We've all felt it prick the back of our necks, especially when we seem to be having a lousy day. The worst is when we're mid-sentence in a passionate debate over the merits of baked vs. regular Cheetos, and a dribble hits our lips, causing us to sputter at an invisible assailant. But are those drops of water falling from the city's A.C.'s slowly poisoning us, drip by drip? more ›

It seems strange on a day like today to reminisce on winter, and the fact that it was only two months ago that we were dealing with blizzards, snow piles and slowdowns. But that's just what the Times did today, in an article about four people who believe that they were unfairly ticketed for failing to shovel their sidewalks at the same time when the city was failing to clear many of the streets. more ›

Are free outdoor events that attract crowds too dangerous? City Room reports that the 161st Street Business Improvement District's plans for a free screening of the USA-Ghana World Cup match at Lou Gehrig Plaza in the Bronx were shut down by the city: "On Thursday morning, 48 hours before the game, officials with the city’s Street Activity Permit Office informed the group sponsoring the event that the request for a permit had been denied." A city spokeswoman said, "Based on expected attendance, the police, the D.O.T. and the parks department determined that it would not be possible to accommodate a safe event at that location." more ›

Over the weekend Patti Smith and Jonathan Lethem went face-to-face in the Great Hall of Cooper Union to discuss, you know, stuff. The Q&A format had Smith on the receiving end of questions from the author as well as some audience members. According to VanshingNY, one woman asked if it was still possible for a young artist to come to New York City and find a similar path that Smith and her contemporaries found themselves on decades ago. more ›

In an agreement announced yesterday, the city will assume full control of Governors Island from the state, enabling the Bloomberg administration to move forward with a $41.5 million plan to give the island a face lift. Bloomberg has been pushing for full control of the 172-acre site for over a year, and until now the city has been unable to release the $41.5 million without matching funds from the state. "It was getting to the point where the city had the resources and wanted to develop the island," Governor Paterson told reporters at City Hall yesterday. "We could not match that money at the time and ... it was obfuscating the development of the island." more ›

It's open! After more than two decades of planning and dreaming, a part of Brooklyn Bridge Park is open to the public. Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Paterson—who had squabbled over control of the planned 85-acre waterfront parkland before reaching an agreement earlier this month—cut the ribbon on the first phase of the $350 million project this morning. "This is not just the building of a new park. This is the commencement of the development of a modern urban waterfront," said Paterson. more ›

Since the city assumed control of the unfinished Brooklyn Bridge Park project, there's a chance the controversial plan to fund park operations by building condos inside the greenspace might be scrapped. The Bloomberg administration has said it will form a committee to investigate other revenue streams that could earn money to cover the estimated $16.1 million maintenance budget, including building stores or charging local homeowners a fee or tax. more ›

The state has reportedly withdrawn its control of Brooklyn Bridge Park and given the cash-strapped project to the city. After a year of internal squabbles that delayed the planned opening of a portion of the parkland, Gov. Paterson is expected to hand off the unfinished $350 million, 85-acre waterfront project—meaning it will become the city's responsibility to finish and fund. more ›

Facing some 9,000 lawsuits from ground zero responders who say they became ill after working at the 9/11 site, the city wants a judge to toss 17 "baseless" suits. According to 1010WINS, city attorneys urged a judge to dismiss cases involving a firefighter who blames breathing problems on 9/11 dust despite being put on disability for the same ailments in 1999, and a Staten Island construction worker who blames 9/11 for a medical condition despite filing a malpractice suit linking some of the ailments to a gastrointestinal disease in the 1990s. Prosecutors—who insist the cases are valid—and city attorneys are expected to take several cases to court, and use those verdicts to determine settlements for the rest of the suits. more ›

After increasing the cost of pooper scooper fines from $100 to $250, city inspectors issued far fewer tickets to dog owners who didn't pick up after their pooches last year. The number of pooper scooper violations plummeted from 903 in the fiscal year of 2008 to just 580 in 2009—but experts say the decline in tickets has nothing to do with the higher cost of the violations. more ›

The city is backing out of plans to purchase the historic Wyckoff-Bennett House in Brooklyn even though the 18th-century Dutch farmhouse—located on East 22nd Street near Avenue P—is one of the few left standing and it's still inhabited. Homeowners Stuart and Annette Mont say they've gone through a decade of negotiations and preparations with the Parks Department, but now a new deal has been proposed that isn't to their liking. more ›

With the May 16 trial date approaching, lawyers for the city and attorneys for thousands of 9/11 responders who say they got sick or injured after working at Ground Zero are apparently hurrying to reach a settlement. Though attorneys from both sides declined to comment on negotiations, Judge Alvin Hellerstein told the Times that "[t]here have been intensive discussions going on looking to settlements of individual cases and globally of all cases...The parties have been working very hard...The settlement is complicated." more ›

