While the wine pairings, the drug dealing and the calorie count in the Shamrock Shake do little to bolster the reputation of McDonald's, the Times' recounting of the ballad of NYPD officer John Florio has the makings of an amazing tragicomedy. Back in 2005, heeding a Mac Attack, Florio bit into a fresh burger he got from the drive thru of a Bronx McDonalds and "felt something hard and sharp on the left-hand side" of his face. Apparently Florio had forgotten to tell the cashier to hold the glass shards. more ›

In twenty years, we'll all be driving our "Rollback Riders" to Father Walton's reeducation camps to pick up little "Wally" from his daily Bargain Drills. And this future has taken a step toward becoming reality through councilwoman and Wal-Mart naysayer Christine Quinn's recent efforts to integrate the chain with the Hunts Point produce market, negotiating a deal that would require Wal-Mart to purchase a portion of its produce from the vendors there. Quinn tells Crain's, "Walmart, by its own admission, isn't interested in a single supermarket in New York; they're interested in growing into a much bigger part of the market." This is presumably because once the Wal-Virus is implanted in a community, it spreads with abandon. So why fight it? more ›

A Hunts Points prostitute testified in the Bronx yesterday in the trial of an accused serial sex assaulter. James Schlau, a registered sex offender, is accused of two sex assaults and the rape of three Bronx prostitutes. The 23-year-old victim described her terrifying encounter with him in detail: "‘Open your legs or I’ll cut your p----,’" he allegedly threatened her. more ›

There's a lot of things that stink in Hunts Point, but the NYPD has been making a concentrated effort over the last months to clean it up by bringing down one of the largest gangs in the area, the "Satan's Bloods." Over 32 members and associates of the drug syndicate were arrested in morning-raids yesterday, or already in custody. "This is in the top-10 bad places I've ever lived - and I've lived in some bad places. It's the slum of slums, but maybe they did some good out here today," resident Thomas Gibson told the News. more ›

Earlier this month, the city vowed to cut ties with New York Organic Fertilizer Company, which was responsible for an odious smell that left residents in Hunts Point feeling very fowl. Well, don't inhale too deeply yet Hunts Point residents: the NYOFCO isn't planning on going anywhere. Even if the city does terminate their contract in June, as was promised, the company will try importing sludge from elsewhere. They also plan to try to salvage the agreement with the city with deeper discounts. more ›

Residents of Hunts Point in the Bronx may at last be rid of a decades-old stench that on hot days makes the area smell “like a decaying body.” The city says it will end it $34 million-a-year contract with the organic fertilizer company, from whose premises the smell emanates. “This is a huge victory,” said Rep. José E. Serrano, a longtime opponent from the plant, which is in his district. “It was horrible—the smell, the stench. People living in the poorest Congressional district in the nation, in many cases with very little education, knew this was something they could not tolerate.” According to the Times opponents of the plant name the smell as “a symbol of the city’s disregard for Hunts Point.” more ›

A Bronx dad had to literally stomp a Husky off his toddler son as the boy was being brutally attacked by the dog more than twice his size while the pooch's owner idly watched nearby. 32-year-old Jeremiah Kendall tells the Daily News how he briefly took his eyes off of his 3-year-old son Kamrin Thursday night around 9 while in front of their Hunts Point home, only to turn around and see the 120-pound unleashed white Husky on him. He says, "My son's face was full of blood. I saw cuts on his eyes, face and nose." The older Kendall had to jump in, kicking the dog and even punching it in the face to get it off of his son. Animal control ended up putting the dog down, while its owner, 23-year-old Louis Delez, is facing charges for reckless endangerment. The News has a heartbreaking photo of young Kamrin as he recovers at Lincoln Hospital. Mr. Kendall did not sound too thrilled with Delez, telling the paper, "He was closer to the dog than me. I'm upset he didn't do anything." more ›

Community leaders in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx tell the NY Times that they are not happy with the way their neighborhood is portrayed in its Wikipedia entry. Josephine Infante, the executive director and founder of the Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation, says she has a problem with several assertions on the Hunt Points entry, such as the one that "many, if not most men in the community have been arrested at some point in their lives." Infante says that the portrait of Hunts Point as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation is out of date as crime has been down for years. Yet she has opted not to edit the entry herself because she says, "it should be an entire community that writes.” Infante did not comment how big of an influence the four HBO documentary specials "Hookers at the Point" may have had on the Wikipedia users take on the neighborhood. more ›

Fresh from attending the Bronx Food and Arts Festival on Sunday, Dave Cook of the highly recommended food site Eating in Translation reports that Hunts Point barbecue rig Mo Gridder’s – famous for its St. Louis cut smoked rib platter served in the parking lot of an auto center – is moving into its very first restaurant space without axles. Owner Fred Donnelly will open Mo Gridder’s II in the Belmont Section of the Bronx, in the space vacated by Roberto restaurant at 632 East 186th Street at Crescent Avenue. Barbecued pulled pork and smoked brisket will soon be just a squishy, sesame seed bun’s throw from Arthur Avenue. Score one more for the Bronx – most of which, at least food-wise, has been down so long that up looks like a pallid Domino's slice. more ›

Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni awards two stars to Mia Dona (pictured), the best rating that a somewhat casual place like this could hope for: “The food is robust, often rustic and sometimes proudly unsubtle, hammering away at its intended effect.” The East 58th Street Italian restaurant is a remix of Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia’s shuttered restaurant Dona, and compared to Anthos, Psilakis’s haute Greek place, Mia Dona rolls like “a Buick, a more matter-of-fact restaurant suited to a budget- conscious time.” But still a sweet ride for Bruni. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person trapped under an automobile at 9th Ave. and 55th St. in Brooklyn, a missing delivery man at De Kruif Pl. and Dreiser Loop in the Bronx, and a scaffolding incident on 7th Ave. and 25th St. in Manhattan.
• NYC's Dept. of Health wants pharmacists to be allowed to administer flu shots, citing the death toll of the disease and underutilization of vaccination supplies.
• A female pedestrian was struck and killed by a sanitation truck early this morning at 50th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan. A few hours later, a male pedestrian crossing the street at 23rd and 7th Ave. in Manhattan was struck and killed by a U.S. Postal truck.
• Publication synergy at News Corp. as Gawker notes downtown vendors selling The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post together for just $1.
• Plans for a City Jail in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx have been nixed.
• The rap artist known as Snoop Dogg will be performing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on March 13 as part of a VH1 special. Greenpointers has the 420 411 on how to win tickets.
• The Town of Huntington on Long Island has banned vendors from selling 'silly string' within 1,500 feet of a parade route; but people can bring their own if they want. Firefighters complain that the novelty substance damages the paint on their vehicles.
• And "Danny Boy" is too depressing for Foley's Pub in Midtown, which is banning the song for the entire month of March.

more ›

After last night's two-alarm fire, most of Hunts Point Market was open for business. However, the offices of Master Purveyors and Desola Provisions were destroyed; Desola's Bill Beskin told NY1 aside from the offices being "completely burned out, "The coolers, all the meat, everything is, we're fine." Still, inspectors are making sure the meat is still okay (Desola supplies to the Stage Deli, Master to Peter Luger's). more ›

This evening, there was a two-alarm fire at the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the "Largest Food Distribution Center in the World," is where many meat and meat products are processed and distributed in the tri-state area. more ›

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 155th Ave. and 79th St. in Queens, a bank robbery at the Chase branch on De Kalb and Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn, and a pedestrian struck at Hunts Point and Lafayette Aves. in the Bronx. The Guggenheim sent out a postcard inviting people to a seminar about Andy Warhol. The message on the reverse side is expletive-laced and describes Warhol and his fans in derogatory terms... more ›

Following complaints that a persistent odor was permeating the Hunts Point neighborhood in the Bronx and nauseating residents, the Department of Environmental Protection hired an outside consulting firm to sniff around the borough and see what it could discover. According to the New York Post, smell inspectors were dispatched throughout the south Bronx with cellphones to take calls directly from residents calling an odor hotline. They discovered that a lot of different things smell very bad all over the borough. The Post identifies the potpourri as bad B.O., or Bronx Odor. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: two pedestrians struck at 71st St. and Northern Blvd. in Queens, a shooting at St. John's Pl. in Brooklyn, and a collapse at 52nd St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan.
• Someone stole the "diamond dress" that Carol Channing wore during her stage run in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," from an unattended luggage cart. The $150,000 dress was about to be donated to the Smithsonian Museum.
• Annheuser Busch is moving a distribution plant from Long Island City in Queens to Hunts Point in the Bronx. Beer is seen as a vital fluid essence and economic stimulant to the revitalization of the downtrodden neighborhood.
• The Ground Zero remains of American Airlines Flight 11 passenger Laura Lee Morabito were identified recently through the use of advanced DNA testing techniques.
• Recording artists 50 Cent, L'il Kim and their two record companies are being sued for non-payment of royalties to a songwriter.
• A Nigerian immigrant New Yorker fashioned a bust of Mayor Bloomberg from the tickets he received from the Dept. of Sanitation.
• The Gowanus Lounge reports that Red Hook car owners and other Brooklyn neighborhood residents are pleased that street cleaning will be halved in the near future. Alternate side of the street parking switches will only occur once a week rather than two.
• A salvage team is looking for almost $10 million in silver bars that were never recovered from a 1903 incident when cargo belonging to the Guggenheim family fell overboard into the Arthur Kill on its way to South Amboy, NJ.

