So if you remember correctly, Grand Theft Auto IV, the New York City crime simulator, was supposed to be in stores by now. But between production delays and the million other great games this season to compete with, they decided to just push it back till next Spring and get it right. But just in case you've you've still got an itch for some Eastern European organized crime this holiday season, here's a brand... more ›

After reading this, you may think twice about having a seat in Union Square. The website peeped some peeping toms in the area, visually depicted above (they added a "red carpet" to illustrate the "peeper zone"). They also tell us that a "peeper live zone" can contain up to two dozen pervs at one time and can extend up to 30 feet. We wonder what they do when summer skirt season comes to an end...migrate to the West Coast? more ›

aboutmattlaw took this great photograph at the Ditmars Boulevard subway station stairs. It's a nod to Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone's proposed legislation to ban "non-sensual" peeping, with punishments like 90 days in jail and a $500 fine for first offense. Vallone said that his bill was prompted by some women's complaints that a "rather large pervert" was lurking under the Ditmars station's subway steps. Per the Queens Gazette, Vallone emphasizes, "These perverts use their eyes to invade the privacy of people's bodies, leaving many feeling violated. Yet, up until now, there has been a peephole loophole that gives anyone a license to gawk, leer and spy anywhere they please." more ›

On Tuesday, a Con Ed executive faced a number of irritated City Council members seeking answers about the July 18 steam pipe explosion in Midtown. Senior vice president William Longhi said that the investigation could take another two or three months, but City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, "You may not have all the answers and all the Ts crossed and all the Is dotted. I can accept that. But I cannot accept that you have absolutely nothing to tell us about why this may have happened. more ›

Lawmakers are looking to toughen laws around tinted windows on automobiles. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum pointed out that police officer Russel Timoshenko was fatally shot when he approached a stolen SUV with tinted windows. And current State Senator Eric Adams (a retired police captain and a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care) summed it up, "The criminal element does not use tinted windows to protect themselves from dangerous UV rays. They use them to protect their illegal activity." more ›

The City Council voted, 46-2, to allow NYC public school students to bring cell phones to and from school - though not to use them during the day. The bill was meant to address concerns of parents and students who believe cell phones are critical to students' safety (see these tales of cell phone-less horror). City Councilman Lew Fidler who sponsored the bill said his 17-year-old son walks eight blocks for a bus and "We wouldn't dream of sending him to school without a cellphone. If he's going to be late, we want to know why." more ›

After two days on life support, the 56-year-old bodega owner, who was shot in the face during a robbery attempt, died yesterday morning and police continued their search for the group suspected of robbing a number of bodegas over the past four months. Police Commissioner Kelly said the robbers are "certainly" considered "dangerous," but Cruz's family wonders why the police didn't tell the community about the robberies. more ›

While 11-year-old Xochil Garcia is still being praised for her quick thinking and bravery after escaping and helping nab a man who tried to abduct her, some adults are upset at the law. Her parents, as well as City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., are angry that the suspected kidnapper, Bernard Mutterperl, was set free on $25,000 bail. more ›

As part of Adidas's new spring line of End to End sneakers for Foot Locker, the German shoe manufacturer has created an EndtoEnd Project exhibit in an empty lot on Lafayette and Houston. Adidas had different graffiti artists create designs for shoes in an East London warehouse, so in bringing the finished shoes to the states, Adidas has the artists tagging a replica of a NYC subway car! more ›

With the Grand Theft Auto IV trailer circulating a good six months before the game's release, NYC officials are giving the thumbs down. The Daily News has comments:

"It's despicable to glamorize violence in games like these, regardless of how far-fetched the setting may be," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. more ›

The city's murder rate so far has dropped dramatically. There have been 84 murders through Sunday, and the Post reports that's an "average of roughly one per day - an astonishing figure compared to the early 1990s when six New Yorkers were killed during a typical 24-hour period." For reference, last year, there were 117 murders during the same period. more ›

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As the City Council continues to look at police-supplied data showing blacks are stopped 55% of the time during stop-and-frisk searches, the community has startled to rumble. The Reverend Al Sharpton said that he would start collecting names to file a class action lawsuit against the city. He asid, "It's an outrage. It's enough. No matter how productive you are, to be cast as a suspect rather than a citizen is intolerable in this country... One will have to explain how 55% of the people stopped are black when we're not nearly 50% of the population." more ›

