Gala Apple is a sprawling Slavic supermarket housed in a former Rite Aid, located along the southern border of Kensington, Brooklyn. It’s loaded with odd food gems like these cute, 8 oz. “Subway Series” rye mini-loaves ($1.29), above, that come from a Queens bakery. Part of the baker’s profits benefit education about the Armenian Genocide. Just past the bread aisle, a refrigerated case is stocked with Russian cheeses and odd, layered dessert concoctions. Sausages......

The 61-year-old Stamford, CT man accused of sexually abusing three children in two different Brooklyn park bathrooms begged for mercy as he was being apprehended, but pleaded not guilty in front of a judge. Michael Martin was arrested after allegedly molesting three children at two Brooklyn parks. After the second incident, Martin was quickly caught by civilian patrol officers at the park and begged them not to call the police. He allegedly yelled, "I know......

A 61-year-old man from Stamford, CT, Michael Martin, was arrested Thursday afternoon after he allegedly abused three children at two separate restrooms in Brooklyn parks. The first incident occurred at a park in Gravesend, Brooklyn Thursday, when Martin is accused of following an 8-year-old girl and a 4-year boy into a public restroom where he sexually assaulted them. Later, he is accused of attacking another 8-year-old girl in the bathroom of a Kensington, Brooklyn park.......

The family dog who fatally bit an 8-month-old baby in Brooklyn was euthanized yesterday. According to the city, the family had requested the dog be euthanized. On Thursday afternoon, the baby, Andrew Stein, was being watched by his grandmother in his parents' Kensington home. The 62-pound-dog Maccabee apparently bit the baby in the head when Andrew touched his paw. A police official told the NY Times that "infants are particularly vulnerable in such attacks because......

Oh no! An 8-month-old baby bitten by a family dog was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital. The family lives on Ocean Parkway in the Prospect Park South/Kensington neighborhood. According to NY1, the baby had been in his grandmother's care "when the family Doberman bit his head. Sources say the attack may have occurred after the baby touched the dog's paw." WNBC reports police shot the dog with a dart and Animal Control removed it......

Jen has already posted her Top Stories for 2007-- but here's the list according to you, the readers: By Comments* 1. Pet Food Recall After Cat and Dog Deaths, by Jen Chung (614) 2. Rev. John Carmichael, Church of Scientology, by Jen Carlson (312) 3. Wild Wednesday Weather, by Jen Chung (255) 4. Maple Syrup Was Better: Smell of Gas Covers NYC by Jen Chung (191) 5. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Mooninites Don't Scare......

Riders hope that low grades for the G line will eventually lead to improvements, while plans are in place to make the G a more usable line. Despite being the two largest boroughs in New York City, there is only one train line dedicated to getting people from Brooklyn (2.5 million people) to Queens (2.3 million people). All other passages must make their way from one borough, through Manhattan (1.6 million people), and then on......

A two-alarm fire in the Kensington section of Brooklyn Three people died while another was taken to the hospital in serious but stable condition. The house on East 19th Street near Beverly Road is described as a two-and-a-half story house. The fire started in the attic and moved very quickly. Two adult women, ages 76 and 50 years old, were pronounced dead at the scene, and a 12-year-old boy died at New York Community Hospital.......

The Kid From Brooklyn sees famine, war, and despair in the world's future. " I've got foresight," he says, but even he could never have predicted his own popularity. Michael Caracciolo started his website TheKidFromBrooklyn.com to entertain friends and family, uploading videos of himself ranting wildly about whatever he happened to feel passionately about that moment, whether it be border control, the President, or even Starbucks. It's led to television appearances, a memoir about his......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A hazmat situation at 56th Avenue and Peck in Queens, a suspicious package at 110th and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and lots of storm damage in Brooklyn Four NYPD traffic agents faked tickets to look busy; supervisors became suspicious when noticing a large number of tickets to out-of-town cars (city resident-owned cars get barcode tickets, but out-of-town tickers are handwritten). Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro had a heart......

Holy Tornado, Brooklyn! Reader Jeanne just emailed us with this observation: I live in Kensington, Brooklyn and I think that a tornado just passed through. Have you heard any news about a tornado from anyone else? Around 6:30am there were heavy rains, thunder and lightning when all of a sudden the wind got really loud and we could hear stuff smashing into the house. It was all just 30 seconds or so but now......

WNYC's Brian Lehrer dared ask: How many SUVs are on your block? The experiment in “crowdsourcing” had listeners (450 in total, 345 valid submissions) walk outside and count the SUVs, as well as regular cars, on their own block. Now the numbers have rolled in: Results: Total number of cars: 4226 Average percentage of SUVs per total vehicles: 30.60% Neighborhood with highest percentage: Paterson, NJ (East 30th Street and 22nd Avenue), with 100% Neighborhood......

As we mentioned, City Councilman Charles Barron held his press conference yesterday to announce his candidacy for the 2009 Brooklyn Borough Presidency. He told the crowds that his platform included affordable housing, health care accessibility, more jobs, standing up to developers who use eminent domain, ending mayor control of schools and more would help everyone. "Am I going to be a borough president for all the people? Absolutely. But I'm letting y'all know now, I'm......

Virgin Mobile's "You Rule" campaign has been in town for a few weeks, but the confusion still runs high. Ad agency Havas McKinney developed an ambitious outdoor campaign that involves specific posters and billboards to praise residents of various New York neighborhoods, such as Chelsea, Murray Hill, Lower East Side, Upper East Side, and Bed-Stuy. But some people have been insulted by the ads (such as one Chelsea resident who called Virgin Mobile to......

