A 69-year-old woman was the victim of a brutal assault when a man broke into her Dyker Heights home around 9:30 p.m. Friday night. The police say the intruder broke in through a kitchen window, and clubbed Carmela Boccadifuoco on the head. Sources say the robber probably saw Boccadifuoco's 97-year-old mother, who is afflicted Alzheimer's, alone in her bedroom and thought the coast was clear. However, he came across Boccadifuoco and hit her so badly......

If only all crimes were this easy to solve. Last Friday, a woman robbed a North Fork Bank at 71st Street and New Utrecht Avenue in Dyker Heights. Now the police say she returned to the scene of the crime and returned the money yesterday. WNBC reports that apparently 48-year-old Catherine Kaczazanowski, who initially robbed the branch by passing a note to the teller, had a change of heart. Kaczazanowski gave most of the money......

After being fired for speaking to a reporter, a lawyer who had represented a slain firefighter's family in their lawsuit against the city is now suing the widow and her children. Way to keep those bad stereotypes about lawyers going! After the summer's deadly Deutsche Bank fire, where firefighters Robert Beddia, 56, and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died, their families indicated they would sue for up to $180 million. Which would be a payday for any......

We can't believe it's been two years since we became acquainted with the Christmas home decoration stylings of Gramercy Park resident Joel Krupnik. Back in 2005, a Christmas display with a bloody knife-wielding Santa, severed doll head and more outside his East 18th townhouse caused much commotion after the Post dubbed Krupnik "Bad Santa" and put a photograph on its cover. Krupnik's 2007 display gets the Post up in a dander again, with the tab......

With Christmas less than two weeks away, the annual holiday light display is raging through the nights in Dyker Heights, home of TV’s Scott Baio. Every year tens of thousands of people from around the world flock to the outer-borough Brooklyn neighborhood to gawk at the private homes decked out with millions of dazzling lights. It’s an epic spectacle that has to be seen to be believed, and it doesn’t stop at the lights......

An off-duty police officer was raped in her Bay Ridge home last night. Police believe that the attacker entered her apartment through a window or door. The victim described him as being a white man wearing a mask; the attacker also threatened her with a knife. The police flooded Bay Ridge Avenue and the surrounding streets with patrol cars, helicopters and canine units. Neighbors were worried, with one telling the Daily News, "This is a......

Along 65th Street near Fort Hamilton Parkway in Brooklyn are a number of culinary gems: The sidewalk-sprawling Three Guys Produce, billed as “The Original Poor Person’s Friend;” Asian markets with fresh shiso and lily bulbs, and also the legendary, cafeteria-style Rocco’s Calamari. With a fledgling greenmarket in nearby Leif Ericson Park, this Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights/Bensonhurst interzone has quietly become a destination for inexpensive, quality provisions. The three Royal Crown Magnifico locations should also be at......

A construction area collapse in Brooklyn yesterday cost a worker his life. The man was waterproofing the foundation of the Leif Ericson Day School in Dyker Heights while standing aside a trench dug next to the building. According to WCBS news, the trench was said to measure two to three feet wide, 15 feet long and eight feet deep. The construction worker, who hasn't been named, appears to have fallen into the trench as it......

Promoting a civil public school environment is important, but we had no idea that the price you paid for writing on a desk could be so severe. A 13-year-old girl was handcuffed and arrested by the police for writing "okay" on a desk at her Dyker Heights school. WCBS 2 spoke to the Chelsea Fraser and her outraged mother Diana Silva, who said, "I'm appalled, because here we have rapists, murderers, and you're taking a......

Yesterday morning, a drunk driver crashed in Dyker Heights, hitting two cars and hitting two kids crossing the street. With blood alcohol twice the limit, Jian Kai Huang ran a red light, hit a truck that was crossing with the light, and then both cars hit a van waiting at the red light. Vegetable stand manager John Hughes told the Post, "I ran over there and I saw people laying all over the street. I......