The Department of Health released the top dog names and breeds, and dog names are really pretty boring. Or, at least, owners who got their dogs licenses last year (that's how the DOH measures dog name popularity) really like names lke Max, Lucky, Rocky, Buddy and Princess. (And while we say their names are boring, we're not saying they aren't cute.) We're sure our readers have dogs with more interesting names - tell us! more ›

When City Councilman Peter Vallone is not complaining about graffiti, it seems like his other pet peeve are pit bulls. Vallone is trying to ban pit bulls from city pet owners (by way of repealing a "state law prohibiting breed-specific legislation"). NYC would join cities like Denver and Miami, and the resolution notes that pit bulls are "often a weapon of choice of drug dealers and gangs seeking to intimidate and terrorize neighborhoods." Vallone tells the NY Sun that the pit bulls' jaws "lock," which prevents people from defending themselves, their children or pets from being hurt: "It's out job to get this done before another child's face is ripped off." more ›

This must be what happens when the Euro is strong and the U.S. dollar is weak. It turns out that 70% of elaborate subway car graffiti is created by Europeans. The Daily News puts this on the cover, noting that many taggers from "from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway to spray-paint their murals and elaborate tags - called "pieces" - on trains, fully aware that the Transit Authority will scrub them clean within hours." Why? So they can photograph their work to give them some NYC street cred back home! The Daily News has a great quote from Lady Pink, who says that New York taggers aren't interested in tagging trains: "Painting to take a photograph, for us who live here, is kind of the wussy way out. The point is to have it run [on the tracks and be seen]." more ›

Thanks to YouTube, more people can see tagging in action. The Post looks at the YouTubing of graffiti vandals/artists at work in the subways.

The vandals declined to be interviewed, but said that the trend began with graffiti writers who took to photographing their work because of the MTA's practice of painting over cars as soon as they're tagged. more ›

Yow. Reaction to graffiti artist-vandal-user-whathaveyou Kiko's sentence (6 months and a $25,000 fine) for tagging various Queens locations was pretty straightforward - graffiti hating City Councilman Peter Vallone was upset Kiko didn't get more time with street art enthusiasts were sorry about it. ANIMAL New York wrote a post noting that Vallone's used graffiti as a "personal soapbox":

Although we do think KIKO should be punished in some form or another, specifically public service, we don’t think that any graffiti writer should ever have to serve jail time. In the long run this hurts the community more than any tag could. If anybody wants to do any peaceful renovations demonstrations, we suggest they travel to the belly of the beast. Here is Peter Vallone's home address, 21-46 19th St. as provided by his own district office and press hack, Andrew something or other. So stop by, check out the lovely views of the Triborough Bridge and the massive Con Ed power plant, plus exercise your 1st Amendment writes.

Peace & love ...KIKO©City Councilman Peter Vallone, who was one of the first people to call and complain about seeing Kiko's Crazy 8 (or C8) tag, said that if Siandre gets in trouble with the law again, he'll be away for a minimum of two years. Vallone added, "All the graffiti he'll be doing for the next six months will be on the inside of his jail cell." Hey, is Vallone promoting vandalism within prison? more ›

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! Please, Con Ed needed 600 pages to come up with that excuse? Anyway, the NY Times summarizes what Con Ed says happened:

According to the report, three unrelated events on July 17 combined to knock out five feeders. The first event was a fire, around 3:50 p.m., that broke out in an underground conduit near 30th Avenue and 44th Street when a low-voltage secondary cable short-circuited. The fire damaged two of the primary feeders, causing both of them to fail in a 32-minute period. More than two hours later, at 6:48 p.m., a third feeder failed. more ›

The Office of Emergency Management has decided to stop relying on Con Ed-supplied information on power outages, after the July Queens blackout mess that affected about 300,000. OEM Commissioner Joseph Bruno said that the fact that Con Ed said only 1700 customers were without power on July 20, later raising it to 25,000 customers (and customers equal entire buildings, with indeterminate number of people in them), was cause for the city to start sending canvassers on the street to get better estimates. The "Power Outage Response Team" will be made up of NYPD, FDNY, and other city officials. Comissioner Bruno said, "We have never seen Con Ed be off by a factor of 10, as we’ve seen here... We are no longer accepting those [Con Ed] numbers as we had for years." more ›

