After two fires with fatalities and one with a firefighter injury, the Uniformed Firefighters Association and City Councilman Leroy Comrie expressed outrage over the FDNY's response to Queens fires. They say the new pilot dispatch program is endangering lives. more ›

At the southeast corner of Lafayette and Spring in the SoHo-Nolita area, some sort of event (explosion?) occurred to knock off the heavy grates off the surface. The FDNY and NYPD closed down the street; it didn't look like a steampipe explosion or water main break (no water) - it looks more like an underground transformer vault (if anyone knows what these are, let us know in comments) explosion. The 6 line does run underneath, but there do not seem to be any delays. more ›

Yesterday morning, a fire broke out in Fort Greene apartment, where seven family members lived. The NY Post reports three relatives - a father and his two sons - were saved by a "Brooklyn vagrant on a breakfast beer run." more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an injured police officer at Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, a gas leak on South 8th St. and Wythe Ave. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery at the North Fork branch on 87th St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
  
• The FDNY will be stationing a battalion chief at the Deutsche Bank building until it is fully dismantled.
  
• Someone in the Clinton campaign said that there's a 5% chance that in the event of a deadlock between Obama and Clinton at the Democrats' national convention, Al Gore may arise as a compromise candidate.
  
• Plans for a Veselka on the Bowery may be on the rocks, as a liquor license for the Avalon building location looks unlikely.
  
• The 69-year-old man, who was killed after being sideswiped by a cab and then run over by a bus on West 57th St. yesterday, was on his way to deliver candy to Oprah's best pal Gayle King.
  
• A 500 lb. man is suing the FDNY for $5 million after ten firefighters, who were trying to take him to the hospital using a pulley-and-platform rig to get the man out the building, dropped him down a flight of stairs.
  
• Patty Hearst's French bulldog won Best of Opposite Sex in the breed's category (a male won Best of Breed) at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
  
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a citywide network of water-borne mass transit, where boats could ferry New Yorkers from stop to stop all over the city's five boroughs.
  

How do you get rid of an unwanted fire truck? Simple, put it on Craigslist! more ›

At West End Avenue and West 59th Street, a water main broke, flooding the Amtrak tracks. The FDNY is pumping out the water and a number of other city agencies, including the Office of Emergency Management and Department of Environmental Protection are on the scene. According to other reports, a new building (an expansion of John Jay Collage) at the intersection is also flooded. more ›

Yesterday, separate fires in Harlem and in the Bronx each claimed a life. more ›

A West Harlem co-op fire eventually required the efforts of 170 firefighters to extinguish as it spread through the West 113th St. building 's second, third, and fourth floors. Despite the fast-moving flames, three sisters and their 34-year-old father were rescued from the fifth floor of the building before they were overcome by smoke. more ›

Work has been stopped at the Trump Soho construction site, the day after an accident caused one worker to fall 42 stories to his death. The FDNY says the workers had been filling wooden forms (one was a 20-foot-square section) with wet concrete when molds broke. Assistant Chief Thomas Galvin explained that the molds collapsed from the 42nd floor to the 40th, leaving a hold in the corner of the building. Per the Daily News, Galvin said, "They were pouring it on the floor .. tamping out the air bubbles, and for some reasons the forms collapsed." Concrete and other debris fell from the area. more ›

Another pot farm bites the dust: A small fire in Queens led the Fire Department to over 200 marijuana plants growing inside a home. more ›

When fighting a fire in Bedford-Stuyvesant, firefighter saved a three-year-old girl who was left alone in a house on Stuyvesant Avenue. The FDNY responded at 7:23PM and heard the girl's cries coming from the rear of the house. more ›

A 56-year-old man in the Flatlands section died in his apartment after his cigarette started a fire. Sixty fire fighters responded to the one alarm fire that broke out around 7:45AM on 1275 East 51 Street. The FDNY had it under control within 20 minutes of responsing, but they were unable to save the apartment's dweller, Harvey Kudisch. more ›

The 9 year-old boy who perished in a house fire on Staten Island late Sunday apparently died while trying to save his pets. Tommy Monahan apparently had been with his mother as they tried to escape the fire, but he raced back to his room for his dog, lizard and fish. A 12-year-old neighbor told the Daily News, "Everybody thought he was outside but he wasn't. more ›

