Leval Lyde, a 36-year-old Brooklyn rapper who went by the street name "Kevlar," was gunned down yesterday on the corner of Clinton Ave. and Fulton St. in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Lyde was shot just before 5 p.m. on the street corner and declared dead on arrival at Brooklyn Hospital. Lyde had just exited Fish & Crustaceans Quality Seafood and was walking with his sandwich towards the maroon Jaguar (owned by the mother......

Maggie Brown, the Myrtle Avenue comfort-food spot on the border between Clinton Hill and Ft. Greene, has become a popular attraction for nearby Pratt students and locals who pack the summer garden to sip spiked frozen lemonade. While better known for their fried chicken and ribs, we braved Maggie Brown on a busy Sunday morning, hanging in there for a 45 minute wait which climaxed with our party of five crammed into a table......

A cross between a cafe, bakery, market, and gourmet takeout shop, Clinton Hill's Choice Market is one of those places which, once discovered, you're not quite sure how you lived without. Baskets of flaky croissants, raisin danish, and turnovers grace the window, and upon stepping inside – where a single communal table littered with the day's newspapers can can cause labyrinthine lines – you will also find luscious-looking scones (the orange chocolate is a......

Manhattan real estate sales set a record in the fourth quarter of 2007, with residential sales averaging out to be $1.4 million (according to data from Prudential Douglas Elliman), an increase of 17.6% over 2006's fourth quarter. However impressive that statistic is, the growth was primarily driven by super high-end sales of at least $10 million. Apparently sales for condos at The Plaza and 15 Central Park West helped drive the average condo sale......

Up above you have Park Slope #17 and Carroll Gardens #13, respectively. Jennifer Loeber is bringing nude photography close to home with her series that show different Brooklynites in the flesh, in their apartments. They could even be your neighbors! And her inspiration? It came from a flasher on the subway, of course: "The idea to shoot nude portraits came about as I rode the NYC subway and pretended not to notice, across the......

For those not wanting to hit the big Halloween parade (led by today's interviewee) there are other options: Park Slope's Halloween Parade (info here), Clinton Hill's Halloween Walk (info here) Prospect Park South's Halloween Parade (info here) and Williamsburg's Witches Walk (info here). EVENT: Hallowe'en is Happening Downtown at Trinty Church where both both kids and adults will find spooky spectacles tonight. For the little ones there will be an early evening filled with games,......

Want to complain about your terrible neighbor to someone other than 311? Or want to know a little more about a neighborhood you're thinking of moving to? The website Rotten Neighbor aims to do both: Educate newcomers to neighborhoods and collect information about neighborhoods from the veterans. From their site:Our goal is to be an exceptionally smart assistant when you are looking to move into a new neighborhood. We hope that you will be......

Just a few blocks away from the Pratt Institute, a man died after being shot three times on Clifton Place yesterday afternoon. Lawrence Sumpter, a Staten Island resident who had grown up in the Clinton Hill neighborhood, was being chased by a gunman. Sumpter headed to 22 Clifton Place, a brownstone in renovation; a witness told the Post that Sumpter tripped and his pursuer "just got over him and emptied [his gun]." Another woman told......

TIP: According to Paper's Mr. Mickey, Chloë Sevigny is having a tag sale on her block this Saturday. We're guessing there will be lots of vintage Balenciaga. Check out her apartment in House & Garden...pretty nice! EVENT: The Howl Festival (which took last year off) continues on throughout the weekend. Tomorrow around 2pm you can catch Moby with his band The Little Death in Tompkins Square Park. Check out the full schedule here. All Weekend......

On Friday, Brooklyn blog Brownstoner was alarmed about a Clinton Hill resident on Grand Avenue who was painting a brownstone's archway white. Though the second comment wondered "are you sure it's not primer?", the comments thread turned into a heated debate about the rights of owners of buildings in landmarked neighborhoods, calling the painting a "disgrace" and a "mortal sin," and whether publicly outing the owner was appropriate. Well, the Daily News' Michael Daly headed......

Last night, a fire broke out in a second-floor East New York apartment where three children seemed to be left alone. A first-floor neighbor, Tommy Campbell, managed to rescue a 2-year-old and 5-year-old, but couldn't get to 10-month-old Melanie Webb, who died of smoke inhalation. Campbell told the Post that the 5-year-old had knocked on his door for help. Campbell said he tried twice to get the baby, "I probably was no more than 10......

Last week, Clinton Hill Blog founder Robin Lester posted her findings of a trip taken to the Greenpoint Beer Works, a large brick industrial tucked away on Brooklyn’s Waverly Avenue between Fulton and Atlantic. She and another blog reader met up with operations director and brewer Kelly Taylor, who revealed that in addition to filling Greenpoint’s regular daily work order for Heartland Brewery, he has also been developing his own small batch beer, Kelso......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: high-rise fire in Midtown and a bank robbery in Brooklyn Heights. Jon Brownstoner comes out to the New York Observer: he's 37, lightly-bearded, and lives in Clinton Hill. There's a protest against that huge Meatpacking District billboard tonight-- 8:30PM in front of the Hotel Gansevoort. The Army frequents Harlem high schools to recruit; a student says, "It's harassment because you can't walk through the hallway without them saying things......

He may be best known for this role in Entourage, but Adrian Grenier wears a lot of other hats. Filmmaker, musician and New Yorker are amongst those. He bought a house in Clinton Hill a couple of years ago, insulated it with recycled denim and installed photovoltaic panels (so add environmentalist to the above list, as well). Last weekend we asked the multifaceted Grenier some questions. Name, Occupation: Adrian Grenier, _________ Favorite place to have......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: hazmat condition on Wall Street and water main breaks in Soho and Tribeca. Just great: WNBC's Jonathan Dienst reports, "The FBI said it believes a violent fugitive who kidnapped his girlfriend and threatened to use his military explosives training to blow her up in a building may be now hiding out in Queens." Love it or hate it, the new New School building on the corner of 14th and......

