A corrections officer was seriously injured when a large tree fell on her yesterday afternoon. The incident occurred around 4:35 p.m., at Fresh Pond Road and Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens. It's believed the tree was rotting, so when a train on the elevated track rumbled by, it finally fell. According to WABC 7, witnesses (the street was closed for a street fair) "saw the thick trunk breaking off, hitting the woman, who had been......

Last summer a rented garage on the outskirts of Queens, NY served as a workshop for a group of Trinidad teens living in the borough. They worked day and night on "enormous stereo systems jury rigged onto ordinary bmx bikes," with Randall Stevens on hand to document the creations, from scraps to mobile dance parties. The group is touted as America's first stereobike crew; Stevens's short film called Made in Queens and you can watch......

The Queens DA's press release gives some more details about the 18-year-old who fatally shot his cousin. Felix Cruz allegedly "pointed the firearm at her and pulled the trigger. The gun made a clicking noise and nothing happened. The defendant allegedly then pulled the trigger again, this time discharging a bullet that struck [Veronica] Cruz in the face, killing her." The Queens DA's office adds that Cruz tried to get rid of the gun by......

Photo courtesy Atomische. Angry opponents to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to develop 62 acres of poorly-maintained land in Willets Point, Queens disrupted a press conference yesterday held by city officials in Washington Square Park to tout the proposal. Councilman Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes Willets Point, led over two dozen protesters to the press conference, where they drowned out advocates for the plan, chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” According to the Times, the police refused......

Eighteen-year-old Felix Cruz was arrested and faces charges including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and evidence tampering in the death of his 18-year-old cousin in a Rockaway apartment. The victim, Veronica Cruz, who lived in Boston and had recently graduated high school, was shot in the head (Cruz used to live in Queens and was visiting her old neighborhood). Another relative told the Post, "From what I heard, it was a mistake. He was cleaning the......

The home of an acting Supreme Court Justice currently hearing domestic violence cases was hit by gunfire early yesterday morning. Bullets hit the dining room wall and an upstairs bedroom wall at Justice Fernando Camacho's Springfield Gardens house. He and his family were in Montauk at the time of the shooting; they actually sold the house but were awaiting bank approval of the buyers. The police are investigating whether the gunfire was meant for the......

A 21-year-old man has been arrested for fatally slashing his 32-year-old girlfriend in a Queens apartment. Veronica Rivera was pronounced dead at the scene, and police say she was killed in front of her 9-year-old and 6-month-old daughter after an argument with the baby's father, Pedro Ayala. Rivera's mother said her daughter had left Ayala twice and told the Post, "She was scared for his life. They moved into the basement together awhile ago, but......

The Post reported that, when comparing July 2008 figures to July 2007, foreclosures were up 67%. Here's how it broke down by borough: A 16% increase in the Bronx; up 63% in Brooklyn; up 7.6% in Manhattan (but a 55% increase between June and July of 2008); up 81% in Queens (half the foreclosures there were); and up 215% on Staten Island. The Post adds that Queens "appears to be at the epicenter of the......

The police released a sketch and surveillance video of the man believed to be involved in a series of sexual attacks in Queens, most near bus stops. While the suspect's face is not visible in the surveillance video, police are hoping someone will recognize the man's walk and mannerisms. In two incidents, the man, who has used a knife to threaten his victims, was wearing a hoodie and black Nike Air Force One sneakers. City......

A grand jury decided not to indict a man for fatally stabbing a 15-year-old girl in June. Winston Alladin had aroused the anger of bus passengers when he was angered by a woman and child who cut him in line and, per the Post, "spat racial epithets at the woman and other African-American passengers." A group of passenger had followed him out the bus, throwing objects at him, and Alladin claimed the death of Keyanna......

Yesterday morning, at the Rockaway Deli & Grocery in Queens, a customer apparently lost it and stabbed two employees. According to WABC 7, Ortho Arnold is seen on a surveillance tape getting his change and then spitting in the cashier's face: "As other nervous customers start leaving the store, Arnold pulls the knife." The victims, the owner's son and cousin, were able to fight him off with broomsticks. The owner said Arnold is a regular......

Just after 1 a.m., a woman managed to fight off a man who tried to grab her in the Cedar Manor neighborhood. According to WABC 7, the woman "screamed and fought him off before he ran away without harming her." The police have been investigating a series of sexual assaults, at least eight, in southern Queens over the past year. The police say the suspect approaches the victim, with a knife, and forces her into......

Fire marshals are trying to understand what caused the Friday afternoon gas explosion at an apartment building in Flushing. It's believed the explosion occurred from apartment 2P's gas stove; 2P resident Edgar Zaldumbide is in a medically induced coma with burns over 75% of his skin, while his 23-month-old daughter was also burned. However, the building's super told the Post that 2P's stove "had not been hooked up to the feeder line." The building had......

Yesterday afternoon, an apparently gas explosion caused a fireball and shook a Flushing apartment building. The fire injured 17 people, including a 2-year-old and her father were were critically injured. A resident told the NY Times, “I saw the man, who was burnt from head to toe. His clothes were burnt and he was screaming, and he said, ‘Save my baby!’” The man was identified as Edgar Zalbumbide, who lost 75% of his skin. The......

The Sun’s Paul Adams is the latest critic to get around to Hundred Acres (pictured), the meticulously-sourced, farm-to-table restaurant which used to be Provence. While the Daily News was haunted by the ghosts of the old restaurant, Adams says “the transformation is a delightful blast of fresh air. A sultry Southern accent marks the restaurant's menu… where "seasonal" isn't just a buzzword, but where you actually look forward to returning season after season to see......

