By Hunter Walker 3:13pm

Crime

Police officer and FBI agents in front of the basement at 127B Prince Street. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

FBI and NYPD Dig Up SoHo Searching For Remains In 32-Year-Old Case of Missing Child

FBI and NYPD investigators shut a two-block stretch of Prince Street in SoHo today to dig for remains in the case of a young boy who went missing nearly 33 years ago. Etan Patz, 6, disappeared on May 25, 1979 after leaving his home for a two-block walk to his school bus stop. Despite worldwide attention, the case has never been solved. NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne told The Observer that police and FBI investigators are “executing a search warrant this morning for human remains, clothing or other personal effects that may help us lead to the location of Etan Patz” in the basement of 127B Prince Street. Etan went missing about a half block away from the basement.

“It’s about a 15-by-30 basement space,” Mr. Browne said. “It’s currently unoccupied, we’ll be taking down the drywall and excavating the basement.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 3/13/12 11:03am

Road Rage

Screen Shot 2012-03-13 at 11.20.12 AM

After Seven Years, Still Nobody Cares If Casey Neistat’s Bike Gets Stolen

Casey Neistat became a hero to millions of people when he created a video last June about the dangers of using the bike lanes in New York City, or at least that’s the impression given by his YouTube hit counter. This was not the first video Mr. Neistat had ever made about bikes, though it was by far his biggest hit. Way back in 2005, he made a little film called “Bicycle Thief,” not a nod to De Sica but a call to arms for New Yorkers to look out for each other. (Jodi Applegate was not a fan.) So have things changed over the past seven years, as bike ridership in the city has tripled?

Of course not. Read More

By Rex Reed 12/14/11 9:39am

movies

Mara and Craig.

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is Quite the Swedish Dish

In the blood-soaked hands of the hair-raising, always surprising director David Fincher, the creepy remake of Sweden’s grisly thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is dreary and confusing but technically superb—a darkly photographed and superbly acted film. It is not my cup of bitter tea laced with arsenic, but I admire its tenacity in keeping the viewer dazzled, while the toxic effect of its violence, sometimes unwatchable, left me charged. I hated the 2009 Swedish film version, my dashed attempt to read the book (the first volume in the crime trilogy by the late, overrated Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson) put me to sleep faster than a double-dose of Dalmane, and I still don’t understand why it has been recycled in an estimated $100 million remake as unnecessary as it is unoriginal. It is also impossibly long-winded. When it ended, after just under a whopping three hours, I ended up impressed, in spite of my reservations. If I had found it even half as incomprehensible as it is, I might have liked it twice as much.

Oh, my god, that plot. Read More

By Aaron Gell 12/13/11 7:29pm

Crime

Peter Braunstein

Peter Braunstein, WWD Writer Turned Tabloid Monster, Still Has Issues

Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from Aaron Gell’s Kindle Single, Speak of the Devil, available at Amazon.com for Kindle and iPad, and at barnesandnoble.com for Nook.

One day in October 2010, Peter Braunstein’s monthly subscription copy of W magazine arrived right on time. It was one of the first under the direction of a new editor, Stefano Tonchi, and the cover featured Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in an artfully staged embrace: a red-lipsticked Ms. Williams, staring out at the viewer as if surprised by the camera; Mr. Gosling cradling her head with the tenderness of a ballet dancer.

Mr. Braunstein—or Peter, as I know him from our time working together at Fairchild Publications, when he was a media columnist for Women’s Wear Daily and I was an editor at W a decade ago—is serving 41-years-to-life for a horrible crime: On Halloween night, 2005, he dressed as a fireman and attacked a woman he barely knew, a mutual coworker, knocking her out with chloroform, stripping off her clothes, tying her up with parachue cord, fondling her, and then hanging around her apartment for 13 harrowing hours while fantasizing that they were a couple.

Peter is permitted to receive magazines in prison, and he subscribes to several, including New York, Playboy, and the indie fashion magazine Nylon, which is particularly popular among his fellow inmates. “All the pervs love it,” he said. “It’s like giving them SweeTarts.”

But Peter pores over W with particular interest, because of his history with the place. Read More

By Rex Reed 12/07/11 1:41pm

theater

Osnes and Jordan.

Bonnie and Clyde Isn’t Theatergoers’ Big Payday, but It’s Definitely a Steal No Less

Hang on to your lids, kids. I actually liked the new Broadway musical version of Bonnie and Clyde. Didn’t love it, mind you. But the show, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, is polished, touching and tuneful, a worthy showcase for a few professional performers in leading roles who are vastly entertaining and amount to nothing short of major discoveries. In a dreary Broadway season of nothing but deadly letdowns, including an unspeakable sonic blast from the pitch-impaired and tonally challenged Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin as well as the dreariest second-rate production of Follies in 40 years, at least there’s something to enjoy in addition to Hugh Jackman. Read More

By Daniel Edward Rosen 11/30/11 10:24am

art crime

427 Washington Street.

The Scoundrel of Washington Street: Is Mihaly Kovacsezics the Mayor of Tribeca or a Sticky Fingered Art Thief?

If you ask the well-heeled residents of the western-most parts of Tribeca what they think of Mihaly Kovacsezics, the kindly Hungarian immigrant who painted their walls, installed their televisions or, in some cases, managed their lives, they’ll tell you he was the most adorable and bighearted man in Manhattan.

And at 427 Washington Street, where, from 2007 to 2010, he worked as the handyman for artist and building owner Shirley West, Mr. Kovacsezics—better known as Mike—was everything to everyone in the co-op building: a dog-walker, a personal shopper, a bag-carrier.

At Ponte’s, an Italian restaurant where Mr. Kovacsezics worked as a contractor for 10 years, he was the good-natured handyman who performed odd jobs and enjoyed the occasional espresso at the restaurant’s bar.

“Everyone loved him here,” said Ileana Romero, a Ponte’s bartender. “He was sweet and he was very kind.”

To Shirley West’s niece, Mr. Kovacsezics was like a member of the family. “He was like the Mayor of Tribeca,” said Roxane West. “I loved him.” Read More

By Foster Kamer 11/20/11 7:55pm

Terrorism

Via Alex Silverman's Twitter.

Charges Announced In NYC Would-Be Terror Bombing Plot Against Jose Pimentel, 27

Earlier this evening, a press conference was scheduled by the Office of the Mayor to announce the arrest of a man yesterday afternoon, an “Al Qaeda sympathizer” of Washington Heights, is facing terrorism-related charges. Jose Pimentel, the 27 year-old man currently under arrest, was building a bomb to detonate in NYPD police cars. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Mr. Pimentel claimed that he wanted to “bring Jihad” to New York City. Read More