- A club promoter said that ID scanning may lead to longer waits and fights outside clubs, not to mention that fake ID makers will just make fake IDs betterOver the weekend, the police continued their "raids" of Chelsea nightclubs, arresting 11 people. It's unclear when the NYPD will stop, but as long as clublife is hopping, they'll be stopping by.
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Mayor Bloomberg finally made his way to Astoria yesterday to be briefed on the situation leaving thousands of Queens residents and business owners have been with little or no power. Yet he nor Con Ed could not explain why power had been out for four days. Mayor Bloomberg did say, “I cannot explain why we’re in this situation. It’s an intolerable situation.” And the Mayor and Con Ed don't know when power will be back on. What is known is that there were multiple manhole fires, cables just seem to be melting all around, and Rikers is using back-up generators! more ›

- And our favorite, from City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin: "When I went to Stuyvesant and none of us had cellphones. And people came from neighboring schools and tried to beat us up anyway."Of course, that was in the old Stuyvesant days, when kids from Washington Irving High School would harrass Stuy kids walking eastward. Anyway, Deputy Mayor Derek Walcott told the City Council the Mayor would not move away from its policy. Take that from the Bloomberg "311 - it's all about information" Administration! more ›

That City Councilman Peter Vallone! Back in 2003, he proposd a bill to study NYC's secession from NY State. But nothing happened. And nothing happened in 2004 (he didn't reintroduce it in 2005, maybe he had graffiti to fight), but no matter, the Queens councilman reintroduced the bill last week. And at the core, the idea of secession makes emotional sense, as the city shoulders a lot of the NY State tax burden (look at these charts) and Governor Pataki never does anything for NYC. But it would never happen, so is proposing a bill to study secession really a good use of money? Gothamist would love to see that study, but, hey, we've got the evidence we need. more ›

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It's Marc Ecko 2, City of New York 0! After suing the city last week over the law that now prevents people between 18 and 21 from carrying wide-tip markers or spray paint, a federal judge ruled that the law has no "rational basis." The city is supposed to stop enforcing the law on Thursday at 5PM. However, the part of the law that prevents people between 18 and 21 to buy etching acids, which are tools in scratchitti, is still in effect. Scratchitti is considered one of the most annoying scourges in the subway system these days, as most train windows are covered with it. Last week, the NY Times reported that the NYC Transit was looking into putting Mylar on all the windows, but it was unclear whether or not they'd do it (what with the money it'd take and how well it would work). more ›

Clothing entrepreneur Marc Ecko is suing the city once again. Ecko who found himself pitted against the city when a permit for a party to celebrate his new Atari game about graffiti taggers was revoked last summer- only for a judge to rule that the party had to go on after Ecko sued the city - is battling a law that makes carrying broad-tipped markers and spray paint illegal for people under 21. The new law makes posession a crime, whereas before police had to prove an intent to deface, which seems crazy, because what if you're an art school student - you can't bring supplies? Ecko's lawyer, Daniel Perez says, "There is no justification for telling a 19- or 20-year-old that you can use your index finger for pulling the trigger of an M16 on the battlefield or pulling a switch in the voting booth, but not to push the trigger on a can of spray paint." But AM New York reports Ecko's foe, City Councilman Peter Vallone, as saying, "All Marc Ecko is doing is promoting his video game. A video game which teaches kids how perform the crime of graffiti. We knew we were pushing the envelope with this law, but it is necessary to combat graffiti." Ecko doesn't need to promote his video game through lawsuits - he's on America's Next Top Model, for heaven's sake! And Atari, quick, develop a game between Ecko and Vallone! more ›

We're pretty sure that City Councilman Peter Vallone has a rolodex of statements ready to give whenever there's a graffiti arrest in Queens, but this is the first time Gothamist has heard Queens DA Richard Brown weigh in on graf. With the arrests of two men for "criminal mischief and making graffiti", Brown said, "City officials and anti-graffiti activists have done a remarkable job over the years in cleaning up New York City's image as a graffiti-scarred city. We cannot allow vandals to mar the beauty of our city and return us to the days when our transit system and our highways and buildings were covered with graffiti." According to AM New York, Peter Korolis used the tag Kaspo and may face up to 4 years in jail while Kevin Varela, who tagged under "Toon 84" (his stuff can be seen in Queens and Brooklyn), faces up to 1 year. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg kept busy yesterday, as he signed 27 bills in City Council Chambers. Notable bills are the noise code and the anti-graffiti measures (including making it illegal for anyone under 21 to carry spray paint or a wide marker), but others included bills setting fuel standards for city owned vehicles and creating a broadband advisory commitee. Two pieces of legislation to watch out for are the "child fatality review" committee (will heads roll in the Adminstration for Children's Services) and expanding Compstat to the parks. And 67 streets were named after New Yorkrers - many seem to be in Staten Island. more ›