Photograph of a closed bodega in Astoria, on day 5 of the 2006 blackout, by Dan Dickinson on Flickr Typical: Con Ed has decided to offer victims of the 2006 blackout a measly $100 each. To businesses, such as restaurants and markets, that lost thousands of dollars of merchandise, it's an insult. Mezzo Mezzo restaurant owner Charlie Kourakos told the Daily News, "We lost, I can say, around $50,000. It's ridiculous for them to......

Two Mets fans were arrested Wednesday at the team's home opener when they kicked a Shea Stadium seat to pieces and tried to smuggle it out of the facility. While it's not unheard of for fans to claim souvenirs during a stadium's last stand, what the pair failed to consider was that they were at the season home opener, not the final game. A Shea security guard saw Darrell Wassil, 30, and Christopher Yatsko, 22,......

Initial reports of Sik-gaek, a Korean restaurant in Flushing's Murray Hill, implied that it’s a buffet-style barbecue spot. After walking from the 7 train to the corner of 149 Pl. and Roosevelt Ave., an entirely different kind of restaurant was encountered. Sik-gaek isn’t a barbecue joint, it’s the Korean equivalent of an izakaya. A quick Chowhound search reveals that this type of drinking establishment, known as po jang ma cha, can be found in basements......

Last year Mayor Bloomberg announced a $3 billion plan to seize 61 acres of the Willets Point district next to the forthcoming Citi Field in Queens through eminent domain, raze it, and construct 5,500 units of housing, a hotel, convention center and over 2 million square feet of office space, restaurants and retail shops. But business owners in the target zone have been fighting it, saying their ‘hood, dubbed the Iron Triangle for its chop......

Some gamblers don't need their legs broken by loan sharks if they're paranoid enough. The FDNY discovered four men lying in an alley at 35-12 Farrington St. in Flushing, Queens while responding to a call about a smoke condition at the building. According to WNBC, the building houses a not-that-secret illegal gambling operation. Police surmise that when the poorly poker-faced bettors heard the FDNY trucks' sirens responding to the smoke condition call, they figured the......

A four-time State Assembly member representing East New York in Brooklyn was convicted of third-degree bribe-receiving and official misconduct yesterday. When a developer was interested in acquiring city land back in 2004 and 2005, Assemblywoman Diane Gordon asked for a home in a Queens gated community, worth $500,000. When the Brooklyn DA's office discovered evidence of bribe taking, they offered her a deal that would have let her off if she quit. But she ran......

Queens DA Richard Brown announced that a 34-year-old Woodside resident will be charged with second-degree murder, second-degree assault, and child endangerment after killing his wife and stabbing his young daughter on Sunday night. Balbar Singh and Kulvinder Kaur had gotten into an argument when Singh attacked Kaur with a knife in their bedroom, stabbing her in the torso and neck. Their 7-year-old daughter, Babita Rani, tried to defend her mother and was slashed, requiring 11......

A just-married couple's reception was interrupted when their reception's catering hall was filled with carbon monoxide. Many guests passed out and/or vomited, including the the groom's mother who collapsed. Groom George Quenneville told the Daily News, "I came outside for a cigarette. Everybody was fine. All of a sudden my brother-in-law comes out saying, 'Your mother is down.'" EMT workers put an oxygen mask on his bride, Sharon Stack. Guests, who described having a "bad......

A 7-week-old baby who has been beaten since he was just 2 weeks old is now brain dead at Elmhurst Hospital, after his mother admitted to beating her son and then dropping him on his head. And the Daily News reports that the Administration for Children's Services had visited mother Kiana Perez just two days before. Perez, an ex-junkie whose first child was taken away by ACS but was allowed to keep baby Pablo because......

Yesterday, a doctor who treated police shooting victim Joseph Guzman was the prosecution's last witness, detailing how Guzman was riddled with bullets. Guzman's friend, Sean Bell, was killed in the gunfire, and two undercover detectives face manslaughter charges while another faces reckless endangerment charges for the shooting. Surgeon Dr. Albert Cooper testified that on November 25, 2006, Guzman was brought into the Mary Immaculate Hospital, "He was telling me in somewhat of a mumbling voice......

The man who was taken into custody Tuesday after attacking a man with a machete and then throwing Molotov cocktails at the authorities from a Queens rooftop told police he was "having a bad day." Detective Robert Zajac explained that in trying to coax Felipe Velasquez down, "We were trying to tell him today is a different day, and we'll work it out with you.'' Velasquez, outside the home he shares with his uncle, first......

The Queensbridge Theater said hello to the world via a post on their website earlier this year. It told the story of Michael Waldman, Robert Prichard and their 5,000-square-foot dream space located at 37-31 10th Street in Long Island City, Queens. The nearly-24-hour entertainment taking place in The Queensbridge Theater won't be of the ilk one is used to seeing around that area; the calendar will cater to a less seedy crowd. The space will......

Joseph Guzman dramatically described the night he was hit 16 times, with 19 wounds all over his body, and his friend Sean Bell was killed in a hail of police gunfire. In recalling the man holding a gun, who turned out to be an undercover detective, stood near Bell's car, "He shot me. I’m looking in his eyes, man. He shot me. Everything slowed down. But I’m looking at him shooting me. He’s continuing to......

Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni awards two stars to Mia Dona (pictured), the best rating that a somewhat casual place like this could hope for: “The food is robust, often rustic and sometimes proudly unsubtle, hammering away at its intended effect.” The East 58th Street Italian restaurant is a remix of Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia’s shuttered restaurant Dona, and compared to Anthos, Psilakis’s haute Greek place, Mia Dona rolls like “a Buick, a more......

