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The Daily News has an account of yesterday’s brazen, broad daylight home invasion robbery of a 19 yr old babysitter, and her 4yr old charge in their 5th avenue apartment on 78th street – all before noon.

19yr old Rosa Gonzalez was apparently babysitting her 4yr old cousin, Danny Cortizar, when two men knocked on the door of their apartment posing as construction workers there to fix a leak.

After gaining entry, the pair of men held them at gunpoint, demanded money, then bound the two victims with duct tape.

The victims were bound for about an hour, and the pair escaped with 600 in cash, and some jewelry.

This all comes less than a week after Senator Martin Golden and Deputy Inspector Eric Rodriguez of the 68th precinct held a forum on a recent spike in burglaries.

Bay Ridge’s 13th congressional district is now governed by a convicted felon: Congressman Vito Fossella was found guilty yesterday afternoon in an Alexandria, Virgina, courtroom of the May 1 drunk driving charge that lead to the unraveling of Fossella’s double-life with longtime mistress Laura Fey, with whom he fathered a love-child.
Alexendria Police testified Fossella’s blood alcohol level was .17, the congressman was unable to recite the alphabet, and threatened to urinate in a police station – according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Fossella insisted his alcohol intake was three glasses of wine, and he testified he played designated driver to an inebriated off-duty Secret Service agent – telling officers he was in a hurry because his love-child with mistress Laura Fay was ill.

Fossella, 43, was noticeably missing his wedding band at the defense table, according to the Daily News.

Under Alexandria law, Fossella faces 5 days in jail.

(photo courtesy: Daily News)

According to Gothamist newsmap there was an armed robbery on Colonial Rd. and 84th street, Wednesday afternoon, at approximately 2:30pm.
No further information is available on the victim; whether the suspect is at large; or if the latest robbery is in any way related to Tuesday night’s perp search.

Gothamist newsmap is reporting a perp search, last night, approximately 9:30pm, at 76th street and 3rd avenue.
No information seems to be available on the perp, or if a suspect is in custody.

In Paxen films’ latest short, the self proclaimed Mayor of Bay Ridge, Mike ‘Bay Rizz’ Rizzo, cruises 3rd avenue to deconstruct Bay Ridge nightlife and ’stop the violence.’

In the most uncomfortable 4 minutes of screen-time since ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry:’ Rizzo somehow loses two large African-American bouncer-type gentlemen he travels with at the Blue Zoo Lounge; discovers the Salty Dog is still a good place for degenerate meatheads to hook up with Bay Ridge dingbats who have less self-esteem than they do PlanB; and there’s a place called Cafe Remy where even a guy dressed like Dick Vernon can apparently get laid.

According to the Brooklyn Eagle, demolition has officially begun at the site of the much beloved (and sorely embattled) Bay Ridge United Methodist Church.
Otherwise known by the community-at-large as the ‘Green Church,’ after its beautiful and frail serpentine stone: the Eagle reports that the church’s iconic stone clock tower – which has become the most visible symbol of the structure’s frailty and decline – will be the first piece to be disassembled, in what’s likely to be a long and painful demolition process.

The demolition is, as the Eagle reports, expected. However, it is a major disappointment to preservationists who have fought a fierce knock-down drag out battle to preserve the church structure over the past year.

As for the congregation, the demolition of the church structure – which has been home to some 30 parishioners in recent years – is hopefully the final chapter in mourning what has been a particularity painful year for church-goers; one wrought with contempt, scorn, and even slander by a small contingent of local preservationists known as ‘The Committee to Save the Green Church.’

Once the church is demolished, plans by the property’s new owner, Abe Betesch, are said to include the construction of a smaller “Green” church – incorporating state of the art environmentally sustainable technologies – on the lot, alongside the controversial 70+ units of condominiums.

Three ‘alternative proposals’ to saving the church pushed by Councilman Vincent Gentile were resoundingly rejected by the congregation, who maintained their commitment to serving communities and people, rather than simply preserving stone.