A fire late last night in the Staten Island neighborhood of Prince's Bay claimed the life of a nine-year-old boy. Thomas Monahan Jr., who was unable to escape the fire at 49 Princewood Ave. was pronounced dead at 1:45 a.m. at Staten Island University Hospital. The boy's father Thomas Monahan desperately attempted to save his son after he, his wife and his 8-year-old daughter escaped safely. more ›

Earlier this morning, an MTA bus collided with a school van transporting children in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Details of the accident are thin, but initial reports say that up to 9 people are injured, most of which are children. The collision occurred just after 8 a.m. when the Q46 bus struck the van. The FDNY says that two critically injured children were sent to Long Island Jewish Hospital with one other child. Three other children were sent to Mary Immaculate Hospital and two more people were taken to Queens General Hospital and to New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens. more ›

After being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year over unfair hiring practices, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the number of black and Hispanic candidates has doubled in the past five years. Of the 4,000 applicants who scored highest on this year's entrance exam (22,000 took the exam, 21,000 passed), a third were black or Hispanic, up from 14% in 2002. The FDNY currently has just under 12,000 members; 666 are Hispanic, 337... more ›

An off-duty firefighter was charged with misdemeanor assault after he beat up a Brooklyn motorist in front of the driver's wife and two sons. Michael Crespo, who is a 28-year-old copier technician, says that he was driving in Brooklyn when Stephen Spagnola jaywalked in front of his car. Spagnola, who is with FDNY Engine Co. 28 and also posed as Mr. September in the 2005 edition of the FDNY's racy Calendar of Heroes, objected to Crespo's objections and soon enough, Crespo was out of his car getting brutally beaten by Spagnola and a his friend. The Daily News quotes Crespo's wife, "I was hysterical. My oldest child saw everything. He was afraid for his daddy." more ›

We love timely tips from the FDNY! The Fire Department is reminding New Yorkers that deep-frying turkeys is very, very dangerous. Why? Well, the fryers easily tip over and many fryers don't have automatic temperature control. Also, "oil may spill from the fryer onto the burner causing a fire." Underwriters Laboratories has a video of what can go wrong during turkey deep-frying and it is insane. It does seem like there's at least one deep-fried... more ›

Over a hundred firefighters responded to a three-alarm fire at 80 Pine Street in Lower Manhattan last night. The fire broke out on the 29th floor, where money management firm Tullett & Tokyo has offices. It's unclear what started the fire, but around 12:30AM, flames were "shooting out of the windows" according to WABC 7. Glass fell onto Maiden Lane, narrowly missing pedestrians. The FDNY closed down the street and was able to put out... more ›

Passengers on a PATH train from Newark to the World Trade Center station had a shaky ride this afternoon. The train started to shudder from side to side, causing a motorman to stop the train. WNBC reports that at least 30 people were injured, with "as many as 10 passengers...taken off the train on backboards." Hours earlier, a train on the M line derailed at Chambers Street. There were no passengers, just transit workers, and... more ›

This morning, a home in Rosedale, at 267th Street and 149th Road, caught fire. Two people have been killed, as the second floor of the two-family home collapsed. more ›

The FDNY was fighting a fire in a Cypress Hills apartment building when they found a dead woman. The authorities believe the 37-year-old was shot by her boyfriend and then set on fire, but the ME's office will determine the cause of death. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A perp search at Roma Road and St. George in Staten Island, an overturned car at 2nd Avenue and 36th Street in Manhattan and a shark DOA in the Rockaways.
• The FDNY responded to an apartment fire and found a 4-year-old child who apparently witnessed her mother's boyfriend kill her mother then himself this morning.
• Why won't the city fix a sinkhole in a Staten Island street? Because the leak causing the sinkhole started under a private residence.
• Ready the presentation copies of PlaNYC! Mayor Bloomberg will attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors' summit on climate change in November.
• Shorpy's has a photograph of the Red Hook Houses wading pool from circa 1942.
• We guess this means he's not running: Retired general and Metrotard Wesley Clark has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, saying, "She's the right person."
• Former NJ governor James McGreevey claims he can't afford his ex-wife's child support demands. Keep in mind, the man lives in a 17-room mansion.
• If you love Bjork's music and large jazz ensembles, then you may be interested in Bjorkestra - "The Music of Bjork Gudmundsdottir for large jazz ensemble" - which has some shows coming up.