Images from WNBC A man who slashed a person with a machete and then retreated to a Queens rooftop to throw firebombs at police is, thankfully, now in custody. The NYPD and FDNY had surrounded the Richmond Hill house on Hillside Avenue between 125th and 126th Streets; one of the police cars caught fire, but no one was injured. The man reportedly attacked an Orthodox Jew who was leaving the 121st Street J subway......

One of two friends in Sean Bell's car on November 25, 2006 testified in a Queens court room yesterday about the night where undercover police fatally shot Bell. Trent Benefield, who had been celebrating Bell's bachelor party at a Queens strip club, said he wounded, laying on the sidewalk, when he begged a man standing over him, "Please don’t shoot me. I don’t got nothing to do with nothing.’" The man turned out to be......

A Queens resident was arrested after driving his car into a car wash controller repeatedly at the Mr. Hand Car wash in Elmont, Long Island. Assi Touti had driven his Chevrolet Silverado through the car wash once, but complained it wasn't clean enough, so workers offered him another wash for free. But, according to the police report, "Touti reportedly became agitated at having to wait in line longer and for a second time, and intentionally......

Photo via Minicloud's Flickr. As mentioned late last year, Flux Factory (LIC's beloved art space) is being forced out of their home under eminent domain to make way for the MTA's $6.3 billion East Side Access project. They report on their (hopefully temporary) end online:Now it must all be destroyed. Our entire block will be razed by the pitiless bulldozers of the MTA. Everything Must Go. Alas, such is the fate of all terrestrial......

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens) will be formally announcing his bid to replace Mayor Bloomberg this Sunday. Theories about likely candidates abound (e.g. Councilman John Liu, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly), but Avella is jumping to the head of the line by explicitly announcing his desire to be Mayor this Sunday at 1 p.m. on the steps of City Hall. Avella is the chairman of......

A missing 7-year-old Queens boy arrived back in NYC this week after a successful enterprise that involved the NYPD, FBI, American Embassy, a charity to track kidnapped children, and a tip to his mother's MySpace account. Kobe Lee was kidnapped by his father, Jeffrey Salko, during a joint custody-authorized visit. Salko and Tiffany Rubin separated when their child was just four months old, and Salko was facing a six-month jail sentence for failing to pay......

The blue awning above Tito Rad’s Grill and Restaurant, a homey spot situated next to a strip joint at the juncture of Queens Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue declares “Finest Filipino Cuisine.” Culinary boasts aside Tito Rad’s might just win the prize for Queens' westernmost Filipino eatery. Little Manila lies some 20 blocks east. In any case Tito's menu has a cool logo: a slick dude in a Panama hat sits above the phrase, “Halika, kain......

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......

Detective Michael Oliver, the undercover cop who fired 31 times at Sean Bell in the fatal November 2006 shooting, told a grand jury last year, "I didn't want to die. I reloaded the gun, and I continued to fire." The 14-year NYPD veteran's testimony was entered into evidence in the trial where he and fellow detective Gescard Isnora face manslaughter charges; detective Marc Cooper faces reckless endangerment. Bell, who was to be married hours later,......

An 80-year-old woman was rescued Thursday by a former neighbor whose concerns were aroused when she spotted newspapers piling up outside the Woodside, Queens woman's front door. Kim Russo used to live next door to Rose Schwing and was stopping by her old neighborhood to visit her mother. When the 47-year-old Russo saw the papers and mail accumulating in front of Schwing's house, she peaked inside one of Schwing's windows and heard her cries for......

A 15-year-old Queens resident stole his father's minivan and took his friends out for a 3 a.m. drive, in what cops say could have been his first time ever behind the wheel. Police say he was speeding when he lost control, hit a light pole and then a tree in Great Neck. Two 14-year-old girls sitting in the back were ejected from the car. It appears that neither of the girls were wearing seatbelts. After......

At the Ethnic Market highlights international specialty foods and ingredients you're very unlikely to find at your local Gristedes. At first glance Casa Rivera in Jackson Heights seems like a catch-all South American grocery. A closer look reveals that it’s a purveyor of mostly Peruvian products with everything from bottles of the wonderful purple corn punch known as chicha morada to the ingredients needed to make aji de gallina, a chicken dish that comes with......

The sports trainer who claimed he gave steroids to Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite and other baseball players hit two vehicles, including a city bus, yesterday. McNamee apparently blacked out. The Daily News reports that around 12:30 p.m., McNamee was on Central Avenue, near Beach 11th in Far Rockaway, "when he rear-ended another car and careened into the bus head-on." McNamee told police his diabetes caused him to faint and next thing he knew he "woke......

A Queens man is suing the city for harassment after receiving $500 in fines for being “a public nuisance” by feeding pigeons in his back yard. 65-year-old Cecil Pitts lives off Social Security in the South Ozone Park house where he was raised as a boy. Now, since the death of his mother, his only companions are two elderly dogs and whatever pigeons descend for his twice-daily feedings. Got a box of tissues ready? Pitts......

On the outskirts of Queens’ Murray Hill, which is best known for Korean barbecue and fried chicken, is a store that caters to a much less carnivorous crowd. Meat eaters who first see the green sign for Vege Eats, might think that all that's inside is Gardenburgers. But as the sign says, it’s a “vegetarian specialty food store,” which is putting it lightly. The shop has a huge wall of freezer cases that offer products......

A Queens DA took the stand yesterday, to testify about a detective who fired at Sean Bell, an unarmed man killed in a barrage of police gunfire hours before his wedding. DA Michelle Cort, who took Detective Marc Cooper's statement after the November 25, 2006 shooting, said, "He told us he fired a single shot. He was certain he fired one time." Cooper, (pictured) who actually fired four times and is charged with reckless endangerment,......