It's been a rough summer for our noses. First, a putrid puddle took over West 33rd Street. Then a collapsed manhole made Brooklyn smell like poop. And now, Queens is getting in on the nose-wrinkling action, with a nauseating chemical odor from railroad tracks stinking up Middle Village. more ›

First they took Manhattan, then they crossed into the Bronx, and now the skunks have made their way into Queens. Residents say that skunk sightings have become more and more common in recent months. "I do not want to go through this ever again. I am absolutely scared to death," said victim Anne Burke, whose dog Jesse was sprayed by the beast with one stripe. more ›

Since we've already been blessed/damned by 56 inches of snow this winter (and it's not even February yet), we must continue our question about whether parking dibs—as in claiming a parking space on a public street that you've shoveled out for your car—are acceptable. While most of our readers think parking dibs are a joke, they clearly don't live in the heart of Parking Dibs land, Middle Village, Queens. After the Daily News found passionate parking dibs supporters there, WCBS 2 sent reporter John Slattery to the belly of the beast... and he found trash cans, traffic cones, and chairs reserving spaces. more ›

Dibs? No. People, we've talked about this. Yes, we know there has been a lot of snow. Yes, we know that shoveling out your car can take forever and you feel that you've earned the right to put a chair or a garbage pail down in your space. But people, this isn't Boston or Chicago. You leave your spot, you lose your spot. Sorry! more ›

Today's depressing reminder of our civilization's gurgling downward spiral comes to us via a YouTube video (where else?) of teenagers (of course) attacking a Wendy's employee who tried to break up a fight in Queens Village. Our narrator is a teenage girl—another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks she's 50 Cent—who yells, "Wendy's lady, move!" But the Wendy's lady does not move, and after someone throws some food at her, she's pummeled by at least two of the girls. more ›

A woman has been fighting for the right to keep her teacup Yorkshire terrier with her at her Queens condo, after the Village View Condominium board tried to evict the 4-pound-pup (and spent $100K doing so!). Last year the Queens Supreme Court ruled the board had the right to ban pets, but the Appellate Division rejected their ruling this week, according to the Daily News. more ›

The Justice Department says Syed Omair Ali, an unemployed Middle Village man, wasted the time of dozens of FBI agents and cost the government more than $1 million as he led investigators on a wild goose chase. It all started in May when Ali e-mailed the FBI to say he knew of a terrorist plot against NYC. But officials say there was no plot, and Ali wasted their time for five months because he was trying to get out of paying back a loan to one of the men he accused. more ›

Middle Village in Queens caught the worst of Thursday night's storm, getting slammed with a "Macroburst" which featured winds of 125 mph, a maximum path width of 5 miles and a path length of 8 miles. Today the blog A Walk in the Park surveys the extensive damage, and slams the NYPD for sending home 18 special duty officers once the storm blew through. Robert F. Holden, president of Juniper Park Civic Association, reports that Middle Village still looks "like a war zone": more ›

A Maspeth-based youth football organization, the Queens Falcons, is suing the Parks Dept. to let them keep playing at Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, where the team has been playing for over 20 years. The Parks. Dept. kicked them off because they were worried the constant activity would ruin the grass, and have instead suggested that they play on an artificial football field made of rubber pellets recycled from old tires. But coach Tim Cavanaugh is willing to fight for his team. He tells the Daily News "so what if you've got some dead grass on a field. What they're doing is totally wrong. Parks are not trophies." He's also worried about the content of the artificial field, which is apparently made from the "same tires that gather petroleum, chemicals and toxins from the road." The Parks Dept., however, claims that the field was meant to be used for baseball, and the only football fields at their disposal would be artificial. Whatever the outcome, it will at least be a good civics lesson for the players. Remember, kids, football is 80% mental and 40% physical. more ›

For the second time in less than thirty-six hours, a city teenager was struck by a hit-and-run driver. 16-year-old Robert Ogle was fatally hit at Eliot Avenue and 80th Street in the Middle Village section of Queens at around 1:30 a.m. this morning. The car had been stolen while parked in front of a nearby deli. Police picked up the driver, a 27-year-old man, at Dry Harbor Road and Woodhaven Boulevard not far from the scene of the crime. They believe that he may have been drunk. Ogle was pronounced dead at the scene. A second victim, a 20-year-old man is in critical condition at Elmhurst Hospital. On Friday afternoon, two brothers were injured by a car that jumped the curb in Bed-Stuy. more ›

A Middle Village man was arrested on two counts of second-degree murder Friday after confessing to the killings of Joseph Odierno and Jairo Santos in a drug deal gone wrong. The Daily News reports that police raided the Queens home of 28 year-old Darren Lynch to discover "handguns, rifles, an AK-47 machine gun, a bulletproof vest, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, and books about serial killers." more ›

Investigators looking for the cause in Sunday's fatal Queens fire now suspect that the ex-girlfriend of the most recent victim may have started the fire. It is believed Agnes Bermudez doused William Salazar with an accelerant, possibly carpet cleaner. Salazar died from his injuries yesterday. more ›

Two men were found dead when firefighters arrived to battle a fire in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island. The fire at a vacant building was so intense that it took firefighters two hours to get it under control. more ›

The fire in a three-story building that killed one yesterday morning has claimed two more deaths. A 58-year-old man was in an apartment, dead of smoke inhalation and his wife and 20-year-old son died later at a hospital. more ›

Early this morning, a fire ripped through a three story building with a store on the ground floor and apartments above. There has been one reported fatality so far, with three people critically injured and four more residents seriously injured. The proprietor of the ground floor deli said two people ran onto his store while on fire. He was able to douse them with water more ›

An 81-year-old man who was getting into his parked car in Middle Village, Queens was struck by a vehicle yesterday at 11AM. The car did not stop and passersby chased the van, yelling for the driver to stop. Finally, the car was stopped by another vehicle and one of the men, Anthony Causi, told the Post, "I ran up to the door and yelled at her, 'Did you see what you just did?'" to which the driver, 29-year-old Diana Toro, yelled, "What? What? I didn't do anything." Causi added that it looked like she was on the phone or listening to an iPod. more ›

On the edge of Middle Village sits Uvarara Vineria and Ristoro, a charming family-owned wine bar that looks and feels like it should be in the middle of an Italian village instead of Queens. This is due to the efforts of the Iadicicco's who spent nine months converting what had been a tailor shop with dowdy green walls into a cozy space with exposed brick and a dining area whose four rooms each have a different ceiling. Thankfully they did not have to do much work on the exterior. The building itself has many of the architectural elements of nearby St. John's cemetery. Ask about the renovation and in short order, you'll be shown a photo album that chronicles the family's labor of love. more ›

NY1 is reporting that City Councilman Dennis Gallagher has been indicted on rape charges by a Queens grand jury. Yesterday, the Queens City Councilman told the grand jury the sex was consensual. more ›

One of the many things I love about this town is that there are a thousand places where you might find yourself saying, “It doesn’t even feel like I’m in New York City anymore.” I started driving a yellow cab, in large part, to try to find as many of those places as I could. more ›

The case of Monica Lozado-Rivaidneira gets odder and odder. The police said that Caesar Ascarrunz confessed to killing his Bolivian-born girlfriend in their Queens apartment, but now, while in lockup at Rikers, he is saying he never confessed. The police have written, taped, and oral confessions from Ascarrunz, which seem to counter Ascarrunz's claims. This may all be a part of Ascarrunz's attempts to create some sort of defense as he awaits court hearings. more ›

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