Last week, a man's body was found in a suitcase, at a park in Yonkers (the dead man's leg fell out of the suitcase when a park worker went to inspect). Now an autopsy has found that the man had 50 heroin packets in his body. Police think he died when one or two broke open. Westchester County police said that the street value of the drugs was about $100,000. They do not think the......

A man died while trying to flee the dozens of federal agents who raided a heroin mill in a Castle Hill apartment. The man jumped from a 9th floor balcony to a 6th floor balcony, but "slammed his head against a sixth-floor railing." Two other women who tried to make the same jump were hospitalized. Eleven other people tried to flee as well, but were eventually captured. They jumped down to other balconies, and one......

Actress Tatum O'Neal hasn't kept her battles with addiction a secret, but just when things in her life seem to be on the straight and narrow, the NY Post is reporting she got busted buying crack and cocaine on the Lower East Side. Seems the neighborhood still has its drug roots, the addicts just have Oscars on their mantles now. Last year O'Neal landed a role on Rescue Me playing Denis Leary's alcoholic sister, and......

Authorities say 27-year-old driver of a Mercedes that fatally plowed into a 30-year-old woman crossing Brighton Beach Avenue over the weekend was on drugs at the time of arrest. Police sources told the NY Post that Ronald Suriano "had just smoked a PCP-laced cigarette"; the Daily News' sources say he was "high on heroin." Suriano was traveling over the 30 MPH speed limit--the victim's friend said, "It had to have been over 100 mph." Apparently......

Three UPS employees and a fourth man were arrested earlier this week after police followed a package filled with heroin to a 29th St. address. The package had been identified as being filled with drugs at a UPS distribution hub in Kentucky. The package was delivered to its intended address at 104 West 29th St. by an undercover cop dressed as a UPS employee and the NYPD then sat on the address. Eventually, three UPS......

Police broke up an Upper East Side heroin distribution center this week, located in the rarefied real estate of 75th St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves. Neighbors seemed shocked after police broke down the door of apartment 2B at 242 East 75th, a street unfamiliar with narcotics unit raids. One said, "I was leaving my apartment [and there was a] battering ram and there were cops, so I asked some questions and I found......

New Jersey police have arrested a number of members of the Lucchese crime family. In the process of breaking up a multi-billion dollar betting organization, cops discovered that the old school mafia family had also teamed up with the more street-level gang the Bloods. The two groups were working together to smuggle things like iPods, cell phones, and drugs into the East Jersey State Prison. The betting ring was fairly sophisticated, utilizing Internet sites, an......

An NYPD detective was arrested in the breaking up of a Bronx drug ring this week. The bust was comprehensive and prosecutors are alleging that officer James Calderon used his inside knowledge of police activities to enable crack and heroin dealers to operate with relative impunity. James Calderon was a 13-year veteran of the force, but is now being accused of acting as an agent for Jorge and Luis Mendoza, Bronx drug dealers who allegedly......

Two movies set in New York are coming out today, and both are getting a lot of press, promo and opined upon. American Gangster is set in 1960-70s New York and stars Russell Crowe as a detective working to take down a real-life heroin kingpin, Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington). Lucas claimed to gross $1M a day on 116th Street dealing drugs, which he got to the States by smuggling in the coffins of......

Queens prosecutors announced yesterday that a teenager acting as a drug mule was arrested at JFK airport on Tuesday. Anthony Cruz, 16, was stopped by customs officials as he arrived on an American Airlines flight from Santiago in the Dominican Republic. X-rays of his body revealed 80 balloons of heroin with a total weight of 988 grams (nearly 1 kilo and more than 2 pounds). According to officials, the heroin was worth $500,000. Richard Brown,......

Ah, City Councilman Peter "I hate graffiti" Vallone weighs in on the chalk "graffiti" made by 6-year-old Natalie Shea on her home's front stoop. Back in 2005, Vallone introduced the law that requires property owners to clean up graffiti, so when a neighbor called 311 to complain about Natalie's drawings (again, mind you, on her own stoop, not a neighbor's stoop), her parents got a warning letter from the Department of Sanitation. The Daily News......

The New York Times's City Section this past Sunday had a special focus on seventeen-year-old New Yorkers. According to the paper, more children were born in 1990 than at any point since the Baby Boom. Now they're on the cusp of adulthood and the Times has a series of oral histories that one can read or listen to online. It's an interesting project; here are a few of the teens:Neil Allicock lives in East New......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on York Ave. and Richmond Terr. on Staten Island, another pedestrian struck on 37th Ave. and Union St. in Queens, and a missing child on 12th Ave. in Brooklyn. Three teenagers were hospitalized after being stabbed immediately after school let out in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn yesterday afternoon. Two of the injured were also slashed in the face. The City is introducing a new public awareness campaign......

The French Connection (directed by William Friedkin) Film Forum through September 6th A New York City procedural cop movie classic and the winner of five Academy Awards, a new 35 mm print of The French Connection gets a one-week run at Film Forum starting this weekend. Starring Gene Hackman as the porkpie wearing detective Popeye Doyle in a career defining role, the movie follows the attempt of a French criminal (Fernando Rey) to smuggle heroin......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a dead body in the water off of Houston St. on the west side of Manhattan, a shooting at Lincoln and Classon in Brooklyn, and a water rescue off Coney Island's Surf Ave. in Brooklyn. A young woman from upstate was crowned Miss New York last night. "An exhausted"-looking Miss NJ looked on, after two weeks of scandal and intrigue. Famed Central Park red tailed hawk Pale Male is......

