Subject: Staten Island

• Bobcat Captured in Staten Island

  Okay, this is more like it: someone in Staten Island caught a bobcat. The 45-pound kitty was stalking the Grosmere section and a citizen decided to take matters into his own hands, drawing the creature into a game cage "using raw chicken liver as bait," a tip you may want to save. The animal is said to be someone's pet, which we're sure is illegal -- at least it was in 1998, when the state took away a Somers man's bobcat on those grounds, though it does appear the man got him back. Perhaps the u

  February 4, 2009

• Quick Hits

  99 Problems but a cookie ain't one His assailants in the Staten Island Election Night Hate Crime Spree have all pleaded guilty. Now victim Ali Kamara has been arrested for stealing a car. About 11 years ago 172 Stanton Street started to crumble. City officials hustled the tenants out and demolished the building without letting them get their possessions or pets. Some old-timers went homeless or mad. On the site now, there's a luxury condo. A Loyola University Health System psychiatry (gas

  February 5, 2009

• In Case You Haven't Looked Out Your Window Yet...

  ...we got snow. Weathermen predict over a foot of it. The storm extends greatly beyond our districts and has been playing havoc in the south. We're sure it will be a nuisance for us too, but then, these days, what isn't? Enjoy it before rush hour turns it into black slush. Update 9:50 a.m.: The MTA reports no alterations in service. "t was a pretty brutal walk to the train out in Billyburg this morning, but the L was running fine," says a Gothamist commenter. " Train was nice and empty, too!"

  March 2, 2009

• Was Staten Island Pol's Cartoon Racist? You Be The Judge!

  Artist's rendering. It's too bad no one is letting us see the allegedly racist email cartoon that Salvatore Ballarino, a member of Staten Island's Community Education Council appointed by borough president James Molinaro, is reported to have forwarded to colleagues. True, the comic strip sounds bad -- the Staten Island Advance says it "features cartoon-like speech balloons drawn out of [John] McCain's mouth referencing lynching African Americans and equating African American babies with excrem

  March 2, 2009

• International Fugitive Found Cleaning Boats on Staten Island

  Have we told you lately that we love the Staten Island Advance? This is from one of this morning's stories, headlined "Police chase suspect through Staten Island cemetery": "It's unknown at this time what crime the person committed, but there's a lot of police activity in the area." And occasionally the Forgotten Borough is the site of big doings. Last night immigration and customs officials found there international fugitive Liberio Andrew Gonzalez, the murderous erstwhile head of a big Mexican

  March 11, 2009

• COLLISION COURSE

  January 7, 2009

• Hotel Latest of Staten Island Builder's Projects to Fizzle

  It's not just Manhattan that's getting hit hard by this economy. The Staten Island Advance tells us the Staten Island Hotel, jewel of the forgotten borough's hospitality industry, has gone into foreclosure. Its builder, Leib Puretz, is heavily invested in Staten Island real estate, with extensive properties at Bay Street Landing, the North Shore and elsewhere. Just a few years ago Puretz was riding high; In 2006 he told the Times that his St. George apartments would "be stylish in order to compe

  April 21, 2009

• Russians Invade Staten Island Community Center, Elderly Bigots Fight Back

  When Assemblymember Janele Hyer-Spencer announced that she'd scored $4 million in public funds to finance a new community center in Staten Island, complete with pool, we figured her constituents would be pleased. But it was weird when the Staten Island Blog said, "although the Russian community is spearheading the effort, the new center would be for all Staten Islanders." Russians? All Staten Islanders? Is this a thing? Turns out the non-profit called the Staten Island Community Center wh

  April 24, 2009

• John Marchi, 1921-2009

  John Marchi, longtime state senator from Staten Island and two-time Republican mayoral candidate, died Saturday while vacationing in Italy. Marchi was first elected to the state senate in 1956 and retired in 2006. He chaired the state senate's finance committee during New York's fiscal crisis in the 1970s and, in the words of Room Eight's Gatemouth, "helped save the city from bankruptcy." After the city's Board of Estimate was ruled unconstitutional in 1989, removing borough presidents from bud

  April 27, 2009

• Senator Lanza Keeps Staten Island Secession Alive

  The dream of Staten Island secession would seem to have died with John Marchi, but the Times tells us today that state senator Andrew Lanza is working on a Staten-Island-Out-Of-New-York plan, which he has been proposing since last year. He decries the "legacy of neglect" under which the forgotten borough has suffered, and has a bill ready to create a City of Staten Island, which he admits is not likely to be passed anytime soon -- even his local paper doesn't give him much backup. So he contents

  May 1, 2009

• Chuck Schumer Avenges Humanity Against Urban Wildlife!