The long-awaited plans to turn Governors Island into a public space and convert the piers beneath the promenade in Brooklyn Heights into Brooklyn Bridge Park have been set back by a lengthy squabble between the city and the state. Last spring, Mayor Bloomberg said he wanted full control of both projects, which are currently being jointly developed by the city and the state. He even offered $300 million in funding to get the projects, but thanks to "bureaucratic BS at its finest," the two sides have yet to reach a deal. more ›

Ushering in a more touchy-feely approach to juvenile delinquency, Mayor Bloomberg will make the city's Department of Juvenile Justice part of its child welfare agency. The announcement, which came in this afternoon's state of the city address, signals that the new administration intends to put fewer kids behind bars. more ›

Last year the state's budget crisis held Governors Island hostage, making it difficult for the island to plan events because the state didn't commit funding until the last minute. The island is controlled and financed jointly by the state and city, but last year Mayor Bloomberg made a move to cut the state out entirely, and also take over Brooklyn Bridge Park. In exchange, the city would end its partnership with the state in the long-delayed Javits Center expansion, and use that $300 million to fund the parks. The idea was not exactly embraced by Paterson, but apparently it's still got legs; the Villager reports that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is supportive. And The Governors Island Alliance, which manages the island, is also on board, though executive director Rob Pirani would also like as many details in writing as possible: "As much as I trust this mayor, he's not going to be mayor forever—at least I assume not." more ›

At least one part of the city's planned rehabilitation of Coney Island seems to pay homage to the amusement district's gritty history. Newly installed sections of the Coney Island Boardwalk are already starting to fall apart — less than a year after they were screwed down. "It's not even a year old, and we're right back to square one," Todd Dobrin, chairperson of Friends of the Boardwalk, told the Daily News. "Something is wrong, and we need to find it out now before we waste all our resources on something that needs to be done again." more ›

While AT&T takes a lot of heat for their horrific service here in New York, Verizon gets criticized constantly for putting up the most loathed building in the city — which practically sucks the soul out of the skyline (we are looking at it right now). more ›

Just last week we were patting the city on the back for cleaning up the "Bronx Swamp" — but now we've encountered a huge buzzkill. The LTV Squad reports live from the scene and says, "what we found was that the city has done the minimal amount of work and has left the tunnel under St. Mary’s park completely fetid and flooded to boot. This tunnel was once dry enough to serve as a safe haven to migratory cave dwelling birds. Today though it’s the same old health hazard that the city promised it would eliminate." They make the assumption that the city only cleaned the parts visible to the public, leaving "a toxic soup directly under a park where children play." Yikes. more ›

It's like Brooklyn Bridge Park all over again. The plan to build a waterfront park in Long Island City funded by the construction of new housing has neighbors and open space activists up in arms, according to the Post. The city will use the revenue from 5,000 planned apartments in the Hunters Point South development to pay for an 11-acre public esplanade — sparking fears that the parkland will feel private and that the city will begin relying on housing to pay for future park projects. more ›

Not so surprising: The Post reports that the attrition rate for city employees for the 3rd quarter of this year "dropped to 7 percent. That compares to 8.7 percent for the same period last year, and 10.4 percent during that period in 2007 and 2006." Annual attrition is at a low of 5.1%, vs. 6.5% in 2008 and 6.7% in 2007. Mayor Bloomberg said it can cause problems, "When an agency has projected to meet their reduction goals and say, 'Well, we'll downsize by attrition.' What do you do if people don't retire? And that's exactly what has happened... You know, city employment is great for a lot of people. They like working here." more ›

Kerry Sullivan, a longtime Staten Island gadfly who's awaiting a liver transplant, claims that police arrested him outside his home in August as retaliation for his outspoken criticism of Borough President James P. Molinaro. Yesterday the NYCLU filed a federal lawsuit on Sullivan's behalf, naming the City of New York and the two police officers who arrested Sullivan as defendants, and claiming they violated Sullivan’s rights under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments; the New York State Constitution; and New York common law. Those are a lot of violations! But what's really outrageous is what the cops allegedly told Sullivan during the arrest. more ›

Want to avoid costly fines from the city for renting out illegally subdivided apartments? It's easy — just don't open the door. In the aftermath of a fatal fire that killed three Bangladeshi immigrants in an illegal basement apartment without sufficient exits, the Daily News pulls up some damning figures on the city's inability to crack down on these surprisingly ubiquitous deathtraps. more ›

