Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible abduction on Warwick St. and Livonia Ave. in Brooklyn, a police involved shooting on West Kingsbridge Rd. in the Bronx, and an abduction on 33rd St. and 5th Ave. in Manhattan. A contestant on Deal or No Deal from Bayonne, NJ tells host Howie Mandel that the godawful smell around there is from the dump on Staten Island. Residents of Richmond County are not amused. Two pitbulls,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan. Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it......

Brooklyn is all "Fuhgeddaboutit," but Staten Island can be "Hey, what about us!" at times. Take, for instance, a recent angry letter from the Richmond County Young Republicans who have asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to recognize the borough in its software. You can read the entire letter here (PDF), but check out this excerpt:We often send out event invitations to members of The Richmond County Young Republicans' Gacebook group, but we have come across......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Pennsylvania Ave. and Fulton St. in Brooklyn, a bank robbery on Co-Op City Blvd. in the Bronx, and a commercial high-rise fire on Broadway in Manhattan. An actor who once played a police lieutenant on L&O: SVU turned himself in to NJ cops today on suspicion of possession of child pornography. YouTube wants to subpeona comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in a lawsuit charging......

Staten Island's World Trade Center Memorial, Postcards, was defaced yesterday. The memorial has plaques of Staten Island's 1993 and 2001 attacks victims' names; the plaques also has victims' profiles water-jet-cut on them. The plaques of Cantor Fitzgerald employee Jason DeFazio and firefighter Jeremy Olsen were destroyed. Olsen's family had been planning on visiting the memorial today, because it would have been Jeremy's 37th birthday. The memorial is located on the St. George Esplanade, near the......

The season series between the Mets and Yankees may be over, but the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Staten Island Yankees are just getting started. The two Class A Short-Season affiliates of the Mets and Yankees open their seasons today at Keyspan Park in Coney Island. While both teams were in the New York-Penn League playoffs last year, the Yankees had the best regular season record and they won the league championship last. The two......

One can hear plenty of trees falling in the forest in Staten Island these days, as the Parks Dept. is on a massive tree-killing spree after the notice of a few dozen Asian longhorned beetles. The insect is a scourge and first appeared in Greenpoint, Brooklyn about a decade ago, after possibly being imported in a wooden packing crate from China. The female of the species lays its eggs in a tree and the larva......

ART: Artist Adrienne Leban (artwork pictured) has been a professor at the School of Visual Arts for almost four decades; her new work is done entirely free-hand, without sketches or instruments, in India ink on wood, watercolor paper, or canvas. (It’s terrific; check it out.) This weekend’s three-day exhibit inaugurates the new Corey Gallery; part of the proceeds will benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and......

April showers lasted one day into May with an entertaining thunder and lightning display last night. A big high pressure system over northern Ontario is slowly making its influence felt over New York. A bit of moisture and clouds are still with us, so far keeping the afternoon cooler than expected. Once that moisture is pushed away temperatures are expected to jump to around 70. The high pressure system is big. It pretty much......

That City Councilman Peter Vallone! Back in 2003, he proposd a bill to study NYC's secession from NY State. But nothing happened. And nothing happened in 2004 (he didn't reintroduce it in 2005, maybe he had graffiti to fight), but no matter, the Queens councilman reintroduced the bill last week. And at the core, the idea of secession makes emotional sense, as the city shoulders a lot of the NY State tax burden (look at......

The route for the Olympic torch relay in New York City has been announced and the torch, which will have had stops in L.A., Atlanta, and St. Louis before coming to NY, while be handed off at the start in Queens this Saturday. Mayor Bloomberg said: On June 19th, when the Olympic Torch leaves Athens Square Park and travels through New York City’s diverse and vibrant neighborhoods, it will be as if it were passing......