Free Republic

A man yelling “I want to kill cops” tried to run down two Port Authority Police officers with his car near the entrance to the ­Holland Tunnel Wednesday night in the latest attack on officers. Matthew Christian Cash, who has an extensive criminal record, was barreling down a restricted fire lane near Varick and Watts streets when he barely missed cops patrolling the tunnel and smashed his silver Audi right into their ­police cruiser at about 8 p.m., authorities said.

EAST VILLAGE — A teenager pretending to gather signatures for a petition was arrested for swiping a passport and wallet from an East Village Starbucks customer — and then biting the victim in the face when confronted, police said. Jamel Chandler, 18, approached a man in the Astor Place Starbucks at about 7 p.m. on Nov. 29 and asked him to sign a petition, according to police and the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Chandler then placed a clipboard over the victim's wallet, which contained a passport, credit cards and cash, to distract the victim and grab the wallet, police said....

In 1891, Yusuf Sadallah arrived in Lower Manhattan from the town of Baskinta, in the part of the Ottoman Empire that is now Lebanon. Going by the name of Joseph Sadallah, he set up a trading shop on Washington Street, where other immigrants from the Levant — Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians — had created a vibrant Arab quarter known as Little Syria. Most residents were Christian, their loyalties divided only between St. George’s Syrian Catholic Church at 103 Washington Street and St. Joseph’s Maronite Church at 57 Washington Street, later at 157 Cedar Street.

"Police look for link between C4 explosives in Manhattan cemetery and bizarre note found nearby" SNIPPET: "Eight blocks of the plastic, military-grade explosive, formally known as Composition 4, were found in a black plastic garbage bag just inside Marble Cemetery, on E. Second St." SNIPPET: "The explosives were buried near the back wall of the old cemetery, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said "you could reasonably glean from that that it was put there to threaten any structure" on the other side. The back wall of the cemetery abuts some brownstones and is about 100 feet from the notorious E...

A Muslim chaplain for the city’s Department of Correction showed up for work on Wednesday as he routinely does — entering the city jail in Lower Manhattan to minister to some of the roughly 900 male inmates there. But when the chaplain, Imam Zulqarnain Abu-Shahid, flung his shoulder bag onto an X-ray machine at the entrance of the Manhattan Detention Complex, at 125 White Street, officers were alerted to the presence of metal. They found a pair of scissors and three metal blades, the kind used in box cutters, in the bag’s outer flap, the authorities said. Imam Abu-Shahid was...

Firefighters die in blaze by ground zero By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago NEW YORK - A seven-alarm fire ripped through an abandoned skyscraper next to ground zero in Lower Manhattan Saturday, killing two firefighters who were responding to the blaze. ADVERTISEMENT Officers at the scene were preventing nearby residents from returning to their homes, telling them that authorities were concerned the former Deutsche Bank office building, vacant since the 2001 terrorist attacks turned it into a toxic nightmare, could fall. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that fear turned out to be unfounded. The plume of gray smoke...

...In April, the IFC designated nine universities to provide initial programs, with the goal of "[making] the Center a... 'Public Square' on hallowed ground." "The character of a university," the IFC intoned, "allows for this form of 'sacred space'... in which sensitive, controversial and provocative subjects can be candidly explored, yet in a manner that does not generate political distraction."... [NYU] President... [extolled] today's campuses "as 'modern sanctuaries [committed to] free, unbridled and ideologically unconstrained discourse.'" Hello. Campuses today are indeed "sanctuaries"— but almost exclusively for scholars of liberal-left-radical persuasion. Their "unconstrained discourse" is overwhelming that of rank ideologues— neo-Marxists,...

EDUCED by the distinctive architecture planned around the World Trade Center site, it is easy to forget that one of the most important transformations of Lower Manhattan will be almost invisible, at least from the street.A series of passageways being planned, including underground concourses, would permit pedestrians to make a sheltered journey, uninterrupted by traffic, from Vesey Street and North End Avenue in Battery Park City to Broadway and John Street. By paying a subway fare, travelers bound for the No. 2 or 3 trains could extend the trip as far as William Street; almost four-fifths of a mile under...

Filed at 2:50 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- Sixty- to 70-story office buildings, stores, cultural centers and a memorial to the dead are included in six alternative proposals for the World Trade Center site that will be released on Tuesday. Officials familiar with the proposals said that all six would replace the 11 million square feet of office and retail space lost in the Sept. 11 attack with a cluster of buildings much shorter than the 110-story twin towers. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that each version includes a substantial memorial to the victims....