After critics lambasted the sweet, sweet government subsidies that online grocer Fresh Direct received to move its headquarters to the South Bronx, the company is trying to fix some of the more glaring criticisms against it. Come May 21st Fresh Direct will expand beyond the higher-income ZIP codes in the borough and, arguably more important in the long run, the company will now accept food stamps over the internet. more ›

For those who decide to have their babies in hospitals, in most cases, the second most important person after the mother is the maternity ward nurse. The maternity ward nurse is the one who checks on the mother regularly, and a great maternity ward nurse can make the delivery much easier. Which is why Buzzfeed's interview with a NYC maternity ward nurse is fascinating—and not for the queasy! more ›

Long before Seamless became many New Yorkers' go-to for ordering food without having to talk to a human being, it was SeamlessWeb, a site whose main business was helping white-collar firms organize large food orders for their late-working employees. So color us not surprised to learn that those same employees—especially the Wall Streeters—have been gaming the system for years, getting their corporate masters to buy them steak and mac 'n' cheese dinners on a regular basis. Sadly, unless you work for one of the 3,500+ firms that use the company, you can't try these tricks at home. more ›

With the Giants getting ready for a very unusual Super Bowl tomorrow in Indianapolis, it is only fitting that it took a very unusual set of circumstances for them to get their beloved and traditional Friday after-practice Long Island pizza there. Umberto's was given a police escort to LaGuardia Airport yesterday in order to fly out to Indy to deliver 15 pies to the team. And the millionaires seemed to enjoy the fact that greenhouse gases were pumped into the atmosphere so they could enjoy lukewarm pizza, despite a lack of salsa. more ›

Since the Giants devour pizzas from Long Island's Umberto's after every Friday practice, you wouldn't think a little four hour flight would stop them while they're in Indianapolis for the Super Bowl, right? Except the Giants aren't going to be returning to New York for their weekly meal, they're having it delivered to them—never underestimate the power of superstition when it comes to the sports set. But what's really absurd is that the pizzas just got a police escort to LaGuardia Airport! more ›

The Babeland outpost in Park Slope is offering up a new service for Brooklynites who don't want to get out of bed: they'll deliver sex toys to your door, and by bike! According to the Brooklyn Paper (who just happened to find out about it?), the service costs a whopping 30 bucks, but it's free on Valentine's Day. more ›

Proper tipping etiquette (20%, 90% of the time) can be enforced by the angry stares of your tablemates and the shame that gnaws at your soul when you look a competent, friendly server in the eye and tip them 15%. But who's keeping you in line when you summon chimichangas to your apartment on a rainy night? Visual.ly takes 3.5 million Seamless orders and creates a nifty chart showing the most popular foods ordered on the service and the average percentage of tips left on them. What neighborhood is the stingiest? The Financial District, with an average tip of 12.31% Way to put those company credit cards to use! more ›

Hey, America, are you too busy watching Dancing With The Stars reruns to be bothered to pick up the phone and order a meat-lovers burrito for yourself? Great! Just hop on your remote and order away, without all the fuss of pausing the TV and actually speaking to a real human being. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW: The driver's neighbor writes us in his defense.] A delivery worker, described by police as a 41-year-old Asian man, was killed last night in Greenpoint when a driver in a Buick struck him from behind as he waited at a stop sign. The accident occurred around 7 p.m. at the sleepy intersection of Leonard Street and Meserole Avenue, and witness Sheryl Yvette tells us the driver also hit a livery cab minivan at the intersection. In an email, she describes the horrible scene: more ›

What better place to sit down, not smoke a cigarette and have some lunch than smack in the middle of Times Square? Other than literally anywhere else, that is. The Times Square Alliance is trying to make their pedestrian plazas an inviting place to hang, especially for the office crowd, and their latest idea is to say it with food. The TSA issued two requests for proposals today, one for a food and beverage concession stand [pdf], and the other for a food delivery service for the plaza [pdf]. And according to their FAQs, "Beer and Wine is permitted if the proper license is obtained." more ›

Need to warm up? This story should give you the warm fuzzies (sorry). City Harvest reports (via their Facebook) that "FreshDirect donated approximately 72,000 pounds of food this week after Monday’s snowstorm brought business to a halt on the East Coast." The food would have gone undelivered and to waste otherwise. This is a photo from this morning's 1,000 pound drop off at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea. more ›

Perhaps Home Depot is trying to get out of the home makeover market and into bodily makeovers. Or perhaps this courier service just got really lost. Employees at the Home Depot on Third Avenue were shocked that a box allegedly containing heart valves meant for a hospital in Chicago wound up at their store. "I think it's crazy. They should look at their packages before they deliver them," one employee told ABC 7. However, no one at Home Depot or the courier service seems to be talking, so we're just going to assume there are some weird Aztec rituals going on in the back room. more ›

Just as cops block bike lanes every morning and man still refuses to ask for directions, so too will people yakking loudly on cell phones forever annoy us. And so too will obligatory articles about how cell phones annoy us annoy us. It might not stop us from demanding we get reception on the subway, but we always find new ways to study and criticize other people's cell phone etiquette. more ›

Yesterday the NYC DOT commissioner met with the wife of a man killed last year in a collision with a cyclist riding the wrong way on a Midtown street. Not long after the tragic accident, Nancy Gruskin, widow of Stuart Gruskin, wrote the mayor about safety issues and asked for a meeting with someone at the DOT. Her response was a form letter from Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, addressed to her dead husband. more ›

