Results tagged “sunsetpark”

On Friday night, at the 7th Avenue and 51st Street intersection in Sunset Park, a Chinese restaurant deliveryman on a scooter collided head-on with an FDNY cruiser—a witness said Lin Chen, 36, was bleeding so much he looked dead (the photo is dramatic). Today, the Daily News reports that Chen remains in the ICU at Lutheran Medical Center. According to News and Post, FDNY EMS Deputy Chief Brian Milzoff will not be charged. Milzoff, whose lights and sirens were on (according to EMS sources that spoke to the News) had been responding to a call about a stabbing which later turned out to be false. The Post adds, "Witnesses wondered why Milzoff didn't get out to help the victim, but EMS sources said he was actually pinned in his car," and tests showed Milzoff was not drunk. Meanwhile, relatives are hoping the best for Lin, the married father of two young children; his nephew said, "Everyone feels bad, like sick. It's very hard."

Times dining critic Frank Bruni has finally left the building in a fusillade of publicity, and his replacement Sam Sifton didn't file this week. But in the "Dining Briefs" section, Betsy Andrews reviews the Brooklyn Star, a cozy Southern comfort restaurant in Williamsburg run by Joaquin Baca, a former partner in the Momofuku empire. She says Baca "excels at making veggies fattening, and good. His casseroles ($8) — garlicky summer squash and mushroom-rich green bean with slivered almonds — are toasted to gooey goodness in his open kitchen’s 100-year-old brick oven. Creamed corn with smoked trout ($4) and earthy black-eyed peas and rice ($4) are spoonful-by-spoonful delicious. Surprisingly for the former Momofuku partner, meats are a mixed bag."

Last night, two men were shot dead in Brooklyn's Sunset Park. The Daily News reports, "The two unidentified victims were gunned down about 8:30 p.m. in Sunset Park - and the shooter scampered off, police and a witness said." The 28-year-old victim was shot in the face while the 22-year-old victim was shot in the neck and torso. While it's unclear why the men were shot, a police source told the News, "It looks like it is gang-related. He shot them both and took off." And a witness said that there were about 20 people at a nearby basketball court at the time—those people fled when the shooting broke out. Update: A reader tells us he was moving his car around 9 a.m. this morning when he saw cops "poking around in the bushes looking for a gun"—the cops were overheard saying things like "We better find this gun," and "Where did he toss this thing?"

Those pushovers at the Parks Department have accepted the apology of MIHventures, who trashed Prospect Park during their annual illegal Heatwave BBQ. The Brooklyn Paper notes that everyone is getting along, and the Parks folk say they "will also ensure that they [MIH] fully comply with our rules and regulations when considering any future events at Prospect Park or any other park."

A 26-year-old mother of two young boys and several months pregnant with her third child was found stabbed to death inside her Sunset Park apartment. Police spent several hours talking to Yorceli Flores's 22-year-old boyfriend who made the grisly discovery that Flores had been stabbed several times in the chest at 4 a.m. yesterday. Flores had moved to Brooklyn from Mexico at age 16 and had an order of protection against her previous boyfriend that led to his deportation—he is the father of her two children. Police have recovered a knife at the murder scene, but no arrests have been made. A neighbor in the 58th Street building Flores had lived in told NY1, "She was stabbed and it's terrible because to live around here you don't know what to expect anymore. It's just terrible and it's sad because she was so young."

This week the Times’s Frank Bruni rhapsodizes about Perbacco (pictured), which has been open for about five years on East 4th Street, but has a much-buzzed about new chef: 26-year-old Italian hot shot Simone Bonelli, who comes from “the northern city of Modena and the kitchen of Osteria La Francescana, where Italy’s old guard meets Spain’s New Wave.” A two star rating from the Times is a slam dunk for a casual restaurant in this price range, and Bruni declares that “some of what I ate lingered in my thoughts for days: a special of agnolotti, for example. [Perbacco] has graduated to a whole new level, worthy of its name, which means “wow.”

An officer with a history of false arrest is being accused of more of the same by a 40-year-old grandmother in Sunset Park. Monica Gonzalez tells the Daily News she was walking four blocks from her apartment to the E.R. during an asthma attack at 2:30 in the morning last November when she was arrested by Officer Sean Spencer, who claimed she was holding a condom and approaching vehicles with another woman. (Gonzalez's lawyer never found evidence of the supposed condom.) The charges were finally dropped in May and now Gonzalez, who works as a receptionist, has filed a formal complaint with the city’s Law Department.

Police suspect that a strange van filled with mysterious explosives found in Sunset Park may be linked to a landlord with a history of bomb-making activities.

Three people were shot inside a popular Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn ast night. The incident occurred around 9:30PM at Tacos 2004 Viva Mexico restaurant; the victims were taken to Lutheran Medical center, where one was pronounced dead (the other two are in stable condition).

