Photo by davidfg's flickr. On January 20th, residents of 475 Kent in Williamsburg were evicted from their apartments, which were deemed illegal, after the Fire and Buildings Departments found multiple violations (including a matzo factory housed in the building). Some of the evictees weren't going down without a fight, however, and have kept the incident in the public eye through everything from art shows to simply fighting the good fight. And while they spent......

The MTA's various fare hikes for the NYC subways and buses, as well as its railroads, went into effect this weekend. Today, subway and bus base fares still cost $2, but higher-value pay-per-ride Metrocards have less of a bonus discount while weekly and monthly unlimited ride Metrocards are more expensive. You can read more about the fare hikes here, but two important notes: (1)Unlimited ride Metrocards purchased before March 2 are still valid as......

Brooklyn bars and restaurants rejoice: you can once again put your sandwich board signs on the sidewalk without fear of tickets from the Department of Sanitation! Your free and effective method for seducing customers with daily specials and clever jokes about drinking the pain away is now perfectly legal. Of course, this does not give you permission to lose all restraint and play music or let people dance. Last fall a crackdown on the signs......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on East 112th St. and 3rd Ave. in Manhattan, shots fired at 132nd St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan, and a commercial burglary on 4th Ave. and 90th St. in Brooklyn. Page Six lists its top ten scoops of the year. #1 is about Rosie O'Donnell's writer being escorted from The View offices for drawing magic marker mustaches on pictures of Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and rumors that......

Yesterday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg announced that every yellow taxi on the streets of NYC will go green under the hood in five years. His latest implementation of PlaNYC involves using requirements set by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to have cab owners upgrade their hacks to hybrid vehicles so that the entire fleet will be hybrid by 2012. Yahoo! exec Patrick Crane was on hand at City Hall to donate ten of the new......

So this is how borough presidents wield power: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has flexed his BEEP muscles by dismissing five members of Brooklyn's Community Board 6 - and their common quality was that they were vocal opponents of the Atlantic Yards project. And City Council members David Yassky and Bill DeBlasio also didn't reappoint four other members who opposed the massive $4 billion project that has been the source of community tension. Gowanus Lounge......

A year ago, the Fire Department was trying to put out the massive ten-alarm blaze at the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse. It took a day and a half for the FDNY to control the fire. A homeless man, Leszek Kuczera, apparently started the blaze while trying to burn insulation off copper wire, only for him to get off with a plea agreement. Of course, the convenience of Kuczera as a fall guy who didn't even......

Just after the victory of Mathieu Eugene’s 10-candidate run for Brooklyn’s 40th Council District on Tuesday, questions regarding his residency in the Flatbush district have now put his official claim to the seat on hold. Elected candidates must reside in the electing district during the time of the election, but not necessarily during the time of filing for nomination. There’s the rub. So today at City Hall, the expectations and celebrations of a political newcomer......

The City Council questioned Police Commissioner Ray Kelly about NYPD tactics in the wake of the fatal shooting of Sean Bell. The Council was aggressive and straightforward; for instance, Councilman David Yassky said , "Too many African-American New Yorkers feel that they are at risk or that their family members are at risk of mistreatment, whether it be to be stopped without reason or to be victimized by excessive force." Councilman Charles Barron asked Kelly......

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn will introduce a bill that will restrict the 421a tax abatement many developers have been using to build their new properties. The 421a tax abatement program was originally designed to, in the city's words, "promote multi-family residential construction by providing a declining exemption on the new value that is created by the improvement." Create low-income housing, you'll get a tax break. But there is a loophole that also allowed......

Haverford graduate, Parks Department project manager, and Greenpoint resident David Langlieb is under fire for writing an essay about his neighborhood in his alumni magazine. According to the Daily News, the essay, ripe with complaints about the old-school Polish residents and self-deprecation about not being an Ivy League graduate, has incensed the Polish American Congress and Councilman David Yassky, who said, "my eyes pretty much popped out of my head when I read this."......

-- If only David Yassky had appeared on LunchBox before the election, he might have won! The Monopoly bit is hilarious-- but only if you're into urban planning physical humor. -- Good news: the city is putting up new Class 3 bikeroutes around the city. Bad news: a Class 3 bikeroute is basically just a regular street with a biking stencil on the pavement. Bon voyage! -- Arugula has finally triumphed over it's hated......

With the primary settling who's running in November, candidates came out swinging. And the best cage match might be the Attorney General's race. The NY Times had this first line:Kicking off their general-election battle for New York State attorney general yesterday, Andrew M. Cuomo and Jeanine F. Pirro could not have smiled more, sounded nicer, or done a poorer job of concealing their true feelings: they want to shred each other.In fact, Democrats in NY......

City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke won the hotly contested 11th District Congressional primary in Brooklyn yesterday. Clarke got 31% of the vote, with fellow City Council member - and the only white candidate in the four-way race - David Yassky getting 26%, State Senator Carl Andrews with 23% and Chris Owens, Mayor Owens who is retiring the Congressional seat, getting under 20%. The race was very tight - when we checked returns last night, 68% of......

If you're a registered Democrat or Republican, get your primary shoes out. Here's a list of candidates (PDF), but the shortlist of primaries is: - Governor: For the Democrats, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer vs. Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi - Attorney General: For the Democrats, Andrew Cuomo vs. Mark Green - Senate: For the Democrats, Senator Hillary Clinton vs. Jonathan Tasini; for the Repubilcans, John Spencer vs. Kathlen T. McFarland - Congress, 11th District in......

