In September, chef Mark Dabundo, a long-time Bay Ridge resident, opened Samba, a Nuevo Latino restaurant, on Third Avenue. While Nuevo Latino cuisine - a blend of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian and Latin American cooking - started in the 1990s and spread to several New York neighborhoods, restaurants serving this vibrant fare in Bay Ridge are as exotic as fondue places were to Greenwich Village in the early ’60s. Comment.

Williamsburg writer-director Joshua Marston is opening a lot of eyes these days to the softer side of drug smuggling. Comment.

The cultural life of Brooklyn has never been brighter. This summer, a new event has joined the traditional festivals - Outside Art, a four-week, outdoor, performing arts series featuring modern and Shakespearean theater and dance performances by emerging New York City-based artists, held at BAM Park in Fort Greene. Comment.

While fiery furnaces, menacing torture devices and the prospect of eternal damnation may not seem as appealing as, say, heaven, to most of us, for one troupe of Williamsburg artists and performers, hell is not such a dreadful place. Comment.

As bright red and yellow balloons hovered outside at the grand opening of Frats Ices in Park Slope on July 9, so too did Brooklynites, young and old, trying to get a peek at the goods. Comment.

"He’s just resting. Waiting for a new life to come." Comment.

Wherever they open a new store, the folks behind Chipotle Mexican Grill do something special. Comment.

A special musician will take the stage at Bargemusic this weekend. Comment.

Most of us today would be lost without our cell phones, laptops and Palm Pilots. But back in 1923, when playwright Elmer Rice wrote "The Adding Machine," the machine age was still in its infancy. Nevertheless, Rice seems to have had an excellent idea of what lay in store for humankind. Comment.

The rezoning application that would allow the construction of a 346,000-square-foot Ikea megastore on the Red Hook waterfront will get a public hearing before the City Planning Commission this Wednesday, July 28, at 10 am, at the commission’s offices at 22 Reade St. in Lower Manhattan. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement last week that the city will expand the Brooklyn Navy Yard industrial park by 500,000 square feet came as good news to local manufacturers. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: The lighting was unflattering and the margaritas overly sweet, but nobody seemed to notice at the star-studded opening in Downtown Brooklyn of one of the nation’s largest Target department stores. Comment.

Just a month after the city passed a massive rezoning plan for Downtown Brooklyn that is expected to bring soaring skyscrapers and thousands of new workers to the area, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has pulled back funding for much-need subway renovations in the area, a downtown business leader charged this week. Comment.

Play’s the Thing: A Brooklyn baseball fan will say he’s going out to Keyspan Park to “see” the Cyclones game. But, with so many sounds associated with the game, a fan could just as well say that he’s going to “hear” it. Comment.

Cyclones: “Da-Duh-Dum, Da-Duh-Dum,” sings Cyclones manager Tony Tijerina, as he intones the ESPN SportsCenter theme in recognition of a snappy double play turned by two women on the infield at Keyspan Park. Comment.