Though it’s only been open for a little more than a week, Thai Tony’s on Fort Hamilton Parkway at the edge of Kensington, Brooklyn, is already building a strong neighborhood following. During repeat visits, Gothamist watched the owners and staff bustle around the dining room of the self-described “home-style bistro,” greeting returning customers by name. That’s right, they already know most of their customers by name. Thai Tony’s first came to our attention via our......

To balance out the news about people who are very bad to pets, here's a story about how many people are wonderful to pets: It's an update about Miss Julie, the cat whose home at a bodega was threatened by the Department of Health. Why? Because it's against the health code to have cats in bodegas - never mind the cats killing vermin - and the bodega was fined and threatened with closure if it......

The Claremont Riding Academy on West 89th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam Aves. is closing this Sunday after the weekend's riding is done. Opened in 1892, Claremont is the oldest continuously operated horse stable in the U.S. It was initially used as a livery stable, but was turned into a riding academy in the 1920s. Riding lessons are given in a small ring on the main floor, while stables occupy the basement and upper floors,......

The ripple effects from the Don Imus-Rutgers' women's basketball team remarks incident continue. Four female police officers, three black and one Hispanic, claim that supervisors used the terms "ho" and "nappy-headed ho's" in two separate incidents. The Post reports Detective Aretha Williams, a 15-year veteran cop, claims Sergeant Michael Cantatore said to her, "Don't give me no lip before I call you a nappy-headed ho" while she looked for the sign-out book in her Queens......

With many local short-season spring vegetables out of commission (ramps, pea greens), at least for a while, one nutty underdog is currently available at many small Middle Eastern, Russian, and Ukrainian produce markets throughout lower Brooklyn and parts of Queens- green almonds. Because they are only available for 3-4 weeks each year, green almonds are usually overlooked, or are considered too hard to find. Some people dismiss the olive-sized green things as too much kitchen......

The Kensington-Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn is slowly becoming known for its restaurants and dishes, including the “haute barnyard” French Fries at The Farm on Adderley. Meanwhile, the wide swath of Coney Island Avenue running through the center of both neighborhoods remains a mainstay of ethnic restaurants from Prospect Park to Brighton Beach -- everything from all-night, tri-level Pakistani joints to Turkish baklava places. It’s sort of like the restaurant bustle of Jackson Avenue in......

Earlier this week, the Daily News looked at the YouTube video showing a classic meltdown at the Kensington Post Office. A man, frustrated about the service, yells, "Get the manager over here! I want the manager. We'll see how long you have your job, sweetie." An employee says, "Who the hell do you think you are?" only for the man to reply, "I'm the customer, you stupid bitch." Yeah, that sounds about right. The......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unusual odor in the Bronx, two pedestrians struck (one in Manhattan, a fatal one in the Bronx), and three alarm fire at a tire yard in Brooklyn The Department of Education will reinstate 17 bus routes, finally realizing that giving 5-year-olds MetroCards is a very mean lesson We're so with East Village Idiot on this one: Dear Two Girls Who Work in My Building, Why did you feel......

The wonders of timing! Yesterday, Brooklynites' beef with the tagger Backfat was examined in the Daily News, and last night, the police arrested him! The News reports that Charles Abarno was cuffed "in front of the 72nd Precinct stationhouse." Hmm, was Abarno considering tagging the stationhouse? Detective Mike Cleary had been following the case of the mysteriously appearing Backfat tags in the Windsor Terrace-Kensington neighborhood's stores, schools, subway stations, anything, and arrested his white whale.......

Though most people hate backfat when they look in three-way mirrors, another kind of backfat has surfaced. Someone has been tagging "Backfat" in Brooklyn neighborhoods Windsor Terrace and Kensington. The tagger has been hitting up pretty conspicuous places, like the public library on Fort Hamilton Parkway, schools, and stores, and has been fraying nerves in the process. One commenter on Flickr says:back fat is getting on my nerves. he is all over kensington and......

Yesterday, a mortuary technician for the medical examiner's office was charged with using a dead man's ATM card and stealing about $3,000 from the man's account. Philip Bethune of Brooklyn got a hold of the card when he was sent to transport a body from Kensington back to the morgue. But he also rifled through the man's wallet, finding the ATM card with PIN number (! another reason NOT to have your PIN number in......

Have you ever been confused with your cuts of meat? Or what Brooklyn neighborhoods are where? Well, these two mysteries collide in this amazing shirt from Mister Chen's Outstanding Apparel. Gothamist wants one, as well as some Porterhouse steak, which is approximately at the Park Slope-Kensington border, according to this cuts of meat chart. [Here's the city's official map of New York City neighborhoods.] Aha - callalillie posted about this last year. And Gawker......

Condos are booming in Brooklyn, with reports that condo transfers are up 124% and condo prices have increased 19-24%. Neighborhoods like Park Slope and Cobble Hill are growing as become more and more attractive to people fleeing Manhattan apartment prices, while Williamburg and Greenpoint are "emerging" areas for condos. Right, none of this is surprising - it's more confirmation of what everyone else suspected. And it's a chance for someone from the Real Estate Board......

A 27 year-old man was shot to death in Brooklyn yesterday evening, and the police are looking for two assailants. Witnesses say the victim may not have been the intended target, one man telling the Times, "The shooter was shooting wild. Shooting without even looking." The Times says New York Region > Man Is Shot to Death Near Prospect Park" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/nyregion/08shoot.html">Man Is Shot to Death Near Prospect Park, while the Post doesn't really mention Prospect......

Daniel Radosh, Journalist...