59 Arrested After Drug Investigation in QueensBy TRYMAINE LEE, NY Times
The police arrested 59 people on Wednesday in a massive drug sweep of the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, Queens, the police said.
Officers recovered a cache of weaponry and related items, including a .38-caliber and a .45-caliber handgun, a Tech-9 machine gun and a bulletproof vest; about 138 small plastic bags of crack cocaine; 400 loose pieces of crack; 350 vials of heroin; and 100 bags of marijuana, the police said.
Officials said the sweep ended a seven-month investigation into violence and drug operations at Queensbridge, a 26-building complex that is the largest public housing project in the city. It has 3,142 apartments, according to the New York City Housing Authority.
The people arrested on Wednesday were charged with various drug and weapons charges, the police said.
The total surpassed the number of people arrested during a similar sweep in February 2005. That roundup, after an 11-month sting operation, led to 37 arrests.
Queensbridge, which is bordered by the Queensboro Bridge, 21st Street, 40th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard, was the largest public housing complex in the United States when it opened on Oct. 25, 1939.
At the time, public officials thought it was the answer to the city’s severe housing shortage.
The buildings’ designer said Queensbridge’s seemingly endless rows of red-brick six-story buildings were built in a Y shape to ensure the economical use of the 47 acres on which the 26 buildings sit.
Photo from Wired New York
40 comments:
They should have knocked down these buiding or sold them to private developers (water front) for big bucks and disperse the residents into no-density public housing.
Did you know Roosevelt Island has same type residents overlooking the waterfront while upstairs folks are paying 4k monthly for a higher floor? You the taxpayer is funding this - do you live at the waterfront or even have a view of the water?
The drug problem has existed for many years at Queensbridge and has spilled out into the surrounding area (along with prostitution).
Nobody seemed to want to do anything major about it UNTIL NOW that the area is becoming gentrified...
filling up with new hotels and condos.
H-m-m-m....some more proof that if a nabe is red lined...crappy services are delivered to it.
Some are even cut in order to dole out more to the already privileged nabes that are constantly complaining for a hog's share of more city services.
Sales agents can't very well sell much real estate in a battle zone.
So things get cleaned up pronto
for the buyers, the renters
and the tourists!
Bloomberg knows which nabes are the "haves" and "have-nots".
City Planning keeps him well informed.
So the best services are delivered to the "haves" while the "have-nots" are left to fend for themselves (unless
their nabe is about to be "developed" for the gentry)!
Yeah, thanks to the help of CB#1...
the community board from hell!
#1 sounds to me like a racist condo salesman.
Wattsa matta...
not making your sales quota for the month?
Tsk, tsk, tsk....
those pesky drug dealing people of color are always spoiling the plans of some wealthy "developer"!
Rich lawyers used to snort
(and hoard) pure cocaine, while the poorer classes were left to do
its discount derivative...crack!
I'll bet Rockrose
would like to build on that spot!
Blame CB#1....
THE COMMUNITY BOARD FROM HELL!
Good morning Mr. Delis.
Love all the cynical comments about how this drug bust is only to benefit developers.
If the NYPD did NOTHING, you'd complain about the rampant drugs and violence in the city.
Some people only know how to complain, no matter what happens.
That's because the NYPD "did nothing" about this problem for decades.
It sounds like some local realtor's association has paid some geek the daily rate of peanuts to scope and counter-post on Queens Crap for them.
They're shakin' in their shoes
lately holding a lot of unsold condo units in this uncertain economy.
Converting many of these to
rentals hasn't helped much either!
Now watch...that geek's gonna come back at me within 10 minutes.
That bust certainly wasn't to benefit the residents of Queensbridge...
otherwise the NYPD would have been on it like, white on rice, decades ago!
Stop talking through your ass fella!
Two or three blocks from Suna's Silvercup waterfront landgrab.
He is telling everyone about the 'public access'
Sure, the bros from Queensbridge sauntering right past the Tower People.
This is great news for all those hotels in Dutch Kills and those big towers being built on Jackson.
Not at all cynical...'ol buddy...
just tellin' it like it is...
and how it was for years !
Sometimes the truth hurts...
especially when it hits a lying
real estate crook square in the face!
Yeah...
the truth doesn't get stifled here.
This ain't like that Ackerman/Nussbaum/Queens Tribune rag
or one of its weak-lie sisters!
Listen up good
you LIC real estate agents.
