Recently Brokelyn went on a wild goose chase for loose change in Brooklyn, determined to find out how much one can earn from trolling the city for bottles and cans. Recycling those items, after all, is like looking under the couch cushions of all of New York City—if you don't mind picking through trash, you can probably earn some sweet bucks, right? The site reports back after their well-documented journey, with this final tally): more ›

Two men have been arraigned on charges of assault as a hate crime after an alleged rock-throwing attack on a transgender female in Queens on Wednesday night. Carmella Etienne, 22, says she walking by the corner of 116th Avenue and 199th Street in St. Albans when two men shouted anti-gay slurs and threatened to cut her throat. (NY1 reports they even threatened to sodomize her with a baseball bat.) After promising to call the police, the two suspects allegedly said, "The police don't care about you, they won't do anything to us." Rocks and a bottle were thrown, and Etienne sustained a deep cut to her leg. more ›

After three incidents where bottles have been placed outside the outbound Lincoln Tunnel--ensnaring commuters in hours of delays as the Port Authority police investigated--the authorities have finally made an arrest. The Jersey Journal reports that 39-year-old Lawrence Fellilppello of Vernon, NJ was charged with making a terroristic threat and the police are also looking for a second person. As for how the case was cracked: "Port Authority police had put out information concerning the type of device recovered and another police agency realized they had made a motor vehicle stop some time ago where they had seen similar items in a vehicle." more ›

The Gotham Gazette has a fairly comprehensive overview of the unpleasant byproducts associated with densely populated living: garbage. The details are illuminating, 64,000 tons of weekly garbage that amounts to 7 billion pounds every year. The feature is an examination of the accumulation of daily decisions that New Yorkers make every day about the things they consume and dispose of. Paper, plastic, food waste, electronics, and other things we throw in the trash add up... more ›