Free Republic

NEW YORK — Many New Yorkers may dream of buying a home, whether it's a Brooklyn Heights brownstone or an almost suburban house in eastern Queens. But a new report suggests housing is unaffordable for the typical worker in all five boroughs. In the report published Thursday, ATTOM Data Solutions crunched housing and wage numbers for 473 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties nationwide. It determined affordability by assuming a 28 percent maximum "front-end" debt-to-income ratio. That means a buyer purchasing an affordable home would not be spending more than 28 percent of their income on house payments including...

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" were the last words of 21-year-old American patriot Nathan Hale, who was hanged by the British without a trial on SEPTEMBER 22, 1776. A Yale graduate, 1773, Nathan Hale almost became a Christian minister, as his brother Enoch did, but instead became a teacher at Union Grammar School. When the Revolutionary War began in 1775, Nathan Hale joined a Connecticut militia and served in the siege of Boston. On July 4, 1775, Hale received a letter from his Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge, who became General Washington's...

In June of 1775, citizens acting as merchant mariners captured the British schooner HMS Margaretta around Machias, Massachusetts (present-day Maine). That same month, General George Washington, with the help of merchant ship owner Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts, chartered and outfitted several ships to interrupt the British supplies. The marker at the base of John Glover’s statue in Boston states: “John Glover of Marblehead – A Soldier of the Revolution. He commanded a regiment of one thousand men raised in that town known as the marine regiment, and enlisted to serve throughout the war. He joined the camp at...

A political event hosted by “Broad City” star Ilana Glazer at a historic Brooklyn synagogue was canceled Thursday when a vandal scrawled “Kill all Jews” inside. The NYPD said “anti-Semitic messages” were discovered on the stairwell of Union Temple in Brooklyn Heights around 8 p.m. Thursday. At about 8:30, Glazer came out of the venue to tell the crowds that the 8 p.m. event, in which she was scheduled to interview journalist Amy Goodman and New York state Senate candidates Andrew Gounardes and Jim Gaughran, was canceled because of the graffiti. “She didn’t feel comfortable ushering 200 people into the...

At a packed town hall meeting in Brooklyn Thursday evening to discuss options for saving a crumbling section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, city officials from the Department of Transportation came up against some not-unexpected pushback against a proposal that would involve closing the Brooklyn Heights promenade for six years. This was the first public meeting since the city unveiled two separate proposals for the project last week. The meeting opened with a presentation of both options—each projected to cost between $3 billion and $4 billion—while Polly Trottenberg, the city’s transportation commissioner, braced herself for the inevitable backlash. “I understand a...

Police stumbled upon a bomb-making factory Sunday in the home of a Columbia professor who specializes in the spread of infectious disease - and are investigating whether he and his roommate have terror ties. Cops evacuated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood around the Remsen St. home of Michael Clatts, a medical anthropologist, after finding seven pipe bombs fitted with fuses in his flat, police sources said. The frightening cache was discovered almost by accident - Ivaylo Ivanov, the man living with Clatts, accidentally shot off the tip of his left index finger and sought police help in the street about 1:15...