The city is closing six additional schools after a numerous cases of “influenza-like illness” among students. Four of the schools (in a total of two buildings) are in East Harlem while two schools (in one building) are in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. In the meantime, parents at schools which have yet to close are anxious. At PS 96 in Queens and at PS 180 in Brooklyn, parents protested . A PS 96 mom told the Daily News, ” These are 4- and 5-year-olds coming down with 102-degree fevers and infecting their siblings. There is no logical explanation why our school is not closed. ” And PS 180 is in the same building as a school …

Photograph by wally g. on flickr Despite a rash of injuries hobbling the team, the Mets have found a new ally in their march onto the top of the NL East standings: instant replay. The team have gotten a boost from the umpires going to the videotape in four of the last five games and are 5-for-5 overall in replay rulings this season. Last night’s disputed call provided the most intrigue after Daniel Murphy’s shot to right in the sixth first appeared to be a home run, but then landed on the warning track of the “Mo Zone” (right near the Pepsi Porch.) The trajectory of the ball and whether or not it hit a Subway sign in right was so confusing that Nationals manager Manny Acta was still complaining about it after the game, leading to an additional confirmation that the right call was made this…

With another school—this time, in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights —closing due to high student absentee rates, worries about the swine flu continue. The NY Times tries to delve into what “underlying conditions” —something that the four swine flu victims who died had in common—actually are. Conditions like “diabetes, asthma, heart disease, lung disease, a weakened immune system and, possibly, obesity… could aggravate the effects of swine flu.” The widow of Mitch Wiener, an assistant principal in Queens who was the first New Yorker to

The Putting Lot will be opening up in Bushwick the weekend of June 6th, bringing miniature golf to an otherwise vacant lot in Brooklyn. The team is still hard at work, and you can track their progress here . While the exact location is still under wraps, we recently got some answers out of one of the 30 organizers of the course, who told us more about how this whole thing came to be, and their overall vision of transforming the neighborhood’s vacant spaces. What do you do…

Photo by Jake Dobkin The Municipal Art Society attended a meeting today at which the negotiations between the National Guard, the owner of the property, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) discussed the future of the buildings at Admiral’s Row . The meeting was part of the federally-mandated Section 106 process that requires federal agencies to study the impact of their actions on important historic buildings. Sadly, it seems their minds were made up, the Brooklyn Paper reports that they will save two of the historic buildings in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and destroy the others, making way for a supermarket. This deal would not guarantee that the buildings (the Timber Shed and building B) would be preserved, rather, ownership …