Henry Piotrowski, the 90-year-old man who was mauled by a neighbor's pit bulls on Staten Island last month, died on Sunday. The Advance reports his death "means prosecutors are almost certain to pursue more serious criminal charges against the dogs' owners, and has spurred renewed calls for a ban on the breed. " Neighbors had apparently called to complain about the dogs before, and one who witnessed the attack said Piotrowski was essentially being "eaten......

Three-year-old Kamar Reynolds, who was attacked by a pit bull owned by his mother's husband (the husband, Frantz Cesar, meant for the dog to attack the mother), is recovering from his injuries at Bellevue Hospital. The Daily News visited the little boy, whose ear was reattached, playing with his sbilings, though "his stitches, cuts and bruises kept him from smiling." Cesar was held on $15,000 bail and ordered to stay away from Kamar, his mother,......

A three-year-old boy was seriously injured when a pit bull, unleashed by his mother's boyfriend, attacked him. Kamar Reynolds underwent surgery to reattach his ear and remains in serious condition; his aunt said, "His ear was torn off. His face was swollen. Half of his face was open. His mouth was bleeding blood. We put a sheet over his mouth so it could hold in the ear and the blood." Authorities say Reynolds' mother was......

Earlier today, a 90-year-old man was mauled by a neighbor's pit bulls. The victim, Henry Pitrowski, remains at Richmond University Medical Center in critical condition. Reports say Pitrowski was attacked on his property. Another neighbor, Reginald Bell, told the Advance he went outside when he heard the elderly man's screaming. Bell said, "The dogs were actually eating him alive. He was mauled completely. His legs were eaten to the bone. His arms were eaten to......

A pit bull named Tyrus is described by the New York Post as being "The Bitch of West 72nd St." and a 'Hell Hound.' Neighbors of the dog's owner at the former Olcott Hotel on the Upper West Side say that Tyrus is a menace who runs wild, poops in the hall and mauls other pets. Residents of The Olcott's 7th floor said that instead of walking Tyrus, his owners simply let the dog run......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired on 166th St. and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, a pedestrian struck at Berry St. and Division Ave. in Brooklyn, and a found body on Richmond Valley and Arthur Kill on Staten Island. Still searching for the Staten Island ninja burglar, police questioned New York Post photographer Ron Romano because of his ninja-like ability to tightrope walk. A huge hole in the middle of Brooklyn's Pacific......

We always thought that Visine poisoning was an urban legend, but a crazy story from Long Island seems to suggest otherwise. Twenty-four year-old Kristine Anzalone has pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault and third-degree criminal mischief after being arrested for allegedly spiking her roommate's drink with Visine and then agitating his dogs to get into a fight. According to Newsday, Anzalone and her husband Christopher lived with a male roommate in a North Bellmore home......

The Giants are heading south to play Atlanta this evening and the Falcons won't have their star quarterback, after Michael Vick was caught running a dogfighting ring out of his Virginia home. It turns out that New York City might be the nation's dogfighting capital though. The New York Post reported yesterday that Bronx resident Ralph Reyes runs an unlicensed kennel out of the basement of a residential walk-up building on Valentine Ave. That's where......

What is wrong with people? The director of the Mount Vernon Animal Shelter found three boxes full of kittens (63 of them!!!) on her doorstep. Paula Young believes that the kittens were used as bait during dogfighting in Westchester and possibly the Bronx. She told the Journal News, "It is impossible for one person to have all these kittens, calicos, tabbies, males and females." A few days earlier, animal shelter workers found an older......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on West 24th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, another shooting on Rockwell Place and Dekalb Ave. in Brooklyn, and yet another shooting at 92 -35 215th Place in Queens. Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James' female acquaintance made an amazing amount of money by buying properties from the city and then flipping them for huge profits. Phone records reveal that an upstate teenage driver may have been......

A barking pit bull named Bleu (or Blue) was a hero yesterday, as his barking alerted a neighbor to the cries of a young girl who was being molested between two houses on 171st St. in Flushing, Queens. The Daily News writes that a young man had been sitting on the steps of a house, across the street from where the attack would take place, watching a seven-year-old girl and her friend ride their scooters.......

Nice guys may not finish first, but it helps with voters. The NY Times' Michael Powell looks at Rudy Giuliani's evolution from mayor to presidential candidate and the shift in style he's had to take. For instance, more smiling, less snarling! Powell has been covering Giuliani for the past 15 years and includes observations about Giuliani's body language, style (no more combover!), and rhetoric. A NY Times video that has clips of Mayor Rudy......

Last night on Saturday Night Live, Chris Rock appeared on the cold open (what's a cold open?) to give his thoughts about the 2008 presidential race. While his riff on Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was great, it was also a little too long for our meager transcribing chops this morning. So we give you his thoughts on the Republican contenders:On the Republican side, we have McCain and Giuliani. Now, is it......

A 5 month old puppy was dropped in a trash chute by his owner during an argument. The Daily News reported that ex-con Anthony Blow had been arguing with Robin Hines and threatened, "You don't think I will do it?" before dropping the pit bull terrier mix through the chute seven stories. Hines called the police, who managed to rescue the dog after breaking into the compactor room. Sergeant Rick Khalaf said, "The trash was......

Last week, we had a brief mention about a terrible dog cruelty case in NJ. A pit bull puppy was critically injured after being sodomized; she was found in a pool of her own blood in a Newark apartment building. The Humane Society was looking for information to find who committed the crime, and now it turns out that many people were so moved by the story that another $7,000 was raised. A total of......