John Fekner was a street artist in the 1980s-- check out this gallery of his pieces, including a few from Greenpoint, near the old gas towers. [Via Wooster] Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a barge worker had a heart attack and had to be rescued at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, someone fell down an elevator shaft on East 11th Street, and a water main broke on Canal Street. Former Page Six gossipeur Jared Paul......

Ouch! A teacher accidently amputated a kindergartner's finger yesterday at PS240 in Clinton Hill. She was slamming a door, and didn't realize that he had placed his finger in the way. Doctors at Lutheran Medical Center were able to stitch things back together. A gun found in a Westchester lake has been definitively linked to the murder of one of Bill and Hillary Clinton's neighbors. The police haven't announced any progress in the case,......

+ The Landmarks Preservation Commission has been doing its job, but what about the buildings and districts behind the numbers? Meanwhile, 980 Madison developer Aby Rosen says Tom Wolfe “should stick to writing books.” + Speaking of the Commission, it has stripped landmark status from land where a deteriorated 1871 building once stood. That's only happened twice before. + For developers, sluggish condo sales mean only one thing: more upscale hotels, natch. + The......

- Ed Levine wonders aloud if there is such a thing as a "cheap 4 star" eating experience, and then tells us about his, at the Del Posto Enoteca. - The fight is on over the right to use the Guss' Pickles name. - The Clinton Hill Blog checks out the Smoke Joint, a new BBQ place in Fort Greene, and declares happily, "Smoke Joint does it right." - Savory New York has recently added......

In the 2000 census, somewhere around 150,000 New Yorkers described themselves as working in the arts, design, entertainment, and sports occupations. These people, making up 4.3% of the total working population, are the nucleus of what urban theorist Richard Florida calls the "creative class". This map, showing the density of artists and designers in the five boroughs, confirms what we already intuitively know: the creative class is centered in neighborhoods with the most cultural activity.......

Oh damn! The beautiful and strange Broken Angel building in Clinton Hill seems to be on fire! Brooklyn Record has the first shot-- is anyone in the area available to snap a few pictures of the damage? The building is on the corner of Downing and Quincy-- we're not going to be able to bike down there for at least a few hours. Update: according to the Gothamist Newsmap, it's an all-hands call for......

- Got a donut craving? Consider taking doing an international taste test. Time Out New York brings us donuts (or their equivalents) from around the globe. - Actually, no matter what you're craving, you're likely to be able to order it online. Thanks to MUG for an incredibly comprehensive list of online food purveyors. - Clinton Hill Blog takes a look at the recently opened Chez Lola. The verdict? "The food was wonderful." - Augieland......

FAIR: Tom of Finland Foundation is holding the 6th Annual New York City Erotic Art Fair all weekend. Thousands of works of Erotic Art by artists worldwide will be for sale, or just for looking at (pervert). This includes all media, gender & sexual orientation. There will also be life drawing workshops. The opening reception is tonight, so get the first peek. All Weekend // The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center [208......

Oh, no, another story about school children being bound by restraints during the school day- and this time it's a teacher who did the deed. A teacher at PS 270 in Clinton Hill is accused of duct taping two special ed students to their chairs - and taping their mouths shut as well. The boys, who were 8-9 years old during the incident three months ago, say that their teacher Carrie Roberson was upset because......

We've long been obsessed with Clinton Hill's Broken Angel building. It sits on the corner of Downing and Quincy, just a few blocks South of Pratt, but it's visible from a bunch of spots around the neighborhood. The building is a work-in-progress by Arthur Wood, a "self-taught" architect and painter. It resembles a Brooklyn tenement version of a Antoni Gaudi building-- compare the exterior to the Sagrada Famiia church, or Casa Battlo in Barcelona.......

There are a lot of hit-and-run incidents in the city, but it seems like there are have been a lot more than normal. Could it be holiday traffic? Darker evenings? Or people are just more careless? A Brooklyn man was killed in Clinton Hill, leaving a restaurant where he watched soccer (the NY Times reports that Lucino Galindo had said if he died, he would want a soccer ball in his coffin). But there are......

As we trudge through another broiling day (rain, we're sorry we ever told you to go away...now, Gothamist can't wait till you take the humidity away), Gothamist was reminded by that this is high time for dry cleaners as our ruined clothes are a cash cow. One dry cleaning business owner told Newsday, "A person wearing a business shirt can get away wearing a shirt two or three times in the winter ... but now......

Aha - it all comes together. So Saturday's Dave Chappelle's Block Party was the setting for the Wattstax-like documentary film he was making with Michel Gondry. But who knew that it was going to be a reunion of the Fugees? Could only Dave Chappelle pull that off? The NY Times' reviews the concert, noting Lauryn Hill's crazy episode during an Unplugged set that helped keep the Fugees apart and how people were bused into the......

While most New Yorkers know and love the Union Square Greenmarket, which has been a downtown fixture for the past 34 years, not everyone knows that there are plenty of other Greenmarkets throughout the five boroughs of New York. Some are open year-round, while others close for the winter. Gothamist recently got a chance to visit the Borough Hall Greenmarket which is in downtown Brooklyn, right by the courthouse. For residents of Brooklyn Heights, Fort......

While we say this about everything, Gothamist thinks there's a movie in the NY Times real estate story about a Clinton Hill resident Nicole Davis trying to find a cat-sitter for her travel-phobic pet, Boris, while the owner was in Montauk learning to surf. After much searching (Were people scared of the G train? Are people too suspicious of a too-good-to-be-true deal of cat-sitting in exchange of living in an apartment?), Davis found fresh-faced college......