Coney Island: Dick Zigun, the Mermaid Parade organizer who's protesting the city's new plans for Coney, has been doing a no-no by actually living in waterfront property the city funds for him to run his nonprofit out of. (Meanwhile, the Cyclone was going too fast on its first drop!) [NYP]
East Village: This blogger claims he caught an MTA worker here at the 14th and First stop systematically extracting the Health Department's stop-smoking inserts out of copies of AM New York so they wouldn't litter the station. And he's got the pics to prove it! [East Village Idiot]
Harlem: Sometimes-aggressive raccoons are taking over the prime streets around Central Park, and some folks are saying, well, you didn't see raccoons until the white people started moving in. Just sayin'… (Plus, there's a raccoon up a tree in Carroll Gardens!) [Uptown Flavor]

Midland Beach: Here in the wacky, weird parallel universe of Staten Island, a guy burned down his neighbor's home over a $375 car-repair dispute. The neighbor's cat, however, was spared. [SILive]
Midwood: Uck, can you believe this atrocious prefab-looking two-family just went for $2.5 mil, even if it does have nearly 5,000 square feet including a garage? Look at that thing! [Brownstoner]
Prospect Heights: The law firm that lost a 2005 Connecticut eminent-domain case in the U.S. Supreme Court has filed to get the Supremes to stop the Atlantic Yards project, saying that government officials approved it as a favor to developer Bruce Ratner. [NYS]
Upper East Side: Katie Holmes has been looking at $60,000-a-month furnished rentals up here for when she comes to New York to star in the Broadway revival of All My Sons. [Curbed]