  At last, one of our elected representatives is fighting back against nature, which as we previously reported is at war with New York, sending cows, wallaroos, feral parrots and other agents to smite us. Chuck Schumer strikes on two fronts: first, he has put in a bill requiring airports to report bird strikes, like the goose attack that brought down US Airways Flight 1549. This enemy surveillance ought to please the New York Post, which has tirelessly crusaded against the avian menace. Second, he

  May 7, 2009

• Staten Island Thieves Smarten Up, Use ATM Cams to Steal $500G

  Staten Island, home of the world's worst bank robber, is now the target of a savvier band of thieves who are wanted by the NYPD for stealing from than $500,000 from local Sovereign Bank customers. According to the police, the pudgy-looking thieves (see photo) installed card skimmers and pinhole cameras on branch ATMs that filmed their victims punching in their passwords. They then used the info they gleaned to make fake bankcards and withdraw cash from the accounts of more than 250 people. The h

  May 11, 2009

• Quick Hits

  Well, it is a nice shot, but $329,000 is a little over our standard freelance rate. Best of luck, Luis Caldera. Great medical PR headline of the day: "Overeating to blame for U.S. obesity epidemic." The face transplant lady still loves her husband, who shot her face off. Brownsville Recreation Center has a job fair: 4,000 people show, three times as many as expected. On the other hand: "A woman should NEVER settle. The recession will pass. And if you hold on, your Mr. Big will sweep you off

  May 8, 2009

• Staten Islanders to Tie Up Verrazano Bridge with Pennies on Monday

  Hey, you can have your Tea Parties -- Staten Island's having a Penny Protest! As few outside the forgotten borough noticed, the recent Albany MTA bill added a dollar to the Verrazano Bridge's $9 toll. So local "self taught artist" Scott LoBaido proposes that at noon on Monday, drivers protest the hike by paying their $10 toll in increments of one cent -- 1,000 pennies each. This deliberate slowdown of traffic will surely win the attention of those fancy-pantses in Albany. LoBaido wants protester

  May 14, 2009

• Authorities on the Trail of the "Staten Island Vandals"

  The Staten Island Advance! Exclusively! Takes us "inside the clubhouse of alleged Staten Island vandals." This would be a bunch of youthful mooks who robbed and vandalized a few places near their encampment, at which they apparently "used a generator to power a television so they could play video games and watch movies and pornographic DVDs." Their targets included the Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center and Home and the headquarters there of soldiers' aid society Staten Island Support

  May 15, 2009

• Janet Redmond-Mercereau Guilty of Murder

  After jury requests for information that extended the wait for a verdict, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, the Staten Island woman accused of killing her fire marshal husband, has been found guilty of second-degree murder. She had claimed that she did not know who shot Douglas Mercereau in his bed in December 2007, and that she did not realize it had happened until long afterwards because she was in her daughter's bedroom at the time, wearing earplugs. She admitted that her husband has been verbally ab

  May 21, 2009

• Why Don't Staten Island Tourists Get Past the Terminal?

