An off-duty Staten Island firefighter saved an elderly couple—and their cat—on Christmas night from a blaze that started after their Christmas tree caught on fire. "My instinct just kicked in,"37-year-old Ladder Company 81 member Steven Carl told the Daily News. "I just did what I was trained to do." more ›

The wild turkey population out in Staten Island just keeps on growing—bad for neighbors but great for folks looking for an illegal Thanksgiving bird with some serious New York City terroir. In this economy, why bother with an expensive overfed industrial turkey when you can get one that most likely has never set foot on mainland America? more ›

Do you recognize this man? If you live in Dongan Hills on Staten Island, you may have seen him in the past week or so, but only now would you realize you crossed paths with a would-be sexual predator, wanted for trying to rape a 22-year-old domestic worker as she walked to work on the morning of January 12th. The incident happened near the Staten Island Academy and the Richmond County Country Club, and now some local residents are up in arms, because the police didn't start notifying them until yesterday. more ›

Staten Island's Ninja Burglar struck again late last week, slipping furtively and unseen into a doctor's home on Melbourn Rd. in the Castleton Corners section of the borough. No one was home at the time and he scored big in his 19th break-in since May of last year, making off with $20,000 in jewelry. The theft comes just a little over a month after the man in black struck twice in quick succession in late November. more ›

Just in time for the holidays - and holiday presents - the Ninja Burglar has returned! The nefarious nighttime nuisance that had Staten Island residents on their toes after hitting sixteen homes (some with homeowners in them) robbed two homes in the Todt Hill neighborhood over the weekend. The Advance reported that the "elusive serial bandit" first robbed a mansion on Louisa Lane. He entered through a second floor terrace door - while the... more ›

The shadowy "Ninja Burglar" and his brazen break-ins - when homeowners are present - are worrying Staten Island residents. The Staten Island Advance reports the Iron Hills Civic Association is meeting with the highest ranking police officer in Staten Island, Assistant Chief Albert Girimonte, today and that a "walk-through tour of the neighborhood with police is tentatively slated for Wednesday morning." The Ninja Burglar's latest victims, Mary Ann and John Carlo, recalled the Friday night... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Pennsylvania Ave. and Fulton St. in Brooklyn, a bank robbery on Co-Op City Blvd. in the Bronx, and a commercial high-rise fire on Broadway in Manhattan.
• An actor who once played a police lieutenant on L&O: SVU turned himself in to NJ cops today on suspicion of possession of child pornography.
• YouTube wants to subpeona comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in a lawsuit charging that the pair appear in purloined Internet videos clips of their shows on the video-sharing site.
• A family court judge is being investigated for perhaps being too TV-friendly while serving on the bench of an actual family courtroom. She's mocked the foreign accent of a lawyer and routinely trash talks people who appear before her.
• We doubt this story about dressing up dogs in wigs is worth an email to the ASPCA, but it's getting close.
• A man was crushed to death between an elevator car and the elevator shaft at an industrial site in Brooklyn.
• Staten Island's Victory Diner was carted from its Dongan Hills location to a Parks Dept. location thanks to the donations of the Richmond County Savings Bank and several other local organizations. "'I was so happy when I heard it was going to be saved I actually cried,' said local resident Susan Pugliese, who was married in the diner."
• A directory to charity thrift shops around NYC.

John D'Amato, a prominent Staten Island attorney, died of a heart attack yesterday; the 52-year-old had been jogging near his Dongan Hills home. D'Amato, a lawyer and lobbyist, had been appointed as the NYC campaign manager for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. (He had hosted a fund-raiser for Governor Spitzer's campaign last year, though.) The Staten Island Advance writes:

John D'Amato was a titan on Staten Island -- one of the most ambitious, aggressive and influential of the borough's native sons...He spearheaded the ongoing lawsuit against the alleged Saudi Arabian financiers of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and achieved a landmark $75 million national settlement from the maker of the painkiller OxyContin-- the Island's largest-ever civil case. And though neither fight was successful, he was a key player in the city's bid to host the 2012 Olympics and in the borough's controversial lobby for a proposed NASCAR track on the West Shore.

The Staten Island Advance reports that work has begun to stabilize the retaining wall that collapsed late Monday in the Dongan Hills neighborhood. Five homes were evacuated after a 50'-by-50' chunk of wall - including boulders - fell downwards from a wall built to support John D'Amato's home, hitting other homes; luckily no one was hurt. D'Amato is notable for two reasons: 1) One neighbor complained that the wall was built illegally back in 2002 and 2) D'Amato is the NYC chairman of Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. more ›

Five families are homeless after a 50 foot by 50 foot part of a retaining wall collapsed late Monday in the Dongan Hills section of Staten Island It turns out that the wall, which is 200 feet long, was built without a permit and that the owner of the wall happens to be John D'Amato, lobbying partner of Guy Molinari and the head of Rudy Giuliani's NYC campaign. Nice one, D'Amato! more ›

This story has it all: Wild turkeys, bottle rockets and a 59-year-old man with connections to the Columbo crime family. Franklin Picone was arrested yesterday for allegedly setting off bottle rockets to disturb wild turkeys that roost in his Dongan Hills neighborhood. But Picone claims it wasn't him, even though he does admit to hating the turkeys and calling up the city to complain about them - there are about 40-50 that wander around. more ›

A woman injured in a Staten Island drag racing incident was awarded a $4 million settlement for a wild June 2000 incident that left her with a punctured lung, broken ribs and broken vertebrae. Lauren Fuscaldo was a passenger in friend James Jaiman's Camaro when another driver in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution challenged them to a drag race. Though Fuscaldo urged Jaiman not to drag race, Jaiman did and his car went off the road and flew as high as 15 feet before crashing into the brush. Jaiman, who was not injured, and Fuscaldo had been wearing seatbelts, while two passengers in the backseat were not wearing seatbelts and were relatively uninjured. more ›