Yesterday, the body of a man who had been stabbed to death was discovered on a handball court in the Little Neck section of Queens. The murder is the first in the neighborhood since 1994. A passerby found the body in Admiral Park, near the chain-link fence. The ME's office is conducting an autopsy, but the victim, 35-year-old Damingo Hernandez, had stab wounds in the torso and slash marks on his face, according to the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Dr. in Queens, a shooting on Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, and a car in the water at Rockaway and Brookville Blvds. in Queens. If you think you're buying a super-cheap iPod at a Mom and Pop electronics store, you're probably buying a fake. Some Queens residents will be relieved to know that LIRR trains will no longer blast their horns for 15 to......

October 22-28: Lance Armstrong Week at Hill Country All this week, barbeque restaurant Hill Country is donating a portion of its sales to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which aids people with cancer and their families. Hill Country, 30 West 26th Street (between 6th and Broadway). 212-255-4544. October 25-November 2: Bon Appétit Supper Club and Café Bon Appétit Magazine opens a “pop-up” café, designed by The Rockwell Group. The café will serve food from notable chefs,......

The other day, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled a new way the city will be able to monitor streets and make sure they are in good repair: The Street Conditions Observation Unit (SCOUT). SCOUT inspectors will "drive every City street once per month and report conditions that negatively impact quality of life to 311." The inspectors will use their Blackberrys to report things like graffiti, clogged sewers, potholes, damaged bus shelters, and more. Mayor Bloomberg explained,......

Did you ever hear the one about the vineyard in Queens, just minutes away from the Little Neck Parkway Q46 bus stop? Even if you haven’t, it’s true. First reported three years ago, the borough is finally set to prove it has terroir in spades with the imminent production of its namesake wine. The epicenter for this oenophile revolution is the Queens County Farm Museum, described on its website as “New York City's largest remaining......

City trash inspectors have been checking out neighborhoods all around town and say that the South Shore of Staten Island has the cleanest streets. The dirtiest? Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, where residents tell the Daily News that drivers litter the streets. A church administrator said, "It seems every time we sweep, more trash comes." How do trash inspectors rate the streets? There's a scale, and according to the News, "3.0 is the dirtiest rating and 1.0 is......

Real Estate site The Real Deal has detailed the priciest streets or micro-neighborhoods to live on in each of the five boroughs of NYC. Ironically, except for Manhattan, the most expensive streets in New York's four other boroughs lean heavily towards suburban idyll rather than luxurious urbanism. But we suppose that has always been an appeal of the outer boroughs: the ability to escape Manhattan's teeming population density. If you recently came into a large......

If you haven’t gotten a pumpkin yet for Halloween, head out to Queens. Today you can pick your own at the Queens County Farm. Begun in 1697, this is the only working historical farm in the city. All kinds of vegetables are grown on site, and animals like these piglets are raised here. Today there will also be a haunted house ($4 admission, from 1-7pm) as well as a children’s fall festival with hayrides, a......

An ugly tale from this weekend unfolded from the Queens District Attorney's office. Two white men were charged with beating two Chinese-Americans in Douglaston, and then tried to get away from police later on by crashing into the police cruiser and hurting the officers. From the DA's press release:District Attorney Brown said that, according to the criminal charges, four Asian males – Reynold Liang, 19, John Lu, 19, David Wu, 19, and Wing Chung Poon......

In all my years as a yellow cabbie, not once have I taken a fare to City Island in The Bronx. But I can’t say I’m surprised by this fact. Exactly 4,634 people live on that tiny island in Pelham Bay, so in a city of eight million it would be statistically unlikely to find one of these “clamdiggers” as they call themselves. Consequently, I had no idea which of the wall-to-wall seafood restaurants......

Nothing you order at Randazzo’s Clam Bar will be the best thing you ever ate. But you can’t say you know Sheepshead Bay unless you know Randazzo’s. It is the indisputable heart and soul of the neighborhood, a hold-out from the days when working class clam bars lined that storied waterfront. Today, you’ll still find a thriving seaside community, but the vibe is decidedly contemporary. New luxury condos are going up all over, and......

Is there anywhere to go apple picking near the city which is accessible by public transit? We're so glad you asked this question, because we are getting ready to kick it into gear for Autumn of Fun 05, which involves getting large-ish groups of people together for autumnal excursions such as apple picking. We found a few orchards that offer apple picking and directions by mass transit: Wickham's Fruit Farm, in Cutchogue, Long Island can......