It’s Hard To Forget When In Some Ways It’s Still Happening

The problem with rushing to build so many unsatisfyingly small (in their scope and artistic vision) 9/11 memorials is that brave people worthy of our memory are still dying from the attacks:

An autopsy of a retired NYPD detective confirmed yesterday what his family and fellow cops long suspected — that James Zadroga’s death was “directly related” to the Ground Zero cleanup.
The stunning findings are believed to mark the first time the death of a cleanup worker has been officially tied to the aftermath of the terror attacks.

“It is felt with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that the cause of death in this case was directly related to the 9/11 incident,” Dr. Gerard Breton, a pathologist at the Ocean County, N.J., medical examiner’s office wrote in the Feb. 28 autopsy report.

Zadroga died on Jan. 5 of pulmonary disease and respiratory failure — and he had lung-tissue inflammation Breton attributed to “a history of exposure to toxic fumes and dust.”

When The Building’s Away The Rats Will Play

A Carroll Gardens street now knows that rats need buildings in which to live:

A Carroll Gardens block has been taken over by rats, and the city Health Department has done little to combat the menacing pests, residents say.

Since a demolition project began on a Luquer St. lot last fall, rats have made the street their home, scurrying around in broad daylight, diving into garbage cans and nesting in car engines.

“They sit there and look at you; they are not afraid,” said Lisa Demaio, 29.

To get inside her building, the mother of two young girls said she’s forced to throw bottles “to scatter the rats.”

Yesterday, a rodent lay dead next to three overturned traps in front of the lot.

. . .

Residents believe the rats were stirred up by the demolition work at 100 Luquer St., where an 11-story condominium tower is set to rise.

An owner of the lot agreed — but said there is little he can do.

“Rats are not something we can control,” said Moses Gross, a partner on the construction project.

Gross said his office has hired an exterminator, who is set to begin work next week after receiving repeated calls from neighbors.

“I don’t think it will help,” he said. “Every time you do a demolition, they come out.”

He Could Have Paid For Any Piece Of Tuchus On The Planet

Referring to the underage girl your client is accused of raping as a “skank” is a novel approach:

“My client made $500,000 a year,” the defense lawyer, Howard Greenberg, said after a Manhattan Supreme Court appearance for James Colliton, who is being held without bail. Colliton was a tax attorney for Cravath, Swaine and Moore, a top Midtown law firm.

“He had the wherewithal to pay for any piece of tuchus on the planet,” Greenberg continued. “And he paid that skank?”

Backstory: It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp Mom; There’s Always Something A Little Off With Tax Attorneys.

If This Turns Out To Be Like Colin Powell’s Mobile Anthrax Lab Claim, I’ll Be Very Disappointed

Part Two of the Queens Courier’s series on sex slaves is out, this time suggesting the existence of “mobile brothels”:

According to lawmakers, social workers, teachers and counselors, gangs are running their lucrative pay-for-sex operations using children who are recruited from middle and high schools or smuggled into the country from around the world to serve in their brothels and as hookers on the streets of the borough.

The flesh-peddling gangs, including the vicious Mara Salvatrucha or MS13; the Latin Kings; the Russian mob; various Asian gangs, and Mexican gangs — including “Los Padrotes de Tenancingo,” — are using imaginative ways to hide their illegal sex-for-sale operations.

“The gangs are renting trucks and are using them as mobile brothels. The neighbors complain the gangs are taking these trucks near construction sites, where the girls are turning tricks inside them and the male gang members keep tabs on them and collect the money,” said Councilman Hiram Monserrate.

Readers of Gawker may be pleased to know that the photo illustration attached to this story is as good as the last one.

Towards A Theory Of Broken-Windows Drinking: The Importance Of Staying Away From Bars That Substitute Svedka For Ketel One, Smirnoff For Grey Goose

Not only do they employ felons and have a history of gruesome sex-related murders at their other establishments but the owners of the bar where John Jay student Imette St. Guillen was last seen alive also play terrible music and engage in unscrupulous bartending practices:

Michael Dorrian huddled at the end of the long wooden bar with a group of male friends who were joking with him and slapping him on the back, as if keeping their chins up could dispel the ignominy of this crime and the mounting demands to shutter the bar.

“I can’t say anything about anything,” Michael responded with an exasperated shrug, his face flushed, when asked about the public crucifixion of his family’s bar dynasty.

State Liquor Authority records, though, have plenty to say. The files for the Falls and other bars and restaurants owned by members of the Dorrian family reveal that since 1996, the SLA has fined the family’s enterprises a total of $29,500, for 19 offenses.

Nine of the incidents took place at Dorrian’s Red Hand, the Upper East Side drinking mill made famous by the so-called “preppy murder” in Central Park. As many have noted, that 1986 killing bears an eerie similarity to the police’s primary theory about St. Guillen’s; it involves yet another beautiful young woman — Jennifer Levin — who was strangled by a man she’d met at a Dorrian-owned bar.

Family patriarch Jack Dorrian courted controversy when he put his family’s East Side townhouse up as collateral on $150,000 bail for Robert Chambers. Chambers was 19 at the time he killed Levin, but was nonetheless considered a regular at the bar.

. . .

SLA records indicate a continued slew of offenses, some standard for a bar, others more likely to halt a raised glass. The Red Hand has been popped numerous times for noise and disorderly premises — no big surprise for a saloon — but in 1998 was also cited for a violation known as “improper brand label.” An SLA spokesperson explained that the bar had substituted one brand for another.

. . .

Rebar and Suite 16, two former Chelsea nightclubs that Michael and brother John Dorrian operated at 127 Eighth Avenue under the corporate name Mac Daddy Inc., were together cited 10 times for violations that included “refilling/contaminated bottles” and selling to a minor. Rebar was cited for four assaults or altercations there between January 1998 and November 1999.

. . .

“It’s like they see themselves as above the law,” says Soho resident Sean Brady, who lives behind the Falls. Brady says he spent months complaining about the Falls’ loud and “egregiously bad” music, which he hears all night long because his loft shares a side wall with the bar.