But last month, as Carolina Palmgren prepared to give birth to her first child there, she learned from a midwife that the center at Bellevue, a city hospital, had been quietly closed. “The upsetting thing is that there was no notice,” said Ms. Palmgren, 31.

The closing has provoked complaints about a lack of public notice that it was being considered, as well as about the declining number of natural-birth options in the city.

Art D’Lugoff, who was widely regarded as the dean of New York nightclub impresarios and whose storied spot, the Village Gate, was for more than 30 years home to performers as celebrated, and diverse, as Duke Ellington, Allen Ginsberg and John Belushi, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 85 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

A Celebration, Washington Heights Style

As Champagne celebrations go, the best one after the Yankees won the World Series might have been the one on the sidewalk of 191st Street in Washington Heights.

Washington Heights is a huge enclave of baseball-crazy Dominican immigrants near the northern tip of Manhattan — and just about two miles from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. It is hard to imagine any New York neighborhood as passionate about baseball in general, and about the Yankees in particular.

Dozens of people had converged on the O.N.F. — the nickname residents on the block conferred for the “One-Nine-First” — to watch Game 6 on a small flat-screen television set up on a broken-down stand. With the Yankees holding a lead over the Phillies throughout the brisk evening, the numbers grew. Money was pooled together. A couple in the group, mostly teenage and 20-something men, left to buy toilet paper and Champagne.

For the first time ever, black, Latino, and Asian politicians will outnumber white politicians in the City Council. In last night’s election, minority candidates secured 28 seats while white candidates won 23, according to the Daily News. Currently in the Council, white politicians outnumber minorities 26 to 25.

In historic wins last night, Margaret Chin became the first-ever Asian-American to represent Manhattan’s Chinatown, while two Queens men became the first gay candidates to win a city office outside of Manhattan. Democrats Daniel Dromm in Jackson Heights and Jimmy Van Bramer in Sunnyside both won easily, effectively doubling the size of the council’s gay and lesbian caucus.

Starting Nov. 15,  Verizon plans to double its early termination fee (ETF) — to $350 — for customers who end their cellphone contracts early.  The fee, arriving just in time for the holidays, applies to customers who have a smart phone or other advanced device on a one or two year contract.

The penalty will decrease by $10 for each month of service completed. If a customer completes five months of service, the penalty would be reduced to $300, for example.

Meb Keflezighi, the winner of the New York City Marathon, at the Empire State Building on Monday. An American citizen, he immigrated at age 12 from Eritrea.

As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory?

He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.

But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner.

Meat producer Fairbank Farms says ground beef may be contaminated with a potentially lethal bacteria.

NEW YORK (CNN) — A voluntary recall was announced Monday for more than half a million pounds of ground beef because it may be contaminated with bacteria linked to at least two deaths, officials said.

Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York, said the recall was issued Saturday for approximately 545,699 pounds of ground beef produced between September 14 and September 16 after the meat was “possibly linked” to E. coli O157:H7.

“Any customers from northeastern or mid-Atlantic states who have identified recalled ground beef products should remove the product from their freezers and return it to their stores for full reimbursement,” the company said.

Retail outlets include: ACME, BJ’s, Ford Brothers, Giant Food Stores, Price Chopper, Shaw’s, and Trader Joe’s. The products affected are listed on the USDA Web site.