The NYPD Hate Crime Unit is investigating swastikas discovered scrawled inside an elevator in a Williamsburg apartment building. CBS reports that the swastikas were found inside an elevator at 70 Ross Street in Williamsburg. According to the Post, the same building was targeted earlier this month, when a swastika was etched into the button control panel of an elevator. more ›

Great Neck, Long Island: Once upon a time this little North Shore village was home to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the United Nations, and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Today its illustrious residents include Erik Bracamonte and Joseph Cianciulli, who are accused of spending their Saturday night arranging 28 folding chairs into a 12-by-12 foot swastika in the parking lot of a local synagogue. Kids these days, eh? more ›

With six other Long Island teens facing lesser charges, Jeffrey Conroy is accused in the brutal hate crime stabbing of Marcelo Luero, but his friend Will Garcia—an acquaintance of the victim—is on his side. In recent weeks prosecutors have pointed to Conroy's prison-style Swastika tattoo as an indicator of his racist ideology, but Garcia, who like Lucero is from Ecuador, told the Times, “How’s he going to be a white supremacist if he chills with Spanish people and he chills with black people? He’s my friend. He’s been there for me. I’ve been there for him. He wasn’t a racist.” more ›

A suspect in a Long Island hate crime got a prison-style Swastika tattoo after watching the HBO series Oz, according to court testimony. “I didn’t ask about it,” said Keith Brunjes, the 18-year-old who administered it with ink, a needle and thread. “He wanted it.” His "best friend" Jeffrey Conroy is the first of seven teens to go on trial for the fatal stabbing of Ecuadorean immigrant Marcelo Lucero in late 2008. The group is thought to have routinely terrorized Hispanics for sport in a practice dubbed "beaner hopping." more ›

A Queens Democrat has sent out mailings illustrated with a swastika that label his rival for an open Assembly seat as an "extremist" who is "out of touch with our community's values." Just days before a special election for a northeastern Queens seat, former Councilman David Weprin attacked Republican and Conservative party candidate Bob Friedrich with literature showing the Nazi symbol and text accusing his foe of not taking a tough enough stance against hate crimes. more ›

Brooklyn Heights resident Ivaylo Ivanov used to like to stay busy. When he wasn't wandering the neighborhood distributing fliers encouraging people to "Kill All Jews" and reminding them that "US hates you," he was spray-painting swastikas on synagogues and tending to his impressive home arsenal. You may recall that police discovered his cache—which included explosives, a semiautomatic handgun, a sniper rifle, machine guns, ammunition, and a pipe bomb hidden in a Nerf football—after Ivanov called them when he shot himself in the hand. Well, Ivanov is going to have to find other ways of passing the time in prison; he finally pleaded guilty to weapons possession and criminal mischief as a hate crime, and faces up to 18 years in prison. Of course, many influential books have been written from behind bars. more ›

Recently, PlaneOddity posted a slew of old New York photos, all taken between the 1920s and 1960s. This one of the swastika-adorned Hindenburg zeppelin flying over Manhattan caught our eye. The Hindenburg flew over New York City on May 6th, 1937... just before meeting its fiery end in New Jersey (more video). Surprisingly, of the 97 souls onboard, 62 survived the crash (though many suffered serious injuries). more ›

How did Brooklyn Heights ring in the Jewish New Year? With swastikas painted inside the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Monroe Street. Sigh. Police said there were also “very inappropriate statements," but did not get more specific. [BHB] more ›

Brooklyn Heights residents may have thought their neighborhood had earned a respite from anti-Semitic graffiti after the arrest and confession of Ivaylo Ivanov, who committed and then confessed to a string of vandalism incidents last year that left Brooklyn Heights peppered with swastikas in spray paint. But last week another wall was defaced with a symbol of hate. The incident involved a a brick apartment building at 22 Remsen St. The swastika was first spotted by Donald Brennan, who owns a nearby building. He told The New York Times "'I was sitting in my car at the curb with my family, I looked over my shoulder and I saw it there,' he said, adding that he felt 'absolutely shocked, kind of sick.'” more ›