A 24-year-old Columbia University student studying late at the library Friday evening is in critical condition at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan after his bid to escape a pair of muggers ended in serious injury under the wheels of a Jeep. According to WABC News, the student had just left the library on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus and was waiting for a bus around 9 p.m., when he was approached by two young men. It's......

Crazy! Gowanus Lounge posted this video of a car on fire in the Greenwood Heights section of Brooklyn. The video shows the FDNY extinguishing the fire, and GL followed up with an eyewitness account from Greenwood Heights resident Aaron Brashear (who's also in the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights). Brashear said when he looked outside, some teenage girls were yelling, "*Oh, sh*t, that's our car*!" He added that another "long time resident swore it......

Yesterday, the Post reported about a strange and disturbing road rage incident in Red Hook last week. A woman was ultimately repeatedly hit by the driver of a Land Rover. According to police sources, on Thursday afternoon, the woman got out of her car to speak with 63-year-old Jeffrey Klempner, who was in his SUV at Columbia Street and Atlantic Avenue, "to talk to him about an earlier collision." Klempner "denied any wrongdoing," but when......

Big gas guzzling SUV's aren't completely worthless, especially if you need to withdraw some cash in a hurry. A surveillance camera in Orange County New York shows an intrepid robber ramming the back of his SUV through the front of a convenience store in an effort to steal its ATM--the whole machine. Starting at the top left and going clockwise, you can see 1) the SUV slamming through the front of the store 2)......

Late Wednesday night, an 82-year-old woman crossing Delancey Street at Allen was fatally hit by an SUV driver. The driver, who was traveling west on Delancey, stayed on the scene was not charged with a crime. The Daily News says the woman, Josephine LaPlaca, was known as the "Queen of Delancey Street," because, as one person put it, "She knew everybody and everything about the neighborhood. It's going to be weird without her." Relatives said......

Some more details have emerged about the fatal hit-and-run that killed a Brooklyn resident in lower Manhattan Thursday night. Florence Cioffi was fatally struck by George Anderson's Mercedes SUV on Water Street and Old Slip. Anderson had originally fled the scene but later returned, where he was arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident. Anderson, who runs a technology firm in the Financial District, had gone......

Last night, a Brooklyn woman was fatally struck by a driver in a Mercedes SUV on Water Street and Old Slip in lower Manhattan. Florence Cioffi, 59, was pronounced dead at NYU Downtown Hospital. The vehicle's driver, George W. Anderson, according to CityRoom, "left the scene of the accident but returned five minutes later" and "refused to submit to a Breathalyzer test to determine if he had been drinking." He was charged with vehicular......

Over a year ago, a Westchester couple, driving home from Manhattan, was shot on Route 100. The wife, teacher's assistant Peggy Perez-Olivo, was fatally shot in the head while her husband, recently disbarred lawyer Carlos Perez-Olivo, was shot in the stomach. Carlos Perez-Olivo claimed another car had run him off and that the driver shot at them. Now investigators have made an arrest, charging Perez-Olivo was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.......

New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly took a shot at the three men who hijacked a FedEx truck while posing as police by calling the case not so much an incident of police impersonation, as "criminal impersonation." The freight truck was found just hours after it was stolen with all of its contents intact. The robbers could not manage to open the locked containers in the trailer and just abandoned it in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.......

Two sisters were hit by an SUV that "barreled down Richards Street" in Brooklyn yesterday evening. The girls had been grocery shopping with their mother, who had been pushing the grocery cart and was not hurt. The family was apparently steps away from their building door. The SUV, driven by a 48-year-old man, jumped the curb, hit the girls, then, per the Daily News, "continued on for some 200 feet, striking two parked cars" and......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an armed robbery on Washington Pl. and Broadway in Manhattan, a person under a train at 42nd St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, and a bomb threat at Utopia Ave. and 58th Ave. in Queens. A Chappaqua neighbor of Bill and Hillary Clinton was arrested for the murder of his wife. Last year, he claimed that a stranger burst into their SUV following an accident and shot her. There......

In addition to searching for the Ninja Burglar, Staten Island police can now look for the couple that stole a beloved Blue Sable Chihuahua. Rosie, a rare bread of chihuahua, was stolen from Deseree Fisher's home Tuesday night at around 8 p.m. by a pair of daring thieves. They didn't seem to be after electronics, jewelery, or cash when the broke down the door of the house while people were inside, just the dog. Fisher's......

Queens Councilman Tony Avella has introduced a bill that would ban the existence of carriage horses in NYC. Another Queens Councilman, James Gennaro, is looking to preserve the practice of equine cabbies that populate the streets of and around Central Park. Manhattan council members are perhaps showing some political horse sense from bowing out of this particular fight. While wanting to preserve the tradition of the horse-drawn carriage trade, Gennaro is also suggesting a......

A hit-and-run driver was struck by another vehicle minutes after he struck another car and left the scene of the first accident. 21-year-old Mark Durfee was driving his SUV on Conklin St. when his Explorer rear-ended a Nissan shortly after midnight Saturday. The driver of the Nissan wasn't hurt, but Durfee sped off. Later, Durfee left his car on Route 110 and attempted to cross the highway on foot. At that point, a red Dodge......

