NEWS NYC

June 15, 2008 | in NYTIMES

Darius McCollum knows the New York City Transit system well. Perhaps too well.

For about a quarter of a century, he has taken trains and buses for joy rides and impersonated Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers, racking up 23 transit-related arrests. The first came in 1981, after he drove the E train to the World Trade Center. He was last in the news in 2006, when he was charged with criminal impersonation.

Mr. McCollum, 43, of East Elmhurst, Queens, was arrested again on Saturday after he tried to pass himself off as a subway worker, the police said.

When he was arrested, just after 2 a.m. on the platform at the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway station, he was wearing navy blue clothes similar to a transit uniform, and had a hard hat, transit-logo gloves, a knapsack and documents related to the transit system in his possession, the police said.

He faces charges of criminal trespass, criminal impersonation and possession of burglary tools, the police said. Five of his previous arrests included stealing buses, the police said.

His latest journey into handcuffs started in Queens, when he boarded the No. 7 train at the 103rd Street station and rode it — as a normal passenger — into Manhattan, debarking at a Times Square station, the police said.

There, his history caught up with him. Officers spotted him posing as an employee and recognized that, despite his blue outfit, he was not a genuine transit worker.

They followed him when he got on a northbound No. 1 train. When he debarked at the Columbus Circle station and entered an area sealed off to the public, the police took him into custody.

Speaking from the station, Officer Martin Brown, a police spokesman, said that he was wearing transit clothes to make people think he was an employee.

Mr. McCollum did not speak to reporters while he was being placed into a black car by detectives. A large man, he hung his bald head low and shuffled forward, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Mr. McCollum’s mother, Elizabeth, 82, said her son had Asperger’s syndrome and had a lifelong obsession with trains.

She said she had last heard from her son three days ago, when he told her he would arrive at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Thursday, taking a Greyhound bus from New York City. But he never showed up.

She said he had been living in Queens with her niece and had told her that he was working in a warehouse.

“They arrest him every time if he has got on anything that looks like transit clothes,” she said by telephone.

She said she and her New York City, had tried many times over the years to keep Mr. McCollum, who is their only child, from being arrested again by trying to persuade him to stay with them in North Carolina. But to no avail. He slips away and returns to New York City.

“He just loves New York,” she said. “He knows the people in Transportation. And he goes up there to be around them.”

His mother said that she had been telling him that “he has got to learn,” and added that hiring lawyers for him over the years had put her in debt.

But she said he needed help.

“With all these kids who are autistic, they slip behind the cracks, but nobody is trying to help him at all,” she said. “I tried when I lived in New York. Every time he was arrested he wasn’t hurting anybody, and nobody could figure out what is his problem.”

She said that sometimes, when he was younger and they were living in Jamaica, Queens, she did not know where he was and people would tell her he was in the subway. “I used to call them and go down there and look for him,” she said.

She said that he would put together model trains and other toys with ease: “We had all kinds of toys, like trains and monorails, and different kinds of things when he was growing up. And he went on to bigger and better things.”

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

The teenagers were dancing before the squat backdrop of a housing project Saturday night in Far Rockaway, Queens, when the gunfire began. They all ran, until someone turned and saw that one girl was not running. She had dropped to the ground without a sound, a bullet hole in her temple.

The girl, Brandon Bethea, 15, whose family had moved her out of the projects last year, not long after her friend was killed by a stray bullet, was herself killed in what the police and neighbors said was a shooting that had nothing to do with her.

It was exactly what her family had feared, and the reason they had moved to Jamaica, Queens. But she returned on Saturday to see friends and to show off her newest dance moves.

“I guess we should have moved further,” her grieving stepfather, Robert Drakeford, said on Sunday at the family’s apartment, where a long line of friends and family had come to offer condolences. “We should have left New York altogether.”

As of Sunday evening, no one had been arrested in the shooting. Neighbors said two groups of young men — boys, even — from two different sections of buildings in the Redfern Houses complex had been feuding for so long that no one really remembered what the fight was about.