Just before 10 a.m. a report came over the newswire saying a female in a wheelchair was pinned under a truck. Shortly after a reader sent in these photos from the accident, which occurred on Bleecker and 8th Avenue, showing the truck was a City Parks vehicle. The vicitim was unconscious and transported to St. Vincent's Hospital, and there has been no additional word on her condition. more ›

A Manhattan teenager with no criminal record is suing the city for $1 million because cops arrested and taunted him as "Plaxico Burress" after he got shot in a robbery. Christian Dudley doesn't even own a gun, but that didn't matter to the officers who collared him after the Harlem mugging earlier this year. He was arrested in a Washington Heights hospital where he was waiting to get the bullet removed from the back of his knee—instead of surgery, he got dragged to the precinct on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. And that's where the fun really started. more ›

While the NY Times' story on a Harlem charter school's kindergarten visit to the Queens County Farm Museum might just seem like a human interest story, there's actually a serious reason behind it: The state's English and math tests seem biased towards kids with knowledge of farms. There are "several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park. On the state English test this year, for instance, third graders were asked questions relating to chickens and eggs. In math, they had to count sheep and horses." Oh no!!! more ›

Perhaps using his Talking Heads song "Cities" as inspiration, David Byrne penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal about his ideal metropolis. Byrne lives in New York, of course, but also travels more frequently than most of us, so he's got a lot of crazy European ideas! As for his hometown, however, he says the locals wouldn't be the ideal folk to populate his city; "New Yorkers are viewed as being tough as nails, no-nonsense but with hearts of gold—or maybe just gold-plated. This might not be the sensibility I would choose if I had a choice." Don't take it personally, because he still says our nightlife is probably the best, and maybe even our security! "For example in parts of New York's West Village, as author Jane Jacobs pointed out, the streets are rarely abandoned and there are almost always some locals hanging out, so everyone sees a little bit of what's going on. The community has eyes and ears, and everyone behaves accordingly. In my perfect city I'd feel that sense of neighborliness—that people weren't in my business, but that I would be a familiar sight, as they would be to me." What else are we good for, New York? more ›

Just when you thought developer Bruce Ratner was about to turn the corner in the P.R. war over his proposed $800 million arena for the Nets in Brooklyn, along comes the city’s Independent Budget Office with a big bucket of ice water. A new analysis concludes that "over a 30-year period, the arena would cost the city nearly $40 million more in spending under current budget plans than it will generate in tax revenues (present value, 2009 dollars)." It also estimates that "for the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, the mix of special government benefits result in total savings of $726 million." more ›

A man who was wrongly jailed on Rikers Island for 17 months has accepted a $145,000 settlement with the city because a detective misidentified his fingerprints. Dwight Gomas was residing in Atlanta in 2004 when he was suddenly arrested by U.S. marshals for an armed robbery at a Howard Beach jewelry store. Detective Eileen Barrett had matched a partial finger print from the crime scene to Gomas, whose prints were on file after his only prior arrest as an adult: driving with a suspended license in Brooklyn. Gomas maintained his innocence before a grand jury, but was indicted and couldn't make bail. Languishing on Rikers, his Legal Aid lawyer urged him to accept a plea offer of five years in prison, but he refused. Luckily, veteran detective Daniel Perruzzaa finally conducted a routine review of the fingerprints. He tells the Daily News, "When I looked at it, I said, 'You know what? This is a screwup; this is not his fingerprints." Oopsy! Gomas was released after 523 days in jail, but by then his girlfriend and their child moved in with another man. On the plus side, he pulled in $145K in less than two years on Rikers, so we're sure there's no hard feelings. more ›

The Post says that "two distressed luxury condo buildings -- one in Harlem and another in Downtown Brooklyn -- are in talks with the city to unload their unsold units at fire-sale prices as affordable housing." Hey, if luxury condos can become homeless shelters, why not? While it's unclear which condos are being eyed, apparently the city is negotiating with the banks that foreclosed on the properties. And the city's housing commissioner Rafael Cesetro said the condo developers/banks "would have to take significant losses"—a $500,000 condo could be purchased by the city for $300,000 (plus the developer/bank would get a $50,000 subsidy). Cesetro added that developers were only thinking about the bubble, "Some of the sales assumptions seemed like a stretch in any kind of market. In Downtown Brooklyn, and not on the water, they had buildings underwritten to sell for $800 to $900 a square foot." Will more luxury condos be turned over to the city? more ›

Last year the Bloomberg administration made a big deal about reducing the number of parking placards issued to city employees, slashing them by over 25,000. At the time, the cutback on permits, which allow cops, civil servants, and other lucky bureaucrats to park almost anywhere, was heralded by Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives as “a good first step. But the final analysis will be weeks and months from now, when we see how actively these plaques are enforced." more ›