News that the same man may have raped women he stalked outside the downtown club The Box is alarming New Yorkers who regularly hang out on the Lower East Side. The police released a sketch of the suspect, a white man between the ages of 25 and 40, up to 200 pounds, and taller than 5'8". In the first incident, which occurred on September 30, the suspect grabbed a woman from behind and "made her......

An off-duty police officer turned himself in for Sunday's fatal road rage-related shooting in Harlem. Sean Sawyer, who joined the NYPD and worked as an undercover officer, approached a police cruiser yesterday morning, "I think you guys are looking for me for the shooting last night on the FDR [Drive]...This is the gun I used...I thought the guy was armed - make a sign like a gun. I think I'm having a heart attack; please......

A 25-year-old driver was shot and killed at First Avenue and East 117th Street. Police believe that Jayson Tirado and the driver of an SUV got into an argument when an accident on the FDR (a motorcyclist hit a light pole after trying to switch lanes and died) prompted them to exit onto the streets. The Sun reports that the two drivers started arguing before turning onto First Avenue and the SUV's driver started shooting......

Yesterday morning, two men riding bicycles were killed in separate accidents. Both occurred in Brooklyn. Around 4AM, the a 26-year-old at Union Avenue and Ten Eyck Street in East Williamsburg was hit by an oil truck. WABC reported that he was cycling in the wrong direction. The cyclist, identified as Craig Murphy [sic] who is a member of RightRides, died at the scene. The truck driver was not charged. Then, in Bedford Stuyvesant, around 6AM,......

A 72-year-old woman crossing West 139th between 5th and Lenox Avenues was fatally hit by a motorcycle last night around 8:15PM. Carrie Moulton, described as a retired Board of Education administrator, was thrown to the ground. Her skull was cracked and she died at Harlem Hospital. The police say the motorcyclist may have driven through a red light. He apparently did not stop after hitting Moulton, but, as WABC 7 reports, "lost control of his......

Yesterday afternoon, four cars were involved in an accident at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street. An SUV driver appeared to have a heart attack at the wheel, causing him to drive into traffic. The Post identifies the driver as Parmod Tiwari, a livery driver who had just dropped off some tourists at the airport. A witness said, "His arm was straight out of the window, he was just shaking, it happened so fast. All of......

There was very little else for Londonist to be concerned with when the threat of a Tube strike became a very unpleasant reality. The inconvenience was extreme: there aren't many alternatives to the Tube in London despite the best efforts of the Londonist team to get everyone from A to B. Brighter news came in the form of the first ever female Yeoman Warder, or Beefeater as the position is more commonly known, and......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An unstable building in Murray Hill; a "serious trauma" not far from Shea Stadium in Queens; a bank robbery at Avenue A and 4th Street; and at 777 6th Ave there was a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person). Remember those chemicals found at the United Nations? It turns out that they were probably just cleaning supplies. Hopefully these aren't the same tests the organization uses for biological weapons. If......

After searching for the driver of a red Mitsubishi Eclipse that fatally ran over 7-year-old Christian Aceteopan in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon, the police arrested Queens resident Jose Vargas for leaving the scene of an accident. Vargas was arraigned last night with bail set at $300,000; the NY Times notes that it was "$50,000 more than the assistant prosecutor...had requested." Vargas' license was also suspended. Witnesses had said that the Eclipse driver had hit the......

Shocked family and friends are mourning the deaths of four people who died in a car accident on East Tremont Avenue near Commonwealth early yesterday morning. The police believe that the GMC Envoy was traveling at least 80 MPH (and witnesses think it was closer to 90-95 MPH) when it hit a utility pole and flipped over twice. The NY Times reports the car "hit the pole with such force that its roof was shorn......

A terrible accident in the Bronx: Police believe that an SUV on East Tremont was speeding around 4AM when it crashed into a telephone pole and flipped over. 1010WINS says the vehicle was "ripped apart" at Commonwealth Avenue. Three men were ejected from the SUV and pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth passenger, a woman, died at Jacobi Hospital. Over 34 million people are expected to be driving 50 miles or more during......

A drunk man driving a Lincoln Aviator slammed into people delivering groceries at restaurant on Seventh Avenue South near Grove Street yesterday morning. Antonio Barranco Hernandez, who had taken a delivery shift over from his son, died after the impact of the SUV severed his leg. A witness told the Daily News, "[The SUV] was going very fast. The car cut his leg. The leg, right off." The SUV was driven by NJ resident Christian......

We've said before that Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend (or companion, which is what the NY Times refers to her as) Diana Taylor seems like a classy lady, unlike some other mayor's girlfriends. But we don't know much about her, except that she went to Dartmouth (Mayor Bloomberg accompanied her on an alumni weekend there), she worked in senior management at Keyspan, she was the state's superintendent of banking under Pataki, she was shortlisted by President Bush......

Mayor Bloomberg headed to jury duty this morning, with a smile, a number of bodyguards and press aide Stu Loeser. When he showed up to the waiting room for prospective jurors, apparently a woman called a friend and said he was there for the "same foolishness" as everyone else. Outside the courthouse, the Mayor mused, "It's always more interesting to be on a jury than to just sit there. You wish that we didn't......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

Lawmakers are looking to toughen laws around tinted windows on automobiles. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum pointed out that police officer Russel Timoshenko was fatally shot when he approached a stolen SUV with tinted windows. And current State Senator Eric Adams (a retired police captain and a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care) summed it up, "The criminal element does not use tinted windows to protect themselves from dangerous UV rays. They use......