What is it about people who abuse their significant others' pets? A 24-year-old construction worker David Wrigley was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals after crushing and squeezing the cats. The cats, tabby Madeline and black cat Jynx, belonged to his girlfriend Sara Sabol, whose Selden, Long Island home Wrigley moved into at the beginning of the month. According to police lieutenant Michael Murphy, "The cats didn't take to him. They didn't like him, wouldn't......

Georgia, the runaway subway cat rescued by a Con Ed meter reader and two determined MTA track workers, is resting up not just from her 25 days in the subway tunnels, but from surgery yesterday to repair a fractured leg. The doctors at Fifth Avenue Veterinary Specialists waited until yesterday to perform the surgery because Georgia was dehydrated at the time of her rescue and they wanted her stabilized before they performed the procedure. The......

Georgia's been on a lot of people's minds since news of her disappearance became public in January, but she is now safe at home. The black cat escaped owner Ashley Phillips' pet carrier while they were waiting on the platform at 59th St. for a 6 train, on their way home from the Humane Society where Georgia had just been spayed. She survived 25 days in the subway tunnels before being found and rescued. The......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible abduction on West 15th St. and Surf Ave. in Brooklyn, a water main break on Broadway in Manhattan, and an escaped prisoner at Bainbridge St. and Rockaway in Brooklyn. Jamaican-New Yorkers were worrying about friends, relatives, and countrymen as Hurricane Dean was bearing down on the island nation. Fortunately, Jamaica escaped the full brunt of the storm. Emily "Pemmy" du Pont Frick feels that its "a tragedy"......

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center For the seventh year running, the Film Society at Lincoln Center brings New York audiences some of the best new films Italy has to offer with their series "Open Roads." The program this year includes selections by a whole range of filmmakers, from established ones like Mario Monicelli (who just turned 92!), to the new guard who are making more "independent" work. Just some of......

Imagine a film festival without the, well, film. Sounds like a crazy idea, but that’s exactly what Andrew Jeffrey Wright envisioned when he came up with the International Flipbook Festival four years ago. The ingenious showcase of more than one hundred flipbooks has finished its tour of the UK and Philly to come to Brooklyn’s Secret Project Robot, hosted by Little Cakes. Last night’s premiere was a fanciful evening of dorksters, Christmas-tree lights, and the......

It's Halloween Eve, and even the animals are getting into the spirit. There is one pet that does not need a costume - the black cat. But as it happens, some cities (like L.A.) block black cat adoptions during the spooky season for fear that owners are just using them for seasonal prop purposes. The Daily News says that the city allows black cat adoptions, but screens potential owners more carefully. Animal Care and Control's......

New York magazine gets investigative on the unknown man who shocked the art world by bidding $95 million for Picasso's Dora Maar with black cat in May. The day after the man bought the painting, people guessed he was an auction novice, since he was "unsophisticated" with the bidding paddle. Well, in the New York story, more of the art world snobbery comes through:In the gala atmosphere that now pervades the major evening auctions, the......

Gothamist loves this story: The big impressionist and modern art auction at Sotheby's last night did not disappiont, as a mysterious man bid $95 million for the famous Picasso, Dora Maar with a black cat. The NY Times says that witnesses say he sounded Russian and give further reasons why the bidder was an enigma:He was obviously new to both Sotheby's executives, who would never have seated him in such a remote spot had they......

Next week will be the dueling impressionist and modern art auctions at Christies and Sotheby's, but the public gets the best of both worlds, as the works will be displayed in the auction houses this weekend. The big paintings are a van Gogh of Madame Ginoux (estimated to sell for $50 million) and a Blue Period Picasso of Germaine, both at Christie's, and Picasso's portrait of Dora Maar with a black cat at Sotheby's. You......

Earlier this week, a New Jersey raccoon decided to visit the big city and hitched a ride on a bus. The bus driver was taken aback when he saw the two-foot raccoon "walking up the aisle to the front of the bus" while driving along 11th Avenue in Midtown. The police helped out by apprehending the stowaway and taking her to Animal Control; a detective guessed, "It probably climbed into a window overnight, seeking shelter."......

[Ed. note: Coolfer gives us his final set of music picks today; we'll miss him, but thank goodness we'll still be able to read him at his own site.] Last one, folks. At the Knitting Factory tonight is the musical equivalent to wearing a horizontally striped polo shirt with pinstriped slacks--but who knows, it might work. It's an event called Bandages, a montly show of "emerging music, film and art" that covers two of the......

Gothamist loves how this AP Photo by Kathy Willens made Yahoo!'s Top Stories' photographs: Separated by a pane of glass, a white cat on the inside of a Brooklyn brownstone tries to play with a black cat sitting on the exterior window sill. Gothamist has wondered what the photo editing process is like at Yahoo! News. It seems that criteria categories include "busty," "cute," "scary," "bosomy," and "adorable." And we love that. Here are......