Brooklyn writers are banding together to be the latest voice against Bruce Ratner's vision for Atlantic Yards. A number of local wordsmiths have contributed to Brooklyn Was Mine, an anthology consisting of short essays and stories put together by two Vogue editor to benefit Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (a non-profit that fights development while uniting the community). From the press release:"Brooklyn has given birth to some of America's greatest literary voices," note the anthology's co-editors,......

The elements that have made City Hall Park so attractive to New York's humans have also made the area hospitable to the city's rodent population--so much so that the park has become overrun with rats, who don't seem to mind people company as much as people mind rat company. Regardless of the time of day or the number of people congregating there, rats--lots and lots of them--have made City Hall park their home. The New......

You know what's awesome in high definition TV? Seeing images of huge, fat rats run around a fast food restaurant in the Village! WABC, WCBS, and WNBC descended on a Taco Bell-KFC location on Sixth Avenue at 4th Street. The restaurant had been open until 11PM last night, and someone called in a tip when they saw rats running around. While people have seen rats in restaurants, they probably haven't seen something that looked......

Today, there's a fascinating Op-Ed by Robert Sullivan about the state of NYC streets. Titled, "The City That Never Walks," Sullivan describes how NYC has "lost [its] golden pedestrian touch." ...yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that......

Who doesn't love a good story about city rats? The NY Times has a cool feature on the city's "epic battle" to reduce the rat population. Did you know that rats are "developing resistance to many of the poisons used on them"? Rats are so crafty! So the city's approach these days is "integrated pest management," which is a preventive approach that utilizes less poison, increasing trash pickup, and sealing buildings' cracks and holes. The......

The lawyer representing of the family of the 18 year old girl who was killed when she fell through a Long Island Rail Road platform gap says the MTA "doesn't give a tinker's damn about drinking and intoxication on the railroad". Earlier this week, the state's Public Transportation Safety Board issued a report saying that Natalie Smead was responsible for her death (versus saying the LIRR was responsible) because, in part, she was intoxicated and......

Well, there's nothing like blaming the victim. The NY State Public Transportation Safety Board says that the August death of Natalie Smead, who fell into a gap at the Woodside LIRR station, was her own fault. The board issued a report saying that 19 year old Smead had been drinking with friends earlier and lost her balance when she fell in the 8-inch gap. When her cousin tried to help her, apparently Smead "pulled away"......

The woman who was badly burned after the plane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger crashed into her 30th floor apartment finally left the hospital yesterday. Ilane Benhuri, who had the most serious burns among the people injured from the crash, had walked to New York Hospital with the help of her housekeeper immediately after the October 11 crash. She underwent operations and many skin grafts over the past month. After......

The age-old question about whether or not there really is one rat per New Yorker arises in today's NY Times City Section. While the number of rats hasn't been officially counted, the Times answers:As for “one rat per person,” that is a myth that has persisted for at least 100 years. As Robert Sullivan noted in his 2004 book, “Rats,” a naturalist named David E. Davis analyzed New York’s rat population in 1949 and called......

LAist editor Jason Toney was in town, and he captured this photograph of one of the city's fixtures. And some thoughtful passer-by made sure the bloated rat wouldn't be lonely on the street until the Department of Sanitation swept him up. Even though Gothamist is not always excited to see a rat, we have to say this is a pretty great, if gross, picture. Gothamist loves the book Rats by Robert Sullivan. And is this......

Coolfer, Gothamist's favorite music blogger, gave us some tips for tunes this weekend: He recommended Snowden, Seachange, and Elkland, plus the Caulfield Sisters and Saint Joan, at Pianos tomorrow night. Snowden is also playing an allegedly FREE show tonight at Plaid (given by Vice), with open bar between 9-10PM. Snowden sounds good to Gothamist, since Coolfer explains it as, "If you give a rat's behind about Primal Scream, Jesus and Mary Chain, the Stone Rose......

If Robert Sullivan's riveting Times magazine article about city rats scared the bejesus out of you (an eleven inch rat, with a ten inch tail...shudder), Gothamist offers you this sweet tale: A sanitation worker came across a litter of day-old black Labrador puppies in Queens. At first, Stephen Falk thought the puppies, freezing behind a Dumpster, might be rats: "I looked down near my feet, blinked, took a second look, then a third, and decided......