A 24-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and robbed while waiting for a bus at busy Richmond Hill Road at 7:30PM. The bus stop, between Vassar and Merry Mount Streets, is, as the Staten Island Advances points out, just a "quarter-mile from both the Staten Island Mall and the 122nd Precinct satellite police station." The victim was grabbed from behind and taken through an open gate into a home's backyard. There, the attacker, claiming he had......

Forget about Missed Connections on the Craigslist, the only way to find love this Valentine's Day is by hailing Ahmed Ibrahim's cab. The Daily News reports on the cabbie with cupid tendencies, saying he's spent years playing matchmaker to his patrons. His record is pretty impressive, he's organized 70 "real dates," 19 of which turned into relationships that lasted over a year. The numbers could be higher but Ibrahim is selective on who he sets......

Photographs outside Broome Street The NYC Medical Examiner's office says Heath Ledger's autopsy is inconclusive, citing the need to more tests. Spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said, "The autopsy is inconclusive and we have to do further testing which includes toxicology and tissue testing. We expect to have results in about 10 days to two weeks." Initial reports suggested pills were found scattered around the actor's body, prompting speculation that Ledger could have committed suicide. Ledger's......

When They Might Be Giants released their twelfth album, The Else, over the summer, The Village Voice called it “as tuneful and rockin' as all the rest, from the withering ‘I'm Impressed’ to the female-empowerment anthem ‘Take Out the Trash.’” Keeping it fresh is no small feat for a band with such an impressive body of work, accumulated over the course of the past 25-plus years. But a listen to The Else or, even better,......

A New Jersey man says he was burned by Christie’s and CBS Paramount when they knowingly dumped counterfeit Star Trek memorabilia at an auction in October ‘06. Diehard Trekkie Ted Moustakis has filed a $7 million dollar lawsuit against the auction house and the producers of Star Trek who supplied the disputed items, which included Data’s poker visor – made but never worn – in an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation, a “one of......

While announcing that overall felony crime in 2007 is down 6% versus last year, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly proclaimed that the city is on pace "is on course to set a new record in crime reduction" - to have the fewest number of murders "since records have been kept." The city expects the murder rate will be below 500 (as of Wednesday 7:30AM, there have been 484 reported murders), which is the......

Remember that cruel(la) couple from Long Island that enslaved two Indonesian women who worked in their mansion? After their million dollar bail plan was announced back in June we hadn't heard much about these two. Today, however, silence was broken after Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her hubby Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani's trial has ended...and the latest is not good news for them! The terrible two-some "were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment......

During the 80s golden era of Late Night With David Letterman, Chris Elliott was one of the people most responsible for the show's distinctively bizarre style. Playing characters like "The Guy Under the Seats" and "The Regulator Guy," Elliott's contributions were sometimes hilarious and sometimes baffling, but always memorable for their absolutely unadulterated weirdness. He went on to cultivate his peculiar "Chris Elliott" persona in cult classics like the TV show Get a Life and......

Good news for old-school New Yorkers: the new 2nd Ave Delicatessen is expected to open sometime next week in its new Murray Hill Location on 33rd Street, near Third Avenue. Lovers of the deli’s famous matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches were devastated last year when, after a half-century in business, the 2nd Ave and 10th Street legend was snuffed out. The closure came in the wake of a bitter rent dispute between deli......

Since settling in New York in 2001, promoter Todd Patrick – known through his website as Todd P – has established himself as a major force in the avant-garde rock scene. In the fastidious spirit of a modern day Bill Graham – though without the passion for profits – Patrick has distinguished himself with his commitment to producing shows at atypical, under-the-radar locations like lofts, rooftops and funky, “illegal” clubs. Often eschewing such vagaries as......

Moving can take a real toll on the environment. Think of all the cardboard boxes, the truck(s), the frequent opening of doors to climate-controlled rooms and the products and solutions you use to clean the whole place down for the next tenants because you're an awesome person bucking for canonization. Step one on reducing your impact -- the easiest step -- is recycling. And it's not too hard to find earth-friendly cleaning products. But......

Tonight striking writers and friends will take the stage again for a 2nd Strike Night! Joining John Oliver (The Daily Show), Liz Cackowski (Saturday Night Live), Andy Secunda (Conan) and Maggie Carey, Joe Grossman (Letterman) is John Mulaney -- possibly one of our favorite young comedians today. Mulaney helped host one of our Movable Hype shows last year and currently can be seen on stages around town and on screen at Best Week Ever. Buy......

Two weeks ago, Lord & Taylor unveiled its holiday windows theme "Christmas is the Moment," based on the the five senses and the wonderful things people enjoy during the holidays. The country's oldest department store and also the first retailer to move to Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor was also the first to create Christmas windows for "pure delight." The flagship store at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street has a hydraulic lift system that......

Dunh dunh DUNH! Governor Spitzer has announced that he is asking the MTA to hold off raising subway and bus fares! Spitzer, who has been smarting from widely hated policy proposals and low approval ratings, made a pre-Thanksgiving bid to show he's listening to his public and said, during a specially planned 9AM press conference, via CityRoom: As the M.T.A. budget forecasts, their balance sheets yielded another $220 million. Based on the current economic......