Glowing eyes peering down from trees and from behind gravestones, the night creatures are disrupting the eternal sleep of the dead and driving the living to distraction. Raccoons have proliferated at the famous Green-Wood Cemetery, digging up the grass over graves, eating the flowers left by mourners, and even invading crypts to scavenge for food.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 120th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on West 31st St. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim at MoMA in Manhattan.
• The New York Yankees took first place in franchise spending, with a total payroll of $218.3 million last year. The World Series-winning Boston Red Sox payroll totalled $155.4 million to finish a distant second.
• The New York Water Taxi is terminating its South Brooklyn service between Sunset Park, Red Hook, and Wall St. at the end of this month.

Sigh. Blocks from where a man was killed in a hit-and-run on Friday, a 65-year-old Brooklyn woman was fatally struck by a livery cab yesterday morning. The Daily News reports that Barbara Tjornhom had been headed home from church when a driver, making a right at 6th Avenue and 52nd Street in Sunset Park, hit her. Tjornhom died at Lutheran Medical Center.

Two hit and run drivers were arrested late this week; one through the actions of a horrified but brave bystander and the other through a successful effort by the Brooklyn Accident Investigation squad. Cops arrived at Sergey Satyr's Mill Basin home Thursday to arrest the 20-year-old for the hit-and-run death of 71-year-old Grace Smith of Sheepshead Bay. The Brooklyn Accident Investigation squad used debris from Satyr's Nissan and a partial license plate number to track the suspect down. Satyr allegedly ran down Smith December 21st on Ocean Parkway near Avenue X.

In 1988, the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot was renamed in memory of the Brooklyn native whose most famous role was acerbic bus driver Ralph Kramden on the classic television show The Honeymooners. In fact the logo for the depot is based on the title sequence for the show. The depot takes up several blocks on 5th Avenue in Sunset Park, across 36th Street from Green-Wood Cemetery. It is one of five that serves Brooklyn...

This week in the Times, Bruni goes to Harry Cipriani in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, awards the restaurant no stars. Finds “service so confused and food so undistinguished it wouldn’t pass muster at half the cost.” Says prices at the restaurant ridiculous. The restaurant was last reviewed in 1991, when Bryan Miller gave it two stars. The one positive? “The people-watching is nonpareil." Peter Meehan visits Fifth Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for tacos. Likes Epocas...

Drivers living on exceptionally clean streets could earn a respite from the burden of alternate-side-of-the-street parking. Residents of Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope were granted a stay of parking execution by the Dept. of Sanitation yesterday. Because the area has consistently received scores of 90% or higher for street cleanliness over the last few months, residents will no longer have to move their cars to comply with street cleaning requirements. According to WCBS, the above neighborhoods are the only ones who have qualified for the exemption, but Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park have expressed interest in opting out of the city requirement. Exempted residents will no longer have to move their cars on Tuesdays, Thursdays, or Saturdays.

In 2006, at age 19, musician Zach Condon and his band Beirut exploded onto the indie-rock scene with a dramatic collection of Balkan-inspired arrangements for horn, ukulele, keyboards and strings. The bloggers raved, the venues got bigger, the haters left comments. But less than a year later, the teen’s too-sudden indie-rock apotheosis landed him in the hospital for “extreme exhaustion” and forced the cancellation of a tour that included sold-out dates at Bowery Ballroom. Condon has since rallied back and, in addition to a new album coming out next month, has picked up his touring pace again.

Cops seized 160,000 pairs of counterfeit Nike shoes from six locations in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island after conducting a multi-year investigation to disrupt pirated merchandise. The New York Sun reports that it was one of the largest busts of counterfeit goods in US history and one of four recent successful operations that targeted purveyors of fake Microsoft, Motorola, and Nike products. The haul of bogus shoes was reportedly worth $7.1 million.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building in Murray Hill; a "serious trauma" not far from Shea Stadium in Queens; a bank robbery at Avenue A and 4th Street; and at 777 6th Ave there was a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person).
• Remember those chemicals found at the United Nations? It turns out that they were probably just cleaning supplies. Hopefully these aren't the same tests the organization uses for biological weapons.
• If you're shopping for your prostitutes on Craigslist, be careful. The fuzz might be setting you up for a sting as they're busting more and more people (John's and pros) who use the service.
• A tipster tells Streetsblog that Bill Clinton agrees that "cycling is good citizenship," but we're betting that Bubba was getting into his towncar/SUV as he was agreeing.
• There are at least 5 nostalgic ConEd customers who are angry with the utility today. ConEd won permission from the state yesterday to stop delivering direct current (DC) power. Looks like Nikola Tesla wins this one.
• Queens residents who were affected by storms on August 8th are getting their own FEMA flood relief center today. Hopefully the Flushing location will do a better job than some of FEMA's other work.
• What's going to happen with Brooke Astor's Briarcliff Manor retreat. The bucolic property called Holly Hill is 65 acres and has a 9,000 square foot house. Her son Anthony D. Marshall will likely inherit the house, but people are unsure what he'll do with it.
• If Mike Bloomberg became President, could he still be a majority owner of Bloomberg LP? Some experts say no due to the conflicts that Bloomberg News would cause. Mayor Bloomberg currently owns 68% of Bloomberg LP and has denied his interest in the White House several times.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing child on Church Ave. in Brooklyn, a fatal person struck by a train at Jerome Ave. and East Fordham Rd. in the Bronx, and an escaped prisoner at Church and Albany Aves. in Brooklyn.
• The trailer for Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert documentary "Shine a Light" has been released and can be seen here.
• Arts group ABC No Rio has abandoned plans for a gut renovation of its LES building that it acquired for $1. Architectural and budget constraints mean that the building will have to be rebuilt from the ground up.
• One million New Yorkers, or 17% of the adults in the city lack health insurance.
• Mayor Bloomberg's got game: golf game. Even Phil Mickelson said he was impressed with the mayor's game after they played recently.
• A man being questioned in a homicide investigation is on the loose this evening after jumping out of a third story window at the 103rd Precinct station house in Jamaica, Queens.
• Disabled transit riders lauded NYC Transit head Howard Roberts for recent improvements made to the subway system, like posting notices of elevator and escalator outages online in a timely manner.
• With plans in the works to examine rezoning Sunset Park, Brownstoner asks residents what they think of tall buildings in the nabe ("If you want high buildings, you can go to Manhattan.").