The Observer has an interesting piece on The New Victorians, who are apparently bringing monogomy and early adulthood back. To get a mental image, think: Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger in Boerum Hill, Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss in Park Slope and Liv Tyler and Royston Langdon in the West Village. A new breed of 20-somethings in the big city, and apparently this new regime is more into nesting than late nights. The Observer......

MOVIE: Audrey Hepburn, a doll filled with heroin, Alan Arkin and the West Village in the 60s. What more could you ask for? Come check out Wait Until Dark tonight, but don't wait until dark to get there - the lawn fills up fast! Lawn opens at 5pm // Bryant Park // Free READING: Pamela des Barres is the Queen of the Groupies, and would likely never have referred to herself as a "band-aid". She......

It's beginning to look a lot like...LA. The NY Sun reports on a new walk-in "Botox store" offering impatient patients a chance to take a dip in the artificial fountain of youth during their lunch break. While botox injections typically only take ten minutes or so, patients usually have to make appointments and wait for doctors. However, plastic surgeons Michael Rose and Andrew Elkwood, who are behind this quickie shop, only offer this one fast......

The Hotel Chelsea Blog explores theories about the hotel's most famous couple. This year marks the 29th anniversary of Nancy Spungen's death, who was murdered in room 100 of the legendary hotel. Since then, questions and rumors have surrounded her death - which was pinned on Sid Vicious. Now, a former friend of the late Sid (who we recently saw in those Doc Martens ads) has accused the NYPD of wrongly accusing his punk rock......

"Some people think that because they have been addicted to drugs, that they've somehow earned a platform to preach to drug users. They are mistaken. " There's no preaching, sugarcoating, or glamorizing in Tony O'Neill's Digging the Vein. The novel is an unrelenting and brutal retelling of his experience as a heroin addict living in LA. Gothamist sat down with the young talent who now lives in New York, to discuss addiction, recovery, and freedom.......

Rolling Stone has officially turned 40! We can't honestly say it's aged very well, but it sure is partying like it's 1967. Last year, at 39 and issue number 1000, Jann Wenner wrote, "The fact that we had John Lennon on the very first cover [pictured] was serendipity. We had a publicity photo from his role in the anti-war film How I Won the War. That photo, we now realize, speaks so clearly to the......

Alt Coffee, the Alphabet City hangout notable for its quality Internet access, scary bathroom, and diverse clientele, closed this week is closing soon. Owner Nick Bodor is not losing his business, but simply rearranging it to fit the style of a changed neighborhood. He will be re-opening after renovations transform it into Hopscotch, a coffehouse where it's likely a diaper-changing table in the bathroom will replace the sign instructing "No OD's Allowed." The cafe’s owner,......

Children of Men (directed by Alfonso Cuarón): Seeing movies in the theater is a wonderful viewing experience—big image, big audio, big popcorn—but there's no rewind button. To really enjoy a film like Alfonso Cuarón's futuristic drama Children of Men, the ability to rewind the really masterful sequences for an immediate second or third viewing almost seems necessary. As you watch Clive Owen's Theo makes his way through the chaotic English countryside in 2027 trying to......

Would this be marketed as "Smackers"? Yesterday, customs agents and the DEA arrested men for smuggling $5 million worth of heroin in candy bars. more than 12 pounds of heroin had been divided into pellets that were placed in 100+ candy bars - and the candy bars were individually wrapped and packaged. So, each bar was worth more like 50 Grand. The AP reports the candy-ful luggage was found during a routine baggage inspection of......

With Trey Anastasio getting in so much trouble lately (see: drug possesion - Hydrocodone, Percocet, Xanax, Heroin), it's nice to see he's not shying away from public appearances outside of the courtroom. Tomorrow night he'll be talking at the 92nd St Y (and maybe playing a few tunes?). Anastasio's most recent release, Bar 17, is a bit of a departure from his last (Shine), with more epic compositions (closer to some of the Phish classics)......

A totally crazy story from the Daily News about how one city employee moonlighted. A pothole repairman for the Department of Transportation smuggled heroin for a Colombian drug ring. Ricardo Calderon actually worked deals while working on street potholes - now we know why it takes so long to get those things filled! Heroin would come to the Bronx via cruise ships, hidden in suitcases or "inside small packets sewn into running shorts." Then Calderon......

There is an incredible feature about British author Will Self visiting NYC in the NY Times Arts section. Why a feature and why so incredible? Well, Self decided to walk from JFK Airport to Manhattan - all 20 miles - and Times writer at large Charles McGrath and Times photographer Casey Kelbaugh went along for the journey, too. So it's incredibly brilliant and incredibly nuts at the same time. There's a great map of......

Last week, retired NYPD detective Robert Volpe died at age 63 in Staten Island. He was not any ordinary detective: Volpe specialized in art thefts and frauds, tracking down paintings by Matisse and Raphael, Greek sculptures, and Tiffany glass, all while continuing to paint, teach and lecture about art. The NY Times had a vivid obituary of Volpe's life - it sounds just like a movie:Mr. Volpe essentially created his detective’s job after computer analyses......

+ An 11 year old in Jersey got busted for "carrying 234 bags of heroin and 111 bags of cocaine with an estimated street value of $3,450." + A man stabbed his ex-girlfriend's grandmother to death, stabbed another woman, and then turn the knife on himself. + A new playground dedicated to late Challenger astronaut and Harlem native Ronald McNair is opened - it has a space theme - "A climbing set is based......

Yesterday, the authorities announced breaking up a huge drug and money laundering ring that spanned Colombia, New York, New Jersey and Florida. The feds and NYPD seized millions of dollars and over a thousand pounds of heroin, cocaine and marijuana here in the city. And the drug ring also used used auto parts as a way to launder money. From the DEA:One of the money-laundering methods detailed in the charging documents unsealed today involved the......