News that the tale of an adorable abandoned baby was only half-true has resulted in a number of arrests and many questions. And it's possible the baby's 14-year-old mother may not have known about the scheme. Livery car driver Klever Sailema, who dropped off the baby at a Queens firehouse claiming she was abandoned in his cab, was charged with criminal facilitation and filing a false police report. He told the Post in an exclusive......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a scaffolding collapse on Vernon Blvd. and 51st Ave. in Queens, an unstable building on East 102nd St. in Manhattan, and a homicide on Tompkins Ave. in Brooklyn. Probably one of the worst group of employees one should try to steal IDs from for bogus credit cards is cops. A civilian employee of the NYPD was arrested for doing just that at her second job as a clerk at......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An overturned vehicle on the Triborough Bridge, which can't be good for all those getting away for the weekend; an escaped prisoner in The Bronx; and multiple pedestrians were struck Dyckman Street & Broadway. Early this morning in Bed-Stuy, a police officer sitting in a marked vehicle was shot in the arm. The officer was treated and released from Kings County Hospital but the NYPD is still searching for......

Holy Tornado, Brooklyn! Reader Jeanne just emailed us with this observation: I live in Kensington, Brooklyn and I think that a tornado just passed through. Have you heard any news about a tornado from anyone else? Around 6:30am there were heavy rains, thunder and lightning when all of a sudden the wind got really loud and we could hear stuff smashing into the house. It was all just 30 seconds or so but now......

When a colleague at the Legal Aid Society discovered that Peter Barta had been secretly recording his co-workers changing clothes with the use of a hidden camera placed in their offices, police were called to investigate. The cops eventually searched the 32-year-old lawyer's apartment and collected boxes of material they considered possible evidence. The New York Post ferreted out the contents of these boxes from what it describes as "wacky court documents." Barta lived with......

City Councilman Dennis Gallagher gave a DNA sample as the NYPD investigates claims that the Queens Republican raped a woman at his Kew Gardens office on Sunday. A woman that Gallagher met at Danny Boy's pub (he's described as a "heavy social drinker" by some colleagues, according to the Daily News) alleges that he brought her back to his office and sexually assaulted her. The police raided his office on Monday but have not pressed......

The Post got varying opinions from neighbors of Peter Barta, the Legal Aid lawyer accused of secretly videotaping his female colleagues. Barta was charged with four counts of unlawful surveillance and six counts of attempted unlawful surveillance after he allegedly planted a Sharper Image Security Camcorder Clock in his colleagues' offices to film them while they changed in their offices for the gym or court appearances. Barta, who was on the Stuyvesant High School debating......

The police continued to look for the robbers who shot a Queens bodega owner in the face on Monday night. Bolivar Cruz, a Dominican immigrant, is still on life support; the Post reports that two of his seven daughters were working in store at the time and that Cruz tried to protect them. According to Police Commissioner Kelly, Cruz did take out a gun (unlicensed) but did not get a chance to fire it. It's......

The 13-year-old boy that inflicted the fatal injuries on another 13-year-old, Guarionex Montas, during a playground fight will not be charged with manslaughter. Instead, city officials will charge him with third-degree assault with intent, a misdemeanor assault charge. Montas died from skull fractures, bleeding, and brain trauma after he was hit in the head during an altercation on a playground earlier this week. The accused has since been released from jail and is in the......

What happens when you're an occupational therapist at PS 99 in Kew Gardens AND a Playgirl centerfold? Your story is told in the Daily News. Julian Fantechi, who has been on the cover of the magazine and teaches special needs students, tells the News, "I can have this career, and I can also have a heart and work with children." And not only does he have a masters from NYU., he has a crazy six-pack,......

Yesterday, there was an alert about a stolen red Toyota Scion in Queens. And the driver was no ordinary car thief - it was the 12 year old son of the car's owner, who apparently left with his 7 year old brother in the car! Luckily pre-teen Kenny Rodriguez and his little brother Miguel Pepin were safe and sound when the police found them. But why drive off? Their mother, Carolina Rivas, tells the Daily......

If you haven’t gotten a pumpkin yet for Halloween, head out to Queens. Today you can pick your own at the Queens County Farm. Begun in 1697, this is the only working historical farm in the city. All kinds of vegetables are grown on site, and animals like these piglets are raised here. Today there will also be a haunted house ($4 admission, from 1-7pm) as well as a children’s fall festival with hayrides, a......

A man's subway death at the Kew Gardens station in Queens that caused stoppages for the E and F (and apparently left Roosevelt Island commuters stuck) yesterday morning has a seamy background. Mohammed Huq of Elmhurst apparently killed himself by jumping in front of a train. Huq had been on trial for trying to kill his ex-wife's husband in 2004, using his Toyota SUV to run over Glen Ringersen in Bayport, Long Island (Ringersen and......