If there's a city parade, you bet it's an opportunity for politicians to get out to press the flesh. And yesterday's West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn was no different, with the primary showdown over the Congressional seat being vacated by Major Owens coming up next week. As it happens, the crowd in the Wyckoff Gardens Houses weren't too happy to hear Mayor Bloomberg and candidate-City Councilman David Yassky announce that $600,000 worth of......

-- According to Bruce Ratner, all the city papers are hugely in favor of the Atlantic Yards project. And why would he lie? -- The Times has some very moving coverage of the funeral of one of the shooting victims in the Queens Rampage case. -- The Roosevelt Island Tramway (now equiped with advanced bucket pee-system) goes back into action on Friday. -- This shot of squirrels snuggling is redonkulicious. -- PLG is claiming......

-- We went down to Williamsburg and took a panorama of the Banksy wall, in case you want to see the whole piece. -- "Yes, I know I have a nice ass." -- The city has spruced up the 9-11 temporary morgue tent outside the medical examiner's office on East 29th Street. The tent stores the 13,790 human remains that have yet to be identified (accounting for about 1,151 people, or 42% of the......

Oh, City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke. You get a big dose of attention from the NY Times on Wednesday about your run for Major Owen's Congressional Seat, but then it turns out you never graduated from Oberlin, the way your campaign literature in 2004 and 2005 claimed you did. Clarke was a few credits short of a degree, and her aides said that she had finished them up at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. The problem?......

The heated fight for Major Owens' Congressional seat gets hotter as City Council member Yvette Clarke has landed three important endorsements - two from big unions and the other from Congressman Anthony Weiner. Brooklyn's 11th District covers Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, and Park Slope, and the race has already attracted four would-be candidates (who would likely be elected to the seat in November): City Council members Clarke and David Yassky, State Senator Carl......

- The "Trouble with Vito" series in the Daily News continues! Now it's a suspect photo of Congressman Vito Fossella with Sesame Street's Elmo and Rosito that has appeared in both re-election media and a "taxpayer-financed constituent mailing." Fossella's people say that muppet picture and other were "indvertently" used on a reelection website. Inadvertently or advertently so the Daily News could plaster it on the front page? - And Ben Smith at the Daily News......

- Police Commissioner Kelly is very worried about "homegrown terror" these days... - ...but if you're a police officer in the National Guard, you better pony up for your military pay! - The blasting at Ground Zero started today - that's exactly what makes downtown such a suburb - Concerns from Brooklyn blacks and Hispanics over who will face off against City Councilman David Yassky in a Congressional primary - Some very cool forgotten......

Bam! The Mayor used his veto power to "support landmark status" for a Brooklyn warehouse in Williamsburg. The City Council had approved to remove landmark status for the Austin, Nichols Warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue (read this Gotham Gazette story about it) last week, paving the way for the building to be converted to condos. City Councilman David Yassky told the NY Times that the Mayor's sudden decision to go landmark happy was "to curry......

Gothamist received an intriguing email from reader S.:Thought you might be interested in hearing that the Dept of Buildings posted signs on most of the doors of restaurants on Smith Street during business hours last night, ordering them to close their gardens immediately. It seems that there are conflicting laws regarding the use of back gardens at restaurants and bars in Brooklyn, and the Dept. picked one set and is cracking down. The restaurant owners......

Just a few days after agreeing with the Mayor on a budget, the City Council will work on their own budget. And the speculation is that because some City Council members essentially voted against City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who was attempting to stop the Mayor's trash plan, Speaker Miller will give them the cold budget shoulder. One City Council member, Tony Avella, tells Newsday, "I had heard that Miller was threatening members if they......

Brooklyn community groups descended on City Hall yesterday, to protest the rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and it seems that the City Council is on board, as it "threatened...to scuttle" the Bloomberg plan. The sticking points are that the Bloomberg plan includes a lot of development with a lot of tall buildings, and possibly not enough park space or low income housing. The Bloomberg administration counters that the plan has to be attractive enough for......

You have to love the Community Plan for sending a singing telegram (MOV file) City Councilman David Yassky to beg for the rezoning of Greepoint and Williamsburg to include more parks and open space, plus afforable housing and a limited on how high buildings can be (see their campaign overview). No word on the reaction of Yassky, who serves Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Greenpoint, DUMBO, Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Vinegar Hill and Fulton Ferry Landing, but......

Last week, the City Council passed a measure that would hold gun manufacturers and dealers responsible if they didn't follow distribution guidelines, giving citizens the opportunity to sue the gun industry. City Councilman David Yassky sponsored the bill, which takes note of the fact that most guns in NYC crimes are bought out-of-state (and in bulk) - it only allows one gun per purchaser per 30 days. The mayor plans to sign the bill, as......

Look forward to seeing some either John Shaft or Popeye Doyle lookalikes running around the city, because the tax breaks that the city and state put into place to lure more film & TV business have paid off. If you think that NBC deciding to a shoot a pilot here, versus Toronto, about 1970's police officers called NY70 is a pay-off. NBC President Jeff Zucker said, "We decided to go ahead and commit to doing......