The kiosk in that little park at First Avenue and Houston, which was formerly occupied by Veselka and, before that, a forgettable coffee spot, has now been taken over by S'MAC. It's the first expansion for the wildly popular mac 'n' cheese restaurant, which for years has been doing brisk business a bit further north on 12th Street. more ›

And the next chapter in the never ending saga of Tavern on the Green begins! After its brief stint as a boozy food truck parking lot the storied Central Park restaurant is going to be a restaurant again. In theory. The Parks Department today released a Request For Proposals for a new operator for the space. Once the city is done doing some more construction on the space (which does not include the return of the late Crystal Room) it could be a "a high-quality casual restaurant, outdoor cafe and bar" by 2013! more ›

The NYPD is investigating a possible hate crime at the Parks Department's Bronx headquarters, where a black baby doll was found hanging by a metal chain noose yesterday morning. Geoffrey Croft at NYC Park Advocates reports that the 15 inch doll was discovered by a sixty-year-old black male Parks Department employee who had just returned to work from being out sick. One Parks employee tells Croft the man was traumatized and "looked like he was going to have a stroke." Three KKKs were also found scratched in a unisex bathroom on the first floor, sources tell Croft. more ›

The New York City Parks Department has denied The Christmas Marathon's request for a permit to hold a Christmas morning run in the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park. In response, the Christmas Marathon has issued a scathing statement illustrating the reasons that the Parks Department is on their naughty list this year. more ›

A toast is in order to the High Line today, which just took top honors in terms of drunk people, or at least drunk people who get caught drinking. The Parks Department has given out more summonses this past year—113, to be exact—for illegal drinking in the High Line than at any other park in the city. That's a lot of tickets for a petite seven-acre park—certainly enough to warrant a fresh bottle of bubbly, don't you think? more ›

Just because John Liu has some campaign cash problems doesn't mean he doesn't have a job to do. Just ask the Parks Department, which just received a scathing audit from the Comptroller's office regarding its handling of concessions [PDF]. Though Parks strongly disagrees with the audit's findings, Liu and co. say that in the past three years the Department has left roughly $8.8 million in additional revenues on the table due to poor planning and mismanagement. The Parks Department's biggest mess-up over the years? Clearly the late Tavern on the Green. more ›

Just when you thought it was safe to bike and sit and fish (maybe not fish) off the new East River Esplanade, four wheeled rogues clothed in disgraceful New York puns and stubby shoes ruin the fun. DNAinfo reports that City councilmember Margaret Chin was SHOCKED to find the area rife with skateboarders. "It's really dangerous," Chin said in a hearing last week. "It's supposed to be a really tranquil place for people to sit and look at the water, but it was filled with young adults on skateboards. You need to create a place for them." Despite there being two skateparks nearby, we suppose the "tranquility" of sitting underneath the FDR is too much of a draw. more ›

Talk about a school trip you won't forget! Yesterday a park ranger in Prospect Park had to cut short an educational tour for kids to go and apprehend a 52-year-old man who had been seen allegedly masturbating in the park. Good thing, too. When the ranger caught up with the man, 53-year-old Glen Perouza, not only did he find drugs on him—cops say they also found a fully loaded 9mm handgun on him. more ›

If there's one thing everyone can agree on, it's that New York City needs more high-rises. But there's one thing stopping real-estate behemoth Related Companies from building 49 stories of delicious commercial and residential real estate: Ruppert Park playground. According to the Post, Related purchased the park in 1983 for $10 million, and in exchange for maintaining the park received tax breaks for its nearby properties. Related had to take care of the park until 2008 per the contract, but continued maintaining it until last month. Now it's padlocked, preventing any childish joy from poisoning a potential building site. more ›

Good news for fans of sitting near playgrounds without children! Back in June we told you about four twentysomethings who were ticketed by the police because they were sitting, eating doughnuts, in a Bed-Stuy playground unaccompanied by children. Two months later at least half of those tickets have been dismissed and sealed. Meanwhile in Manhattan, at least, it seems that cops are giving elderly women warnings about where they are sitting rather than tickets. Oh, and the Parks Department seems to understand that their signage can be a little confusing if placed in the wrong spot. more ›

Plans for a three-story beachside waterslide at Coney Island were deflated today after too much red tape sunk the project. "Parks basically said, 'You know what, we cannot invest any time and energy into this project any longer," said Party Magic USA owner Anthony Gach, who was slated to build a three-story inflatable waterslide and bungee jumping platforms as part of the Parks Department's effort to build a "beach adventure" attraction this summer. more ›

In an agreement the city hopes will help plug the $11 million hole it left in the Brooklyn Bridge Park budget last month and finance the $16 million a year it will take to keep the park running, limited private housing will be built around the park near John Street and by Pier 6. The John Street high-rise will be 40,000 square feet smaller, and the Pier 6 buildings may also be shrunk or eliminated altogether. What's the catch? The Times reports that State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assemblywoman Joan Millman lose their veto power over the developments. more ›

Brighton Beach is blanketed with trash. No, you gutter-minded folk, that's not referring to the chaste women of Lifetime's new series "Russian Dolls," but the trash on the beach that is reportedly caused by a new policy set in place by the Parks Department. NY1 reports that by putting the trash cans in groups at the entrances and exits of the beach and away from where people actually sit, the Parks Department is contributing to the mess on the sand. One Brighton Beach-goer tells the reporter, "The sand is very hot and most people are not going to want to start trekking across the sand to to just put garbage in a can." Sheesh, maybe the tagline for that Lifetime show should be called "Brighton's Bunions: Don't Turn Our Widdle Piggies Into BBQ." more ›