Daring subway theft: A thief managed to steal a purse at the Broadway Lafayette station and sneak away through an secret door. The Post says that the robber "wove through startled commuters to a narrow catwalk that extends beyond the platform" and then "vanished through a secret emergency door to the street." Secret emergency door to the street? The subways were actually shut down, in case he had run into the tunnels, but this sounds......

The NYPD's test results on various pieces of evidence in the Imette St. Guillen murder case are starting to emerge - DNA evidence is inconclusive at this point but carpet fibers found in suspect Darryl Littlejohn's home match fibers found on packing tape used to bind St. Guillen. Littlejohn, who was a bouncer at The Falls, the bar St. Guillen was last seen on February 25, still has not been charged in connection to the......

Yesterday's car crash in Kew Gardens involved at least seven injured people, including three children. A woman drove her minivan into a line of cars waiting at a red light. Two pedestrians were pinned under the minivan; it seems that the van had jumped a curb. A two year old was ejected from a car onto the street; one report says the minivan's driver's son, a two year old boy, was injured, but it's unclear......

This afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg updated everyone on how New York City is coping with the transit strike. 1010 WINS has a nice summary of it on their site. Developments today include: - NYPD working 12 hour shifts (hello overtime!) and the traffic is being handled by the police cadets - LIRR handled an extra 45,000 riders this morning - There is now shuttle service at Kew Gardens, Forrest Hills and Woodside (lots of love for......

More and more bizarre details (even more than yesterday) trickle out about suspected fake-firefighter-rapist Peter Braunstein. The freelance writer is belived to have an apartment in Harlem, watching coverage of his crime from a midtown hotel. His father, Alberto Braunstein, continues to feel guilty and apologizes to the woman who was attacked by a man disguised as a firefighter; the police believe it was Braunstein since he worked with her at Women's Wear Daily and......

Besides voting on a Mayor in two weeks, New Yorkers will have a chance to vote on the state's proposed $2.9 billion Transportation Bond Act that will put money towards various state and city (mostly MTA) transit projects. We've been noticing a lot of support for the bill (Pataki, Bloomberg, Ferrer, the Straphangers), but there is some opposition, especially from upstate groups which don't necessarily want to be the ones on the hook for a......

Is there anywhere to go apple picking near the city which is accessible by public transit? We're so glad you asked this question, because we are getting ready to kick it into gear for Autumn of Fun 05, which involves getting large-ish groups of people together for autumnal excursions such as apple picking. We found a few orchards that offer apple picking and directions by mass transit: Wickham's Fruit Farm, in Cutchogue, Long Island can......

- The murder of a brother and sister in Queens was solved yesterday when the sister's ex-boyfriend confessed to killing both of them in an attempt to rob money. Jin Lin had denied any role in the murder, which took place in Simon and Sharon Ng's Kew Gardens Hills apratment, but the police placed Lin at the scene when they found that Simon Ng had written an entry in his computer "wondering why Lin was......

Kelly O'Shaughnessy, Flight Attendant...

Jason Kucharsky, Screenwriter/Failed Inventor...

Gothamist has often wondered about the new luxury condo, 455 Central Park West, because there would be nothing cooler than living in a rotunda. It looks like one of the rotundas at the American Museum of Natural History - it's just that one wouldn't necessarily have any dinosaur fossils to display in it. The NY Times' City section looked at the 455 Central Park West, which used to be a nursing home and cancer hospital.......

The City opened up the newly renovated $1.9 million Forest Park recreational complex yesterday. The complex features artificial turf and new seating for what is one of the city's most popular ball fields. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe touted the benefits of the artificial turf to the media, saying, "you don't have to cut the grass. You don't have to have an irrigation system. You don't have to put down pesticides," which might make the fake......

Sam Seder, Director / Writer / Comedian / Co-Host, "The Majority Report"...

Reverend Billy, Street Preacher, The Church of Stop Shopping...

Priscilla Grim, Membership & Advocacy Director AIVF...

Accelerating his bid to be the next governor of New York, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer tackles another important-to-constituents issue - besides nailing white collar criminals - prescription drugs. The Attorney General's Office has developed a website to let NYers find the best deals of 25 prescription drugs. The site is AG Rx, and Gothamist did a couple searches to see how much we could save. We've included the lowest and highest prices, as well as......

Is Jamaica, the neighborhood in Queens, named for the country of Jamaica? Seems a little odd that way back when a bunch of colonialists would have named it for a tropical island. Thanks for clearing this up. J, Kew Gardens Actually, J, the name comes from the Yamecah Indians, who were the first inhabitants of the area. Also spelled "Jameco," the name comes from the Algonquin word for beaver. English settlers moved there in......