Daily Archives: July 11, 2006

Post all wrong on Hasidic cop hire

A Hasidic scholar from Brooklyn wasn’t hired as part of the NYPD’s newest class of recruits as the New York Post claimed on its front page yesterday, authorities said.

Joel Witriol, 24, was four credits shy of meeting the NYPD’s requirement of 60 college credits, and was not part of the latest class of 1,560 recruits.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Witriol could reapply if he fulfills the education requirement. Kelly said the department had hired Orthodox Jewish recruits in the past.

Picture of the Night

At around 12:00am this man was observed staring attentively into the window of the Jewish Children’s Museum’s Gift Shop, at a painting of the Alter Rebbe with a pad and pen in hand sketching the painting.

The man told me that he felt that the Rabbi [the Alter Rebbe] has some special powers and was a special person, and therefore felt the need to sketch the painting.

Gas Explosion on the Upper East Side Levels Building

One second the building was there, shaken residents of 62nd street said yesterday, but in the next moment it was a cascade of fiery rubble pounding the street.

Authorities said they were investigating whether the four-story building’s collapse at 8:40 a.m. yesterday was the result of a suicide attempt by the owner and sole occupant of the building, Nicholas Bartha, 66, who is reportedly going through a lengthy and bitter divorce. The explosion at 64 E. 62nd St. between Park and Madison avenues was officially caused by an ignited gas leak, the fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, said.

It wasn’t a quick, loud explosion like a firework, but a deep boom followed by the sound of four stories of stone tumbling to the ground, observers said. Nearby building alarms set off, TV news became static, and phone lines went dead on this upscale block of Manhattan. The power of the blast shattered the windows in the building across the street.