“It’s the front versus the back,” said Sonya Smith, 37. “These are babies, 12 years and up. They never say anything. They just start shooting.” Another woman, Keisha Brown, 20, said, “It’s just stupid.”

The shooting occurred shortly after 11 p.m. in front of 12-70 Redfern Avenue. About 30 young men and women were doing a hip-hop dance known as the toe wop, a combination of fast footwork, knee bends and hand clapping.

“It was a hot day,” said Precious McClendon, a home health aide and a dance teacher. “Everybody was outside enjoying the weather.”

Another home health aide, Elisa Reyes, 24, was part of the group.

“Someone came from somewhere else, and they started shooting,” she said. “Everyone was dancing and having fun, and all of a sudden, shots were fired. Everybody started running. Then we realized she got hit, and everybody started screaming.”

Brandon, the fourth of six children, was known as a bright student who was preparing to enter high school in the fall. When a friend, Latina Bilbro, known as “Peanut,” was killed nearby two years ago, in front of 13-02 Redfern Avenue, Brandon’s family had had enough.

“Not far from where Brandon was killed,” Mr. Drakeford said. “It was random as well. I thought, ‘It’s time to get out of here.’ It’s hard for her and her brothers and sisters to go outside. We were worried about the gunplay out there.”

Little seems to have changed. On Sunday morning, a few hours later and a few blocks from where Brandon was killed, five men were shot in yet another argument-turned-gunfight, this one at Beach 21st Street. The police said two men had been arguing, and one left, returning with a gun and opening fire. When officers arrived, they found four wounded men; a fifth soon arrived at a nearby hospital. The men, ranging from 20 to 66, had gunshot wounds mostly to the legs and arms. All were in stable condition.

The police said that there did not seem to be any link between those shootings and Brandon’s death.

Later, officers pulled over a vehicle matching the description of the one that the gunman was said to have been driving, and, after finding a .357 Magnum revolver, arrested six people in it, the police said. Of those, five — all from Nassau County — were charged with possession of a weapon. Three of those arrested were teenage girls.

That Brandon died dancing, her favorite thing, was but the smallest of comforts to friends on Sunday afternoon. “She was the best dancer to me,” Ms. McClendon said. “You teach her one time. She caught on real quick.”

Ann Farmer and Daryl Khan contributed reporting.

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

A 22-year-old man was arrested Sunday and charged with killing a shopkeeper who was found dead in her dry cleaning store in Brooklyn last week, the police said.

The suspect, Jamal Winter, was arrested at his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, early yesterday morning. He was charged with murder and robbery, the police said.

The killing shook up the Windsor Terrace neighborhood where residents and neighbors described the victim, Kyung-Sook Woo, 52, as a mainstay, a determined but lovable fixture in the community, who despite being robbed at least twice remained committed to serving her customers.

An employee of Mrs. Woo’s at the Eden Dry Cleaners and Tailoring shop, at 1623 10th Avenue, arrived Friday morning and found her boss dead inside.

The police believe she was strangled the night before.

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

There has been nothing but silence coming from the embattled Staten Island congressman, Vito J. Fossella, regarding his plans to run for re-election this year. And that uncertainty has caused waves of concern not only among Republicans in New York City, but in Washington as well.

All signs indicate that Mr. Fossella, a Republican who was arrested in Virginia on May 1 on a drunken driving charge and then admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock, is leaning toward running for a sixth term in November. He has been telling friends and advisers that he thinks he can win. And though he canceled a fund-raiser scheduled for this past weekend, he has five or six events planned for the coming month, his spokeswoman said.

And on Saturday, he marched in the Memorial Day Parade in the Great Kills section of the island. He was greeted warmly while marching and while sitting on a platform with other politicians at the end of the route.

