That unusual occurrence on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge we mentioned this morning? It turns out a crane hit the bottom of the bridge. WABC 7 reports that a passing ship's crane was the culprit, hitting the 125-year-old structure around 7:30 a.m.: "the crane left debris on the bottom of the bridge, but did not appear to cause any damage to the structure." The Department of Transportation is checking the bridge to make......

Artist Olafur Eliasson may soon have tree blood on his hands – the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall installation is kicking up such a salty spray that downwind trees are turning brown and “looking as if it's November,” the Post reports. The saltwater is interfering with their photosynthesis, and the owner of the River Café, which has gardens just south of the bridge, is worried that the trees he planted over three decades ago are suffering too......

Earlier this afternoon, two kayakers required some extra help when they got too close to the temporary NYC Waterfalls near the Brooklyn Bridge. Harbor and aviation units were on the scene to help them out--there was even a request to shut down the waterfall. The two people were rescued and the waterfalls continue to flow. Less dicey ways to see the falls include walking on the Brooklyn promenade, taking a boat cruise, or while biking......

The New York Times has Waterfalls fever also, featuring an image of the public art project that is set to flow starting tomorrow by 9 a.m. First announced in January, the project, conceived by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, involves four man-made waterfalls along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, in Lower Manhattan at Pier 35, and on......

And then there were four. A tipster just sent us this shot of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson's Brooklyn Bridge waterfall, being tested this afternoon. This completes the teaser set for all the NYC Waterfall aficionados out there. Also seen below are the Governors Island test, the Pier 35 test in Manhattan, and the other Brooklyn waterfall between Piers 4 and 5. The NYC Waterfalls – which are not being paid for with city money, but......

FOOD: Take a few beer and food bloggers, mix them up with an eclectic menu and and extensive beer list and you've got Bloggers and Beer. Four panelists will be selecting food and beer pairings, and the price of admission entitles you to a mini-meal of the four pairings. Pairings by Nick Fauchald, Food & Wine's "Mouthing Off," Samuel Merritt, Civilization of Beer, our own Laren Spirer and Jeff Gorlechen, Six Points Brewing Company. 6......

A distraught 34-year-old woman threw herself from the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, plunging 100 feet from the pedestrian walkway near the Manhattan shoreline into the East River. An NYPD Harbor Unit quickly responded to the scene and pulled the suicidal woman from the water. Somehow she was relatively unscathed--without a scratch or a broken bone--and was treated at a hospital for aspirating some water, which is common in near drowning incidents. Fewer than 10 people have......

In January 1931, Modern Mechanics magazine featured daredevils, stuntmen, and others with risky odd jobs. Unsurprisingly, many of them flocked to the city, from Madison Square Garden to the Brooklyn Bridge. One of particular interest is Sig Smith, who once walked around the crown of the Statue of Liberty, blindfolded!Everybody has heard of the Statue of Liberty, though not many people realize what a huge object it is. They say that a man can crawl......

Photograph by AKinlochh on Flickr Tonight, the skyline over the Brooklyn Bridge was lit up with fireworks to celebrate the iconic crossing's 125th birthday. Festivities for the bridge include: the Telectroscope which bridges NYC and London; new pedestrian entrance signage; lectures, readings and guided tours; a film series; and the Tour de Brooklyn on Sunday. More details after the jump:......

ART: Artist Tom Sanford's installation show, titled Mr. Hangover, is something to check out before it comes down in June. "Featured in the exhibition are new works modeled after ubiquitous street posters that are plastered around most cities to advertise events, movies and products. Comprised entirely of hand painted posters that are unframed and tacked to the wall, they suggest influences that come as much from the broader consumer culture as they do from the......

Brooklyn Bridge and cloud, by The life of Boyne at flickr At 125 years old, it's time for the Brooklyn Bridge to undergo a little fix-up work. The Dept. of Transportation is about to begin a multi-year series of projects to shore up Roebling's bridge structurally, as well as give it a cosmetic touch-up. Popular Mechanics recently named the Brooklyn Bridge one of the top ten pieces of national infrastructure most in need of......

Photo by Jake Dobkin While a Tom Otterness sculpture can really brighten up the dark underground of New York, for his latest installation he's shedding some sunlight on his work. The above was just installed in DUMBO near the pedestrian exit to the Brooklyn Bridge. This won't be the first time Otterness has been above ground, of course. Remember his temporary 2004 installation that spanned Broadway from 60th to 168th Streets? And in 2005......

Photograph of fog rolling over the East River by Stelmaria on Flickr It's simply a lovely photograph of fog meeting the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. And today looks like it'll be beautiful.......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx. A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the......

The new NYC Condom campaign carries a secret Canadian tourism message: One of the ads features Toronto's Flatiron Building. Darn those confusing stock image searches using "Flatiron Building"! Toronto’s Gooderham Building (photo at right) makes an appearance in the ad entitled “The Village” (image below, highlighted on the right). This landmark Toronto building, often called the “Flatiron Building” by those in the Greater Toronto Area, predates Manhattan’s (properly known as the Fuller Building) by ten......