  Did you know that Staten Island had tourism? It makes the attempt, anyway, via SINY, Staten Island USA, and NYC & Co. But the Staten Island Advance frankly admits that it hasn't been working -- tourists may take the ferry over, but they don't wander too far inland. Part of the reason is poor salesmanship: there is a promotional video in the ferry terminal, but the picture blinked off a while ago and only the sound plays, inveighing visitors who've come this far to make the trek to the "Smith

  May 28, 2009

• Carter Center Latest Staten Island Development Catastrophe

  Staten Island seems to have the kind of problems with development that the rest of the city had years ago. We mentioned in passing the troubled state of the Lighthouse Museum, which the Staten Island Advance and others consider a frustrating boondoggle. Recently the paper covered the magnificent but decrepit old Staten Island Hospital, which has sat abandoned for 20 years and become "an eyesore, a spot for vandalism and a chronic 'burden to the community.'" Today the Advance updates on the Gerar

  June 10, 2009

• Our Ten Best--Pizzas

  New York City boasts the best pizza in the world. Period. But which ones to choose for Our Ten Best? There are so many kinds: We've got thin Neapolitan slices, and thick Sicilian slices, with Staten Island slices in between. We've got individual pies, and gang-size pies. We've got clam pies, and ziti pies, and pies with no tomato sauce at all. We've got deep dish Chicago-style, and cracker-thin Roman style, too. We've got neighborhood parlors galore in all five boroughs, where the pizza is nothi

  June 19, 2009

• Staten Island School Excludes, Scars Kids with Poor or Cheap Parents

  It was the kind of scarring childhood experience that might be discussed at length in a therapist's office someday: When I was growing up on Staten Island and didn't have enough money to attend my school's end-of-the-year carnival, I pressed my face against the school-yard fence and watched all the other kids laugh, play games and eat cotton candy, and I wept. It sounds like a boast straight out of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but according to the Staten Island Advance, this "cruel"

  June 19, 2009

• Staten Islanders Displeased with Bike Lanes

  People complain about bike lanes elsewhere in the city, too, but Staten Island seems to have more trouble with them than most. The Staten Island Advance tells us that new bike lanes are planned for the borough even as "half of the paint forming the Bay Street [bike] route has worn away" because of traffic. In one of the Advance's earlier reports on the lanes, a commenter pointed out that some of them were painted during the winter, "in freezing temperatures," then "covered with salt and snow an

  June 30, 2009

• Lessons in Bloomy Speak: It's a Hard Landing, Not a Crash

  From the Mike Bloomberg City Hall Lexicon:A packed Staten Island ferry that loses power just at it is pulling into the dock and bangs very hard into the pier , thus injuring 15 passengers or less, is a hard landing, not a crash. A crash is a packed Staten Island ferry that bangs very hard into the pier killing 11 or more passengers after the lone pilot collapses, as per 2003 incident. Thankfully, the Daily News correctly applied this lesson to last night's unfortunate mishap: "Staten Island ferr

  July 2, 2009

• Mayor, Cops Warn Against Illegal Fireworks, Rooftop Parties, Fun

  We know homemade fireworks are illegal in this town, but we were hoping that, with tourism down this summer, they might go a little easier on 4th of July street pyrotechnics. Alas, Mayor Bloomberg and the cops remain on our ass about it -- in fact they're even against rooftop parties to watch the Macy's fireworks: WCBS says police in both New York and Hoboken (the show is over the Hudson this year) "say rooftops and fire escapes are completely off limits for parties because the danger of collaps

  July 3, 2009

• Staten Island Pol Gets Real Estate Taxes Frozen; Staten Islanders Attack Pol, Russians, Etc.

  One thing we love about our Staten Island paisans: they aren't easily appeased, especially by politicians. Today the Staten Island Advance gave credit to local assemblymember Janele Hyer-Spencer -- last noted here for winning funds for a new community center, and thus stirring up Staten Island's strangely powerful anti-Russian biases -- because she helped push through a state law that "freezes real estate taxes for a year" in New York and, most importantly, Staten Island. She says it'll save th

  July 21, 2009

• Vox Populi: Staten Islanders Complain of Bad Drivers, "Guidos," "Doot-Da-Doots"

  ​We love the Staten Island Advance. Today they asked readers, "what are your most annoying encounters with road rudeness?" You may not know this, but Staten Island is much like Jersey, and its inhabitants rely mostly on motorized vehicles to get around. While the first commenter says, "get a life and get some real news," the Advance's query has drawn dozens of reactions which reflect the wonderful diversity of the borough and irrepressibility of its citizens.

