Last night around 10 p.m., a fire broke out in a row of stores in East Tremont and grew to be a huge five-alarm blaze. More than 200 firefighters worked to put it out by 1 a.m. No civilians were hurt, but a few firefighters were injured. It's unclear what caused the fire.......

This is a bad trend: Days after an 11-year-old boy was shot in the chest after opening the door of his Queens home and a 3-year-old girl, in a car, was hit by a stray bullet in the Bronx, an 11-year-old girl's head was grazed by a bullet in the Bronx yesterday. Destiny Rosario, who had attended a New Year's party with her family, had been walking home with relatives after their van broke down.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a severed limb on 55th St. in Brooklyn, a person fatally struck by a train near the East Tremont Station on the 2 line in the Bronx, and an armed robbery on Bradhurst and 147th St. in Manhattan. A mother brought her 15-year-old son to the hospital when she discovered him assembling what appeared to be a bomb in their home. The ER at Hoboken University Medical Center was......

Two veteran detectives, Daniel Rivera and William Gonzalez (both 41 years old), were grazed by gunfire early this morning. One detective was wounded in the forehead and the other in the leg, during a shootout in the East Tremont section of the Bronx at Webster Ave. and 188th St. around 5:30 a.m. The two cops were in the process of serving an arrest warrant to 20-year-old Jermaine Taylor for questioning related to a Bronx bodega......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 1st Ave. and 92nd St. in Manhattan, a car vs. building on Liberty Ave. and Elton St. in Brooklyn, and a body found on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx. Looking to avoid damaging snail- and e-mail trails or records of phone conversations, aides to Gov. Spitzer who are being investigated in the State Police scandal investigation are allegedly conversing only in person while driving around......

Shocked family and friends are mourning the deaths of four people who died in a car accident on East Tremont Avenue near Commonwealth early yesterday morning. The police believe that the GMC Envoy was traveling at least 80 MPH (and witnesses think it was closer to 90-95 MPH) when it hit a utility pole and flipped over twice. The NY Times reports the car "hit the pole with such force that its roof was shorn......

A terrible accident in the Bronx: Police believe that an SUV on East Tremont was speeding around 4AM when it crashed into a telephone pole and flipped over. 1010WINS says the vehicle was "ripped apart" at Commonwealth Avenue. Three men were ejected from the SUV and pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth passenger, a woman, died at Jacobi Hospital. Over 34 million people are expected to be driving 50 miles or more during......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx, two pedestrians struck on 42nd St. and 11th Ave. in Manhattan and one is likely dead, and another bank robbery on Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn. A Queens car thief's plan of taking a dealer's SUV for a test drive and kicking the salesman out of the car would have worked beautifully if he hadn't surrendered his actual driver's license......

The city is embarking on a new pilot program to offer cash to poor families to motivate them to "break the cycle of intergenerational poverty." The public-private plan which has raised $42 million in private funds so far is called Opportunity NYC, and Mayor Bloomberg said, "If you’re serious about tackling poverty, an entrenched problem that has proven resistant to conventional government programs, you have to be serious about trying new things, taking a new......

Last Thursday, all of the stations covered the tragic fire in the Bronx quite well and took the opportunity for some refreshers on basic fire safety. As expected, WCBS went way overboard creating a whole special set of graphics for the station’s coverage, complete with new lower thirds that used a different font which were ready by Thursday’s 5 p.m. newscast. For 6 p.m., CBS 2 needlessly sent anchor Jim Rosenfeld to the scene, as......

This is grim, for a second weekend in a row, three pedestrians were killed in separate incidents with vehicles:- A 71-year-old Queens woman was killed yesterday afternoon while walking around 84th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan; the driver stayed on the scene and was not charged. Ariela Koenigsburg was headed to her daughter's house to celebrate her 71st birthday. The cops suggested Koenigsburg may have been jaywalking, but her daughter says that's impossible.......

The good news: Heroism may be contagious. Two men walking on Daly Avenue in the East Tremont section of the Bronx caught a three year old boy who fell from a fire escape - on the fourth floor. The NY Times on what Julio Gonzalez and Pedro Nevarez say:The two men first saw the baby from across the Bronx street, dangling from a fire escape four stories above the sidewalk. His grip was growing weaker......

It's an ending fitting for Broadway, except in this case, Broadway is East Tremont Avenue. The students at Lehman High School will be able to perform their high school musical, Chicago, when city officials intervened on their behalf. Their sob story about being served a cease-and-desist by the guardians of Chicago's rights and licensing struck a chord in the hearts of many who realized it would be a great press op: Saving the drama......

- Friday night in Jamaica, Rowland Erby killed Wayne Fung with a bayonet because he thought Fung was flirting with his girlfriend. A bayonet? Serious? What's next? Shooting by musket? Terror by cannon? Bombing by balloon? At least Erby kept it in the right place, the attic. Erby was arrested at the scene and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. - In the Bronx, a man was killed in a drive......