But for all his popularity on Staten Island, long a Republican stronghold, Mr. Fossella, 43, faces daunting obstacles. If convicted of drunken driving, he would have to serve a mandatory five-day jail sentence. His acknowledgment of an extramarital affair — he has three children with his wife, Mary Pat — has clearly upset many voters in his conservative-leaning district.

He also confronts what many political analysts and Republican strategists view as Democratic momentum going into the fall elections. Three times this year, Democrats have defeated Republicans in special Congressional elections, most recently last week in a staunchly Republican district in Mississippi.

This year, said Guy V. Molinari, the former borough president and dean of the Republican Party on the island, “is a bad Republican year, politically, and that doesn’t help matters.”

For all those reasons, the prospect of a scandal-tainted Mr. Fossella on the ballot in November has caused more than a little apprehension among Republican leaders in New York and Washington, though they decline to speak publicly about Mr. Fossella’s problems.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, has contacted Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Staten Island district attorney, to discuss the possibility of his running should Mr. Fossella resign or decide not to seek re-election.

William J. Smith, Mr. Donovan’s spokesman, said that there was little use speculating on what the district attorney might do, while Mr. Fossella remained silent on his plans.

Julie Shutley, a spokeswoman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, sought to put the best face on the situation. “The 13th Congressional District has continually sent Republican representation to Congress,” she said, adding that it was a district that believed in “lowering taxes and a strong national security.”

But when asked about the party’s prospects should Mr. Fossella decide to run, she declined to comment. And John S. Friscia, the chairman of the Republican Party on Staten Island, did not return repeated calls seeking comment on the party’s prospects.

Even Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has been a reliable source of campaign money and support for Mr. Fossella in the past, said he was uncertain whether he would support the congressman in a re-election campaign.

Many Republicans on Staten Island, however, seem to be sticking with Mr. Fossella for the time being. Mr. Molinari, who has feuded with Mr. Fossella on and off in the past, says he will support him if he runs again. The congressman, he said, “has made mistakes, and everybody now knows about those mistakes.”

“If he chooses to run, I think he can win,” Mr. Molinari said. “It would take an all-out effort and a substantial amount of money. But there are a lot of people pledging support for him.”

The congressman has declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the topic of his re-election plans and the events of the last few weeks.

But over the past few days, Mr. Fossella has re-emerged, if gingerly. On Friday evening, he surprised many politicians by stopping by the Conservative Party banquet on Staten Island. He apparently did not tell any of the party’s leaders that he would attend. He arrived after the formal program had ended and did not speak. (James P. Molinaro, the Staten Island borough president, is a longtime official of the state Conservative Party.) Then he went to the parade on Saturday.

Mr. Fossella, the only New York City Republican in Congress, represents a district that includes Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn. It is the most conservative-leaning district in the city. And he has portrayed himself during his years in politics as a Republican moderate who exemplified traditional family values.

As a result, many politicians on Staten Island initially expected that he would resign shortly after the revelations of an extramarital affair and a daughter born from that relationship — or at least not run again.

To be sure, Mr. Fossella has been popular in the 13th District since he won the special election that sent him to Congress in 1997. At the time, he was a 32-year-old city councilman and a darling of Staten Island politics; a Democrat-turned-Republican who was an ardent supporter of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

10:39 am EDT May 11, 2008 | in WNBC

Police said a woman stabbed her 43-year-old boyfriend to death at their home in Rockaway Park, and then tried to escape their apartment through the window.

Anthony Nicholas, stabbed in the torso, was taken to Peninsula Hospital in critical condition and was later pronounced dead, authorities said.

Officers said they discovered his girlfriend, Natasha Brown, 35, trying to climb out the window of their apartment.

Police said Brown stabbed Nicholas after a verbal dispute that escalated.

Brown is being held on a charge of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

No one answered the phone at the address provided by police.

Compiled by BEN SISARIO | May 10, 2008 | in NYTIMES

Less than a month after being released from prison, the rapper Foxy Brown pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn court on Thursday to using her BlackBerry phone to menace a woman, Reuters reported. Foxy Brown, 29, whose real name is Inga Marchand, avoided a felony assault charge, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, by pleading guilty to menacing, a misdemeanor.

