We received an alert saying an MTA bus set off a radiation detector on lower Broadway, in the Financial District. The bus and its passengers were held outside 25 Broadway for further inspection. What could it be, besides potential for the worst commute ever? Well, the request for emergency services was canceled when it was discovered one of the passengers had an implanted pacemaker--some pacemakers do use radioactive material. Phew!......

A construction crane crushed construction trailers and trapped a worker this morning. According to 1010WINS, the FDNY says "the crane dropped a load of steel it was carrying and crushed the trailers. At least one person was rescued; his condition was not immediately available." The accident took place at 200 Vesey Street - the very site where Goldman Sachs is building a new world headquarters. The city and state gave Goldman Sachs $650 million......

SFist witnessed a student interrupt Sean Penn's Dennis Kucinich-endorsement speech at San Francisco State University, with sexy results. Sort of. Speaking of sort of sexy, SFist readers demanded to know: at what age does one become a cougar most? In local political news, it looked like San Francisco Public Utilities Commission chief Susan Leal might get the ax. Au revoir! And we found a startling aesthetic connection between the Omaha mall shooter and Rick......

After commuters on the L and B/D (as well as N/Q/R/W) lines had to deal with breakdowns and commuting delays last night, this evening's commute brings delays on the F, D, G and N lines. Apparently a signal problem at 4th Avenue-9th Street Station in Brooklyn is causing the F to be shut between West 4th Street-Washington Square Station and the Church Avenue Station in both directions. The F then runs on the D......

Tomorrow, more than normal, you should look both ways before you cross the street on the way to work. Why? Because NASCAR is in town celebrating the end of their season with Champions Week, which includes a "victory lap" in Manhattan. The street closing event is quickly becoming an annual tradition. So if you work on Broadway, 42nd St, 53rd St, or Madison Ave., be on the lookout. The league's top-10 drivers, decked out......

Since the Subway Sweethearts are so over, we're turning our slightly interested, but mostly disaffected, heads towards the "Love Spammer". The mysterious man who has apparently approached every girl that walks by him on 6th Avenue with the same exact line. What gumption! His name is (coincidentally) Patrick, his line is asking where Union Square is, and he somehow manages to get some of these innocent passerby to come to his "art studio" for some......

Have you seen Sex and the City filming around town? Seems like some people are watching the cast of the 'ol show film the new movie every step of the way. The Times chronicled the madness and, OMG, talked to Carrie Bradshaw herself (who was hiding away in the basement of the Bryant Park Hotel). She had this to say of her on-the-job craziness: “I basically just look down between every take because it’s......

The Thanksgiving Day and Thanksgiving Day Eve have emerged as some of the busiest travel days of the year. While the media shows shots of crowded airports and train stations on the Wednesdays before Thanksgiving (like today), the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says that when personal vehicle travel is included into calculations, "Thanksgiving Day is actually a heavier long-distance travel day [to and from a destination more than 50 or more miles away] than......

Newsday reports that emergency track work at West 4th Street will be causing delays on the A, E, D and F lines. Apparently Brooklyn-bound F train will be running on the E between 36th Street Station in Queens and 42nd Street Times Square, and then the F will run on the A between Times Square and Jay Street-Borough Hall. And some other Brooklyn-bound F trains will "run on the D line from 47th-50th Street-Rockefeller Center......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, a high-angle rescue on West 18th St., in Manhattan, and a multi-vehicle accident on Farmers Blvd. and the South Conduit in Queens. Hoboken mayor David Roberts was apparently prescient to ask how many stops his SWAT team made on the trip back north--fearing more embarrassing photos of his police force as they returned from relief efforts after hurricane Katrina. Additional pictures of......

City officials are warning drivers that they should expect to spend more time sitting in traffic than waiting in line while holiday shopping. Today is the first of nine designated holiday gridlock days, when the city tries to head off street-clogging traffic that can frustrate even a seasoned city driver. NY1 quotes some professional drivers and visitors on how bad traffic can be around Thanksgiving and the holidays in New York. “Oh man, traffic is......

In a case of gilding a withered lily, the MTA is improving service to New York City transit riders by more effectively informing them when routes will be obstructed, interrupted, and otherwise delayed. It's almost become a cliche that subway service becomes interrupted when the weather turns bad, or if any technological problem crops up. Now the MTA is offering to ameliorate its shortcomings by informing riders of service interruptions with text and email updates.......

Just what everybody needs to end the day...a subway shutdown! No, it's not due to the system flooding, but because of a police investigation. Due to the police investigation on the 4/5/6, the line is shut down in both directions from 96th Street Station and 125th Street Station. From preliminary reports Gothamist is getting, the suspect the police are looking for is in the subway tunnel between 116th and 125th Streets. The suspect allegedly claimed......

Alert the NY Times: hipsters exist outside of the five boroughs! Okay, so maybe it's not news, but Music Nation has a photo comparison of Manhattan, New York hipsters and Manhattan, Kansas hipsters -- can you tell them apart? Try to ignore their oddly-sized distorted visuals and test your knowledge. It seems like a trick question in some cases, as you can see on the right none of these ladies look like hipsters! Then again,......