Yesterday evening, Bovis Lend Lease, the contractor charged with dismantling the WTC-dust contaminated Deutsche Bank building, faced an angry group of residents and lawmakers during a crowded community meeting. The seven-alarm fire on August 18, which claimed the lives of two firefighters, was likely started by construction workers smoking, which is against the rules in the highly flammable environment. Investigation after the fire found that the demolition site was essentially a "deathtrap," with a standpipe, the use of flammable materials, and blocked passage. more ›

Wow - the NY Post got a hold of a FDNY battalion chief's 2005 memo that clearly outlines a plan for fighting fires at the Deutsche Bank building. The FDNY had admitted last week that it did not have a pre-fire plan before the August 18 fire that required over 200 firefighters and took the lives of two. more ›

The FDNY did not inspect the Deutsche Bank building every 15 days, "as required by city rules for buildings being demolished" (NY Times). This revelation, coupled with the fact that the FDNY did not have a plan to go into the burning building, prompts the Post to demand that Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta leave his post. more ›

On Thursday night, a fire broke out in a Sunnyside apartment. Firefighters were able to save three children - 1-year-old twins and a 6-year-old - as well as their 59-year-old grandmother Carmen Ospina, who had been watching them. However, they were not able to save their 2-year-old brother C.J., a fact that Opsina lamented, "There's one missing. I barely had enough hands to rescue them." more ›

Earlier this week, the FDNY Foundation, a non-profit that raises money for FDNY causes, released the 2008 edition of its popular Calendar of Heroes, featuring some of the Bravest's bare-chested hunks posing in all parts of New York City and thrilling many. But after the calendar crew appeared on the Today show, the eagle-eyed realized that cover boy Michael Biserta, of Ladder Co. 131 in Red Hook, was also featured in a Guys Gone Wild video, showing, as the Post calls it, "his God-given hose." So now the FDNY has decided to stop making the Calendar of Heroes. God, Joe Francis ruins everything! more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a motorcycle jacking at 230th Place and 148th Ave. in Queens, shots fired at police at Gates and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and multiple pedestrians struck at Coney Island and Ditmas Aves. in Brooklyn.
• State and city politicians broke ground in the Bronx yesterday on a new Metro-North station stop at the under-construction Yankee Stadium. It's hoped that the transit option will cut down on auto traffic from upstate fans driving to games.
• The FDNY's officers (e.g., lieutenants, supervisors) will get a 4% pay increase retroactive to March 20th, and annual increases of 4% each year for the next three years. It nets out to a 17% salary increase.
• A tip led police to the arrest of two women in the brutal 2003 killing of a 91-year-old woman in a robbery that gained them a gold chain snatched from the woman's neck and a stack of bath towels.
• Long Island animal-cruelty authorities are offering a $20,000 reward in an effort to find out who tied a two-year-old dog to a tree, doused it with gasoline, then lit it on fire and left it to die.
• The Nautica New York City Triathlon is tomorrow and there will be significant traffic disruptions on the West Side and Henry Hudson Highways and 72nd St. NY1 has the details.
• It's Saturday, so Canada's Globe and Mail takes a look at which city has the better 24-hour, never-sleeps nightlife, London or New York.
• If Jay-Z's mom bought him a computer with Microsoft Excel when he was little, instead of a boombox.
• There's still some time to get to Coney Island to catch the headliners of today's Siren Festival. Here's the schedule.
• Helmet-cam video of a NYC bike messenger on the talk show "Ellen".

Yesterday morning, a 30-foot-long section of parapet onto the sidewalk at Grand Concourse near 183rd Street in the Bronx, injuring a women and two boys, ages 10 and 12. One boy, Damian Rosa, had his left foot amputated, while his stepbrother (or half-brother; reports differ) Frank Jones suffered a "collapsed lung, broken leg, and head injuries" as well as liver damage. more ›