She was accused of bruising an eye and chipping a tooth of her longtime neighbor, Arlene Raymond, when she struck the woman with the phone last July. On Thursday, Justice John P. Walsh of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn sentenced the rapper to time already served and ordered her to submit an apology. “I apologize for the incident that occurred on July 31, 2007, in that I attempted to scare Arlene Raymond and place her in harm’s way,” Foxy Brown said in a handwritten note.

By DAVID W. DUNLAP | May 11, 2008 | in NYTIMES

Seventy years after it was booted out of the World’s Fair and 60 years after it was last seen by the public, a gorgeously sculptural relief map of the New York City watershed has finally reached its intended destination: the New York City Building, now the Queens Museum of Art, in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Freshly restored by a conservation company in Ohio, the map arrived at the museum on Thursday as 25 panels in 25 packing crates. These were eagerly pried open by museum staff members in what became a game of “Find the City.” The first crate yielded the seashore around Sandy Hook, N.J. The second, landlocked Hunterdon County, N.J. It took an hour to locate the panel with four of the five boroughs.

As the crates lay open on the museum floor, some showing the astonishing topography of the Catskill Mountains and the enormous reservoirs nestled among them, the search underscored the magnitude of the watershed. The city is a tiny fraction of the 2,000-square-mile expanse from which its water comes.

“We really wanted people to see the whole watershed,” said Emily Lloyd, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which financed the $150,000 restoration.

It is to be on public view at the museum beginning June 22.

The environmental agency inherited the map from its organizational ancestor, the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, which planned to exhibit it in the New York City Building at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows. The map, contoured plaster on built-up plywood sections, was constructed for $100,000 by the Cartographic Survey of the federal Works Progress Administration.

Not only was the cost amazing (roughly $1.5 million in today’s dollars), so were the dimensions: 18 by 30 feet, or 540 square feet, larger than many apartments. And that was the problem faced by the planners of the fair, including Louis Skidmore, a founder of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In July 1938, they decided they could not possibly allocate enough space for the map in the city pavilion.

The archival trail seems to go cold for a decade. The map does not re-emerge until 1948, at the city’s Golden Anniversary Exposition in the Grand Central Palace, an exhibition hall that used to stand on Lexington Avenue, north of Grand Central Terminal.

Under the headline “Wonders of City Graphically Told,” The New York Times described a second-floor exhibit by the Board of Water Supply including a “great relief model of the system, reaching from the city to the watersheds in the Catskills.” Aqueduct routes and pumping stations were illuminated with tiny lights.

The map hibernated in storage in Brooklyn and Manhattan until its rediscovery in 2005, peeling, chipping and spalling, with damage from real water and dust so thick it rendered landmarks illegible. Shoes had crossed the terrain. Mountains had crumbled.

The environmental agency and the Queens Museum joined to save it. “The model was built for the World’s Fair site, so it seemed like a completely logical decision,” Tom Finkelpearl, the museum director, said at the time. “We feel it’s the only place for it.”

It was sent to McKay Lodge Inc., an art conservation company in Oberlin, Ohio, from which 25 of the 27 panels returned last week. Two others had come back earlier. Dee Pipik, a conservation technician for McKay Lodge who spent a year and a half working on the map in sections, said her only glimpse of it in its entirety had come from old photographs.

“I’d love to see it myself — as a whole,” she said by telephone.

Ms. Lloyd, the environmental commissioner, called the map a civic treasure. “We really felt that it was not only part of New York history,” she said, “but we also thought it was such an extraordinarily important teaching tool.”

Because the far-flung water system is substantially the same as it was in 1938 — by virtue of its monumentality and the immutability of gravity, the principle on which it all works — the map is quite up-to-date.

“That,” Ms. Lloyd said, “says something about the vision of the people who designed it.”