Two robbers targeted the apartment of Juanita Pena, a 100-year-old wheelchair-bound woman, in the Frederick Douglass Houses at 100th Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side yesterday morning. The two men knocked on the door and pushed in when Pena's home health care worker went to answer. They tied her up and put her in a bathroom; when Pena's 71-year-old son came by, they also tied him up with duct tape and put him in the bathroom. more ›

Students at all NYC schools have a day off today in what is officially noted on the Dept. of Education's calendar as a Chancellor's Conference Day for Staff Development. That dry description actually masks the fact that today's day off from school is a tradition that dates back to 1829 and used to be one of the most widely celebrated holidays in Brooklyn and Queens. Dating back 178 years, Anniversary Day was a school holiday to celebrate and commemorate the founding of the first Sunday School (a de facto Protestant institution at the time) on Long Island. [See our post on Anniversary Day 2006] more ›

At my window sad and lonely, by Brainware3000. more ›

When school officials alerted police that 9 year old Mariah Navarro hadn't been in school for two weeks, the police went to her apartment at the Frederick Douglass Houses on 55 West 100th Street, only to find Navarro and her mother Maria Rivera's decomposing bodies. The two bodies were wrapped in blankets and found in separate rooms - Rivera in a bedroom and Navarro in a closet, and police believe the pair were dead for a few days. The apartment's door did not seem to be forced (still locked when police arrived) and the Post reports a bloody hammer was found in the apartment as well. more ›

This past February Mayor Bloomberg announced an expansion of the city's five-year housing plan to a ten-year plan that will create and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by the end of 2013. The two lead agencies in the housing initiative are the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Recently, Gothamist had the opportunity to take a walking tour of the neighborhood around Marcus Garvey Park led by HDC's Aaron Donovan, who also publishes Starts and Fits. In addition to showing us HDC buildings, Aaron also pointed out several notable market-rate developments in the neighborhood as well as new commercial buildings. (Disclosure: Gothamist lives in an HDC-financed building that was mentioned on the tour.) more ›

February 22: From Disaster to Dessert – the Fate of New Orleans Food more ›

One of the things on Gothamist's must-see list this week is the New York Historical Society's new exhibit, Slavery in New York. The show reveals New York relationship with slavery, from the days of the Dutch settlers until 1827. The exhibit is open until March, and the online site is pretty extensive, but a reason to go this week is for the pencil-written copy of the Emancipataion Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation is on display until October 16, a short period because "It is, in 2005, a fragile document, sensitive to light, air, and changes in temperature. It can be shown only 10 days or 80 hours each year (of which one has been used)." more ›