Yesterday morning a painted swastika was found at 800 Bedford Avenue (between Park and Flushing) in Williamsburg, it was one of five that were discovered on that block, and one of many discovered in recent weeks. The Yeshiva World notes that the last known incident involving swastikas in Williamsburg occurred just this past week, an hour prior to a similar incident in Crown Heights. Independent of that, we received notice of two other swastikas found......

A tragic scene unfolded in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn yesterday morning. A man fatally stabbed his wife and then a friend in their apartment. The Daily News points out these are the 9th and 10th murders "in southern Brooklyn since March 20." It's unclear what provoked Angel Valentin to attack. The News suggests he and friend Wilfredo Suarez had been fighting, and wife Iris Cuadrado had been breaking up the fight. The Post reports Cuadrado had......

The menu at Frankies 457 Spuntino reads like a gourmet marketplace, and placing an order amounts to trusting the chef to choose an antipasto plate full of cheeses and meats of superior quality. Lists of vegetables like broccoli raab and cremini mushrooms--usually compliments to a pasta or a meat dish--can stand alone on a plate, with sauces soaked up by the perfectly crusty bread from Grandaisy Bakery. On a recent rainy Wednesday night, the......

The daughter of Alistair Cooke testified against a man accused of taking the late broadcaster's body to be harvested for organs and bones. The Rev. Susan Cooke Kittredge said her father "would have been against" donating his body to others, "He didn't like the idea of being cut up." The other thing is that Cooke died of lung cancer which had spread to his bones, and the FDA prohibits the use of cancerous bones and......

Dating and eating converge in a new Brooklyn-based program called the Feed Me Show...and it looks like the producers need some Brooklyn singles to heat things up in their kitchen:We're looking for a few attractive Brooklyn singles who have it where it counts -- in the kitchen. No acting experience necessary, but you must have an exhibitionistic streak, cause we're going to get up close and personal on video, in a series that hits the......

A mother of three young children was fatally shot when she stopped by a makeshift shrine for a rapper who was killed last week. Police say 27-year-old Nancy Williams was hit by apparently random gunfire behind the Stuyvesant Garden Houses on Gates Avenue. Fans of rapper Leval Lyde had gathered to remember him a week four days after he was gunned down on Clinton and Fulton Avenues. A cop explained to the Post, "They were......

A Red Hook man is hospitalized with serious stab wounds after his wife was found strangled to death in their Brooklyn home. It's a domestic abuse case that reportedly tilts in the opposite direction of most. Patrick Sculley (aged 60) and his wife (aged 50) had what neighbors described as a combative marriage, with frequent public fights. Neighbors told WNBC News that they saw Pamela hit her husband repeatedly with a baseball bat and kick......

Photograph of the fire truck donated to Ladder 101 by Triborough on Flickr Members of a marching band from South Carolina were still years from entering high school when the attacks of 9/11/01 occurred, but the band arrived in New York City this week to visit a Red Hook Engine and Ladder Company that received a replacement truck in 2002 purchased with funds raised by White Knoll Middle School students and the residents of......

As the creative class has grown in Brooklyn, it has been equally growing in the East Bay area of San Francisco. The NY Times is reporting on a bi-coastal trend that has Brooklynites flocking to the Bay Area, and vice versa, as both of the locales appeal to the DIY generation of freelancers. But what's this, SFers are calling their East Coast doppelgänger ugly? One Facebook employee residing on the sunny side of the......

Students were confined to classrooms until the end of the school day yesterday afternoon after a student was badly injured in a stabbing just after noon. Police swarmed through Paul Robeson High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, looking for a student suspected in the stabbing of 18-year-old Kyle Owens, who was wounded in the neck and the chest with an unidentified weapon. Teacher and basketball coach Todd Myles helped save Owens' life by coming to his immediate......

Yesterday, the Gothamist Newsmap noted there was a "suspicious package" at the Flatbush & 7th Avenue subway station in Brooklyn. It now turns out it was a backpack that started to smoke, by way of a science project. The Daily News reports Gregory Kats, New York City College of Technology computer engineering student, was headed home to Sheepshead Bay on the B train when "white smoke began spiraling out of his backpack." A device he......

The Observer, keeping with their trend-watching, is reporting that 20-somethings are moving back in with their parents after college...that is, if the parents own prime New York real estate (aka: Brownstone Boomers). Didn't we all see this coming with The Royal Tenenbaums? One Carroll Gardens family, the Eisenbergs, have seen their three daughters return for varying amounts of time -- they are, of course, just one small section of a new generation of kids returning......

The endless debate over how to classify hipsters has been tearing this city apart for years, pitting brother against scenester, native New Yorker against arriviste, trust funder against squatter, even self-hating hipster against himself. So it's important for everyone to step back a bit and acknowledge that while we may never agree on a singular definition for hipster, like Supreme Court judges watching porn, we know it when we see it. Sure, the word hipster......

Leval Lyde, a 36-year-old Brooklyn rapper who went by the street name "Kevlar," was gunned down yesterday on the corner of Clinton Ave. and Fulton St. in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Lyde was shot just before 5 p.m. on the street corner and declared dead on arrival at Brooklyn Hospital. Lyde had just exited Fish & Crustaceans Quality Seafood and was walking with his sandwich towards the maroon Jaguar (owned by the mother......

This month many have been fooled into thinking this house, which is in Toronto, was actually in Brooklyn, NY. While the tiny abode is nowhere near any of the five boroughs, there are some little residential gems amongst us (albeit still bigger than most city apartments). liQcity points out "The smallest house in Long Island City" on Courthouse Sq, Hunters Point (pictured), and in the past we've seen a tiny houseboat in the Bronx, the......

