportedly didn't seem too suspicious. During check-in, he informed workers of the contents of the box; the workers then told him that it would need to be screened at the Continental cargo facility. However, once the plane was in the air TSA workers realized that the box hadn't been screened, and feared it could contain a bomb or a disease. more ›

If yesterday felt a little more hectic than usual it wasn't your imagination and it wasn't pre-holiday hysteria (well, maybe it was a little bit): Three different suspicious packages around town were keeping authorities on their toes and everyone else standing still. Luckily the packages weren't dangerous. A package that shut down Newark airport was just a computer monitor, a Honda Odyssey outside the Met was filled with suitcases of clothes, not bombs, and a third suitcase found in Macy's which shutdown parts of Herald Square was also just filled with clothes. We look forward to finding out where non-explosive suitcases pop up next. Kidding aside though, better safe than sorry. more ›

Talk about timing: JFK Airport's Terminal 1 was evacuated for two hours when an anonymous caller said there was a bomb at the facility—just as airport security found an unattended bag. Port Authority spokesman John Kelly "said 250 to 300 passengers were evacuated from Terminal 1 at the airport around 6 p.m. and were allowed back in after 8 p.m.," according to the AP. more ›

Will 2010 be the summer of bomb scares? The latest in a seemingly endless series took place in Jersey City this morning, where police and firefighters investigating a gas leak found a crude bomb in the basement of a three-story building. Sources tell 1010 WINS that a gas line in the building was deliberately broken and was filling the building with fumes. A "crude device" was discovered attached to the gas line, with wires connected to a door hinge. Investigators believe the device was intended to explode if the door opened and caused the wires to touch. more ›

Looks like those "Suspicious Package" reports haven't tapered off yet. Reader Ethan Kavet saw something and sent us these photos of a bomb squad called in to the UPS building on 43rd Street and 12th Avenue. The package is described as a "box covered in foil in a garbage can on the corner," but was declared safe by the squad. Hmm, perhaps someone put their ham sandwich in a box before throwing it out? Nevertheless, all is well, and now we get to look at these photos of guys in their bomb squad outfits (or Ghostbusters costumes). more ›

The owner of a prototype BMW that was left parked and running under a tarp on Central Park West and triggered a bomb scare yesterday was issued a summons for idling his vehicle. Martin Birkmann, a BMW brand manager, had mistakenly left the oddly designed X3 prototype running while he and his girlfriend had a picnic in the park. The car apparently runs so silently that he didn't even notice. more ›

A black SUV "with a white circle on it" and New Jersey plates triggered closed roads from 77th to 81st Streets and response from bomb technicians earlier this afternoon. The SUV was parked on 77th Street and Central Park West, dangerously close to the American Museum of Natural History. As of 1 p.m. the police had located the owner and was conducting an interview, and at 1:50 p.m. the roads were reopened. Bomb technicians have yet to determine whether the car contained anything dangerous. UPDATE: Westside Independent is reporting the SUV was a prototype BMW with no registration and special markings on it. It was also allegedly parked with its engine running in front of a fire hydrant, and was covered with a tarp. more ›

Yesterday, there was a standoff involving a NYC-bound Greyhound bus in Portsmouth, NH after there were concerns there was a bomb on the bus. But, according to NECN, it was sparked by a "Burundi national whose" cellphone conversation was misunderstood by another passenger. "He refused to leave the bus and prolonged the standoff because he was scared." more ›

The Connecticut license plates on the SUV matched a Ford; according to WFSB, "The investigation led agents to a scrapyard in Stratford and a shoreline car dealership. Police said the Pathfinder could have been sold from Thomas Anthony Auto in Bridgeport at some point. The SUV's vehicle identification number led officials to the dealership... Police were also at Kramer's scrapyard in Stratford in a search to hunt down the license plates, which they said came off a pickup truck." more ›

Reports started coming across the wire earlier this morning that a flight out of LaGuardia Airport was being diverted to Philadelphia due to a bomb scare involving a passenger "who has wires strapped to his head and fingers." Turns out, there wasn't really a bomb on board, instead the plane was diverted because "an orthodox Jewish male put on customary 'tefilin' (sic) straps for his morning prayers." more ›

Reports of suspicious packages and bomb scares come over the police scanner so frequently that they've become almost routine, so we weren't even going to bother you with this latest scare, which briefly shut down a small area of midtown outside the Sheraton Hotel on the corner of 53rd and Seventh. But then a reader (who requests anonymity) sent us these stellar photos, so here you go: a fairly up-close look at how a suspicious package becomes an innocuous pile of crap. Or maybe this is all just part of some viral marketing Oscar campaign for The Hurt Locker? Either way, could everybody please stop leaving their stuff lying around so we don't have to bring the city to a screeching halt every hour?
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The certificate in the windshield of the illegally parked van that sat in Times Square for two days before sending the city into panic was stolen — and it doesn't have anything to do with parking, according to the nonprofit that issued the ID. Though it looks like an NYPD parking placard, a lawyer representing Detectives Crime Clinic of New Jersey and New York claims the certificate isn't supposed to carry any benefits and merely serves as a way of identifying members. more ›

