Photos via Wally G's Flickr and WNBC. At approximately 11:57 a.m. a news alert came in saying there was a large crowd gathered at 620 8th Avenue and West 40th Street. "LEVEL 1 CALLED FOR CROWD CONTROL, AND A POSSIBLE PERSON ATTEMPTING TO JUMP DOWN FROM A BLDG." A reader wrote in minutes later saying, "Someone is climbing the exterior of the NY Times building." It was unsure if this was a stunt, or......

There's trouble brewin' at everyones favorite chain coffee shop. WCBS is reporting that there has been a shooting at a midtown Starbucks. The BNN confirms with a location: 120 W 56th Street, and reports a possible robbery as well. The NYPD are currently still looking for the suspect. UPDATE: The shooting took place outside of the Starbucks and WNBC is reporting that the NYPD, based on preliminary information, believes the incident was part of a......

Not all is well in the Slope this evening, Gridskipper is reporting on a "hostage situation" in a brownstone on 9th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.Neighbors heard gunshots and say that a man inside the home has taken hostages. The block has been roped off and the area is swarming with police personnel including a hostage negotiation team and a bomb squad robot.Yikes! Our news map shows it's a barricaded EDP (emotionally disturbed person)......

The New York Times recently dispatched no fewer than five reporters to the streets of the city in order to uncover the latest piece of breaking news: cab drivers can be rude and will attempt to take financial advantage of you if given the opportunity. The investigation uncovered a citywide fleet of yellow taxis in which just over half are compliant in installing credit card readers, and many that did have them falsely told passengers......

Spanish ibérico ham used to be banned in the United States because of USDA restrictions. However, as part of a newish approval process, the first shipments of the stuff arrived last week at New York stores Despaña and Dean & DeLuca. The former is selling free range sliced ibérico at $90-$99 a pound, and the latter has some of the fancier bellota ham at $75 a pound. More ibérico ham is on the way- in......

The new J.J. Abrams movie which is still listed as Untitled, but is unofficially being referred to as Cloverfield, was filming on the Lower East Side yesterday and last night. Did anyone catch it? The monster movie is due out January 18th, 2008 - and this past week Abrams spoke of the somewhat mysterious project at Comic-Con. "I just want to say I want a monster movie. I want a great monster movie. I've......

Covering Coverage Wednesday’s steam pipe burst had a bit of overkill on the coverage, especially with WABC’s decision to pre-empt ABC’s World News (they did go to it briefly during the 7:00 hour). By 6:30, when WCBS and WNBC prudently went to their respective network’s newscasts to give viewers a chance to catch up on the national and international news, the important points of the story were covered – a. it was not a terrorist......

EVENT: The New York Book Club at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum presents…"Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered New York City". The panelists include "Hal Buell, longtime AP photo editor who put images of the Vietnam War in newspapers across America; Richard Drew, AP photographer who has covered New York events including 9/11; Edie Lederer, longtime UN correspondent and first woman to be the foreign chief of bureau; and Valerie Komor, corporate......

The flurry of rumors that surrounded the Brooklyn Inn a few months ago have largely quieted. With no breaking news stories or insider tips, we decided to wander over there to see what had actually happened to one of the most cherished bars in Boerum Hill. And here it is: They have snacks. The bathroom looks a little cleaner...oh, and there is a new register. They got rid of the ornate old one. The new......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Beekman Ave. in the Bronx, a double shooting on Throop Ave. in Brooklyn, and a dead body in the water just south of the Bayonne Bridge off Staten Island. There was a breaking news story on a cop being shot and killed this morning at or near a Hilton Hotel on 31st St. in Manhattan. Details were conflicting and confusing (not unusual in a breaking news......

New York magazine has a great examination of the Greenpoint pollution problem lurking beneath the neighborhood's surface, and floating along the surface of Newtown Creek. It describes a ten million gallon reservoir of industrial pollution that includes, fuel oil, naptha, gasoline, parrafin wax and likely many more materials that were used along the industrial area of the waterway that separates Brooklyn and Queens. The contamination of the area is hardly breaking news. Brooklyn drew its......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

Hundreds of Virginia Tech alumni, NYU students and other New Yorkers gathered for a candlelight vigil in Washington Square Park last night. Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, who had traveled to Virginia Tech earlier in the week, brought back a candle from a vigil there and used it to light candles last night. And today, many people are also wearing orange and maroon, Virginia Tech's colors, for "Orange and Maroon Effect" day to show support for......

The nightmare is partly over: MSNBC has finally decided to drop Don Imus's radio show simulcast effective immediately. The NBC Nightly News actually had "breaking news" about the decision, and here's the statement from NBC News president Steve Capus:Effective immediately, MSNBC will no longer simulcast the "Imus in the Morning" radio program. This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into......

This past Sunday night at the 50th Annual New York Emmys, WNBC was the big winner with 13 awards. The big wins for the station were for its newscast which won three – Morning Newscast for Today in New York, Daytime Newscast for Live at Five, and Evening Newscast (under 35 minutes) for the 11p.m. newscast. WNBC’s Senior Vice President, News and Station Manager Dan Forman said about the wins, "We are particularly proud of......

Gothamist had the chance to sit down with veteran news anchor Rosanna Scotto of Fox 5. Scotto, a Brooklyn native, began her television career with WTBS in Atlanta in 1980 and returned home to work for WABC-TV in 1982. She moved to channel 5 in 1986 as a reporter and weekend anchor, moving up to the weekday anchor chair in 1994. We felt that since the Ten O’clock News on channel 5 will be......

