At least a few buildings on or near Mercer Street lost power when a fire or an explosion occurred in a manhole at Mercer and West 3rd Street exploded this morning. The block was closed off by the Fire Department. We hear there were no injuries, but it's unclear what caused the fire. One witness saw a billowing black smoke and said it smelled "acrid, like maybe it's an electrical fire." And contributor Gideon......

On the front page of the NY Times section A, there was a photograph of some workers in Haoro, India and an article titled "New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India." And in fact, the workers are barefoot, bare-chested, bare-handed, and bare-headed as they work in an iron foundry, making manhole covers for Con Ed and other cities. The Times explains that a photographer, J. Adam Huggins, who works with the newspaper brought......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: multiple manhole fires on Marcy Ave. in Brooklyn, a shooting on Gunhill Rd. in the Bronx, and a stabbing on 7th Ave. in Manhattan. The NYTimes examines the ground beneath our feet and finds out where the city's asphalt comes from and how it's produced. The lives, loves, and world of Second Lifers, where people inhabit a virtual world of their and others' making. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who......

The gas main explosion that rocked a home on 48th Ave. and 41st. St. Wedneday––killing one woman and injuring six others––occurred despite what ConEd and FDNY say was them following proper procedures preceding the incident. Kunta Oza, who died at the age of 69, was burned over 90% of her body. In addition to the six others injured in the explosion, 200 people were evacuated from the block until it was deemed safe to return.......

The 69-year-old woman who was burned over 90% of her body in a gas explosion in her Sunnyside home died yesterday. City Councilman Eric Gioia said, "It is with great regret and sadness that I announce the passing of Kunta Oza. My deepest condolences go out to her entire family, and I ask that all New Yorkers keep them in their Thanksgiving prayers." On Wednesday afternoon, calls were made to 911 about a gas smell......

Thanksgiving officially marks the start of the holiday movie season, and this weekend, one film seems poised to make a run for the box office crown. Enchanted, the Disney film that mixes animation and live-action to spoof its classic fairy tales, received some pretty stellar reviews. It's 92% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and most reviews are calling this the star-making performance of Amy Adams, who was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for Junebug......

Getting shocked by an electrified manhole isn't just for the winter: Yesterday morning, a Labrador retriever suffered a jolt when he stepped onto a wet manhole cover on Thompson Street. The Daily News reports that John Doran had been walking his 11-year-old dog Socha. When the dog stepped into a puddle, she "Socha let out a series of blood-curdling yelps - and collapsed near the curb." From the News:"I never heard a noise come out......

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......

Chris, the proprietor of 78thand2nd, was nice enough to forward us a post with pictures of what may be a serious contender for the dumbest parking job of 2007. This morning, the driver of an Lexus Infiniti decided that the orange traffic cones encircling an open Con Ed manhole on 78th St., with multiple bundled cables running out of it, wasn't a good enough indicator that he shouldn't park there, so he did. And there......

Is Upper East Side the new Queens? Because a series of manhole fires left hundreds of customers (and one customers could mean an entire apartment building of residents) without power from midmorning till late last night. One woman who was without power for over 12 hours complained, "It's terrible if that's how it's going to be. I'm upset with the whole city. Con Ed is becoming a nuisance." The power outages were concentrated around York......

When some Con Ed workers at Ground Zero found some human remains in a manhole last October, the city promised it would expand the search for remains (especially since it was revealed that the initial search for remains was more of a rush job). Now the city says that it will search under two more spots: West Street, in front of the World Financial Center, and Cedar Street, between Washington and West Streets. Deputy Mayor......

New York magazine has a great examination of the Greenpoint pollution problem lurking beneath the neighborhood's surface, and floating along the surface of Newtown Creek. It describes a ten million gallon reservoir of industrial pollution that includes, fuel oil, naptha, gasoline, parrafin wax and likely many more materials that were used along the industrial area of the waterway that separates Brooklyn and Queens. The contamination of the area is hardly breaking news. Brooklyn drew its......

If you've never seen what an exploding manhole looks like, WABC 7 has footage of a Friday afternoon incident in Sunset Park. It looks spooky, with flame shooting from manhole and puffs of black smoke. And the smoke is dangerous, because it contains carbon monoxide. WABC 7 reported that firefighters found two people in a basement who were "overcome" by the carbon monoxide. The FDNY also evacuated residents from 55th Street between 7th and 8th......

We doubt they'll be paying livery cab drivers to park over dangerous-looking grates until they can be checked, but Con Edison is promising to check all 18,000 of its sidewalk grates after a woman plunged through one Thursday morning, landing close to a potentially lethal source of electricity. She was eventually rescued by two firefighters. The regional electric utility is still in the process of identifying electrical "hot spots" that have killed at least one......