Your prospective buyers/renters
are scoping this blog for the
real skinny on the locale.
They're not as dumb
as you might think they are.
You'd better hire (ha, ha)
"Parkside" (or whoever) to do your sales pitch/posts for you.
You ain't doing so good
with your home grown PR "talent"!
The NYPD has done nothing about this for decades? Oh please, do you know how many collars the 114, the Housing Police, the Narcotics unit and other units have pulled out of Queensbridge in the past?? They have been in there endleslly collaring the residents, just ask the residents themselves. The problem is the liberal courts, who release the perpetrators before the arresting officer is even done with their paperwork!
However, I do agree that this raid is just a drop in the bucket.
"Change"
This is great news for all those hotels in Dutch Kills and those big towers being built on Jackson.
-----------
Do you think that it will be on those western queens blogs?
te-he-he
Only if the arresting officers had a mobile taco truck do the catering.
I heard on "Delusional Astorians.com" that the arresting officers debated celebrating at either the awesome new Thai place on Ditmars, the marvy new morrocan spot on Steinway or the hot new roti boti joint on Broadway.
They have no problem demolishing beautiful one family homes, but they would never dare tearing down the original Queens crap, Astoria, Ravenswood, Queensbridge and Woodside Houses.
I heard on "Delusional Astorians.com" that the arresting officers debated celebrating at either the awesome new Thai place on Ditmars, the marvy new morrocan spot on Steinway or the hot new roti boti joint on Broadway.
--------
ha ha ha
there seems to be more ex-astorians.com lurking here than at the 'other' site.
Shootings, drugs, gangs, muggings, murders, rapes, illegal pets...What is going on at the city-run housing projects?? What the hell are NYCHA police doing???!!! Bloomberg-- it's high time you clean out and clean up these taxpayer-supported dumps!!!! NOW!!!
I know they were doing raids at least as far back as 2006 - I was on Grand Jury, and we heard a bunch of cases out of Queensbridge
2006 was the height of the condo craze. Back when they were telling us that it wasn't nuts to build north of Queens Blvd.
*They should have knocked down these buiding or sold them to private developers (water front) for big bucks and disperse the residents into no-density public housing.
Yes. Some developers stooge or just plain yuppie enough to think there making sense.
Once upon a time it was very difficult to get into these projects and snagging an apartment was a point of pride.
It is sad that the 100-year old tenements look good in comparison.
Never forget that there are many good people forced to live with these thugs.
I see people with sound-trucks hectoring the tenants night and day, and I wonder when the man or woman with two jobs will be allowed to sleep
These buildings are federally protected low-income housing. There is nothing that Helen Marshall or Mayor Scumberg can do about them to hand them over to the Pistilli & Rockrose thugs. They are here to stay, just like all the other low-income housing of this nature in Queens. Get used to it realtors. Your wet dreams are dry dreams.
For everyone's information, there are many families now living in these buildings that once had decent well-paying middle class jobs and lived in middle class housing throughout the city and are now forced to live there since they have lost their jobs, their homes, their health and their livelihoods due to the CORRUPT politics of Mayor Scumberg and his band of merry lap dancers on New Yorkers.
Before we pass judgement on anyone, including the hard working police officers that are keeping sanity in these areas, point a finger at the cause of it. Open your eyes to what's going on here in the city - the cause is corrupt politics in bed with corrupt overdevelopers and the real estate lobbyists. They are all the cause of this. Tax abatements for the wealthy have caused over-taxations for the working classes.
Did you like your property tax increases this year as your property values have gone down?
Do you enjoy paying the highest gas & electric bills in THE ENTIRE NATION to Con Ed as they tell everyone, 'they can do this"?
Silvercup has kissed their condo development goodbye across the street not because of the federal housing projects, but because of the power plant's vibration to their sound stages and the lie that the NY Power Authority told the community that it was only a "temporary measure". It has nothing to do with 'thugs' or hot sheet hotels like the one across the street. That hotel was always a hooker joint as far back as the 70's and the landlord pulled a fast one on the community in stating it's for all of the businesses moving into the area.
What businesses?
The substations built there are there for good to power the trust fund kids that now live at Queens West so they can have their "luxury views" of the waterfront that apparently us little people do not have as per the real estate 'tycoons' posting on this blog now.
