Confetti, by Swifty at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large fight at an election on Eldert Ln. in Brooklyn, a stolen DHL truck on Crown St. in Brooklyn, and a child stabbed on 220th St. and 133th Ave. in Queens. Brownstoner notes that the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is looking for nominations for the best buildings in Brooklyn. Staten Island Assemblyman Michael Cusick wants 17-year-olds to have the right to vote in......

After many false starts, Trader Joe's announced this week that the grocery store chain would be finally arriving in Brooklyn. The news was heralded by Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz, who was decked out in one of the store's highly visible Hawaiian print shirts and leading a steel drum band at Court St. and Atlantic Ave. The Brooklyn Paper reports that while the grocer will soon move into the landmark Independence Savings Bank building at Court......

- Brooklyn Papers talks to Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz who tells them they are biased about the Atlantic Yards project and updates them on his diet - An eighth grader tells The Politicker's Azi Paybarah that Eliot Spitzer's inauguration speech was positive but "mean" to George Pataki. How naive the young are - wait till you pay taxes, kid! - Speaking of Spitzer, good luck to him on trying to introduce gay marriage proposals......

Of all the borough presidents to get a risque fortune cookie, of course it would be Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz. At a Chinese New Year feast at Ming Gee restaurant, the fortune cookies fortunes were apparently very naughty. The Daily News didn't reprint any of them, except "One good [expletive] deserves another," and though the restaurant received the special, proper-for-public-event fortunes from Dai Hing Lee earlier (with gems like "Brooklyn: In your face and in......

'Twas the night of the transit negotiations, and all through the big city, not a straphanger (or bus rider) was calm, 'cause a strike would be damn gritty. So, it's the end of your work day and the MTA and Transit Workers Union are still engaged in intense negotiations at the Grand Hyatt right by Grand Central. (Have you seeing rallying workers?) And, uh, Newsday reports that the talks are "going nowhere." How about "...going......

There's nothing like a mean New Yorker cover to get Brooklyn intellectuals into a huff. Two weeks ago, the cover of the New Yorker featured God's hand banishing Adam and Eve across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn, in an illustration by Marcellus Hall called "Unaffordable Eden." The Daily News spoke to some enraged Brooklynites, who think the idea of Brooklyn being a second-class borough is outdated, scoffing at Manhattan denizens who think Manhattan is "the......

In a move that will help Park Slope real estate prices creep higher, the city has announced plans turning the Park Slope Armory into an athletic center. The new facility have "track and field, basketball, volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, badminton, boxing, fencing, judo, table tennis, tae kwon do, handball, weightlifting, wrestling and aerobics" (its office will still retain the women's sherlter). The project will cost $16 million, with $12 million from the city, $2 million from......