A family of four was taken to the hospital yesterday evening after they parked in front of a fire hydrant in Elmhurst, Queens. As if they'd angered some type of municipal Zeus, a manhole situated underneath their van and next to the hydrant exploded while the family was still in their car. The reason for the explosion and the extent of the family's injuries is unknown, but cops arriving on the scene did have the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a building collapse on West 193rd St. in Manhattan, a car in the water at Ocean Ave. and Lincoln Rd. in Brooklyn, and multiple manhole fires on 45th St. in Queens. The NYTimes takes a stroll down one-time Indian trail now known as Jamaica Ave. in Brooklyn. Neighbors on Mulberry St. are so fed up with the Feast of San Gennaro that Community Board 2 recommended against approving organizers'......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Found Explosive at Broadway and 116th St. in Manhattan, a Manhole Fire on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, and a Homicide at 140-10 123rd Ave. in Queens. How to get a Manhattan hotel room for less than $200 a night. And it's not the Whitehouse on Bowery! Uphill and downhill could be two ways to characterize traffic safety debate in Park Slope, as a proposed bike lane for the incline......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: manhole fire with victims in Sunset Park, large crowd in Chelsea, and four people stabbed in Harlem. A Long Island Miracle: "A cab hit some ice on the Long Island Expressway Saturday morning, flew over a guardrail, flipped over, dropped 30 feet to the highway below -- and landed upright. The driver and the passenger weren't seriously hurt." The 239-foot Airbus super jet - Lufthansa Flight 8940 from Frankfurt......

The city has announced that parts of West Street will be closed so searchers can look for remains from the World Trade Center attacks. Last October, Con Ed workers excavating a manhole found human remains, leading to renewed searches which have since yielded over 400 bone fragments. According to the NY Times, a memo Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler sent to Mayor Bloomberg noted that closing West Street was necessary so workers could excavate recently discovered......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: aircraft emergency at JFK, manhole fires in Brooklyn, and a pedestrian struck at 40th and 7th. Squatting in Bushwick ain't all it's cracked up to be: "for a bathroom, Dan and Nate have two buckets, emptied daily — one in the common area and a somewhat more offensive one on the roof, forcing them to make haste with their business on increasingly cold winter days. The “pee bucket” froze......

A Boston terrier died yesterday while walking on Rector Street, seemingly from an electrical shock. The dog, named Boston Bob, was being walked by his dog-walker when he stepped on a sidewalk near a manhole. The NY Times reports the 16 pound dog "suddenly lifted his paws, yelped in pain and went limp in the dog walker’s arms." And the dog walker told a witness that Bob was bleeding after the shock. Pet store owner......

The Big Apple Mystery of the Week: Why did NYC have bad CO (city odor) of natural gas with mercaptan yesterday? The malodorous bouquet freaked out people from all over Manhattan (even parts of Brooklyn) and parts of eastern New Jersey. The city's various agencies determined it was not a terrorist attack and that the odor was "not dangerous." So most of the blame fell to our neighbor, New Jersey. The city's Department of......

Last night's manhole explosions in SoHo were reportedly caused by wires underground catching fire. At least that's the Con Ed line. A Villager article from last year explained that when the fire occurs underground, there's a buildup of carbon monoxide - and then there's the explosion. Then the Department of Environmental Protection checks to see if there's CO in other neighboring buildings. The Post reports that the only injury was a Connecticut school teacher whose......

Manholes on West Houston Street near Sullivan have exploded, creating a smoky, chaotic scene. Windows are blown out and civilians are panicking. Firefighters, police, Con Ed and other rescue workers are everywhere. Jake just went down to the scene-- it's total chaos. Houston is shutdown from Laguardia to 6th Avenue, traffic being diverted. Pedestrians are gawking behind fire lines on the corners of Thompson and Sullivan. A smokey fire is still raging in the......

A judge ruled that World Trade Center insurers do not have to pay an extra $700 million for current construction. Developer Larry Silverstein and his insurers had been arguing whether additional improvements to new buildings should be someting the insurers pay out. But U.S. District Judge Harold Baer decided that the money paid out should only cover what it would cost to build the original, pre-September 11 World Trade Center design. Silverstein is still......

With the surprise discovery of human remains in a manhole at Ground Zero on Thursday, the city said they would start a new search for remains of September 11 victims. The contractor who realized that the debris found on Thursday was human remains spoke to the Post:"By the grace of God, I found the bones. I looked at what looked like bones, but it was muddy stuff. It might have been lumber. It turned......

While excavating a manhole, Con Ed workers found more human remains from September 11. The manhole was in the northwest corner, near where the names of victims are reading during September 11 anniversary ceremonies. The workers had actually cleared out rubble with a vacuum pump on Wednesday and took the debris to a Con Ed operations site in Chelsea. Yesterday, a contractor noticed bones, ID cards and wallets in an underground junction box, and he......

- Streetsblog notes how the NYPD parking abuse scandal gets crazier as one cop harasses a CBS 2 reporter and as one Chinatown businessman is arrested for photographing illegaly parked cars - Something all three candidates for Governor can agree on: SUNY and CUNY should not be merged - Horrible story: A woman abandoned her three year old child in Chinatown, after an argument with her husband - bitter divorce or no bitter divorce,......

Oh, yes, we did it! New York City broke another peak electricity demand record, with 13,141 megawatts served yesterday, breaking Monday's record. Still, a bunch of areas in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and upper Manhattan experienced blackouts - and there have been many manhole fires as well. It was around 112 on the heat index in some parts, yet it was still not hot enough to fry an egg on a Brooklyn manhole. This......

After a week of being powerless or near powerless, thousands of Queens homes and businesses are starting to power back up, but it almost feels like too little, too late. It's already been a week of no food, no hot water and no business for many people, and one family blames the death of a 60 year old father on the blackout. Politicians are also fuming: They want Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke to......