One of the first of the 80 protesters to be arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests on Saturday was a young man who dropped to his knees in the street in front of a Chase Bank. He repeatedly screamed "That's the bank that took my family's home!" before being arrested. But now, Glenn Beck's news website The Blaze claims that they talked to the man's mother, and at no point was their house ever in foreclosure. more ›

A Chase bank in South Richmond Hill Queens is a serving as a case study of Guyanese/Trinidadian racial tensions. We never realized there was any animosity between the two countries, but apparently there's at least one person from Guyana who thinks people from Trinidad are just a bunch of lazy, thin-skinned no-goodniks. That would be the manager of the Chase branch on Liberty Avenue, who allegedly fired her Trinidadian underling after she complained to HR about the racist abuse. Now the ex-teller is suing Chase—and if nothing else her litigiousness shows how she's fully assimilated into the American way of life. more ›

The 69-year-old ex-convict who attempted to rob a Chase Bank near Penn Station just a day after being released from federal prison has a long criminal history. John Daniel Stolarz was last free in 1988, when he robbed 14 banks in seven states (including four in NYC), and then spent 22 years in prison for those robberies. The Post reports, on Wednesday, "He took $100 in prison cash and headed to Philadelphia to pick up a ticket to Utah. Instead, he blew it at the Ascot Motel in Atlantic City. Then, riding a Greyhound to New York the next morning, he looked for a toy gun at the Kmart near the Garden, couldn't find one, and spent $2.29 for a steak knife to hit 'the first bank he saw.'" more ›

Yesterday, a man who tried to rob the Chase Bank above Penn Station was shot by a police officer. Now it turns out the 69-year-old attempted robbery suspect, John Daniel Stolarz, was just released from federal prison on Wednesday after serving time for a bank robbery. According to the Post, "Stolarz was supposed to have checked in at a halfway house as part of his federal parole, the source noted. Instead, 'it looks like he went and robbed the first bank he saw,' one source said." more ›

WABC 7 reports, "One man was injured in a possible police involved shooting at a bank at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan. The person was shot at the Chase Bank, at Penn Plaza just before 12:45 p.m." The bank is on 7th Avenue, near 31st Street, at 2 Penn Plaza. We hear the victim may have been robbing the bank when police approached him and he may have pulled a knife. He was apparently in "not likely" to die condition and was transported to Bellevue; two cops were also taken there. more ›

A homeless man tried to hold up the Chase bank at the corner of West 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue yesterday—and the Post says he was "brandishing an old television remote control, demanding money and claiming he had a bomb." Which freaked the bank's employees out enough for them to head to the building's roof. more ›

Chase bank teller Sezzie Goodluck and two others have been charged with stealing over $800,000 from investors for their fake investment company, GTF Enterprises. Goodluck was allegedly able to convince the bank's customers that they'd get a great return if they just gave their money to her instead of to the bank. And with a name like Goodluck, what's not to trust? According to the DA's press release, alleged "mastermind" Gedrey Thompson, "who is a Jamaican national, specifically sought out investors who originally were from Jamaica or other Caribbean islands and now living in the New York area," claiming GTF was "minority owned for minorities." more ›

Add this to your blogrolls! The FBI has developed a new website featuring surveillance photos of bank robbers. Dubbed "Bandit Tracker," the website features a database of images, crime narratives, and maps that authorities hope will generate valuable tips from visitors, according to the Post. Similar websites are up and running in Chicago, St. Louis and Texas, among other places, and in some cases, the technology used to establish the sites allows investigators to post images of the suspects within an hour after a robbery occurs. more ›

A couple more details and one sexy photo have emerged regarding the 25-year-old former Chase Bank financial adviser accused of siphoning over $100K from a millionaire's private account. While Robin Katz sits in Rikers Island on $50,000 bail, the Post is drawing from a bountiful stash of photos yanked from Katz's MySpace page. (It's unclear whether the Post grabbed the snapshots before Katz pulled her profile or if the tabloid's shared membership in the Murdoch family of companies yielded extra access.) A police source says that after arresting Katz, investigators found an ATM card and four withdrawal receipts connected to the account of Wall Street broker Dorone Ilan Farber. Auditors say Katz created the extra ATM card in Farber's name, making dozens of withdrawals from his account. Police think she used the money for shopping and partying, but a tipster claiming to be a friend of Katz's since 2005 tells us she saved up enough to put a down payment on a house! more ›