  July 28, 2009

• Banned for Cursing, Staten Island Golfer Sues Club, Association

  ​Gotta love Staten Island -- even the golfers are contentious. Christopher DeMenna of Bay Terrace is suing Richmond County Country Club and the Staten Island Golf Association because they banned him from a tournament after he cursed out an official. In September 2007, it seems, DeMenna got into a beef with an official about a lost ball during that year's Staten Island Amateur tournament. The official said he hadn't found the ball within an allotted time period and had to tee off again. De

  July 31, 2009

• Giuliani Speaks at Staten Island Golf Event, Criticizes Obama and "Nationalized" Health Care

  Staten Island golf events are tumultuous affairs, apparently. Last week a local golfer sued because he perceived he'd been tossed out of a tournament unfairly. This weekend, Rudolph Giuliani, a good friend to Staten Island, spoke at the Richmond County Country Club event to raise funds for the CIAO Golf Classic, and told a Staten Island Advance reporter there that Obama isn't doing well as President and "his impact on the economy has been very negative"; also, the former Mayor warned that Americ

  August 3, 2009

• Staten Island, Anthony Weiner Town Brawls Bring a Little American Rage to Our Communist City

  ​That Staten Island Health Care Town Hall seems to have had some of the now-traditional bellowing, but not enough to work up a good segment for Glenn Beck. The Staten Island Advance said the New Dorp event was "a chance for many to vent frustration over the plan," which sounds promising at first, but since there were no public officials at which malcontents could shake their fists -- the meeting was run by the Staten Island Family Health Care Coalition, and presided over by a kindly doctor

  August 13, 2009

• Sheepshead Bay Remembers: Old Roll-n-Roaster Commercial

  Well, Movable Type is a fucking mess today, and who knows when the previous post will be visible. Bitter experience has taught us that the best way to make sure MT is working is to post something you might regret. So here's an old commercial for Roll-n-Roaster, the "not-so-fast fast food restaurant" on Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay. (At the time of this spot they also had a store on Staten Island.) It's from a time when it was worth a local joint's while to whip up a cheap commercial for lat

  August 18, 2009

• Tomorrow: Our 10 Best Indian Restaurants

  ​ Check here tomorrow for Fork in the Road's 10 Best Indian restaurants. We've ranged around the city, stuffing ourselves with Chettinadu fish curry on Staten Island, dosas in Flushing, khandvi and other regional snacks in Jackson Heights, and pongal in New Jersey (true Desi-land). We're pitching a big tent, including cuisine from all South Asian countries that used to be part of India before partition, and, just for fun, we're also considering Indian Chinese and New American-Indian, becau

  August 20, 2009

• Staten Island Skinhead Arrested for Trying to Burn Down 7-11

  ​One of the things that makes Staten Island a unique part of our gorgeous mosaic is, while the rest of us are all cosmopolitan and tolerant, Staten Island has skinheads -- and we don't mean conscious peace punks, but skinheads like they have in Russia and at Idaho survivalist compounds. Witnesses saw one such lurking around the 7-11 at Bradley Avenue and Victory Boulevard with accelerant, and police picked him up on suspicion of trying to burn it down. Not sure why he'd want to -- maybe he

  August 27, 2009

• Staten Island 9/11 Memorial Defaced; Bronx 9/11 Memorial Restored

  ​As long as we're looking for 9/11 outrages, here's a defaced memorial: Kathryn Cronin, 56, of York, Pennsylvania visited the "Postcards" tribute in Staten Island and started beating it with a metal pipe*. She defaced images of two or more 9/11 victims, and has been arrested on charges of third-degree criminal mischief. "The timing is certainly ironic," says Richmond County D.A. Daniel Donovan. No word yet as to what motivated the attack. On the other hand, Eddie Gonzalez's tribute mural

  September 8, 2009

• New School Bus Policy Terrifies Parents on Staten Island

  This year some public grade school students are not eligible for school bus service, which prompts concern on Staten Island. "City forces seventh- and eighth-graders from their comfort zone -- namely, the yellow bus," reports the Staten Island Advance. "At 7 a.m. in the wintertime," they lede, "Anna Nieves imagines the Staten Island Mall parking lot as dark, desolate and possibly dangerous." The borough's public transportation is not as comprehensive as is that of the rest of the city, which ala

  September 14, 2009

• Local Candidate Smiles, Votes

  ​ We thought campaigns had stopped sending these, so we were pleased to receive this picture of Staten Island council candidate Debi Rose entering the voting booth at Summerfield Methodist Church on Harbor Road this morning. Staten Island has never elected a black person to anything, but this serves as photographic evidence that at least they let them vote.