Earlier today, the Times tried to kick off a new Manhattan-Brooklyn battle, this time over whether Central or Prospect Park is the superior park. Really, there's nothing better than spending a lazy summer day in either park. Having said that...iPhone offers a pretty compelling argument as to why Central Park is superior: you can now order delivery there! more ›

Just as we're being launched into the long, hot, humid days of summer, a new delivery service has beta-launched so lazy New Yorkers can stay in the air conditioning while someone else peddles to get Frappuccinos, or whatever. more ›

If all this talk of Pizzacones is creating a craving emergency in your belly, help is just a phone call away—at least for parts of Brooklyn. Bushwick resident William Meyer just sent us this dark yet humorous photo of an NYPD Parking Enforcement Vehicle retrofitted as a pizza delivery car. Meyer tells us he saw it "stopped in the middle of rush hour traffic on Bushwick Ave on Friday; its red emergency strobes were on and rotating, and the driver was standing at the back, taking a pizza out of the trunk for delivery." more ›

In light of the recent Picasso accident at the Met, it's sort of nerve-racking to see a masterpiece like this out in the open, no? One blogger recently spotted this painting being unloaded at the Guggenheim during lunchtime, noting how it "is only clad in plastic wrapping and the 2 handlers look about as professional as the college stoners I used to hire to move my Ikea furniture in a minivan." And what artist gets this kind of handling? Joan Miró, who is certainly worthy of some bubble wrap, at least. more ›

This whole business of charging readers for access to the New York Times website got us thinking about a slight ethical dilemma we ignore every Sunday afternoon while liberating a fat, neglected copy of the Times from some out-of-towner's stoop. How early is too early to steal someone's Sunday Times? For guidance, we asked a couple NY Times reporters. (They don't get free subscriptions!) One veteran staff reporter, who agreed to speak anonymously, is surprisingly brazen: more ›

Heads up, delivery men and women: It's not enough anymore to just dash up the stairs to our apartments (being careful not to get mugged or killed on the way) and deliver our food in a timely manner. These days, people expect a little more show biz, a little more razzle dazzle. (In the musical theater world, it's called "eyes, tits and teeth.") Well, whatever you call it, this kid's got it. China Fun singing deliveryman Yang Yu Bao may be serenading Upper West Siders now, but it's only a matter of time before he's delivering dinner to the biggest theaters on Broadway. more ›

Two Upper East Side restaurants refuse to deliver uptown to East Harlem, but they willingly schlep longer distances downtown to service a more affluent and more white neighborhood. An investigation by the Post reveals that both Chinese Mirch on Second Avenue between 94th and 95th streets and One Fish Two Fish on Madison Avenue and 97th Street declined to deliver to addresses located 15 blocks to the north, but readily fulfilled orders 20 blocks to the south — a delivery discrepancy that "smacks of racism," according to state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem). "The difference between north and south is black and white," he said. more ›

The front steps of brownstones throughout the West Village are now decorated with police sketches of a man suspected in a string of home invasions during the past few weeks. The man has sometimes posed a UPS worker to gain access to five apartments since his first job on October 16th, when he entered the home of an 84-year-old woman on Bank Street after asking her for a glass of water. While she retrieved the refreshment, he fled with a cell phone and a watch. more ›

The milkman cometh! The nostalgic middle-of-the-night milk delivery service, complete with glass bottles, has returned to New York. The Daily News tagged along with the two milkmen, Matt Marone and Frank Acosta, who started their business a couple of years ago, and now deliver to around 50 households in Manhattan. They're also expanding to Brownstone Brooklyn next month—where surely the two good looking gents will quickly become a hot topic amongst Park Slope mom gossip circles. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] For crying out loud, some lady had to go into labor on the subway during rush hour this morning, tying up service on the L line. This better be one cute baby. We've gotten multiple reports that the L is held up because of the delivery. One tipster tells us the woman actually delivered at the First Avenue L station, and a Twitter user reports that she gave birth between Brooklyn and Manhattan. more ›

Have you dreamed of buying 3-liter bottles of olive oil from Costco, but you can't because you're not a member and don't have a car? Well, City Room found a service run by Michael Eberstadt, who owns the Rack and Soul bbq restaruant, called BigBoxDeliveries which will bring bulk items to folks on the Upper East and Upper West Sides: "The customer and Mr. Eberstadt split the savings from shopping at a Costco. To make it worth his time, his share has to be a minimum of $40." He explains he doesn't have much overhead since he has a truck and points out, "There are certain things you need in bulk. That is what I am hoping to provide: cases of Gatorade, Tide." But he admits his wife, a white-collar defense attorney, "thought it was the stupidest thing she ever heard of." more ›

If Brooklyn's seemed a little less bubbly than usual lately, we may have tracked down the culprit—Ronny the Seltzer Man is down! Ronny Beberman, the last seltzer man driving a "real seltzer truck," has been out of commission since last Tuesday after falling from his truck, suffering a bloody head gash and breaking several bones. The Times quotes a legendary seltzer man who once said, "I can’t stop these dreams — I keep seeing all the people I missed on the route." more ›

The opening line in this Wired article is sort of terrifying: "It's 2020, and cities are so overcrowded that it’s impossible to deliver packages." The megalopolis of the future sounds claustrophobic to say the least, but just how will we get our much needed crap delivered to our doors and desks? Before it breeds post-consumer waste, it'll travel through the sewer systems! more ›