A 25-year-old Chase Bank investment adviser is behind bars at Rikers Island after being charged with siphoning $110,000 from a millionaire's private account. Saucy Robin Katz worked at Chase's midtown headquarters until May, at which point she told employers she had to return to California for a family emergency. In April, one of Chase's clients realized that his seven-figure account balance had a six-figure shortfall, and auditors determined that an extra ATM card in the millionaire's name had been created in June 2008 and was used dozens of times to withdraw cash out of the account. Bank investigators traced the scam to Katz and asked her to return from California because she had some explainin' to do; she was arrested after arriving back in NYC last week. A police source tells the Post, "She just spent it... shopping and going out." The tabloid also pulls some choice quotes from Katz's MySpace profile, where she describes herself as a "rocket scientist by day, party fool by night," and lists her interests thus: "Politics: F-- Bush. Sex: F-- Me." more ›

The police have released a sketch of the suspect who attacked and robbed a man of $149,000 in cash on West 56th Street on Friday. The incident, which occurred around 2PM, scared Midtown pedestrians as a shot was fired. But in spite of the number of witnesses, the suspect got away. more ›

After the startling Midtown robbery yesterday afternoon in which a man was beaten and robbed of $149,000 in cash on the street, the police are still looking for the suspect. The victim, Seton Ijams, a music management company executive, had just visited a Chase bank, and police believe it may have been an inside job. more ›

There are plenty of Starbucks in Manhattan (over 170), but if you head over to Brooklyn -- you'll see the streets are mostly void of discarded Venti cups and hardly anyone has heard Josh Groban's new Christmas album. But things are about to change, chain-haters beware.A recent Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable meeting revealed that retail giants such as Starbucks, Duane Reade pharmacies and Chase Bank are planning to double and in some cases triple their... more ›

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! more ›

This video from Chase Trash, a blog formed by the Service Employees International Union, makes us want to curl up into the fetal position. It shows unshredded financial documents in the trash outside a Chase location. Chase Trash's Chase Monitor says:

Check out this footage of bank account numbers and other personal information I found in the trash bags at Chase Banks throughout the Big Apple. That’s right, in trash bags on the curb outside Chase Bank branches in Brooklyn, Chinatown, Queens, and the Upper East Side—so the swankiest among us aren’t safe either—I found everything from bank balances and account numbers to social security numbers and addresses ready for the taking by any mildly industrious ID thief.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning.
• NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC.
• When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in his bedroom yesterday, we were thinking along the lines of Robert Mapplethorpe. It's actually less artsy than that.
• A bronze statue of Andy Warhol will be installed in SoHo's Father Fagan Park on 6th Ave. between Prince and Spring Sts. next month.
• Jean-Georges Vongerichten has pulled lobster dishes from all seven of his restaurants' menus and many other restaurateurs are following suit or hiking prices as the lobster fishing industry is having a particularly bad year.
• A drunk driver killed a woman who was driving with her three children early this morning in Queens.
• Brooklyn's oldest restuarant, Gage & Tollner (est. 1879), closed in 2004 to make way for a T.G.I.Friday's chain restaurant, but the successor never caught on in the neighborhood and closed. Now residents wish the space could be filled by an old-school chop house; some place with history and a little class.
• NY Giant Michael Strahan's ex-wife is a little cash-strapped with their divorce entangled in the courts, so she had a yard sale to sell off her and her ex-husbands personal possessions while their daughter sold lemonade.
• Eater has pictures of the plywood coming off the old 2nd Ave. Deli to reveal the gleaming new Chase Bank branch underneath.

The NY Times looks at how Astoria's Steinway Street has evolved into a magnet for big chain. The accompanying graphic shows a one block stretch complete with Gap, GapKids, Starbucks, Bath & Body Works, and Victoria's Secret - and four banks, natch! According to the Real Estate Board of NY's retail committee chairwoman Robin Abrams, the shift is occurring because chains are have either "saturated" or are "priced out" of Manhattan, and they are finding the "can do business in the boroughs." And having a big chain as a tenant is probably less of a hassle than an unknown entity for outer-boroughs landlords (not to mention a reason for them to charge more). more ›

Third Avenue, by Joe Holmes. more ›