This week, Phillyist saw the waters of a landmark fountain run red for a Showtime marketing stunt, the Phils pull ahead, and some serious nostalgia. They also got a chance to review an awesome tribute album, reminded folks to see the King, and appreciated their beautiful skyline. Chicagoist knows what it's like to like the Cubs. But naming your kid Wrigley Fields? At least they can breathe a little easier now that Grossman's out and......

The 22-year-old St. John's University student who brought a loaded .50 caliber rifle to the Queens campus on Wednesday was arraigned in his hospital room at Bellevue yesterday. Communicating via a video link to the Queens Criminal Court, Omesh Hiraman appeared "frail in his blue pajamas" (NY Times), while he "hands shook and he "rocked back and forth" (Daily News), but seemed lucid during the proceedings. Judge Deborah Stevens Modica ordered that he be given......

We received an email alert from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project about a clash between the SRLP and police officers last night in the East Village. Here is an excerpt of the SRLP's account:On the night of Wednesday, September 26, officers from the 9th Precinct of the New York Police Department attacked without provocation members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and of its community. Two of our community members were violently arrested, and others......

The St. John's student who was found carrying a .50 caliber rifle in a black plastic bag on the school's Queens campus and caused the campus to be locked down yesterday afternoon was charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Omeash Hiraman, a 22-year-old finance student, had been wearing a Fred Flintstone mask and was stopped by campus security. A guard and another St. John's student who happens to be a police cadet restrained......

A student carrying a single shot .50 caliber rifle was arrested on the Queens campus of St. John's this afternoon. WNBC reports that the male student had the gun in a bag, as well as a President Bush mask. Also:Police sources said the man is a student of Guyanese descent who lived in a campus dorm. Sources said the student takes medicines for psychiatric issues and that police were investigating whether he had gone......

There's nothing like seeing the Gothamist Newsmap and last night seeing an alert for "Cow on the loose" in the Queens. While 1010WINS's lede is very concise - "A cow on the loose in Queens is now in police custody." - the Daily News has amazing coverage of the situation. Dimitrti Mitropoulos told the News he saw the cow near the Queens Hospital Center's parking lot (he suspects the cow was grazing), so he......

Yankees 4 Red Sox 3: Boston will still win the AL East and will probably have the best record in all of baseball, but the Yankees have shown that they can beat them when it counts. After starting the season 1-5 against Boston, New York won the season series by going 9-3 in the final 12 games. Sunday’s win was a flashback to the old days. Derek Jeter had the big hit, Roger Clemens had......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 1st Ave. and 92nd St. in Manhattan, a car vs. building on Liberty Ave. and Elton St. in Brooklyn, and a body found on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx. Looking to avoid damaging snail- and e-mail trails or records of phone conversations, aides to Gov. Spitzer who are being investigated in the State Police scandal investigation are allegedly conversing only in person while driving around......

The MTA says all service is running normally now, but, earlier, a switch problem at 59th Street/Columbus Circle caused delays with the A, B, C, and D lines. The trains were diverted, with the C going express between Canal and Columbus Circle and the B and D running local between West 4th and Columbus Circle... we even heard that the B and D were running on the northbound N/R line. Because these delays affected the......

If you were looking at the Gothamist Newsmap, you might have noticed this alert: "Shark Sighting | Beach 108th St X Ocean Side Queens, NY | 9/1/2007 11:41 a.m." Well, we guess the sharks wanted to make an appearance before the beaches closed for the year! Swimmers were evacuated and the Parks Department closed the beach and bay (for how long, we're not sure). WNBC says the police and Coast Guard are at the......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

A spin class member at an Upper East Side gym became so enraged at the vocal exercise style of a nearby man that he got off his bike and threw the man against a wall earlier this month. Stuart Sugarman was the victim and the New York Post reports that the 48-year-old hedge fund manager admits that he was probably the noisiest guy at his gym. "He grunted a lot, admittedly. He war-whooped. He hollered,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Quincy St. and Classon Ave. in Brooklyn, a homicide on 76th St. in Queens, and a missing child on East 174th St. in the Bronx. Martin Scorsese sold his four-story, five-bedroom townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side for $6.15 million, after cutting $500K off the price. Someone at Fox News is allegedly fooling around with Wikipedia entries to make itself look better and competitors worse. The......

With 30,000 red yardsticks on hand, New York artist Gene Schmidt is measuring the width and length of Manhattan. Each yardstick is numbered, used once, and later taken to Schmidt's studio and added to a sculpture. The pilgrimage/performance/art project, titled Manhattan Measure, was inspired by an ancient Hebrew text, but also parallels city walking "pioneers" like Mike Epstein. Begun in in October of last year, Manhattan Measure is about two thirds completed. Starting August......

Mayor Cory Booker unveiled new technology to help fight crime in Newark. The plan is called "Community Eye," and it will "marry audio gunshot-detection technology with a series of remote-control public surveillance cameras into a network," according to the Star-Ledger. Booker hopes to put 100 cameras and audio gunshot-detection machines to work, as the Newark Community Foundation has promised to raise $3.2 million for the effort. Booker said, "When all the cameras and gunshot......

The NYPD is toning down its response to a threat of a radiological truck bomb that appeared on the Internet recently. The city established checkpoints and situated radiation detectors around the city in an attempt to thwart any threat, in stark contrast to other cities mentioned as possible targets, which appeared to shrug the threats off as unlikely. The police deployed radiation sensors in police cars, boats, and helicopters Friday night, and groups of cops......