A look at some noteworthy (and mainly regifted) programs this week: Yule Log (WPIX 11, Monday, 9:00 a.m.) The classic Yule log returns another year on WPIX. This being the 40th Anniversary of the log, channel 11 offers up a one hour special on history at noon, right after this year's showing. If you don't want to wait, they even offer a portable Yule Log for your iPod and The Yule Log.com fan site has......

In the otherwise bucolic Brooklyn neighborhood of Dyker Heights (especially at Christmas with all the elaborate Christmas setups), a man was beaten and shot yesterday afternoon in what police believe was a road rage incident. George Fattakhov and a friend were driving around in their Lexus around 66th Street and 10th Avenue when the incident occurred. The passenger told the NY Times what happened:As the two were driving through Dyker Heights, a shiny white Cadillac......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery in Coney Island, a Police motorcycle MVA on 54th Street and Park, and a Homicide on Nostrand in Bed-Stuy. The Christmas lights have started going up in Dyker Heights-- and Janelle and Gowanus Lounge have pix. Or go in person: the best lights are on 84th Street between 12th and 11th Avenue. Canadian black squirrels have begun invading Boerum Hill. Soon there won't be any jobs......

Today in the Gothamist newsmap: a fatal subway accident near Wall Street, several stabbings, and two bank robberies. Curbed has some more insane renderings from the New York Aquarium design competition. If this ever gets built, we're going to have some very confused fish on our hands. If Al Qaeda ever invades New York City via the Staten Island ferry, we're totally safe. Apparently Hevesi isn't alone in cheating on chauffeur privileges-- the Post......

-- Forgotten-NY heads down 13th Avenue to Borough Park and Dyker Heights. -- Our pal Noah Kalina has been taking a self-portrait every day for six years, and now he's assembled them into a curiously fun-to-watch video. Check it out! -- Sad: a sanitation worker who made headlines last year catching a four year old who jumped out of a burning building was shot and killed last night. Sexiest dodgeball team ever, by eatsdirt......

Has anyone taken pictures of the festively lit-up Brooklyn Borough Hall, as featured in the NY Times? Gothamist is curious, because we have sort of mixed feelings on multi-colored displays. On one hand, they are beautiful atop the Empire State Building or in Dyker Heights. On the other hand, they remind us of what the Murray Street townhouse used for MTV's Miss Seventeen looked from the outside during filming - like a club. Brooklyn Borough......

Lisa Whiteman, Photographer...

Yesterday, we were reading follow-up from other news organizations to the Post's cover story on the crazy Street Christmas display in front of an East 18th Street townhouse. And wouldn't you know it, Animal magazine's Bucky Turco was on the scene for an AP story, quoted as saying, "This is brilliant." He sent us a link to his photographs of the grisly yuletide display, and Gothamist is quite taken by this naked Barbie in......

Ooh - the owners of an East 18th Street Manhattan brownstone are under fire for their wacky Christmas display. The Post puts the Krupnik-Castellanos display - "a skinny, bloody-bearded Santa holds a knife in his left hand and the severed head of a doll - blood gushing from its eye sockets in the other" - on its cover. The owners, Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos, explain its their protest against Christmas's commercialization. Well, it's not......

Only thirteen shopping days until Christmas, but you don't have to get us a gift. The only thing Gothamist wants is more pictures of the Dyker Heights Christmas Lights, up on 84th Street in Brooklyn (between 12th and 13th Avenue)-- see the map at right. Blogger 423 Smith is up on the board first, with some wonderful shots from last week. Flickr is letting us down-- only a few paltry offerings on the "Dyker......

Wondering what to get that zealous holiday decorator in your life (you know, the person who wears the sweater with hearts/bunnies/flags/pumpkins/dreidels depending on the holiday as their home is filled to the hilt with coordinated tchotkes)? Gothamist recommends Holiday Lights which gives suggestions and inspiration for holiday decorating with lights. And Gothamist would be remiss not to mention that Jake has a photograph in the book, from his trip to Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, arguably......