Had the congregation obliged the whims of the preservationists, and ‘alternative proposals’ introduced by Councilman Gentile – which entailed halting their hard sale in deference to a non-existent angel investor/buyer, with ‘hope’ for federal grant money – it would have coincided with the very timely collapse of the global economy.

(photo courtesy: Georgine Benvenuto, Brooklyn Eagle)

The consensus among locals on hand for this weekend’s revival of the Bay Ridge Green Market, was that Saturday’s kickoff met or exceeded expectations; as made evident by market-goers who told us they lined up as early as 8am to sample the locally grown goods.

The Bay Ridge Green market, which now calls the parking lot of the soon-to-be Walgreen’s Pharmacy home, is considered by many to be a good first step in creating a backstop against the loss of an important local supermarket, and the overall lack of available quality affordable produce in the city.

Local officials have said they hope their agreement with Walgreen’s – who’ve allowed the market to stay in their parking lot thru March – will continue to allow the community to host the Market growers even after Walgreen’s opens their doors, hoping that Walgreen’s corporate will see the increased foot traffic as a bonus.

The project has been a collaborative effort between the Council on the Environment of New York City’s, and Bay Ridge’s own councilman Vincent Gentile.

(photo courtesy: Councilman Vincent Gentile on flickr)

Last month we reported on what we thought amounted t0 a lazy hit ‘n’ run job [no pun intended] on local State Senator Marty Golden, by New York’s Village Voice.

The Voice basically looked at Golden’s public finance records and decided they didn’t like how he was involved with the well-known local catering business, Bay Ridge Manor, so they tried to say that even though he doesn’t technically own the place (on paper anyway) he really does; and how he makes way too much money hosting lots of Republican events there.

Since then, exposing personal finance practices of public officials, as shady or – at least in Golden’s case – as unremarkable as they may be, has become something of a media fascination.

Over the past month we learned all sorts of scintillating things: like how Charlie Rangel doesn’t pay his taxes and lives in a rent-stabilized apartment, and Marty Markowitz is a loose-canon of a philanthropist who circumvents all sorts of laws and stuff.

Now today, blogger Gerritsenbeach.net reports that someone definitely has it in for Bay Ridge’s State Senator, Marty Golden, saying:

“at the most recent property owners meeting it was brought up to Marty Golden that his literature was appearing in the back of the church and that the pastor was not happy that he was doing that.

Marty specifically said that it was not his literature and explained that someone is printing the Village Voice article and placing them in the backs and inside church pamphlets. He also explained that this person is also placing the article in numerous places including private mailboxes, churches, inside newspapers, and anywhere it could go, even sending private letters.”

Gerritsenbeach.net then linked to a good piece in today’s Daily News that actually cites a study from the Empire Center for New York State Policy that tracks the spending of our local pols from upstate.

According to the Daily News, the Empire Center for NYS Policy found: “eight state senators, including four from the city, have spent more than $500,000 each in taxpayer money on office expenses in just the last six months…

Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the Senate, accounted for seven of the eight $500,000-plus offices, the center’s report said…

Brooklyn Democratic Sen. Carl Kruger, who often votes with Republicans, ranked eighth at $515,559…

Other New Yorkers on the list include Serphin Maltese of Queens County($587,001), Frank Padavan of Queens (538,918), and Martin Golden of Brooklyn ($526,175).

According to the Empire Center: the 32 Senate Republicans averaged $445,904 in office expenses from Oct. 1 last year through March 31 this year. The Senate’s 30 Senate Democrats averaged $274,316.

Basically, Republicans are less thrifty than Democrats – or so says this study.

However, out of those top 8 spenders the Empire study cited – Golden (R) only ranks sixth in the top 8, spending a little over 10k more than his colleague from across the aisle, Democratic Senator Karl Kruger.

For those of you who may have forgotten who Karl Kruger is – he’s the guy that shut down a Coney Island redevelopment meeting last year by busing in 400 ‘protestors’ with money out of his campaign fund.

Well, he’s a spend thrift too, apparently – who knew!

Anyway, like we were saying, someone apparently has it in for the local State Senator, and he wants you to know all that literature isn’t his.