Even a week later, there's breaking news about the rats-at-the- Greenwich-Village-fast- food-joint story. The Health Department announced the health inspector who passed the restaurant the day before the rat show has been suspended. Not only that, the health department is :- Reviewing all the restaurants the inspector visited since joining last summer and may re-inspect them - Revisiting all restaurants owned by the franchise operator - Going to provide "training specific to assessment of rodent......

Update: some late breaking news-- an LIRR train hit a pedestrian in Queens-- all service on the LIRR is shut down between Penn Station and Jamaica, but the subway is "cross-honoring" LIRR tickets. Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a small crane collapse in Williamsburg (pix here!), a DOA floater at the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and a police car MVA in Bay Ridge. Gowanus Lounge scores renderings of the forthcoming Whole Foods-- 4th Avenue......

+ The Landmarks Preservation Commission has been doing its job, but what about the buildings and districts behind the numbers? Meanwhile, 980 Madison developer Aby Rosen says Tom Wolfe “should stick to writing books.” + Speaking of the Commission, it has stripped landmark status from land where a deteriorated 1871 building once stood. That's only happened twice before. + For developers, sluggish condo sales mean only one thing: more upscale hotels, natch. + The......

-- Late breaking news: Rudy Fleming was convicted of murder in the Nicole DuFresne case-- we'll followup tomorrow. -- If you don't work in the financial service industry, you may have missed out on the Aleksey Vayner meme, in which a kid at Yale sent a hilariously insane application video for a job at an i-bank. All hell broke lose shortly after the video was leaked to the internet. This short video, set to......

News that some sort of aircraft had crashed into an Upper East Side building sent everyone fleeing to TVs and computers to see what was going on. MSNBC broke the news first nationally, while most locals probably tuned into NY1 for coverage. We were most impressed by WNBC's coverage. They had a secret/not-so-secret weapon in Chuck Scarborough. Scarborough has been on WNBC for over 30 years, arguably making him the most trusted anchor in the......

Note from the publisher: today we're announcing a new experimental feature in our Gothamist Labs section: the Gothamist News Map. In nearly real time, it's mapping all the police, fire, and breaking news alerts that we receive from the various wire services. Check it out-- you'd be amazed by all the shootings, suicides, fires, and crane-collapses that you're not hearing about on the 6pm news. Some of the data that comes in is unmappable......

Last night, WCBS 2 proclaimed it had a breaking news exclusive: Some suspicious, unattended bags in a JFK parking lot had forced the shutdown of a parking lot and rerouting of traffic (no easy thing near JFK Airport), not to mention delaying various flights. And the water cannon was brought in to see what was in the bags, reportedly finding that there was a white powdery substance AND a suspicious, threatening note! Luckily, hours later,......

-- Oh how we love those crazy hipsters and their artfully messy clothes! -- Eleven Egyptian students disappeared at JFK a couple of weeks ago, setting off a nationwide manhunt. They're probably just hanging out at the food-court hitting on stewardesses! -- AO Scott says Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is filled with "visual grandeur, sweeping emotion and heightened, sometimes overwrought, drama." -- Speaking of September 11th, WTC responders who missed the deadline are......

Ah, there's nothing like coming on a Saturday night and to be treated to a CNN Breaking News alert that Angelina Jolie had given birth to her child with Brad Pitt. (We'll wonder why no one called or text messaged us later.) Baby daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born in Namibia, and already, there's speculation about what Shiloh means ("personal appellation for Christ", "his gift" or "he who was sent", the Civil War town). Whatever......

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today and the old Gray Lady takes three, but the Washington Post won four (criticism, beat reporting, explanatory writing, and investigative reporting). However, the real story might be the awards for Hurricane Katrina coverage, a public service award shared by the Sun-Herald in Biloxi and the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, breaking news photography award for the Dallas Morning News and a breaking news reporting awards fro the Times-Picayune. The three......

This is so unfair! Londonist tells us that there's a whale in the Thames! Is the Thames that much cleaner than the East River or Hudson? Hmm, nevermind. We have seen harbor seals in the city (in the Gowanus Canal, stranded in another part of Brooklyn, or just hanging around downtown), but never before murky images of a whale. We imagine a shoe or body would clog up the whale's blowhole or that the toxicity......

Last week, Gothamist would check NY1.com over and over again to see what the latest, breaking news about the transit strike was. And instead of NY1's usual site (as seen, left), it was stripped of any graphics or video links, just a text site - think about what websites looked like circa 1995. Luckily, the NY Times finds out what happened. It wasn't because NY1's servers suck, or because owner Time Warner is being tight......

The strike mediator Richard Curreri is on television right now, saying that the parties have come back to the table and the union is commiting to do what it needs to do to end the strike. The TWU is taking it to the executive board; looks like they are thinking about going back to work. Some reporters in the audience are asking if its political suicide for the union to return to work without a......

It's unclear whether or not a woman is still under a northbound F train at East Broadway and Canal Street (it happened around 9AM), but F train service has been rerouted to the A as we await reports on her condition. Authorities still don't know if she jumped, fell, or was pushed. As it happens, earlier this week, the Post reported that a drunk man fell into the Chambers Street southbound A tracks and escaped......