When Omar Freilla founded Green Worker Cooperatives, an incubator for eco-friendly worker coops, he set the initial goal of $700,000. “We weren’t even sure how we were going to raise that much,” he said in a recent telephone call. Almost four years later, the organization has raised well beyond their initial goal, thanks to RSF Social Finance and numerous local churches. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a cyclist struck on Fresh Meadow Lane and 67th Ave. in Queens, a water rescue north of the GW Bridge in Manhahattan, and someone fatally jumped from a building on West 15th St. in Manhattan.
• The NYPD will boost efforts to get citizens to respect their authority by mounting Big Wheels Segways at beaches and parks this summer.
• Satellite radio duo Opie and Anthony have been suspended for laughing at the prospect of the Queen of England and Condoleeza Rice being violently raped.
• The last public figure who blamed NYC for the 9/11 attacks just died yesterday, so Rudy Giuliani tensed at the mention of an opponent's platform, probably out of concern for the guy's safety, when a candidate reiterated the allegation.
• Andrew Cuomo doesn't give a crap if the Dell Dude did attend NYU. The new NY State Attorney General is suing over allegedly deceptive advertising practices by the computer company.
• Plans for a new Hunts Point House of Detention in the Bronx have been arrested, as the owner of the illegal dumping ground adjacent to Rikers Island claims it's worth is $375 million and the City is considering eminent domain. We honestly do not know who to root for in this one.
• Seeking to rein in governmental waste, The New York Times reports that Albany lawmakers are seeking to rein in government authorities, in a colossal waste of publicly funded irony and spent credibility.
• We wonder if it's child abuse to expose an infant to Paris Hilton's spread-wide-open legs. Only time will tell the eventual damage.
• Because the military isn't experiencing enough heat these days, an F-16 fighter jet dropped a flare that ignited a good portion of the Garden State.

Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has experienced its largest shift in ethnicity since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Numbering about two in ten in the mid-1990s, Latin American players now constitute about 30% of the rosters in the big leagues, and nearly half of the 2006 All-Star players were Latin American. The trend should continue: a 2005 New York Times article stated that almost half of all minor leaguers are Latino. The growing Latin American presence in baseball is not confined to just the field. more ›

Almost two years after the Fulton Fish Market relocated to Hunts Point, a new book documents the market of days gone by. South Street, published by Columbia University Press, is a collection of photographs by Barbara G. Mensch, who began taking pictures of the fish market when she first moved to a nearby loft in 1979. more ›

Demonstrators gathered in Hunts Point Friday, again protesting a proposed jail set to be built on an industrial site in the Bronx neighborhood. more ›

The great divide between New York City restaurant chefs and serious home cooks is becoming narrower by the day. Chefs pen guest columns for the New York Times telling us what to look for when buying turnips and get interviewed by bloggers about where the most durable knives can be found, all in the name of improving the home cook’s game. A chef might even be followed around the city in order for us to learn, for example, which Chinatown street vendor has the best charcoal-grilled chicken hearts. These things all are well and good, but here is one product used in many high-end restaurant kitchens- up until now a well-kept secret, really- that isn’t available in many, if any, New York gourmet food stores, despite the breadth of all the cold-pressed, virgin, and refined choices to be found. Yes, it’s a type of olive oil, one that chefs don’t want you to know about. more ›

Some new details about why an angry Kennedy Fried Chicken owner burned down his neighbor-turned-competitor's store in the Bronx. The owner-arsonist, Kabeer Ahmad, says he was drunk. Shocking! The court documents have Ahmad stating, "I went out drinking last night [New Year's Eve] and after I got drunk I went to the store at 870 Hunts Point Avenue about 3 a.m. and told the customers and employees that the store was closing and that everyone must leave." From the Daily News:

After everyone left, Ahmad said he punched a hole through the wall and used a "spray bottle filled with gas to spray gas through that hole and into Twin Donuts," according to the court documents. more ›

Yesterday, the Mayor unveiled the South Bronx Greenway Plan, which is part of the Hunts Point plan that " improve access to the waterfront, provide much-needed recreational opportunities, improve transportation safety and greatly enhance the network of bike and pedestrian paths on the South Bronx peninsula." The city will start four projects that will bring a waterfront park (with floating dock for boaters and kayakers) and paths for joggers and bicyclists. Construction will begin next summer, for completion in 2011. more ›

The Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau announced that the NYPD shut down a sport betting and numbers ring in the Bronx, indicting 11 people, 3 of whom have links to the Lucchese and Genovese crime families. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly admited that "the size of this operation was not particularly significant" - it only generated $200,000 in yearly profits - but the gambling ring was run out of the Hunts Point market. And the ring was open to employees, customers "anyone who stopped by the Hunts Point Cooperative Market and the New York City Terminal Produce Cooperative Market in the Bronx," according to the NY Times. more ›

New York Magazine decides to look at the city in the year 2016 in terms of architecture and real estate development - and how that'll impact New Yorkers. It's a great look at how drastically the city could change in ten years, which is all overwhelming, exciting, and kind of scary, because for every rendering of glassy buildings, what does that mean for the neighborhoods? Are they plans for more affordable housing to meet up with the luxury condos and pleasure palaces? At any rate, it's all interesting to see how the post-September 11 and Bloomberg administration have suddenly encouraged all this planning buzz. more ›

EARTH DAY EVENT: Earth Day isn't just for hippies. This weekend celebrate our planet at Earth Day NY. Exhibitors will educate you on how to treat Mother Nature a bit more kindly and show you how to find the nature right here in New York City. more ›

more ›

Quite soon you may no longer have to put up with the indignity of saying hello to a human being at the front desk of your building (if there is a front desk! our building is of a decidedly lower-class.) Why? According to the New York Sun, those flesh-and-blood humanoids that you have to tip $200 or so every year will soon be replaced with cost-effective computer systems: more ›