Ha! Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa wants to take John Gotti Jr. on his offer. Gotti Jr., who was unsucccessfully tried three times for allegedly shooting and kidnapping Sliwa, told reporters on Tuesday that he'd take a polygraph test "on national TV" if the FBI agent who spread rumors that Gotti was becoming a government informant was charged. Last night, Sliwa said on NY1's Inside City Hall - holding a bunch of cash, "John Gotti,......

Yesterday afternoon, a worker took a fatal fall from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Manuel Pereira, 48, had been working on a catwalk next to the lower level of the bridge; the Staten Island Advance reports the concrete barrier "apparently...tipped over" onto the catwalk. An excavator vehicle was placing "Jersey barriers" -- 8,500-pound, 10-foot-long concrete slabs that separate traffic from a construction area -- along the bridge at the time. Pereira was helping with the placement.......

- Grub Street reports that the Frying Pan rumors are true -- it will, in fact, be closing, at least at its current location. Their lease at Pier 63 has expired, but accoring to the owner's wife, there's no need for despair quite yet. "Pending recently commenced negotiations, the John J. Harvey fireboat, the Frying Pan, the kayak storage shed, and the recently opened Cafe du Soleil will tie up at Pier 66A, an old......

Should John Gotti Jr.'s nickname be "Teflon Jr."? Because, for the third time in a year, a mistrial has been declared in the federal government's racketeering case against the infamous mob family figure. The jury sent Judge Shira Sheindlin a note saying, "We have been unable to come to a unanimous decision on all counts." From the NY Times: The hung jury represents a significant loss for the government, which had been intent on......

MeFi yesterday pointed us towards one of those great 9/11 stories that was already slipping from our minds: In 1931, as the George Washington Bridge and the Empire State Building were being completed, the FDNY christened its fastest, bestest water-pumping fireboat, the John J. Harvey. Able to pump nearly 20,000 gallons per minute, the JJH was the definition of the modern fireboat ("Her output is equal to about 26 [or five alarm's worth] of......

The Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint will kick off his ten-day jail sentence - for last December's three-day transit strike - by having a rally outside King's County Supreme Court at 4PM. Then Toussaint and his supporters - including the Reverend Al Sharpton and John J. Sweeny of the AFL-CIO - will march across the Brooklyn Bridge and head over to the Tombs, where he needs to report at 6PM. But supporters will also......

The Murder Inc. drug trial has started, and Ja-Rule and Ashanti, the record label's biggest stars, were on hand to support brothers Irv and Chris Lorenzo, who adopted the last name "Gotti" to be more gangster. Er, gangsta. Is that something in their recording contracts? Perhaps it's just good form, since these are the guys paying them, which is probably why Ja-Rule told reporters that the charges were "bogus" and that the authorities just "don't......

Remember back in May when with some fanfare the city started using the first new large SI Ferry in decades? Or at least you remember when it was christened two years ago out in Wisconsin (above). Yeah, well, that brand spanking new ferry broke yesterday. The boat, which had its first run on May 20, left Staten (and by the by, we've been wanting to do this since elementary school: Can we all just......