• Indie actress, director, and screenwriter Adrienne Shelly, just seen with Matt Dillon in Factotum, was found hanged in a Village apartment. There’s no suicide note, and cops are checking up on unidentified sneaker prints in the apartment, but suicide is cited as the likeliest scenario. [NYP]
• A blaze broke out in a Bronx apartment in the wee hours of the morning, killing a 5-year-old girl and sending three other people to Jacobi Medical Center. The survivors can thank the girl’s 13-year-old brother, who woke everyone up. The cause of the fire is being investigated. [WNBC]
• Major karmic points are apparently not enough for Robert G. Seckers, the mate of a tugboat that aided the Staten Island ferry during the infamous 2003 crash. Seckers wants more tangible compensation for his good deed ($2 million to be exact) under an ancient unwritten law called “pure marine salvage.” “I don’t need to be a hero,” said Seckers in an interview. It appears you just took care of that part, sir. [NYT]
• Hitler Kid, post-collegiate edition: A 23-year-old Greenpoint city employee (probably a hipster who applied for the job ironically) penned an essay in the Haverford alumni mag calling the Polish “vermin” and the nabe “even uglier than the morons who work there.” The piece is clearly Borat-style satire (the author dreams of a Greenpoint of “lawyers and investment bankers”), but — shock — subtleties of dry sarcasm are not a Parks Department specialty. [NYDN]
• Three, two, one, stop. The city is testing out streetlight timers at intersections, visibly counting down fifteen seconds until the light turns red. Now, finally, the pedestrians will have something other than the road to look at! [amNY]
