A year after Michael Sandy was lured to a parking lot at Plumb Beach in Brooklyn under the pretense of a sexual encounter and then killed in an attempted robbery, the spot on Sheepshead Bay continues to be a place where men congregate for furtive homosexual encounters. John Fox and Anthony Fortunato were both convicted last week of manslaughter as a hate crime in the death of Sandy, who was struck by a car on the Belt Parkway, where Fox and Ilya Shurov chased him. The violent crime doesn't seem to be deterring the men who still sit by themselves in their cars, smoking and waiting––for what isn't entirely clear. The New York Times sent a reporter to observe the scene in the parking lot Friday night. He approached one of the cars and the driver said he had heard of Sandy's death and the parking lot's reputation, but that wasn't why he was there. Nonetheless, the older gentleman drove off with a younger man who approached his car soon thereafter. A perfunctory search of gay cruising sites indicates that Plumb Beach is still a popular site for meetings. One site rated the rest stop parking lot as 3 ("Average") out of 5 for safety and 5 ("Hot!") out of 5 for action [Warning: site page contains graphic images]. more ›

Anthony Fortunato was found guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime yesterday, after intense arguments by the jury. He was the second man found guilty of the crime. Fortunato was accused of killing Michael Sandy in a hate crime after luring him to a known gay cruising spot at Plumb Beach in Brooklyn. The encounter ended with Sandy being chased and beaten onto the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car and later died. Fortunato's defense claimed that he himself was gay and that the luring of Sandy to a secluded area was an exploratory gay experience gone wrong. more ›

Accused murderer Michael Fortunato is pinning his hopes of exoneration by baring his soul on the stand and revealing that he was an until-now closeted gay person. In the opening statements of the trial, the lawyer for Michael Fortunato––the purported ringleader of the three men charged––stated that his client was not guilty of a hate crime murder against a gay man because he himself was gay. Michael Sandy was attacked by a group of men near Plumb Beach in Brooklyn, after arranging a meeting over an online site for gay men. Fleeing his attackers, Sandy was chased on to the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car and later removed from life support. more ›

Happy New Year, by Pixietart. If you're going out tonight, send us pix of your revelry: photos (at) goth dot com. more ›

Three Brooklyn men, ages 16-20, were charged with hate crimes in the beating of Michael Sandy. Police believe that John Fox, Ilya Shurov, and Gary Timmins met Sandy online and lured him to Plumb Beach, an area off the Belt Parkway, with the intention of robbing him - because Sandy was gay. While setting up the meeting, they asked him to bring enough money for a hotel room. From the NY Post:

Fox then lured him to a spot by the parkway, where the suspect and three friends allegedly robbed and beat Sandy, whom they considered "an easy mark" because he is gay, police said. more ›

The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating why 28 year old black man ran into the Belt Highway, where he was hit by a car. Eyewitnesses say that two white men "struggled with" and "forced" Michael Sandy into traffic on Sunday night. Given that Sandy's race and the fact he was in Plumb Beach, a gay cruising area off the highway, the police have been investigating the incident as a possible hate crime. The Post has this account:

At about 9:40 p.m., he was confronted by two young white men, who began looking through the interior of the vehicle before Sandy ran off toward the Belt, witnesses told cops. more ›

So this thread in my favorite message board got me thinking about wildlife in our fair city. A quick Google search turned up a relevant and quite nice site from Urban Neighbors as well as the website for an episode of Nature about NYC wildlife (I've seen the episode and it's somewhat disappointing). There's also a book called Wild New York that I bought for my parents a long time ago and that I can recommend. To add a personal touch to this post, let me list some of the things I have seen in NYC: recently I watched a red-tailed hawk eating a squirrel up in a tree; in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden I have seen snowy egrets, black-capped night herons, little green herons, cedar waxwings, goldfinches, and many rabbits; I fed peanuts to chickadees from my hand; I used to catch leopard frogs and bullfrogs; I watched a snapping turtle with a head the size of a football suck down mallard ducklings; I often see pheasant by my grandparent's house; I saw a roadkill opossum on Staten Island once; one time, while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, I came litterally face to face with a Peregrine Falcon; my parents regularly go see the horseshoe crabs when they come ashore at Plumb Beach; in my house I have killed mice, houseflies, fruitflies, pillbugs, silverfish, spiders, centepedes, and strawberry root weevils. Other points of interest: a coyote in Central Park, my parent's friend has a problem with black bears in her Westchester neighborhood, the Monk parrots of Brooklyn. more ›