  September 15, 2009

• Health Care Town Brawl (with Tea Partiers!) (on Staten Island!) Monday

  Hey, great: Health care town brawls are being revived -- and in Staten Island! "This is the kind of thing that the whole Tea Party movement is geared around," says Frank Santarpia, an organizer for the Staten Island Tea Party, about Monday's event, sponsored by Congressman Michael McMahon at the Petrides Educational Complex on Ocean Terrace. "There's a lot of buzz on the Island. It's going to be well attended." No doubt: Santarpia described an earlier health care event at the Assumption Senior

  October 1, 2009

• Things to do this weekend for (mostly) free

  ​ Leaf peeper map of New York State Saturday Korean festival and parade Dance, taekwondo, food, music and cooking lessons. Chile Pepper Fiesta, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Music, chile-chocolate cooking, Qigong lessons, and hot stuff samples. Free with admission to the Gardens ($8 adults, $4 students, seniors, and kids over 12. Kids under 12 free) Colonial Day, Fort Greene Park Hands-on games, cooking and butter churning Garden walking tours overlooking the Hudson in Fort Tryon Park F

  October 3, 2009

• World Food Situation Dire; School Bake Sales Now a No-no

  ​An Australian scientist says that the world's food situation is so bad that we will have to produce more food in the next 50 years than we ever have in history. A growing population and climate change will make the task more difficult. [ABC News] Small farms are all the rage, according to a Department of Agriculture census. The number of farms under 50 acres went up by nearly 15 percent between 2002 and 2007 to some 853,000 nationwide. Farms under 10 acres grew by about 30 percent. [AP

  October 5, 2009

• Staten Island Town Brawl Goes Pretty Much As You Would Expect

  Local tea party people warned in advance that Monday's Staten Island health care town brawl with Congressman Michael McMahon would be lively. And voila -- "Health care reform foes dominate meeting with Staten Island congressman," writes the Staten Island Advance. The peeps seem to have gone for the usual anti-big-gummint rhetoric ("Social Security, the IRS, the Post Office, Medicare. Why should we let them into our health care system?"), xenophobia ("I don't want to pay for 41 million illegal al

  October 6, 2009

• Staten Islanders Take (Traffic) Law into Own Hands, DIY Speed Bumps

  ​The folks on Staten Island are the freewheeling DIY types, as was revealed by the homemade speed bumps that recently appeared on Locust Avenue in New Dorp. The residents, who worry about fast and reckless drivers on their street where their children play, and have seen the apparently feeble safety signs placed by the so-called "government" ignored or even rammed by drivers, concocted the safety-painted gravel lumps in the dead of night. Neighbors were grilled about the informal and ille

  October 8, 2009

• Court: city, not God, responsible for Staten Island sewage flood

  Lucyann Sciacca of Staten Island, representing herself in Small Claims Court, won $5k in her suit against the city for damage done when raw sewage flooded her basement during a 2007 storm which left Staten Island a Federal Disaster Area. The city has defended itself against $1.3 million in previous lawsuits from Staten Island residents with a Department of Environmental Protection decision that the failure of Staten Island's sewers during the storm was due to an Act of God, and the city wasn't l

  October 11, 2009

• Times: New Storefront Art Shows Like Old Kind, Except Fancy, Curated

  ​Last week we mentioned that some city-owned rental space, even in buildings one imagined would be very rentable (the Staten Island Ferry terminal, for example) were being offered free to artists to use as exhibition spaces. Today the Times tells us the city's not the only landlord to give over its moribund commercial spaces to daubers. So have the owner of a dentist office, the owner of a stretch of Flatbush Avenue Extension "squeezed between a McDonald's and an Applebee's," etc. The T

