[Updates Below] Brookfield, the company which owns Zuccotti Park, is distributing flyers (see below) to protesters today informing them that the western portion of the park will be closed at 7 a.m. Friday for cleaning. The cleaning will take approximately four hours, and then the demonstrators will be allowed back in that area—"for lawful use consistent with our regulation." But the new regulations that Brookfield created would prohibit many of the things that have enabled the occupation to continue; among other things, the new rules prohibit sleeping bags, tarps, and even sleeping on the ground. more ›

Silent Barn, the dirtiest venue in New York (unsubstantiated!), recently got a little cleaner. A little. The DIY music venue/art space located in Ridgewood, Queens has one of those bathrooms that make you contemplate adult diapers—it is not a pretty sight. In exchange for a video shoot there, one band "paid" the powers-that-be in one bathroom cleaning. This important moment, which like a total solar eclipse probably won't happen again for another 360 years, was documented: more ›

amNY visited all of the subway system's 129 bathrooms, reporting, "Many of the 129 restrooms in 77 of the system’s stations are overflowing with filth — if they are still open at all... Odors from the Astoria-Ditmars Blvd. station on the N caused an amNewYork reporter to feel faint during a recent visit." Specifically, at that station: "The smell of waste in this station was intolerable, plus the ceiling leaked." When you throw in regular eau de subway—shiver. more ›

Okay, so maybe it was really a vacuuming that the American Museum of Natural History Museum's Blue Whale received. But now you know that's how the 90-foot fiberglass model, which hangs in the Hall of Ocean Life, is cleaned: An industrial sized vacuum, a scaffold, and the attention of Rodolfo Valencia. Valencia gave the whale its last cleaning two years ago—a lot of dust has piled up since then! The AMNH told the Post, "It's his baby. He's very gentle with it. He's got this all mapped out. He probably knows every inch of that whale." more ›

Board up your windshields and lock yourself in the trunk: The squeegee men—those Giuliani-era poster boys for quality-of-life crime—are making a comeback according to the Post, which has an alarming article about the "pests." Of which there are four. But be afraid! They're congregating near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, and a Hells Kitchen elevator manager tells the tabloid, "They get very aggressive. I was like, 'Dude, don't even think about it!'" The Post finds business booming, even though police have arrested several squeegee men at the location. But at least one of them is still haunted by Giuliani's crackdown (which actually began under NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly during the Dinkins administration); he implored the reporter not to publish the article because "Giuliani will lock my ass up. There will be 30 cops up and down this street." more ›

Starting Monday, alternate-side-of-the-street parking will be suspended on residential streets in Park Slope until further notice. The parking reprieve is being granted while the city changes all the signage to reflect a big change in the alternate-side parking rules: On street cleaning days, the duration of the “No Parking” times will be cut from three hours to 90 minutes in Park Slope. more ›

Passover, which begins tomorrow night, never passes by without a surge in emergency room traffic, according to one area physician. Dr. Tucker Woods, chairman at Long Island College Hospital’s emergency department, tells the Post he sees “an uptick in total patient volume during Passover.” more ›

A family had been living in its Mill Basin, Brooklyn apartment for less than a week, when their 18-month-old toddler was struck by a bullet that passed through its ceiling from an upstairs apartment Thursday afternoon. Their upstairs neighbor is 24-year-old police officer, an Army veteran assigned to Manhattan's 1st Precinct, named Patrick Venetek. more ›