A resident of Sunnyside Queens says her neighborhood now “has hoards and I mean hoards of homeless people, derelicts, and the like that have been all and around the neighborhood harassing people.” Today she wrote into local blog Queens Crap to ask if a new half-way house or homeless shelter has opened up nearby, because “the situation has escalated only within the last month and a half!!!!!!! I was walking home one evening, it was......

Earlier this year, it was announced Con Ed would give refunds of $100 to residents and $350 to businesses who were struck by the 2006 blackout in Queens and now the state Public Service Commission has approved the compensation plan. Oh, and customers will also get a "formal apology." Assemblyman Michael Gianaris slammed the PSC, "Whether it is blackouts, steampipe explosions, stray voltage electrocutions, or record rate hikes in the face of multi-million dollar executive......

There are few things more heartwarming than hearing about a dog who was returned to his rightful owners after 5 years (and over a distance of 850 miles, thanks to a microchip), and the press naturally descended upon Rocco the beagle. The dog had gotten out of his Queens backyard, and it's suggested someone in the military took the dog from the Big Apple down to Georgia, where he was found. Eleven-year-old Natalie Villacis, who......

Remember the old days when dogs would bolt from the car during a road trip, only to follow their uncanny sense of direction to find their way home across hundreds of miles? Thanks to microchip implants, today’s 21st century canine can now rely on technology to do the work. That’s how Rocco, a beagle who disappeared from a Queens backyard in 2003, was located and returned to his owners last weekend after being found in......

A developer will break ground Thursday on what will be the city’s only rooftop ice rink (the Chelsea Piers Sky Rink is on the second floor, not the roof, and it’s been a while since skaters frolicked on the old Madison Square Garden roof rink.) Located in Long Island City, the City Ice Pavilion will feature an NHL size ice rink that will be open during the winter under a Yeadon air dome, the self-proclaimed......

Police believed that 17-year-old Karon Lenihan shot another teen over a long-held grudge. Patrick Hernandez, a Far Rockaway High graduate who was headed to SUNY Cortland, had been walking back from cleaning up a local beach on Thursday morning when Lenihan allegedly jumped out of a car and shot Hernandez in the chest. While the nature of Lenihan's grudge against Hernandez is unclear, the victim's grandmother raged to the Daily News, "I'd like to kill......

An 18-year-old graduate of Far Rockaway High was fatally shot on Beach 16th Street yesterday morning. The Daily News reports Patrick Hernandez, who had played on the high school football team and was headed to SUNY Cortland this fall, "had spent the morning helping clean up a local beach and was walking home with his brother" when a shooter jumped out of a car and fired at him. The police are speaking to a suspect.......

The police are investigating a sex attack reported by a 16-year-old. The girl was grabbed on her way to school, threatened with a box cutter and assaulted behind an abandoned church, and police are investigating the possibility the attacker may be the same as the one in a series of earlier assaults. And WNBC reports there are two more reports of attacks--another in Springfield Gardens and the other in South Ozone Park.......

If one ever needed an additional reason to buckle up, there's the news of two men who were killed while traveling in a car piloted by a drunken driver. 28-year-old Stephen Bush was speeding down Rockaway Blvd. early Saturday morning when he lost control of his Cadillac sedan and drove through the front of a carpet store in Rosedale. Bush was uninjured, but two of his passengers--Garfield Nelson and Wayne Burnette--were both killed. A third......

Some Queens residents are getting touchy about sprouting McMansions in their borough. Many believe it's being transformed into the worst of suburbia: Huge ostentatious homes plunked onto undersized lots that don't conform to the neighborhood's aesthetics. Residents of Forest Hills are upset with an influx of Bukharian Jewish immigrants, who like their homes large and lawns nonexistent. The NY Times quotes a Bukharian community leader: “Don’t be upset with our people because we like to......

The Queens DA's office says a man posed as a police officer and raped a woman in Flushing on Thursday morning. The suspect, 35-year-old Anthony Lane, is accused of using a fake police badge--actually a Department of Sanitation badge (Lane is not a DoS employee)--and saying, "Open the door, I'm the police." When the woman opened the door, NY1 reports "Lane allegedly grabbed the woman by her hair and forced her onto her bed." According......

A 37-year veteran teacher is accused of punching and throttling a 12-yea-old student. Scott Antwork, 58, teaches at PS 54 in Richmond Hill and Queens DA Richard Brown says Antwork "punched 12-year-old Edgar Lopez in the head with a closed fist, placed him in a choke hold and then grabbed the student's right arm and pushed him into a table." Two students say that Lopez first punched Antwork. The teacher has been "reassigned" and is......

On Wednesday night, 15-year-old Keyanna Jones was stabbed to death by when a dispute over line cutting at a Queens bus stop. Police say that 39-year-old Winston Alladin was angered because a woman and child allegedly cut in front of him to board a bus. One passenger said, per the Post, he "spat racial epithets at the woman and other African-American passengers." When a group of kids followed him off the bus, more people joined......

The Queens woman who is accused of verbally abusing and punching Jet Blue flight attendants during a flight from NYC to San Francisco was released on bail yesterday. Christina Szele was allegedly drunk and caught the crew's--and fellow passengers'--attention when she lit a cigarette on the plan. She had been in a Denver jail for the past week and a half; 1010 WINS reported, "The magistrate who set her bail ordered her not to travel......

A woman was stabbed in the chest yesterday morning by a man on a bicycle. The woman, 37-year-old Eduarda Olivia, had been walking in the Queensbridge section with her 13-year-old daughter when the sudden attack occurred. She was taken to NY-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, where she is currently in stable condition. According to police, the man just cycled up to her "plunged a knife into her chest." He did not rob Olivia or harm the......