Barack Obama has popped up in the form of street art in Brooklyn, and AAVR Magazine points out the Grattan Street mural near the Morgan L stop. That's part of his More Perfect Union speech in the background, and yes, it looks a little bit more like Fred Armisen's Fauxbama than the real thing. Less detailed Obama murals can be found on Carlton Avenue at Dean Street in Prospect Heights (photos here and here). How......

Maggie Brown, the Myrtle Avenue comfort-food spot on the border between Clinton Hill and Ft. Greene, has become a popular attraction for nearby Pratt students and locals who pack the summer garden to sip spiked frozen lemonade. While better known for their fried chicken and ribs, we braved Maggie Brown on a busy Sunday morning, hanging in there for a 45 minute wait which climaxed with our party of five crammed into a table......

For those who can't decide between the suburban and the urban lifestyle, there's a simple solution: build a vinyl-sided house on the top of an old Brooklyn apartment building (which is way better than a trailer on Willoughby Avenue). This gem has been around for a while and is just East of Bedford on the southside of Williamsburg. While its residents most likely enjoy unobstructed city views from their rooftop abode, according to a Google......

A day of celebration for many in the area brought tragedy to the families of four babies on Easter Sunday - one in Staten Island and three in Brooklyn. While police do not suspect any wrongdoing in the Brooklyn cases, they are questioning the parents of 7-week-old Matthew Mason in Staten Island. Matthew was found unresponsive by his uncle and was reportedly two pounds lighter than his birth weight. In Brooklyn, 4-month-old Summer Pinckney was......

Police arrested a man yesterday as a suspect in the rapes of two women in the Van Dyke Houses complex in Brooklyn. Thomas Boker was charged with rape and robbery after being taken to Kings County Hospital for a psychiatric examination. Police say that 29-year-old Boker was about to be charged when he started to act disoriented and didn't seem to know who he was. Cops linked Boker to the rapes with forensic evidence. The......

We've seen expensive pancakes, hams and who can forget the $25,000 frozen haute chocolate? But now overpriced sodas are hitting the scene, and there aren't even gold flakes floating in them. Or refills! The Brooklyn Paper reports on Myrtle Avenue restaurant Five Spot, an establishment that is now charging $5 per pop (a huge change from their old price of $1)! To put it in perspective, meals there cost about 8 bucks (as do their......

A scrap of news is no replacement for pulled pork, but fervid fans of the defunct Williamsburg DIY barbecue joint Pies �n’ Thighs will have to take what they can get. It seems the owners are indeed moving forward with their new location on the corner South 4th Street and Driggs, and there will be another Community Board meeting next month. (Last we heard, owner Sarah Buck had yet to sign the lease.) And......

In the latest livery cab nightmare, a tipster points us to an incident that occurred on March 12th, when a woman used a car service to get home at night.Last night [name redacted] took Metro Car service home. At our house the driver followed her to our door and groped/molested her. She fought him off and he left. I called Metro Line to let them know what happened and try get a name of the......

What's Yiddish for poetic justice? After robbing an assistant rabbi of his yarmulke, an 18-year-old ran into the street and was hit by a car. The Post learned that someone grabbed the yarmulke of 25-year-old Uria Ohana, who was waiting at the Fourth Avenue and 9th Street station in Park Slope. Ohana saw the perp, Ali Hussein, and decided to chase him. Hussein's friends also ran with him, allegedly chanting "Allah-hu Akbar!" ("God is great").......

While Anytime in Williamsburg isn't actually open at any time, their doors swing freely when a hipster craves a jalepeño popper just before sunrise. So news of their possible demise is sending panic to those who crave post-imbibing tater tots and stormy night cigarette deliveries. Word is that "in the past few days, the familiar Anytime sign has been removed and replaced by an even more-familiar 'Commercial Space for Rent / Capri Jet Realty Corp'......

Jurors in the harrowing Nixzmary Brown trial say they were divided over handing down a murder verdict, so instead they found Cesar Rodriguez guilty of first-degree manslaughter, as well as "endangering the welfare of the child and criminal possession of a weapon, including a belt used to beat Nixzmary." The Brooklyn DA's office argued 29-year-old Rodriguez's abusive actions amounted to second-degree murder in the death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, but one juror told the Daily......

The jury deciding the fate of Cesar Rodriguez, accused of brutally killing his stepdaughter, had completed its third day of deliberations without a verdict yesterday, but this morning they have announced they have a decision. The AP reports they have found Rodriguez guilty of first-degree manslaughter; he will face up to 28 years in prison. Prosecutors had argued that 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown died at the hands of Rodriguez and her mother Nixzaliz Santiago (Santiago will......

A man found sleeping at the Jay Street-Borough Hall subway station turned out to be suspect in the rape of a 10-year-old girl. Thirty-seven-year-old Enoch Roberts was arrested on charges of rape and child endangerment. The attack occurred at a College Avenue apartment building near East 167th Street around 8:30 p.m. Roberts, who allegedly forced the girl to the rooftop where he raped her, was identified as a suspect, but police were unable to find......

Photograph of a seal sitting on the kayak launch at 72nd Street and Riverside Park by Eric Carvin/AP Earlier this week, iReport had a video of a really cute harbor seal spotted off Red Hook [Via Brownstoner] - the video is below (it's an auto-play and it's seriously awww-worthy)! Besides being ridiculously cute, the video brings back a flood of memories of various seal sighting in the city. There was Gowana, the harp seal......

Two separate incidents Brooklyn resulted in the death of a 27-year-old man on a Brownsville sidewalk, a nine-year-old girl wounded, and a 13-year-old boy clinging to life. Police are investigating whether the shot that struck the nine-year-old girl in the arm yesterday was related to the shooting that killed Robert Morgan two blocks away in Brownsville. The girl was apparently hit by an errant bullet that crashed through a window in a family's fifth-floor apartment.......