  October 12, 2009

• URBAN LEGEND

  October 20, 2009

• Blogger Dan de Lara (a/k/a Asian Dan) Professes His Love for Battles, Irving Plaza, and A-Trak

  We recently published the Voice's Best of NYC issue, our annual opportunity to bestow arbitrary awards like Best Rapper Twitter Feed and Best Radio DJ. In turn, we asked a few of our favorite New Yorkers to name their favorite local things. Dan de Lara may hail from the forgotten borough, but the music blogger and DJ knows at least one semi-secret Manhattan bar. His favorite venue, music critic, and DJ are far more well-known, but one thing he shares that's not: an actual reason to go Staten

  October 28, 2009

• Have You Seen... Staten Island Livery Car Stabber-Robber

  On Sunday a little after midnight this guy at caught a ride from a livery driver near the Ferry Terminal on Staten Island. He had the driver take him all the way out to Mariners Park on the other side of the Island, then started hitting him in the head. They both tumbled out of the car around Netherland near South Avenue, and the perp came up with a knife and stabbed the driver, took his money, and ran off. (The driver went to the hospital in stable condition.) The assailant is thought to be

  November 4, 2009

• Straphangers Award "Pokeys" for Slowest Buses; M42, B63 Big Winners

  The NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives have announced their eighth annual Pokey Awards for the city's slowest buses, and the surprise winner is the M42 that lumbers between the Javits Center and First Avenue on 42nd Street. By the sponsors' calculations, the M42 achieves a ground speed of 3.7 mph, which they say would "lose a race with a five-year-old riding a motorized tricycle," which we think is rather harsh, as the five-year-old would probably stop for ice cream. T

  November 5, 2009

• Post-Parade Chaos on the Staten Island Ferry

  Not necessarily happy with today's Yankee parade: some Staten Island commuters caught in the crush of revelers who were making their way back to the Forgotten Borough afterwards. "'It was chaos,' says commuter who was stuck in overcrowded Whitehall Ferry Terminal," reports the Staten Island Advance. The paper was cheerful when it told us this morning, "Staten Island fans show support for Yankees at victory parade." But already there were ominous harbingers: Tottenville resident Lorraine Oldmix

  November 6, 2009

• NASCAR abandons Staten Island

  ​International Speedway Corp. (ISC), whose plans to build a NASCAR track on Staten Island set off a "near riot" at a public hearing, announced the sale of the site to a Texas company at a $30 million loss yesterday.

  November 13, 2009

• Somebody Got Murdered: Murder in Staten Island

  View Larger Map DATE: Nov. 14, 2009, 5:37 a.m. LOCATION: 23 York Ave., Staten Island. Staten Island isn't known as a murder hotbed, but this weekend, two men were shot and killed in the borough. The first of the fatal shootings took place early Saturday outside of the above address. The victim, identified by the Staten Island Advance as Earl Mangin, 23, of the borough, was shot in the head and one leg. He was declared dead at the scene. Know anything about this case? Drop us a line at grayman

  November 16, 2009

• Somebody Got Murdered: A Second Weekend Homicide in Staten Island

  View Larger Map DATE: Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 12:27 a.m. LOCATION: In front of 44 Yale Street, Staten Island. In the second of two weekend murders in Staten Island, two men were shot, one of them fatally, while they sat in a Lexus outside the above address early Monday. One victim, a male, 24, was shot several times, and declared dead at Richmond University Hospital. The second, a male, 23, was struck once in the left arm, and listed in stable condition at Richmond. The identities of the two m

  November 16, 2009

• Have You Seen... Staten Island Cash Register Thieves

  These cowboys have been flying around Staten Island's North Shore, usually on Forest Avenue, since August, pulling their dark-colored 2002-to-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee up to nail salons, dry cleaners, hair stylists, and others among the remaining businesses in that part of the island, and snatching their receipts, often grabbing the whole cash register rather than going to the trouble to crack it open. Their last hits were on November 11, when they robbed no less than five businesses; they're

  November 20, 2009