Forget about Missed Connections on the Craigslist, the only way to find love this Valentine's Day is by hailing Ahmed Ibrahim's cab. The Daily News reports on the cabbie with cupid tendencies, saying he's spent years playing matchmaker to his patrons. His record is pretty impressive, he's organized 70 "real dates," 19 of which turned into relationships that lasted over a year. The numbers could be higher but Ibrahim is selective on who he sets......

Looks like someone took that pirate trend a little too far. The NY Times is reporting on Brian Markey and Owen Cahillane, who are sailing the high seas in their floating abode. Okay, no sailing is involved, but the two roommates, recently transplanted from New Orleans and channeling the spirit of Davy Crockett, live day in and day out on a houseboat in the Bronx. Their floating 250 square feet of space is on Westchester......

After City Council member Simcha Felder announced he would propose legislation to ban feeding pigeons, bird lovers joined forces and, yesterday, held a rally at City Hall. Armed with posters like "Save Our Right to Feed Wildlife," "Have U Known Anybody Killed by a Pigeon?", "Pigeons are Beautiful Birds," and "Felder's Pigeon Bill is Poop!", the pro-pigeon protesters spoke out for their feathered friends. One demonstrator told City Room, "We are voices for the......

Gotham Gazette has an excellent look at the effects of "a housing bust" by Queens College demographer Andrew Beveridge. This map shows how much income goes towards mortgages; Beveridge notes:The median income of those paying less than 30 percent of their income on housing is $120,900. For those paying between 30 and 50 percent of their income, though, the median is $74,390, and for those paying over 50 percent the median income is $39,900.......

An argument escalated into arson and then a murder-suicide, all in front of a small child, in Borough Park early yesterday morning. After setting their apartment on fire, police say that Christopher Flynn shot his girlfriend Christina Scarabaggio and then turned the gun on himself. Scarabaggio's 4-year-old daughter Bianca Perez was found crying over her mother's body outside. Flynn, who had a history of drug arrests, and Scarabaggio, a nursing student, had been dating for......

City Councilman Bill de Blasio, whose Brooklyn district covers Borough Park, Carroll Gardens, is asking the Department of Buildings to stop all of architect Robert Scarano's current projects. According to the Sun, DeBlasio says Scarano, who has hundreds of projects in various stages of progress, "should not be allowed to build while under investigation by the State Education Department for professional misconduct." It seems that one part of misconduct claim might due to the fact......

The five men who identified themselves as police before bursting into a Cypress Hills, Brooklyn home demanding to know "Where are the drugs?" were actually just thieves. WABC's Eyewitness News is reporting that the five men were dressed in police-type clothing, with one actually wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding a gun. They tied up two female residents and pistol whipped a man as they ransacked the home. An infant lying in a crib was......

While 11-year-old Xochil Garcia is still being praised for her quick thinking and bravery after escaping and helping nab a man who tried to abduct her, some adults are upset at the law. Her parents, as well as City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., are angry that the suspected kidnapper, Bernard Mutterperl, was set free on $25,000 bail. According to court documents, 19-year-old Borough Park resident Mutterperl told the police "when he sees young girls, he......

Yesterday, NBC News revealed that Virginia Tech shooting gunman Cho Seung-Hiu sent them a package of photographs, writings, and video - a "multimedia manifesto." The network turned over the materials to the authorities but also shared the package's contents during the evening news last night and on its website. Quickly, the images of Cho holding guns in both hands, pointing a gun at his head, pointing a gun at the camera, and more, started......

Apparently, putting a wall in the middle of your home because you hate your spouse so much isn't enough to convince a jury you should be granted a divorce. A jury told Chana and Simon Taub, a Borough Park couple who were squabbling over a separation and divorce to the point where Simon Taub, who refused to move out of their plush home, built a wall in the middle in the December, they couldn't separate.......

Remember last year's crazy Borough Park riot when police arrested a 75 year old Hasidic man for talking on a cellphone while driving? The police tried to arrested Arthur Schick, who resisted, and other Hasids got involved, started a protest and fires and trapped a cop in a car? Many Hasids were arrested, two cops were injured, and there were claims that police used racial epithets ("This is how we treat niggers" and "Get......

City real estate is a tough market to navigate, so tough that some couples who are splitting up decide to live together until they can find their own places. And then there are the Taubs of Borough Park. Earlier this year, as the couple separated, Simon Taub said that he was going to put a wall down the middle of their home because he didn't want to move and be further from his kids and......

A 62 year old man was shot and killed by the police after he threatened them with an ax. The NY Times says that neighbors called 911 about a "man armed with an ax in the courtyard." When the police got to the Bronx apartment Anatoly Dmitriev, they heard him threaten his 41 year old son's life. So the cops broke down the door, but Dmitriev went out the fire escape. The police shot him......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing on East 17th Street, a pedestrian struck by auto in Borough Park, and a police-involved shooting in East Flatbush. A "greedy fisherman" faces up to four years in the clink for lifting "872 pounds of striped bass, 32 pounds of fluke and numerous crabs" out of the heavily contaminated waters off the coast of Rockaway Beach in Queens. Attention local gourmands: an upscale French bistro has opened......

Wednesday evening, a man asked two young girls to help him look for his lost puppy, but he lured them into an alley on Ross Street in Williamsburg and fondled a 7 year old girl. The girl's friend ran to get her father, who chased the man. The man left in an SUV, and the father may have damaged the door. The incident has left the Hasidic community shaken, but community leader Isaac Abraham told......

