The Parks Dept. decided to throw in the towel on litigation that's been going on for three years and conceded to reevaluate its requirement that no more than 50,000 people could gather on Central Park's Great Lawn at one time. Aside from six allotted exceptions (per year) that include four reserved for performances by the Metropolitan Opera and the NY Philharmonic, the city's rationale for crowd-size restrictions was that very large crowds could damage the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a double shooting at West 151st St. and Walton Ave. in the Bronx, and a pursuit/crash/bailout on 95th St. and the West Side Highway in Manhattan. The disbarred lawyer accused of murdering his wife and blaming it on a random carjacking admitted to cops that he'd sent flowers to his girlfriend that day and had various small affairs and used escorts outside......

Eugenio Cidron, the man who killed bicyclist Eric Ng in 2006 after driving drunk down the West Side bike path instead of the West Side Highway following a holiday party at Chelsea Piers, was sentenced yesterday to three to 10 years in prison. Cidron had driven over a plastic pylon to enter the path from Chelsea Piers and had been driving south for a mile before hitting Ng, who was traveling north. Cidron, who pleaded......

Metro has an interview with NYU professor and Department of Sanitation anthropologist-in-residence, Robin Nagle. The piece comes on the cusp of “Loaded Out: Making a Museum,” an exhibition Nagle helped curate which focuses on the DSNY's history and its vital role in shaping the city. The exhibit opens tomorrow and will run for a full month, but she mentions this is just the first step in creating a Sanitation Museum.Police and firefighters have museums. Why......

Yesterday morning's rain caused a recently installed sewer main to burst, flooding the basement and parking garage of a Battery Park City luxury apartment building. Water levels reached up to 20 feet. Not only were car owners greeted with news that their vehicles were either submerged or floating on top of sewer water, hundreds of tenants at 90 West Street were evacuated. Fire officials explained that, per WNBC, "rain flooded a re-routed sewer pipe,......

On December 1, 2006 around 9:30PM, 22-year-old Eric Ng was biking north on bike path by the West Side Highway. Around the same time, 27-year-old Eugene Cidron, leaving a party at Chelsea Piers in his BMW, mistook the bike path for the actual highway, drove south on the bike path and fatally struck Ng near West Street - at least a mile from Chelsea Piers. Ng was hit so hard that his bicycle and shoe......

The Sklar Brothers spent years living in New York, working their way through the alternative comedy scene, becoming in demand performers, and eventually getting their own MTV show, Apt 2F, and later a Comedy Central Special. Then, once they had moved to LA and gotten comfortable, they were sent back into New York to film their show Cheap Seats for ESPN Classics. It seems like the Sklars just can't stay away from the city because......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a stabbing on 168th St. and Hillside Ave. in Queens, a sexual assault at Stanton and Attorney Sts. in Manhattan, and a missing child on Himrod St. in Brooklyn. Artist Eve Mosher is outlining in chalk the high water lines that floods will reach every four years by 2080 if global warming continues unabated. The project can be seen at her site highwaterline. Six-year-old Natalie Shea is now a......

The Post reports that a woman running on the West Side managed to escape from a man who tried to rape her this past Saturday morning. According to the police, Jason Washington grabbed the 24-year-old woman from behind around 7AM. He then "fondled her and dragged her to an empty doorway near 12th Avenue and 58th Street." Luckily, a loud truck "startled or distracted" Washington and the woman ran away and called 911. Washington, who......

The Smart car has arrived in the States, and measuring at 8 feet and 8 inches long and 5 feet wide, the miniscule vehicle got some big attention in the Big Apple this week. The car is around 3 feet shorter than the Mini Cooper, and could probably fit inside most of the gas guzzling SUVs in town. The 1800-pounder will hit the market stateside in early 2008, but will anyone want it? Business Week......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A boat in distress at the Roosevelt Island Bridge, a homicide on Howard in Brooklyn, and a stabbing on Jamaica Avenue and 161st Street in Queens Hillary Clinton out-fund-raises Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama in New York, which makes sense since she's been building her donor list as a Senator from New York. The big mystery of NYC: Where the middle class live. A man was fatally hit by......

Critical Mass, which came to New York around 1993, hasn't always been a cause for concern amongst the city's police. After 2004's Republican National Convention coincided with that month's Critical Mass in Manhattan, things changed. The ride has taken a more political tone and there's often an air of protest circling it. The ever-changing leaderless group has been in and out of the court with arrests being called in to question. Do the police have......

A Carnival cruise ship bumped a West Side pier at around 7:30AM this morning. The ship, the 895-foot Carnival Victory, suffered some damage to its bow and now Department of Buildings is investigating whether the dock at 12th Avenue and 56th Street is damaged as well. There is a two-story dock used for parking at the pier, which you can see on WCBS 2's helicopter footage. The West Side Highway was partially closed so emergency......

We are sad to hear that Pier I Cafe at Riverside Park South (around 70th Street, underneath the West Side Highway) was closed by the Department of Health. A reader visited the cafe on Sunday, only to find "a note saying they're probably closed for the season because the city said the bathrooms they had weren't good enough." The cafe had an open kitchen and bar, and the bathrooms were built in a temporary......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Stanton and Rivington Sts. in Manhattan, a homicide on Light St. in the Bronx, and a robbery at Sutter Ave. and Powell St. in Brooklyn. The 72nd St. exit ramp off the West Side Highway is officially closed. Times Square foot and vehicular traffic is held up as an example of why the city needs congestion pricing. Miss New Jersey, Amy Polumbo, received another package of......