A few hours ago, police locked down East 14th Street and Union Square East, due to some "suspicious packages." (Not surprising, especially given the alleged recent terror plot.) Before the packages were eventually "cleared" by the cops, some folks Twittered about the incident: more ›

Scott McGann, the man who allegedly brought a fake bomb (made of batteries and wires) to Laguardia Airport last Saturday and caused a lot of chaos, was indicted on charges of placing a false bomb and making a terrorist threat. He is currently being held at the psych ward at Bellevue, but the Daily News reports, "He will be arraigned Aug. 18 if he's found mentally competent. His family says he suffers from catatonic schizophrenia." more ›

Thousands of people planning on traveling out of Laguardia Airport yesterday morning had their plans changed when a man was found with a fake bomb in his bag, prompting the evacuation of the central terminal. The NY Times reports, "passengers who had arrived for early-morning flights were forced to evacuate for nearly three hours, creating a domino effect of car and foot traffic that caused chaos during one of the busier travel days of the summer." And a 32-year-old man was arrested for allegedly causing the mess. more ›

An explosion in a Long Island man's basement damaged sheet rock and spread broken glass while shredding a soft cooler Saturday evening, causing Long Island emergency personnel to respond in force. The bomb scare was the result of a show-and-tell gone awry. Francisco Lopes is a researcher at Stony Brook University, who said that he brought home some pieces of dry ice in a sealed glass jar to show his daughter. He left the container in his lunch cooler and left for dinner with family members. Unfortunately, Lopes did not realize what apparently many teenagers are fully aware of: allowing dry ice to warm in a sealed container results in a buildup of gas pressure that ends with a loud bang. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Airmail in Brooklyn, truck vs train overpass in 31st St & 20th Ave in Queens, an amputation at Grant St & St Pauls Ave in Staten Island and a bomb scare at Broadway and Mercer (NYU) in Manhattan.
• A former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani is now an "ambassador" for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. But it's not that shocking, since Fran Reiter had lead the Liberal Party before joining the Giuliani administration...or is it?
• Who decides how subway posters are hung, because this is another example of great subway-poster-juxtaposition?
• A piece of the Willamette Meteorite, which is at the American Museum of Natural History, is being auctioned off. And, no, the museum is not selling it - the private meteorite collection who they traded the 28-pound piece (getting a piece of Mars in return) is behind the sale.
• One man has been arrested in the Labor Day weekend bias attack of Top Chef Season 2 contestant Josie Smith-Malave. The attack was outside a Sea Cliff, Long Island bar; Smith-Malave said that about 12 people punched and kicked her and two of her friends and that the bar's employees, who went outside to watch the attack, didn't do anything.
• The NYPD's new headquarters for the towing division are in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
• Staten Island DA Daniel Donovan is warning residents about the fake IRS "Customer Satisfaction Survey" scam because taxpayers aren't really customers anyway.
• Speaking of taxes, John Gotti Jr. may head to prison because he hasn't paid $220,00 in back taxes.
• The Eldridge Street Synagogue's rose window returns in time for Rosh Hashanah.

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. more ›

More of the same on the local weather scene. Today should be a carbon copy of yesterday, which was a repeat of Wednesday which was a cut-and-paste of Tuesday. Sunny, high around 70. Tonight should be an identical twin of last night. Clear, low around 50. Tomorrow? You guessed it. Pretty much the same. The Weather Service is calling for a slight chance of isolated sprinkles Saturday evening as a back door cold front moves through the city, but, frankly, we think their just saying that to see if we're paying attention. more ›

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- Oh, and Park Slope was shut down for three hours tonight because of a bomb scare. Happy holidays! more ›

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. more ›

Every so often, Gothamist gets email from readers in Midtown asking if we've heard any news of a bomb threat, as their building is being evacuated or they can see the bomb squad headed across the street, but as we're still waiting for our police scanner, we usually don't know unless we see it on NY1. The NY Times has an article about the bomb squad's Midtown visit freguency: 350 suspicious packages, with only 10 getting "dynamically disrupted" by a nonexplosive device. Most recently, the bomb squad "disrupted" a package next to the Starbucks at 295 Madison Avenue. No!! Not the Starbucks at 9:30AM in the morning! The package turned out to be an electronic switch. Doh! Someone was screwed when he got to work in the morning. more ›

Gothamist hasn't had the pleasure of bomb scare drills at our office, but Keith at Teleport City tells us that his building's actual procedure when there is a bomb scare is to :

I am, however, a bit disturbed that the security protocol for people inside a building that could potentially explode (my office sits above Barnes & Noble) is to not let people leave that building. Or, you know, alert them in any way. Had I not been bored and prone to getting up and staring out the window, I never would have been aware that there was a bomb squad guy downstairs and that the bock had been taped off. Oh well, let that be a lesson to the workers of the world: you should frequently get up and stare out the window for a spell.