Last year, the Health Department unveiled its free NYC Condoms on Valentine's Day. For this year's Valentine's Day, not only will volunteers from the Health Department be distributing condoms again, there's a new packaging and a new ad campaign with the tag "Get Some." Don't worry - the condom is the same lubricated Lifestyles latex condom as before. The Health Department gave out 36 million NYC Condoms last year and Assistant Commissioner for HIV......

Photograph of a Giants fan in Times Square by Johnia! on Flickr After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested. A thousand people flooded Times Square, reportedly jumping on cars and sitting on top of phone kiosks, but the Post says no one was arrested.......

Today Lego celebrates the big 5-0, even getting some Google-love for hitting the half century mark. New York has long been recreated in Lego-form, our favorite was at an exhibit housed in the Storefront for Art and Architecture late last year. Do you have a favorite Brick Apple? We love Sean Kenney's Greenwich Village (pictured) and Nathan Sawaya's Brooklyn Bridge. In a related story, this past Saturday was the city's first Lego League Citywide Championship,......

New York City officials are planning for a Dunkirk-like evacuation of Manhattan island in the case of an emergency. In the early days of World War II, a "bathtub navy" was assembled between Dunkirk, France and Dover, England, in order to move hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the Continent to safer ground as the Nazis advanced across France. Hundreds of small craft were sent across the English Channel to ferry stranded and cornered British......

Plans to renovate Pier A, the last remaining pier on the lower west side, are staggering forward again. The Victorian-era three-story pier was built immediately after the Brooklyn Bridge, using much of the same equipment, and was once one of the city’s proudest points of entry, boasting visits from boldface names like Amelia Earhart and the Queen of England. Today it’s a dilapidated eyesore that clashes with the rest of the lavishly rehabilitated west......

Last June Scientific American took a look at a human-less New York, a vision that was fairly on par with how the city was portrayed in I Am Legend. Now it's The History Channel's turn to jump on board the post-apocalyptic train, their show Life Without People will premiere this Monday (at 9pm). The scene is eerily similar to how Chernobyl looks after decades without human inhabitants. The show's site tells us: "Abandoned skyscrapers......

Photo of a house in Victorian Flatbush via mercurialn's Flickr. Brooklynometry has a heartwarming tale from the days of old New York. The story is of one anonymous Brooklynite's family home in Victorian Flatbush which was about to be lost during the Depression when a west coast well-wisher stepped in and purchased it for $1 (plus taxes). The catch was that she promised to leave it to the family in her will.Thankfully she was......

Computer rendering of the waterfalls by the Public Art Fund. Details have emerged on the ambitious, $15 million East River waterfalls project coming to New York in mid-July to cap off the Olafur Eliasson retrospective at MoMa. The project will consist of four man-made waterfalls, ranging 90 to 120-foot tall, installed temporarily at four sites along the shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Governors Island: by the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge, between Piers......

Danish–Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson will work with the Public Art Fund – a nonprofit that brought Anish Kapoor's "Sky Mirror" and Jeff Koons's "Puppy," to Rockefeller Center – to bring freestanding waterfalls to the East River this spring. The project will be officially announced tomorrow, but a source tells the Sun that the waterfalls will rise 60 to 70 feet above the water, which is more than half as high as the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.......

It's that special time of year again when Charlie Todd and a troupe of others that like to de-pants every January go underground for a nice, brisk ride on the subway. As usual, you're all invited (warning: you may be arrested), but if you show up you must not have pants on! They warn, in all caps, that "THIS IS A PARTICIPATORY EVENT. DO NOT SHOW UP UNLESS YOU PLAN TO TAKE YOUR PANTS......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, an injured corrections officer at Rikers Island in the Bronx, and a gas leak on East 68th St. in Manhattan. Chris Booker, the NY radio DJ boyfriend of Philly news personality Alycia Lane who allegedly punched a female NYPD police officer after calling her a dyke, says that she's being singled out because "[she's] a babe." Or it's because she......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan. Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it......

Like the GWB and the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge will have LED lights installed next year, but how exactly do the bulbs get replaced? The NY Times says it only takes one man to screw in these bulbs. Okay, maybe he has some help. Ben Cipriano, the leader of a crew of electricians who maintain the four major East River Bridges for the city’s Department of Transportation, and his colleagues make about a dozen......

A Guyanese woman on her way to a citizenship ceremony was critically injured after a livery cab hit her in downtown Brooklyn. Queens resident Shantta Raghunana had been crossing the street when the car careened into her on Cadman Plaza West. Raghuana's family was with her during the accident; her daughter said, "The car just came out of nowhere, picked her up and threw her." The car's path ended when it crashed into scaffolding: It......

By the end of next year, downtown Brooklyn will have a new upscale steakhouse to rival Peter Luger in Williamsburg; it was recently announced that Morton’s will be occupying the ground floor of a new Marriott annex tower on Adams Street. The Chicago-based restaurant chain will dish out their beef, seafood and sandwiches in a 300 seat restaurant near the Brooklyn Bridge. Writing for the Brooklyn Paper, Gersh Kuntzman sees Morton’s arrival as the beginning......