Bay Ridge: An armed thief dropped his loaded weapon, but escaped with more than $2,200 when he robbed a Fifth Avenue bank on Dec. 30, police said. Comment.

Downtown: A man breaking into a Jeep on Clinton Street turned his violence on a Brooklyn Heights man walking home on Dec. 26, cops said, but still ended up empty-handed. Comment.

Park Slope: A new year means a new chance to see whether crime is up or down. Here’s how Park Slope’s 78th Precinct fared for the just-ended calendar year. Comment.

Bay Ridge: A new year means a new chance to see whether crime is up or down. Here’s how Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst precincts fared for the just-ended calendar year. Comment.

Downtown: A new year means a new chance to see whether crime is up or down. Here’s how precincts in and around Downtown fared for the just-ended calendar year. Comment.

Development: The builder that gave the ’burbs a shine with its trademark McMansion isn’t ready to get its tools dirty along Brooklyn’s Lavender Lake. Comment.

Downtown: Just in time for the dead of winter — street trees! Comment.

Red Hook: Queen Mary 2 is about to host a bunch of queens. Comment.

Downtown: Years after they turned a neighborhood park into a car park, Brooklyn’s Supreme Court judges have agreed to remove some of their vehicles from the greensward’s pedestrian pathway. Comment.

Downtown: It’s “finito” for Palmira’s — the latest eatery to close at the cursed corner of Clark and Hicks streets. Comment.

Politics: Just because you lost the race for your father’s Congressional seat doesn’t mean you don’t have really good political advice to impart. Comments (2).

Letters: I write to thank you for awarding me “Bladder of the Year” (“Here’s to the winners,” Year in review, Dec. 30). Indeed, my bladder deserves this award, as it boldly withstands a daily barrage of coffee that would destroy most other bladders. But even the boldest warriors must find relief at times, and my bladder does quite often, as it must in order to survive the hell that I put it through. Comment.

Red Hook: Transforming a cargo port on the Red Hook waterfront into a maritime tourist attraction will cost $326 million, according to an internal city document obtained by The Brooklyn Paper this week. Comment.

Dining: Following the wine bar trend, Tini opens in Red Hook. Their twist: a list of vino that is predominantly organic and biodynamic. Comment.

Checkin’ in with: The basic arc of a typical New Year’s Eve for the over-18 set is simple: imbibe thousands of fizzy, alcoholic calories, dance a little silly dance, notice a jiggling upper arm or lower abdomen, and resolve to go to the gym. But few of us make good on those resolutions. So this week, reporter Ariella Cohen (who, by the way, hasn’t been to her gym since the early days of 2006) checked in with Calvin Washington, a personal trainer at Crunch Fitness in Fort Greene about that perennial and typically short-lived post-Jan. 1 gym rush. Comment.

Smartmom: Aside from the drunken woman who threw up (and just missed Smartmom) on the A train, Smartmom spent an exceedingly pleasant New Year’s Eve drinking champagne and sparkling cider with Hepcat, the Oh So Feisty One and a gaggle of college friends in the West Village. Comment.

Park Slope: Some love them, some hate them, and some love to hate them — but however you feel, there are two new speed humps on 13th Street, and residents are crowing. Comment.

Fort Greene: It’s the ultimate fixer-upper. Comment.

A Flatbush couple triumphed in the hard-fought race to deliver the city’s first baby of 2007. Comment.

Shopping: Bo Concept, the sleek Denmark-based home furnishings retail chain, just opened an outpost in DUMBO. Comment.

Downtown: Federal prosecutors have bagged a trusted employee who stole $150,000 from a Downtown nursery school. Comment.

Bay Ridge: The execution of Saddam Hussein was big news from the Euphrates to YouTube. But along Bay Ridge’s heavily Arab-American Fifth Avenue, the death of the tyrant was greeted with silence. Comment.

Art: “Solo Flight,” an exhibition of Ed Rosko’s graphic depictions of boxers — on unconventional surfaces like corrugated building materials — is on display now in Prospect Heights’ Gallery on Dean. Comment.

Music: The “Brooklyn Jazz Underground Launch Festival” starts Jan. 11 … in Manhattan? Comment.

Editorial: The disgraced former Assemblyman — who once had to resign after being convicted of stealing state funds — hit a new low just before leaving office last month with a vendetta-filled move to block funding for an independent review of the massive Atlantic Yards project. Comment.

Brooklyn Angle: I went into my local pizzeria the other day and half of it was missing. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: In a final strike against Atlantic Yards opponents, outgoing Assemblyman Roger Green blocked a promised grant of $100,000 for an independent review of the project by a coalition of 40 civic groups, citing a racially charged comment made by a lone individual. Comment.

Bay Ridge: Be prepared to speed up your pace if you want to take advantage of a change made to speed up your morning commute. Comment.

Dining: Cobble Hill’s Bocca Lupo wine bar triggers memories of Venice — and a hangover Comment.

Our 38th president, Gerald Ford, lived in infamy in the minds of some New Yorkers, thanks not only to the famed Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” but his pardon of Watergate fiend Richard Nixon. Nevertheless, his death on Dec. 26 at age 93 unleashed more than a small amount of sympathy for the accidental president. Here are two ways in which Brooklyn mourned. Comment.

Resolutions. Everyone makes ’em, everyone breaks ’em. But we at The Brooklyn Paper feel that, as journalists, it’s our job to hold these people accountable. Comment.

Music: Chiara String Quartet wants to attract a more youthful crowd to their hip, cool chamber music concerts, so they’re taking their set list to a Williamsburg club. Comment.

Books: Eat Drink & Be Literary Festival returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Jan. 11 with Pete Hamill, Kurt Andersen and more literary lions. Comment.

Downtown: For years, many Brooklyn Heights residents have wondered about the unknown person who had been secretly hanging hand-painted wooden signs in Cadman Plaza Park to guide visitors to the famed, but impossible-to-find, Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian pathway. Comment.