Residents are trying to clean up after the mess of yesterday's EF2 tornado that touched down in Brooklyn. At least 40 homes, many in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, and buildings were damaged. The tornado touched down first at 6:30AM, with winds of over 100 miles per hour, making it the first in the borough since 1889 (there was an F1 in Staten Island in 1995; a F2 in Queens in 1985). Interesting fact: While tornadoes are most likely to occur in the Midwest in spring, they can happen at any time of year and have touched down in all 50 states.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that an EF-2 tornado touched down in Bay Ridge this morning. That category of tornado has winds between 111 to 135 miles per hours, and roofs were blown off buildings and trees fell on top of cars and in the middle of roads. A resident told NY1, "I saw a mass of just leaves turning and it was just dark, like a dark mass. I was afraid and I saw the tree come down. I ran back inside and you could hear the wind. It sounded like a freight train coming through at full speed. It was like ‘whooooomp.’"

Today's new and narrow NY Times Metro section features a battle over pizza propriety. The Times reports Papa John's Pizza is opening right next door to Johnny's Pizza, a 39-year-old Sunset Park institution. John Miniaci Jr. whose father started the pizza parlor in 1968 is none too happy about this development and not just because Papa John's is a blight upon the very word pizza: Miniaci's father died just a month ago. In fact John Jr. knew about the franchise's plan to move in before his father died, but couldn't bear to tell him.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Dorchester Rd. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery with shots fired on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, and a bank robbery on Broadway and 68th St. in Manhattan.
• If one has been ordained by an online ministry, it's good to make sure the state you marry people in will recognize your performance at the altar. A possible problem is that even state officials in charge of issuing marriage licenses are unclear on the rules.
• Sunset Park tavern The Thirsty Duck was selling illegal drugs from behind its bar. Cops busted the Brooklyn bar for dealing marijuana and cocaine to patrons.
• Plans to turn the Farley Post Office into a new Madison Square Garden and side entrance for a new Penn Station continue to hit roadblocks. Amtrak is now insisting it has veto power over the entire project.
• A judge wants to peruse copies of all the emails exchanged between NJ Gov. Jon Corzine and his one-time girlfriend and union boss Carla Katz, so he can decide whether to pass them along to Republican opponents of the governor.
• NYC Stuff Exchange is a city-facilitated online service that allows people to donate, buy, sell, rent, or repair gently used items.
• The city settled a suit for $1.25 million with a woman who was injured in 2002 when she drove into a giant pothole on Atlantic Ave.
• Police conducted 12% fewer stop-and-frisks in the second quarter of 2007 than during the same period in 2006.

That big empty cement pool in Greenpoint has become a landmark. The recently rejuvinated (but still dry) McCarren Park Pool was designated such by the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday morning.

Brooklyn’s sprawling Chinatown, concentrated on 8th Avenue from 62nd to 42nd Streets, has an array of bakeries, dim sum houses, noodle take-out shops. Mixed into the neighborhood are some Malaysian restaurants, Vietnamese sandwich shops, and even a branch of the chain Hong Kong Supermarket. Lower Sunset Park rents and smaller, rentable square footage make it ideal for a crop of modest, decent restaurants. Because it’s less touristy than Manhattan’s Chinatown, it is also a great area to get lunch, dinner, or both in a less frenetic, and less theatrical, setting.

If you've never seen what an exploding manhole looks like, WABC 7 has footage of a Friday afternoon incident in Sunset Park. It looks spooky, with flame shooting from manhole and puffs of black smoke. And the smoke is dangerous, because it contains carbon monoxide.

An elderly couple was hit by a car in Sunset Park last night. Reports said that the couple was dropped off outside their senior citizen residence on 9th Avenue at 53rd Street when a golden four-door sedan struck them.

Bruni goes to Varietal, calls it "an epicurean Advanced Placement exam" and awards the restaurant one star. He says, "Varietal can become so entraced with the unusual ingredients it's deploying, the unconventional ideas it's hatching and the uncommon pose it's striking that it seems not to ponder the off-kilter or underwhelming results." He does love the wine selection, and, when combined with the best dishes, says eating there can be an exciting experience. Just order carefully, and skip dessert.