Given the suspected terrorist activity across the Atlantic in Britain and Scotland, New York City has been on the look out for suspicious activity. Yesterday, there were two incidents that brought increased police attention - as well as a partial evacuation of JFK and closing down part of Riverside Park. Now it turns out the strange package and abandoned vehicles were harmless. A lone package left outside Terminal 9 around 10:20AM at Kennedy turned......

With Britain at its top terror alert level after a flaming SUV crashed into Scotland's Glasgow Airport yesterday, New York City has stepped up security at area airports. Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman (the PA oversees JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airpots) said, there were "increased security measures" in place. Notably, many more police officers from the NYPD and Port Authority PD, as well as National Guard, were stationed in and near the airports. It......

In this week's New Yorker, Lauren Collins has a funny bit on the popularity of "Fuck Frank Gehry" T-shirts. Popular, that is, with Frank Gehry himself! The T-shirts first were a hit with Europeans who opposed the Bilbao project. Then they were sought after by critics of the Atlantic Yards. Then Gehry's driver saw the T-shirt at a super bowl party and soon a sample batch landed at Gehry's office. The architect explained, "Somebody......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a building collapse on West 193rd St. in Manhattan, a car in the water at Ocean Ave. and Lincoln Rd. in Brooklyn, and multiple manhole fires on 45th St. in Queens. The NYTimes takes a stroll down one-time Indian trail now known as Jamaica Ave. in Brooklyn. Neighbors on Mulberry St. are so fed up with the Feast of San Gennaro that Community Board 2 recommended against approving organizers'......

The NY Times has a glimmering review of Frank Gehry’s first New York structure to actually get built. Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff calls the IAC building, the headquarters for Barry Diller's media empire, “elegant” and “a much-needed touch of lightness” to the city’s skyline. Gehry’s latest, writes Ouroussoff, reflects how developers are paying closer attention to design. Boasting “strangely chiseled forms that reflect the surrounding sky,” the IAC, one of several new towers along......

There's a fascinating NY Region op-ed in the NY Times. Written by Colin Beaven, Worms in the Apartment looks at how, for the first time in his life, Beaven has changed his life to reflect his belief: For the year beginning last December, my wife, our 2-year-old daughter and I, while living in the middle of the city, are trying to survive without making any net impact on the environment. This means we’ll get as......

First things first: According to WNBC, the NYPD says that NYC marketing firm Interference Inc. gave them a list of 41 locations where the Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED devices were hung (38 in Manhattan, including the Meatpacking District, Greenwich Village, LES, and 3 in Brooklyn). The NYPD only found two which were at 33rd Street and the West Side Highway, which can only mean that everyone who passed by these things and heard......

Hmm, we wonder if we'll start hearing local NJ governments lobby for expanded PATH train service in the off hours. Because a Hoboken city councilman was arrested for drunk driving on the West Side Highway over the weekend. The NY Times reports that City Councilman Chris Campos ran a red light on the West Side Highway near 43rd Street around 3AM Saturday morning. The police smelled alcohol on his breath and Campos subsequently failed a......

Here is part two of our semi-chronological look back at the top stories this past year (here is part one): Queens Blackout The Blackout of 2003, as irritating as it was, happened to the whole city, could be blamed on other states and didn't last too long. When parts of Queens lost power in July, Con Ed wrote it off as an isolated event affecting only a few thousands customers. But as Queens spent days......

An all-Brooklyn edition today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a car struck two pedestrians in Williamsburg, an all hands call in Greenpoint, and a big traffic accident on the Kosciusko Bridge. Tony at PFAW wrote in to say "More than 50% of New Yorkers failed a simulated 10-question naturalization exam—composed of questions recently released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—according to a survey of nearly 250 people held in City Hall Park over a three-day......

Shock waves in West Chelsea: The Observer reports Amy Sacco wants to sell Bungalow 8, the club that made the area attractive as a late night hang out. Citing the increased police presence in the area after the death of Jennifer Moore, the 18 year old NJ resident whose drunken night at Guest House on West 27th Street preceded being kidnapped from the West Side Highway and then raped and murdered in NJ, Sacco......

Police have charged Eugenio Cidron with vehicular manslaughter after driving the West Side Highway bike path for at least a mile and fatally hitting bicyclist Eric Ng on Friday night. Cidron, who had been drinking at a company party at Chelsea Piers, was also charged with drunk driving and reckless endangerment. Cidron's brother told the Post, "This is the first time I ever heard of him drinking and driving. He was saddened by what happened,......

Last night, an NYU graduate bicycling on the West Side Highway's bike path was killed by a drunk driver. Police say that 27 year old Eugenio Cidron turned onto the bike path after attending a party at Chelsea Piers after 9:30PM. According to the Daily News, Cidron's white BMW hit 22 year old Eric Ng so hard that his "bicycle and one of his black Converse All Stars flew onto the adjacent West Side Highway."......

The Post interviews some of Michael Richards' friends, and surprise surprise-- they said he's pretty tightly wound. Ed Bradley was remembered at his memorial service as "cooler than cool." Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an "unusual trauma" in Astoria, a car fire on the West Side Highway, and a homicide in the Bronx. Hevesi slaps back at Pataki: he says the outgoing Governor is pushing through billions of dollars in wasteful spending during his......

A horrible accident occurred on the West Side Highway yesterday afternoon. Police say that Michael Rush was speeding while intoxicated in the southbound lanes near West 92nd Street and rear-ended a SUV. The SUV crashed into the median and burst into flames, and joggers nearby helped pull the driver out of the burning car (the driver suffered a broken pelvis and leg). Then Rush's car crashed and flipped over, killing a woman in the backseat.......