Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

The 69-year-old woman who was burned over 90% of her body in a gas explosion in her Sunnyside home died yesterday. City Councilman Eric Gioia said, "It is with great regret and sadness that I announce the passing of Kunta Oza. My deepest condolences go out to her entire family, and I ask that all New Yorkers keep them in their Thanksgiving prayers." On Wednesday afternoon, calls were made to 911 about a gas smell......

Yesterday afternoon, a gas explosion in a Sunnyside home burned a 67-year-old woman over 90% of her body. Six other people were also injured, as over 200 people needed to be evacuated and over a hundred firefighters responded. Kunta Oza, who lives in a three-story at 41st Street and 48th Avenue, is at New York Hospital Burn Center in critical condition. WNBC reports that she "sent her grandchildren outside as a precaution. The move might......

Con Ed is laying the blame on Mame Mother Nature for the two power outages this past week. The utility issued a statement saying that the 48-minute blackout on Wednesday - the one that hit the Upper East Side and South Bronx - was caused by a "strong lightning strike." This is what the Con Ed statement said:Information obtained from real-time lightning tracking data show that detection instruments measured a lightning strike of 34,000 amperes......

Well, there's nothing like having a barely-one-hour blackout on a sultry weekday to make you consider stocking up on flashlights, batteries, water, and maybe a Go Bag. Con Ed is still investigating the cause of yesterday's brief power failure to parts of the Bronx and Manhattan; Newsday reported "the blackout was caused when breakers opened at an Astoria substation and cut off power to stations servicing Yorkville and parts of the Bronx." It's unclear......

The Landmarks Preservation Committee unanimously approved designating Sunnyside Gardens a landmark. However, amNew York reports that the preservationists who supported the measure were outnumbered by residents of the Queens enclave. One expressed dismay by saying, "It's going to cause a lot of problems for the low-income people We are disappointed. This process is not a democratic system." It was a heated issue: The LPC said it received "hundreds and hundreds" of letters with opinions on......

Yesterday, a five people were injured on Queens Boulevard at 47th Street when a Jeep Cherokee slammed into a Honda. The Jeep, which witnesses describe as trying to beat a red light, lost control and hit the Honda. The Honda, which had been making a turn onto Queens Boulevard, was crushed from the impact and then "plowed up onto the crowded sidewalk, pinning a 16-year-old boy against a lamppost." Both legs of the boy, Tonpo......

City Councilman Eric Gioia, took it upon himself to eat only what he could afford for $28, the equivalent of a week's worth of food stamps. He followed in the foosteps of Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, who only allotted himself $21 (the Oregonian food stamp equivalent) for the week. According to the New Yorker, Councilman Gioia conducted the challenge "to draw attention to the issue of how people are living in New York City.” After......

While the city has spent the last few years making life difficult for bar owners in a fixed location with a vested interest in maintaining good relations with its neighbors, the State Liquore Authority has been passing out temporary liquor licenses like refills at an all-you-can-drink affair. According to the New York Post, the SLA issued 2,899 temporary liquor licenses in the city during 2006. That's 13% more than in 2005 and a 55% increase......

Alarming news to start the workweek: The Daily News exclusively reports that the authorities are looking for "64 fugitive rapists, perverts and molesters" who have lied about where they live. Many of the sex offenders gave home addresses at city housing projects. But federal law prohibits Level 2 and Level 3 offenders from living in public housing, so the feds went to evict some offenders - only to find out they were never living there.......

Weekend 7 train service has been horrendous the past few weekends due to MTA service work. Many business owners, namely bar and restaurant owners, were worried what the lack of a running 7 train would do to St. Patrick's Day business. St. Patrick's Day falls on a Saturday, and MTA Executive Director said that the MTA may suspend weekend service disruptions on March 17. Another possibility is to have the E, R, and LIRR......

This past weekend, residents and business owners held a rally to protest the 7 line's weekend service disruptions. They were probably also complaining about MTA's poor efforts to explain new directions during the diversions as well. The work on the 7 line, which is to upgrade signals and other infrastructure, will continue for another four weekends. And one of those weekends is a big bar day - St. Patrick's Day on March 17 -......

Yesterday, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the State will sue ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Keyspan and Phelps Dodge over a 17-million-gallon oil spill in Newtown Creek that has spread underneath Greenpoint over 100 acres. The spill was detected in 1978, when a Coast Guard pilot noticed an oil plume; oil seeped underground from ExxonMobil refinery and storage operations since the 1950s. Attorney General Cuomo said:This is one of the worst environmental disasters in the......

If you want to read an incredibly damning indictment of Con Edison ever put to 185-page PDF, we highly recommend reading the Public Service Commission study (here's the PDF) of what happened during last summer's Queens blackout. Our favorite summary of the major screw up that was Con Ed's response is Con Edison’s performance in preparing for, and responding to, the outage event was deficient, a gross disservice to its customers. Or is it......

City Councilman Eric Gioia will be demanding that the NYC Housing Authority explain why over 200 registered sex offenders are living in public housing. NYCHA policy - and federal law - prohibits sex offenders from residing in Post puts it, "they are filled with children and other vulnerable targets and in the past were havens for criminals." And the Daily News notes that this past week, a registered offender attacked a woman at the Ravenswood......

With the weather turning quite brisk today, it's almost hard to remember that back in stifling July heat, many neighborhoods were without power for days and days. Almost. Yesterday, Con Ed released a 600 page report detailing what happened, why they decided not to shut down the network, and why trying to fix the problem caused delays. All in all, Con Ed is saying it wasn't really their fault - it was the equipment!......

Yesterday was the third day of the August heat wave, but the sprinkling of rain in the early evening and cooler weather today and the weekend should hopefully bring relief to us all. And it looks like Con Ed managed to avoid a bigger blackout when feeder cables on the East Side failed and manholes exploded in the area as well; of course, Con Ed sending its own non-essential employees home certainly freaked everyone......

Mayor Bloomberg issued a heat emergency for the city as it braces itself for the century mark, temperature-wise. The last time the city had 100-degree weather was in August 2001. The city is urging residents to conserve electricity, and City Councilman provided heat of another kind as they grilled Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke over the Queens blackout. Some bits from the hearing:- Though the average age of feeder cables for the area was......

Most of the city got to enjoy yesterday's cooler weather - except for Queens residents and business owners. For the second day in a row, homes and businesses had little or no power and subway service was limited, with many commutes that would take 30 minutes tops taking 90 minutes. The MTA blamed Con Ed, saying, "Because of the low-voltage problem, not enough power is available to power subway signals in the area." And Con......

What's in a name? People are always nosy about the new business opening up near them, but this Sunnyside, Queens story is especially amusing as the detective work basically stems from the restaurant name. A restaurant named "Punto G" is under construction, and neighbors are furious. Because Punto G's translation is "G Spot," and that has people suspicious that a strip club is opening up. The owners claim it'll be a family eatery, but maybe......

Be still Gothamist's beating heart: Two men have been arrested for placing an "ATM skimming" device onto an ATM in Elmont. The men stoles the account and PIN numbers from a Bank of America branch and took $2500 dollars from ATMs in Manhattan, Rosedale, and Queens. Newsday reports that a witness saw the pair remove the skimming device from the Elmont ATM and followed their car until police stopped them on Queens Boulevard. Go concerned......

While the Mayor and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller may seem similar - they are white...they live on the Upper East Side...uh... - they actually aren't, and the NY Times examined their extremely political spitting match. Gothamist liked how Mayor Bloomberg views Miller as unaccomplished and unambitious, because next to him, who can be (this does not bode well for prospective suitors for Emma and Georgina), but there was another quote that got us thinking:City......