Silvercup has kissed their condo development goodbye across the street not because of the federal housing projects, but because of the power plant's vibration to their sound stages and the lie that the NY Power Authority told the community that it was only a "temporary measure". --------
SILVERCUP HAS EVERY INTENTION OF GOING THROUGH WITH THAT LANDGRAB.
SORRY.
No one knows whats its really like until they live there; it's like a trap. The NYPD(114th) arresets people who sold to one of their own,dressed up as a drug user; knowing that the next generation will come out and finish up where everyone else left off. This is a routine that that may never end.
The high class white folks are part of the problem to becuase they come to projects to buy their drugs,and everyone that either lives or are from the projects are not bad.Also not everyone can afford to pay 4k rent it's a waste go pay a morgage own it.And the drugs will still be sold,if not what jobs will the police have to do.....
a lot of people on here seem to blame the drugs on only the people in the projects when it is actually a lot deeper than that its not just them they are not the ones transporting it in yes its being sold and it do need to be cleaned up and made safe for low income families
but we also need to remember the drugs come from one place to another and these drugs go through many hands before they hit the projects the police the F.B.I DEA all DRUG enforcement agencies need to focus on the big as well as the small to kill a snake you cut his head not his tail cause it grows back the need to focus on every aspect of the game not just the projects
Q.B forever
FIIIIIRST OF ALL ALL YHU DUMB REPORTERS NEED TO GET YALL FACTS STRAIGHT THERE ARE 96 BUILDINGS NOT 26. HOW ARE 3,142 APARTMENTS FITTING IN 26 BUILDINGS. AND YES I DO LIVE IN QUEENS BRIDGE AND ITS NOT AS BAD AS EVERYBODY MAKES IT SEEM.
Hey annonymous,
Throughout history us unwanted poor have been dumped and disposed of in a lotta ways.
In Europe one guy transported six million European ghetto inhabitants into gas chambers and turned on the ovens.
So, in line with Hitler, why not dump us QBers into the East River? Better than the Nazi's final solution. Less costly. Cleaner. Certainly more efficient than dumping us into no-density public housing. Even cheaper than park benches and the streets. Total eradication.
Too bad for you it ain't gonna happen.
An ex-QB Houses resident and proud to be so.
I left 41-11-10th street with my family in 1958,best thing we ever did is get out of the projects ,it was great then you know what came in and
sent the European work based families to flee when I was 16 yrs.old.
Nice to know it is still a Ghetto
Hell hole which few outside people
visit. Was like a state prison then
and still looks like one now.
Drug raids in Queensbridge? There were raids back in the 50's there too, I know this because I lived there during the 40's, 50's, 60's & 70's....they'll always have raids happening, until the courts locks up all the drug dealers instead of just giving them a slap on their hands and releases them back into the community to continue their deals and sales.
People who complain about the "liberal" criminal justice system have no idea what they're talking about. The Housing Authority bans from their projects people convicted of drug crimes.
I was born 1969 and raised in Queensbridge projects it has always been a home and still is, my mother still lives there in the same apartment for more than 40 years now as she taught at the nearby schools in long Island City giving kids a chance to be somebody I grew up around very respectful people during that time, now in todays living things have changed a lot but the bridge remains the same standing tall as a starting point for anyone brave enough to go through the rough times, you dont have to swallow your pride to stand amongst the proud, just shake a few hands and enjoy where you come from thats having roots man, and everyone deserves to have roots, a place to call home.
Raised in QB and proud of it. Have been a drug counselor for over 25 years and worked in both East and West coasts. Newsflash! The majority of drug users and dealers are not from the "projects".In fact, the ones with the most severe addiction and dealing histories are white. They have what appear to be unlimited resources which makes it easier for them to purchase for their own consumption and/or sale. Rarely are they busted because they live in communities where there is a lack of will to arrest and or denial that a problem exists. When an arrest does occur, they obtain aid attorneys and flee to posh treatment centers. Most rather pay cash rather than use insurance and be identified as an addict. Of course the non-using dealer cops to being an addict as well and runs into treatment. Rarely do they end up with criminal records after they play the "treatment card" I have personally witnessed this many times over. If you check out the history on the "war on drugs" you will understand it is always a war on an ethnic group which has been labeled as the "social evil" that must be exterminated. I have yet to see or hear of large quantities of drugs manufactured in QB and distributed for worldwide consumption. Hell, the US knew how to find Bin-Laden. Why don't they police the start policing "THE OTHER" neighborhoods where they are much more likely to get closer to the head of the snake?
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