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UPPER EAST SIDE — A woman claiming to be a psychic stole nearly $10,000 in jewelry from an Upper East Sider as part of a scam to "cleanse" the valuables of evil spirits, police said. The victim contacted the suspect July 28 and asked her to come to her East 83rd Street apartment . When the so-called psychic arrived around 1:40 p.m., she told the victim to give her jewelry so that she could cleanse the items of evil spirits, promising to return the goods a week later, police said. The psychic never returned with the jewelry, which totaled $9,950 and included a $5, 000 gold necklace , a $3,000 pair of white gold earrings , five bangles worth $200, a Gucci sterling silver watch worth $500, an $800 amethyst ring, one sterling silver crystal hoop earring worth $175, and various earrings totaling $275, according to the NYPD. Police are still investigating the theft, they said. The scam has claimed other victims, including a Columbia student who was swindled out of $2,500 earlier ...

Hello again, friends! I’ve tried to sit down and write this post quite a few times, but my mom brain is getting the better of me, as is my attention span. Hello, FRIENDS bloopers. But I will power through and give this a whirl. Here’s what happened this week: I love making goals for myself and trying to accomplish them. Earlier in the week, I had a few conference calls that put a few things into motion that would allow me to take small steps towards greater, much larger goals for myself. I’m so excited about all that stuff! Of course its a little daunting because its a TON of work to put in and make the effort, but I’m excited nonetheless. Also, my nanny gets an A++ this week for just showing up and being here. My kids are getting the hang of her and she is getting used to them and their personalities. It’s grand! And I really love that I get uninterrupted time to myself but still plenty of time with the kids. I’ve been with them 24/7, nonstop since school ended in Idaho at the beginn...

Author John Freeman Gill takes Fodor’s on an urban safari. If you make the effort to gaze skyward in New York, you will discover (hiding in plain sight) a city teeming with remarkable architectural sculptures : gryphons and sea monsters, cherubs and pelicans, goddesses and kings. These exuberantly expressive artworks were the creation of gifted immigrant stone carvers who poured into New York in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , most of them from the British Isles, Germany, and Italy. The ornament on the grandest edifices was typically specified by architects, but on the vast majority of city buildings , the design of the carvings was left up to the individual stoneworker. The carvers took this freedom and ran with it, incising their imaginations into New York’s skyline and transforming its streetscape into a marvelously quirky public art gallery . 555 Washington Avenue John Freeman Gill Ever since my novel, The Gargoyle Hunters , was published, I’ve been besieged by readers a...

The Safdie Brothers Are Classic New York Hustlers And their movies might make them legends. Before deciding he wanted to make a Safdie Brothers movie , the erstwhile heartthrob Robert Pattinson hadn ’t actually seen a Safdie Brothers movie . It was one still image — of the lead actress from their 2014 addiction drama Heaven Knows What — that led him to pick up the phone. “He said, ‘I wanna be on a movie set that had the energy that I imagine this had,’” Benny, 31, says. “Little did he know, there was no movie set,” Josh, 33, laughs. Adapted from the street life of its star, Arielle Holmes, Heaven Knows What is a breathless, booming piece of work — somehow both a plotless character study built on mumbly dialogue and stolen shots, and a punch to the face. “We were just this weird little crew making this movie in a very serious fashion.” For over a decade, that’s been the mission statement. The Safdies split a schizophrenic childhood on either side of the East River, with a dutifu...