Tonight is the last chance until December 2010 to witness a total lunar eclipse. This is the third such eclipse in the past year. With any luck the weather will cooperate. It looks like there will be breaks in the clouds over the city, which should make for dramatic views. Break out the tripods and cameras! A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth wedges itself between the sun and moon, casting its shadow on the......

Another pot farm bites the dust: A small fire in Queens led the Fire Department to over 200 marijuana plants growing inside a home. The FDNY wanted to inspect some smoking utility lines and entered another home at 61-20 Bleecker Street to turn off the electricity. When they got to Ridgewood home's basement, they found 217 pot plants, ranging in height from 2 to 6 feet, plus three illegal propane tanks. The home's occupant who......

John and Annette Ferranti certainly did not feel they were in good hands with the Allstate Insurance Company, after Allstate refused to pay their homeowners damage claim they insist was caused by an Air France Concorde jet. The insurance company, which had wanted to appeal appeal a jury award of $1.15 million to the Mill Basin couple, finally agreed to pay the Ferrantis $995,000. On July 21, 2002, the Ferrantis say that the Air......

Some police officers' routine patrolling became a big pot bust yesterday. Cops from the 105th Precinct smelled a pungent odor coming from a home on 269th Street in Floral Park and, once they got a search warrant, found a bumper crop of marijuana. There were more than 300 marijuana plants, growing lights, and 10 lawn bags of marijuana in the process of being dried. Three men, ages 23 to 48, were arrested and face......

New York's Healing Field is currently residing at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn (until tomorrow). It's comprised of 3,000 3x5 foot flags that are standing 8 feet tall. Here's GerritsenBeach.net's glimpse at what it looks like: There are smaller memorial fields currently located in Washington DC, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The first was in Sandy, Utah in 2002.......

Tomorrow, the city and other organizations will mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Here's the official city commemoration:7AM: Families start to arrive at Zuccotti Park, where the ceremony will take place. 8:40AM: Mayor Bloomberg begins the program, which includes first responders reading victims' names and readings from NY Governor Spitzer, former NY Governor Pataki, NJ Governor Corzine and former NYC mayor Giuliani. Bagpipers and drummers lead......

Grant Stoddard (pictured) saw little islands (also pictured) as his plane flew above New York, and from that a seed was planted for possibly the craziest idea we've heard, well, this week: he wanted to live on one of these islands for a few days to, you know, test his wilderness survival skills while still having a clear view of the Empire State Building. After running the idea by a friend, Duke (who coincidentally spent......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: white powder found at the U.N., a bank robbery on Bowery, and a jumper up on 45th and 10th. The Post has followup on the New Jersey legislature's decision to legalize civil unions: "among the benefits gay couples would get under New Jersey's civil union bill are adoption rights, hospital visitation privileges and inheritance rights." The governor hasn't said when he'll sign the bill. Sheldon Silver and George Pataki......

As first reported on Slice, Patsy Grimaldi, founder of Grimaldi's has come out of retirement to operate Girmaldi's at Aviator, the new sports and recreation complex at Floyd Bennett Field. The Times picks up the story today, quoting Mr. Grimaldi, who sold the original pizzeria several years ago, as saying retirement "was a big mistake". Anyone familiar with Grimaldi's knows they don't do slices. The new shop breaks from that tradition by selling slices......

Yesterday morning, a Cessna 172 made an emergency landing in Calvert Vaux Park in Brooklyn yesterday. The pilot, Paul Dudley of Staten Island, had taken off from West Hampton Airport in Long Island and was headed to Linden Airport. But Dudley says after flying over the Jamaica Bay Inlet and Floyd Bennett Field, his engine went out and he decided to land the plane. Dudley said, "I detected something wrong with the airplane, and rather......

The Intrepid Air & Space Museum will be moved from its Manhattan pier to Bayonne for repair work tomorrow. Well, it'll head to Jersey if it can even move. The Daily News reports that even though more than "16,000 cubic yards of mud have been dredged from the Hudson and 500 tons of water released from the ballast tanks to lift the ship just 2 feet off the Hudson floor," one part of the aircraft......

Five boaters got very lucky yesterday when their boat capsized in Jamaica Bay: They happened to be right near the NYPD's Aviation Unit at Floyd Bennett Field. NYPD chopper pilot Michael Hendrix told the Post, "I was in the middle of eating my birthday cake when I looked up and saw a boat listing. I said, 'That doesn't look right.' Shortly after, it started disappearing into the horizon. I grabbed my binoculars and saw it......

New York City as Ohio? The NY Times says it's so, as film productions take advantage of the city's new tax breaks to encourage production money come to the Big Apple. Freelance location scout Mark Bodnar ran down how the city can be transformed into almost anywhere:For the rural South? "I'd head to Rockaway Beach and all those great abandoned Army barracks there." For farmland? Floyd Bennett Field, in Brooklyn. For the desert? A......

The NYPD thinking about scaling back small pot busts and shift the focus on "major busts." Newsday reports that misdemeanor pot arrests would be limited to 40% for the Narcotics Division, while they would focus on dismantling drug crews that "peddle cocaine or heroin." Hey, now! Cops are privately grousing about Narcotics head Assistant Chief Anthony Izzo's plan will give pot smokers the liberty to smoke up everywhere. A police official defended Izzo, saying, "He......

The last kite Gothamist flew prominently featured Rainbow Brite--but that might soon change. April is National Kite Month, and the American Kitefliers Association has put together a ton of activities in the New York area for kids, amateur fliers, and those, ahem, serious kite aficionados out there. Honestly, Gothamist can't believe the hipsters haven't reclaimed lovable, kitschy kiteflying as their weekend activity of choice. (It's the logical next step after rollerskating.) It probably has something......

Federal park police found half a million dollars of marijuana growing in a park. Really. There were over 200 mature plants, 5 feet high (ha!), in a secluded area of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. Two middle-aged men were apprehended. Newsday reports that police found $1.5 million of pot being grown hydroponically in Douglas Manor. Damn, maybe Gothamist need to relook at options for breaking even... Other NY drug crime busts: Ecstasy, and heroin in......