Trisha Meili, the woman who was brutally attacked and raped while jogging in Central Park in 1989, is no fan of Oprah Winfrey's line of questioning. Five years after she gave her first interview to Winfrey's magazine O, Meili spoke to NY1. First, here is an excerpt of the 2002 interview Meili (who did not disclose her name at that time) gave to Oprah:Oprah: When I first heard about you, I thought, why were you......

Last night, a woman crossed Hylan Boulevard between Fingerboard Road and Linwood Avenue in Grasmere was fatally struck by a speeding car. The police believe the vehicle was a black Mercedes two-door coupe, 2001 or newer, with a damaged front end. Maria Alvarenga had finished her day's work at the Naomi Nails and Skincare salon and was crossing the street to catch a bus. Pizzeria owner Robert Hansen told the Staten Island Advance, "I heard......

SPA: FreeNYC tells us that "in honor of their 20th Anniversary, Nina's European Day Spa is offering up some free and discounted treatments!" Get there before 7pm and you'll get a free eyebrow threading or waxing, free mini microdermabrasion, and free hand treatments. Free: it's a beautiful price. 12 to 7pm // Nina's European Day Spa [5 W 35th St] // Free PERFORMANCE ART: Remember how in 2005, during a visit by England’s cricket team......

An 8-year-old child is in critical condition at St. Vincent's Hospital after being hit by a car on West 17th Street in Manhattan. The Post says the child, Prince Harris, "darted out between two parked cars." Harris's father, Prince Harris Sr., told the Daily News he, his son, and other relatives and friends were headed to the park, and described the scene, "A cab and a car were speeding down the block to make the......

Lucinda Williams Does Her Discography The welcome trend of artists playing their entire albums through live in concert has spread to the country world. Lucinda Williams was in town this week for five (relatively) intimate shows at Irving Plaza and Town Hall, each featuring one of her five albums. Lucinda didn't stop at just recreating her past work -- after a short intermission set by up and coming singer/songwriter Fionn Regan, she'd come back up......

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago? The NY Times takes a look at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) show,......

The Brooklyn Paper has a sad tale of some Prospect Heights kittens. The ferals wandered into the back yard of the Pond family, who immediately fell in love, had them spayed/neutered, called them their own and named them Inky, Blinky, Mookie and Clyde.The Ponds grew so attached to their backyard kitties that they began treating them as if they were their own. They had the cats spayed and neutered. They fed them daily. When the......

When 9/11 hit, Jonah Ray was attending community college, but the catastrophe of that one September day made him drop out, move to LA, and pursue a career in comedy. Since then, he's become a fixture of the Los Angeles's alt comedy scene, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, written for the Andy Milonakis Show, played the role of Clancy Mole Man on Adult Swim's Saul of the Molemen, and......

"Islamic terrorists are at war with us," Rudy Giuliani told about 300 people at a synagogue in Rockville, Md., one evening in July. He likes to say it that way — that they are at war with us, not the other way around. "They want to kill us," he warned a group in New Hampshire the same month. "They hate you," he told a woman in Atlanta. That's the first paragraph of the new Time......

The only good thing about the battle over Brooke Astor's estate that is taking place in Westchester Surrogate Court is that Astor herself does not have to be privy to it. Her son Anthony Marshall accused custodians of the estate, Astor's friend Annette de La Renta and JP Morgan Chase, of a "malicious jihad." de la Renta and Chase were appointed to oversee the estate after there were some questions about whether Astor's will......

"Hello from the gutters of N.Y.C., which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood," these were the opening lines in a letter written by David Berkowitz to columnist Jimmy Breslin thirty years ago. It seems Berkowitz has the writing bug again, as last week amNewYork received a two-page letter from the one and only Son of Sam. This one postmarked from the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, NY - where he......

Last night, a woman was killed outside her Staten Island home. The victim, in her 40s, lived at 29 Newark Avenue in the Port Richmond section and was shot multiple times in her back. Her 26-year-old son was also shot in the stomach, and police believe he was trying to protect his mother. One of the victim's relatives found the victim and her son laying on the ground. He told the Post he called 911......

"Truly, this has been the most unusual job I’ve ever had, and I don’t know if I could ever have another 9-5 job, because what do I do for an encore? What would top this?" After years of serving as senior editor of Playgirl magazine, Coleen Kane is leaving her post and the big city for Baton Rouge. Gothamist caught up with Colleen as she prepared for move to find out about what it's......

Spiderman, Mortal Kombat, Sonic Underground. No, it's not FOX's Saturday morning line up, it's Terence Taylor's resume. Before jumping into horror, the Brooklyn born author spent over a decade writing and producing children's programming . From his days as one of the few black students at St. John's University, to his years writing Gulah Gulah's Island and Arthur, Taylor's story reveals the seemingly random events that often lead to a career in television and writing,......

More updates below, but here's a summary so far (8:20PM): A steam explosion occurred on East 41st and Lexington Avenue (41st between Lex and Third) just before 6PM - right during the evening rush hour. The NYPD does not think it was a terrorist attack. It appears that there is a hole about 25' in diameter with a red tow truck in the center. One person has died (possibly from cardiac arrest) and there......

Last year Brooklyn band Bishop Allen released twelve EPs, one for each month. This year they're delivering twelve songs which make up their label-debut full length album, The Broken String (out July 24th). The Harvard grads who formed the band, Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, also wear their acting hats from time to time. Perhaps fittingly their band has had a rotating cast of members, and currently includes drummer Cully Symington and vocalist/percussionist Darbie Nowatka......