December 27, 2012 Weather: Few Showers, High of 39 Degrees.

Notices:
A free Lincoln Center concert and more events are on our calendar.

Try to wait until January 2 to throw out your Christmas Tree, because the Department of Sanitation will pick the trees up from the curb and bring them to parks to be turned into mulch.”DSNY asks residents to remove all tree stands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments from trees before placing them out for collection. DO NOT place trees in plastic bags. Trees will be chipped into mulch that will be distributed to parks, playing fields, and community gardens throughout the city.” Or you can bring the tree to the parks yourself (locations at the bottom of the page linked here), and even participate in Mulchfest on January 12 and 13, when the trees will be chopped into mulch. You can even bring home a bag of mulch!

News:
Upper West Side couple Bill and Donna DeSeta turned an SRO building they bought for $170,000 into a fancy six-story townhouse, doing much of the renovation by themselves. The story gives all the details, except for the address. There is a Bill DeSeta listed on 80th Street. The couple recently got an unsolicited offer to sell for $13 million. (NY Post)

New York had 414 homicides through last weekend, and the city is on track for the lowest number of homicides in 50 years. Overall crime is up about 3%, however, which the NYPD blames on an increase in thefts of Apple products. (Wall Street Journal)

In semi-related news, suicides could outpace homicides this year. In an average year, about 475 people kill themselves in the city. (Gothamist)