The police have charged one of three men involved in a Borough Park home invasion robbery. A pair of robbers had entered Wolf and Sarah Sicherman's home through a back window on Monday night. They cut the electricity, tied the couple up (threatening them with boxcutters), and made Wolf Sicherman open up his safe. The safe had not only jewelry but cash, because Sicherman was going to buy an apartment building the next day, and......

-- Forgotten-NY heads down 13th Avenue to Borough Park and Dyker Heights. -- Our pal Noah Kalina has been taking a self-portrait every day for six years, and now he's assembled them into a curiously fun-to-watch video. Check it out! -- Sad: a sanitation worker who made headlines last year catching a four year old who jumped out of a burning building was shot and killed last night. Sexiest dodgeball team ever, by eatsdirt......

-- A Brooklyn marine - who was a NY State trooper - was killed in a Baghdad firefight last week; a Queens-born soldier was mortally wounded in the same fight -- Gawker hates itself and wants to die. And they hate fruit! Those bastards. -- Newark Mayor Cory Booker didn't waste any time: His spokesman says that debit and credit card records for former Mayor Sharpe James have been subpoenaed. -- According to Forgotten-NY,......

Willie Neuman points out an interesting conundrum in today's Big Deal (third item). If a developer with a known history of building oversize and then biting the cost in sheer profits comes into your neighborhood and makes a play to build an oversize building there, what do you do? What if the property in question is an enormous pit? That's exactly what has happened in Borough Park where Mendel Brach, a specialist at the......

When it's this hot, even ice cream can offer little respite. You need something more hydrating, something closer to water. You need a paleta, a Mexican fruit-based popsicle. Paleta literally means “little shovel,” and these treats are wider than the standard popsicle. They have a more handmade form, reminiscent of the kind your mom used to make in a tupperware contraption. But paletas come in flavors that would confuse mom (and you), like mamey, tamarind,......

Residents of Borough Park are watching out for men who have separately attempted to lure young girls to them by waving a police badge. There have been five incidents in the area in the past few weeks, but the descriptions of the man haven't matched up. Police believe one man is responsible for four incidents where the targets have been young girls, two of whom were molested, (three in Borough Park and one in Queens),......

Chief of Police Joseph Esposito apologized for his remarks during the Borough Park protest-riot Tuesday night. Esposito doesn't mention using Jewish slurs (as some have charged him), but did say that he used the F-bomb to intimidate crowds to stop, as they were angry over rough treatment (real? perceived?) of a 75 year old Hasidic man pulled over and arrested for driving while talking on the cellphone and not responding to the police. Assemblyman Dov......

- Did a non-Jew start the Borough Park riots? People are wondering - A deliveryman shot by teenagers is in critical condition - Dennis Hopper and Ike Turner at the Gorillaz concert - Why's the weather changing like crazy? Global warming, of course - The police are investigating whether or not the NYU junior who died while trying to run away from attackers was the victim of a hate crime - Gothamist loves Tiktaalik! -......

Though Borough Park is quiet after Tuesday night's fire-and-almost brimstone clash between Hasidim and police over the arrest of an old man who did break the law, tempers are still flaring. Arthur Schick, the 75 year old man whose chatting on a cellphone while driving raised police interest, says the officer who pushed him to the ground said, "This is the way we treat a nigger." Schick also felt that the crowds that protested and......

- NY Mosaico is asking people to send letters to the Manhattan DA to make sure the off-duty and drunk police officer who shot photographer Julio Ortega is tried properly (they have PDFs in English and Spanish) - The Javits Center expansion was approved... yay? - Another story about the police horses that need to move from their Chelsea stables to parts unknown - Maybe the future is actually in glass, as glass is......

A mob of angry Hasidim took to the streets outside a Borough Park police station, starting fires and protesting the arrest of a 75 year old man. The Hasidic man, Arthur Schick, had been talking on a cellphone while driving - which is against the law - and police officers decided to haul him in when Schick refused their orders to show his license and registration. When the police tried to handcuff him, two men......

If you've used the MTA this should come as no surprise to you: "Many of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's outdoor properties are poorly lighted and rarely cleaned, making them magnets for 'litterers, dumpers and graffiti vandals,'" according to a City Council survey to be released today. The worst offender? The D,M Borough Park, Brooklyn stop which got a 3.048 rating from the city with 1 being the best and 4 being the worst. In fact,......

Some intriguing legal news: A panel is suggesting that NY State overhaul divorce laws to allow no-fault divorces. Which means that two parties that want to divorce can do so more easily, as the current law states, as the NY Times puts it, "one party in the divorce must allege cruel and inhumane treatment, adultery, or abandonment — literal or sexual — for a year." This would be good for people who want to break......

- A teenager was killed outside a Sweet 16 party in Brooklyn - The FDNY remembers firefighters who died a year ago in a vicious blaze - Borough Park is where the babies are popping - imagine the stroller hell it must be - PBS has appointed someone to succeed outgoing president Pat Mitchell - Coolfer reminds us that Britt Daniel will be on Veronica Mars this Wednesday - set those DVRs - And......

Responding to an iPod mugging on Flatbush and St. Mark's Avenues, the police ended up pursuing 16 year old Javaughn Higgins. They ended up firing 22 shots at him, hitting Higgins twice (in the cheek and left leg). Police thought Higgins was armed, as the mugging victim said Higgins, along with three other suspects that had been following him, flashed a gun, but it turned out that Higgins had a pellet gun that just looked......