Brooklyn artist Leon Reid IV launched a Kickstarter campaign this month in the hopes of dressing up the George Washington statue in Union Square (as he once did with Abraham Lincoln overseas). Specifically, Reid wanted to add props like an "I ♥ NY" hat, a subway map, and local shopping bags to make "a comic reflection of New York's tourist industry and spark public curiosity as to Washington's role in New York City history." Art In Odd Places was hoping to include the piece in their festival in October, and called Reid's work "very intelligent." But the city doesn't think so. more ›

Last week, after a four-alarm fire shut down the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem, the city dumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River. That dump ended on Friday night but the fallout continues. more ›

Folks attempting to escape the record heat at one of the city's public pools on Friday and continuing through the weekend witnessed a particularly violent scene. As Geoffrey Croft with NYC Park Advocates reports, 15 people were arrested at public pools in all five boroughs. The majority of the incidents involved fighting or disorderly conduct, and at one of location two responding NYPD officers received injuries. In addition, a 36-year-old man was arrested for "forcible touching/sexual abuse" of a woman at Fisher Pool in Queens, a female was arrested for cutting a 15-year-old girl with a knife at Kosciuszko Pool in Brooklyn, and two switchblades were found at the bottom of Thomas Jefferson Pool in Harlem. more ›

The death toll from last week's tragic swimming pool accident on Staten Island has reached two. Yesterday morning Jonathan Proce, 21, died of complications from a grueling underwater endurance regimen that claimed the life of his friend Bodnar Vitenko, also 21, earlier in the week. more ›

Being a lifeguard is to balance the very important job of protecting the lives of swimmers with the crushing monotony of sitting in the sun, twirling a whistle all day. 28-year-old lifeguard Erlen Rodriguez felt he could get stoned before heading to his job at the Wagner pool on E. 124th street, but was pulled over after running a red light and almost killing pedestrians in the street. According to the Post, inside Rodriguez's 1992 Honda was "a joint and a golfball-sized bag of marijuana," along with his 26-year-old girlfriend and their two children—ages 5 and 11—in the backseat. more ›

One young man is dead and another is clinging to life after a breath-holding exercise went terribly awry in Staten Island yesterday. Bodhan Vitenko and Jonathan Proce, both 21, were pulled, seemingly lifeless, from the bottom of the Lyons pool yesterday morning at around 8:25 a.m. and immediately went into cardiac arrest. For the past month they had been practicing at the 3 1/2 foot deep pool with two friends in the hopes of one day joining elite military groups. Vitenko, a John Jay College student with Navy aspirations, died about 9:45 a.m. while Proce is still listed in critical condition. more ›

One man has died and another is clinging to life this morning after the pair were found at the bottom of the "adult lap swim" area of a public pool in Staten Island. The two men, described as "strong, muscular, strapping young men," were found around 8:30 a.m. at the bottom of the crowded Lyons pool. Both went into cardiac arrest after being pulled out of the water and being taken to Richmond University Medical Center. One was pronounced dead upon arrival. more ›

Normally, if you're a bike-wielding terrorist bent on destroying the acorn reserves of Central Park squirrels (trust us) you don't have many options for cutting through the park. Either you bike to 60th street for a roundabout trip north, use the crosstown street at 72nd that only goes east to west or brave those narrow, dicey transverse roads. However, it appears that the Poltiburo of the Parks Department and the Central Park Conservancy will permit cyclists on two pedestrian paths as part of a trial run that could begin as soon as this month. The catch? Really, really, really, really, slow pedaling. more ›

After the Post shamed the Parks Department into resupplying Coney Island's toilet paper coffers, the Daily News seems to have had the same effect when it reported on Monday that kids were "risking their lives" by diving off the Steeplechase Pier at Coney Island. Reporter Michael Daly details the pier's transformation from a dock of impunity to "a border crossing in cold-war Berlin" in the span of a single day. "A dozen uniformed sentries and an emergency vehicle" were on site to keep the pier off-limits to everyone but fisherman. One 47-year-old man whose efforts to relax on the pier were rebuffed, said he remembered diving off the pier when he was 12, "the same summer he was introduced to the ways of love." Great, give them another reason to dive off the pier. more ›

Nothing like a public shaming to get your TP in order! After the Post yesterday scared the bejesus out of Coney Island-bound frolickers when it reported the Parks Department was rationing out its toilet paper, the cash-strapped city agency jumped to attention. Long story short: There was no rationing of single-ply on the Coney Island Boardwalk yesterday. more ›

Despite a $1.5 million upgrade to its lighting system, the iconic Parachute Jump on Coney Island probably won't be brightening the Brooklyn skyline this 4th of July. In 2008, the always eloquent Marty Markowitz promised that the heap of money would keep the ride "blinged up" into the next century, but that hasn't happened. more ›

The city's new ban on smoking in parks and beaches kicked in yesterday—not that anyone could tell. Though we (and the tabloids) easily found a gaggle of unrepentant smokers in the newly non-smoking areas, the Parks police didn't issue a single summons for smoking yesterday. Because they expect it to be self-enforcing, obviously. more ›