People Who Make Us Sick - This past weekend, a Queens man was arrested for animal cruelty. Oswald Joudan faces up to a year in a prison and a $2,000 fine for a number of terrible things he did to his Chow Chow "Lumpy" (pictured). A neighbor called the ASPCA, which found the dog so badly beaten that its face is distorted. The dog was also starved to the point of being 30 pounds (!!)......

When City Councilman Peter Vallone is not complaining about graffiti, it seems like his other pet peeve are pit bulls. Vallone is trying to ban pit bulls from city pet owners (by way of repealing a "state law prohibiting breed-specific legislation"). NYC would join cities like Denver and Miami, and the resolution notes that pit bulls are "often a weapon of choice of drug dealers and gangs seeking to intimidate and terrorize neighborhoods." Vallone tells......

There's supposed to be a connection between animal cruelty and violence to humans, and there's a pretty sick case of that in Queens. Based on a complaint, the ASPCA went to the Queens Health Care Facility in Rockaway to ask security guard Dustin Gill about a girlfriend's dog. But the ASPCA agents found much more. From the NY Sun: An ASPCA special agent, Richard Ryan, was investigating a complaint phoned into the agency's hotline on......

When 24 year old Priscilla Pimentel didn't go home to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, her family was worried. Her brother and sister went to her home at 102-9 87th Avenue in Richmond Hill and found Pimentel stabbed to death in her bathtub. She was stabbed in the chest and arms, her hands were bound behind her back and the body of her pet pit bull was next to her. A neighbor said, "Her sister ran out......

-- New video footage of the Columbia/Minutemen mess is a real doozy. -- "Suddenly, the future of the Bombers is gloomy." -- The price of a hot dog at Grey's Papaya is going up. -- A human skeleton was found on Friday on Staten Island. No word yet on its gender, race or age. -- Dog sitting horror! A woman was killed, and her sister injured, by a pit bull they were watching for......

Early Sunday morning, a couple policemen were injured while responding to a landlord-tenant dispute at a Bronx apartment building. And, no, the injuries weren't caused by the landlord or tenant - they were NYPD-inflicted. To top things off, they killed a pit bull as well. A sergeant, a lieutenant and three rookies were pursuing a pot-smoking teen, Lenin Acevedo, who kicked in the door of another apartment. That's when pit bull named either "Cookie" or......

- Americans may not win World Cups, but we do seem to have knack for winning the Tour de France. - A former Law & Order makeup artist is suing NBC for blacklisting her after she pointed out sexual harassment on the set. - Ask the MTA Chairman a silly question, get an answer. - The Times explores the politics of the Sabbath elevator. - Two's a trend: Just like a robbery on July......

Have you ever been on a plane and felt like something brush your feet, but you just convinced yourself it was the AC or someone else's bag? Well, it might have been something more. Seventeen mice were found on an American Airlines plane that regularly flies between NY and Los Angeles, spurring the debate, which town has some pests? And while mice are tiny and cute, they had been chewing through wires and were building......

Maybe fences do make good neighbors: A 75 year old Queens woman was attacked by a neighbor's pit bull. Newsday reports that Phyllis Perillo, a retiree, had "retrieved a wayward garbage pail" for the neighbor, whose relative then opened the door to thank Perillo. But the neighbor's pit bull "came flying out," according to Perillo's brother, and mauled her for 15 minutes. Neighbors say that Perillo tried to get up repeatedly, and that another neighbor......

My boyfriend and I live in a studio apartment with all our windows facing the backyard, where our landlord keeps his two big and very, very loud dogs. The backyard is pretty small and the dogs are left there for days at a time, whatever the weather, so it seems that the barking is more of a cry for help than anything else. They go at it for 10 to 20 minutes at a time,......

The Harlem Shakes are young, but their influences seem to cover decades of New York rock. Their sound is lo-fi tinny garage rock that will definitely make you dance (and yes, by dance New Yorkers, we mean disaffectedly tap your foot and occasionally bob your head.) We're not going to make the obvious comparison, okay we will, but it's meant as a compliment...the Harlem Shakes sound like what the Strokes should sound like. Their......

Some NYC area stories Gothamist has been following: - A Queens couple played Russian roulette and the boyfriend died. Okay, YIKES. Russian roulette is no joke - apparently the couple removed four of the five bullets from a .32 caliber gun and took turns holding the gun to each other's heads (or in their mouths) and pulled the trigger. Now, when you think about the odds, someone is going to die. - The formerly conjoined......

Possibly more critical than naming your baby (although you might have to holler your kid's name with as much frequency), naming a dog is a big deal. The Department of Health announces the most popular dog names for 2004, and the list is pretty much as it was last year: (1) Max, (2) Lucky, (3) Princess, (4) Rocky, (5) Buddy, (6) Lady, (7) Shadow, (8) Coco, (9) Daisy, and (10) Lucy. However, the DOH only......

A pit bull is a pit bull unless you want give them a little PR love and call them a "New Yorkie." The Post reports on the movement to rename pitbulls "New Yorkies," because they get a bad rap for being violent. The new New York City Animal Care and Control director, Ed Boks, says, "New Yorkers, like pit bulls, are sometimes perceived as a standoffish and mean breed - but are actually 'some of......

If you have ever complained about how tiny your NYC apartment is, think about the poor, poor 400 pound tiger cooped up in a Harlem apartment building. Police removed the 400 Bengal-Siberian tiger, Ming, from the apartment of Antoine Yates yesterday, calling in a police officer who needed to be rappelled down the building, in order to shoot the tiger with a tranquilizer gun. Also found in the apartment: A caiman alligator named Al.......