Rosa Goldensohn

At the Flower Funeral Home in Yonkers, Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco was surrounded by dozens of friends, family members, and rainbow-colored bouquets of roses. Mourners paid their respects to the 27-year-old transgender woman as “Over the Rainbow” gave way to the thrum of house music.

Layleen Polanco’s medical condition should have kept her out of an isolation cell, according to two former jail medical staffers.
Polanco, 27, died in her solitary cell from a seizure related to epilepsy on June 7, according to the city medical examiner’s office. She was cleared by a doctor who reviewed her medical chart before she was placed in the Rose M. Singer’s solitary unit, according to records.
Her active seizure disorder should have been especially concerning because seizures are a r...

Just twelve days after Amazon announced this winter that it would pull out of plans for a Queens headquarters in the face of raucous opposition, the local authority that had helped forge the deal sought help from a familiar face, emails obtained by THE CITY show.

The number of older black New Yorkers dying of cocaine-involved overdose deaths has tripled in recent years, a trend city health officials are struggling to understand.

The Staten Island prosecutor asks for 6 months in jail when a man tries to steal a sandwich.

The 27-year-old transgender woman who died on Rikers Island Friday was in solitary confinement at the time of her death, sources told THE CITY.

Layleen Polanco, a figure in the city’s ballroom scene, was pronounced dead in a Rikers cell at 3:45 p.m. on Friday, about an hour after a jail officer noticed her there unconscious, according to the Department of Correction.

The cause of death has not yet been determined, a spokesperson for the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office said.

The restrictive ho...

Before escalating monthly payments and late fees outpaced her, Patricia London salvaged just one thing from her Queens storage unit: the family Bible, said to be from 1895, its spine snapped in two.

For three years, London had tried to keep everything: her grandmother’s furs and china, an old sewing machine, a record player, the dark wood table her granddaughter pulled at while learning to walk.

“All these antiques I knew I valued because this is part of them, this is part of my family,” she ...

Construction laborer Carlos Gabrielli died on the job, after cutting through a city sewer in a Staten Island road.
The 50-year-old father of three was working from a hole too small to give him enough room to maneuver a 14-inch rapid-cut saw, according to his family’s lawyer.
The saw kicked back and slashed Gabrielli’s unprotected throat on Aug. 10, 2018.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration deemed his death a construction-related fatality. All told, the agency counted 18 ...

Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
A least a dozen construction workers died on the job in New York City last year — but building owners and contractors reported only a single fatality, THE CITY has learned.
A 2017 city law requires building owners or contractors to report all deaths and injuries on their construction sites to the Department of Buildings.
But they’ve fallen far short – without facing any penalty, so far.
The one reported death was that of Over Paredes in November, which was file...

On the night of April 14, Kawaski Trawick, 32, got locked out of his apartment in a building run by a nonprofit in The Bronx.
He had food cooking on the stove, according to the Fire Department.
There were dueling 911 calls: a distraught Trawick reporting his fears of a fire – and the building superintendent and a security guard saying he was banging on doors, harassing neighbors.
The FDNY came and left after breaking open the door of his apartment at 1616 Grand Ave. in Morris Heights. The pol...

In early 2018, the company that runs the city’s ferry system scored a major investment from a deep-pocketed firm.
Onboard that deal was Mark Patricof, a member of the board of directors that governs the New York City Economic Development Corp. (EDC) — the quasi-public authority that oversees and helps fund the NYC Ferry system, with the help of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Private equity firm Crestview Partners acquired a substantial ownership stake in Hornblower in a leveraged b...

A single word tweak buried in the new state budget could mean a policing seachange throughout New York.

The boats for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature ferry program could soak taxpayers for up to $369 million — a cost that might have been avoided under another operator, which offered to use its own vessels, bidding documents show.

Little mistakes were amusing Sheldon Silver Friday.