• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at Victory Blvd. and Lester St. on Staten Island, a fall victim down a trench at Carlton and Park Aves. in Brooklyn, and a construction accident on West 30th St. and 10th Ave. in Manhattan.
• If you have Time Warner Digital Cable and are interested in transit issues, get NY1's In Transit on demand; the Daily News' Peter Donahue shared some interesting insights about the transit worker deaths with Bobby Cuza.
• Brooklyn photographer Spencer Tunick convinced 18,000 people to get naked in Mexico City's main square so he could photograph them. Yes, there is a slideshow after the link.
• Alerted by a foul smell coming from her daughter's closet, a Queens mother found the body of an infant stuffed into a bag. She took the infant to the hospital, but the child had been dead for approximately a week.
• A presumably former Mr. Chow waiter is suing the eponymous chain's owner for $5 million, after Chow allegedly kicked him and made him lie on the floor during a staff meeting as punishment for showing up late.
• The Bedford Police Dept. is following a trail of clues in the homicide of a homeless man found dead by the side of the road by impounding two police cars from neighboring Mt. Kisco in Westchester. The body of Guatemalan immigrant Rene Perez was found an hour after he had dialed 911 for the Mt. Kisco police. Responding Mt. Kisco officers said he did not have a police matter and left him, considering the incident closed.
• The NYPD is in the process of replacing Polaroid cameras with digital ones, in order to enhance the prosecution of domestic abuse cases by providing better images of victims' injuries.
• New York's Daily Intelligencer has early sketches of what might be in store for the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan's West Side.

The Brig was built in the early 1940s and served as a naval prison. After the closing of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service used the Brig as a detention center until 1984 when, faced with severe overcrowding in its prisons, New York City sought ownership of the prison. The Brig served as a minimum security prison until it was closed in December, 1994. The last occupants of the Brig were volunteer workers involved in the post-September 11th cleanup effort.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced that a partnership between the Dunn Development Corporation and L&M Equity Participants Ltd., two development companies specializing in low-priced housing, would redevelop the 103,000-square-foot site between Flushing and Park Avenues with 434 housing units.

April 16th: Brewtopia World Beer Festival. This brewfest features unlimited samples from over 300 of the world's finest craft beers. Who can resist? If you're still wavering, you might want to know that the event's organizers will be making a donation to Citymeals-on-wheels, which provides hand-delivered meals to homebound elderly New Yorkers. Convinced yet? Tickets for each session are available online at www.brewtopiafest.com or by phone at 877-772-5425 and are $40 in advance and $50 at the door. Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th street between 6th & 7th Aves, two sessions: 1-5 pm, 6-10pm. more ›

The new Zagat rankings for New York restaurants are out and the top restaurant is again Union Square Cafe, which had reigned as New Yorkers' favorite restaurant as tallied by Tim and Nina for 6 straight years (1997-2002) except last year, when sister restaurant Gramercy Tavern took over. The Le Coze fish shrine, Le Bernardin, is number one in food quality. more ›