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Work crew resumed street improvement on 171 st. off Merrick Boulevard on 5/6/14.
Part of the street was completed; from 104 to 108 avenues. Once again, residents are treated with total disrespect.
Large lumps of asphalt and gravel were left scattered on the sidewalks, the street and in front of our homes. I spoke to the supervisor, Peter. He said that the inspector will be visiting on 5/7/14. He was very rude; while speaking to me he was walking off and obviously did not want to be bothered.
Please tell Peter to complete his job properly. The condition is the same today, 5/9/14. Residents are not begging for a favor. Surely he is a well paid white contractor; with mostly white workers and a few token blacks.
We are tax payers too." - Pamela Hazel
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23 comments:
What the hell does the crew's race have to do with anything? I get the annoyance with a job done half-assed, but come on.
These residents in Jamaica should be happy the street got paved at all.
They should quit complaining (it does no good) grab some brooms and finish the job themselves
Wait to it rains ! Here on my block in North Flushing we had our street repaved too but the incompetent street paving contractor raised the street level above our curbs and driveways. The street gutter now overflows onto our driveways and erodes our grass at the curbs every time it rains. Our cobblestones curbs are now below street level.
It'll just blend in with the rest of the garbage on Jamaica streets.
Anon No. 2:
And if this was done on your street, you would say what?
The people who live in the houses on this street pay taxes like you.
It always amazes me that when someone speaks up about something that's wrong, a whole bunch of idiots jump on that person for complaining. It's why Queens is the way it is.
So many of you who post here on Queens Crap hiding behind you Anonymous status are utter complete assholes. All you do is moan and bitch about Queens and the quality of life and then when someone does stand up and say something, you go on the attack of the person and say stupid shit like "these people should be happy the streets got paved....grab some brooms" or "it will blend in with the rest of the garbage on Jamaica streets".
It is not the tax payers responsibility to clean up the half ass messes left by the City, that is there job. I am sure if this was on your block, it would not be okay.
Some of you on this site are just as fucking stupid and ignorant as the low-class ghetto slobs I blast all the time.
Funny how you all state your opinions hiding behind Anonymous masks. You know what, that is not really speaking your mind, that is just being bitchy cowards hiding in the bushes saying shit.
Crapper, it has to do with setting the right tone with one's activism, so that it doesn't undermine its own message with nonsensical racial barbs.
It's tiring to see energy uselessly directed at "third world scum," "low class ghetto slobs," etc. Give me a break. What a sophomoric way of letting off steam.
As for anonymity, isn't that what this entire site is predicated on? If anything, the Joe Morettis of the world keep citizen activists in the shadows for fear of being associated with the spirit of anger and belligerence that he stands for.
You don't think there's a grain of truth to the racism angle? Why do politicians of all races allow conditions in black communities to fester? And it seems to me that nothing changed until some belligerent folks started making noise. It actually brought volunteers out because they started to feel empowered.
The Queens Machine is dependent on racism, classism, sexism, and pandering to immigrant communities. When someone shakes that up a bit, that's when you see change.
When a community such as Jamaica is allowed to fall in such shambles for years and years, while useless, crooked and corrupt leaders do absolutely nothing, but care only about their own pockets and the "third world scum" and the "low class ghetto slobs" run a muck without repercussions, kind words don't cut it. Anger and belligerence (completely justified) get heard and changes can begin to happen.
Ever hear of Larry Kramer, his anger and loud mouth make a difference with the AIDS epidemics when everyone was totally ignoring it, including the President of the US at that time, Reagan and then Mayor of New York City, Koch.
By the way, the citizen activist of the world or at least Jamaica do not have to associate with me at all. So their excuse for doing nothing or "staying in the shadows" as you put it is "sophomoric bullshit" or they just don't give a damn. If that is even the case as you have stated.
It all sounds like reasons to do jack shit about problems and write anonymous crap.
I see your points, Joe, as well as Crapper's. I appreciate your reference to Larry Kramer, even though I might see the connection as being in a slightly different category, the tactics were effective in that moment in time. I also concede that you have the superior position in this debate by virtue of my anonymity in the affair.
My point is not to quibble with the good that has come of Clean Up Jamaica or QC; it's just this feeling that not everyone has to be so vociferous and abrasive in order to effect change. You seem unwilling to recognize that not everyone needs to imitate your methods in order to be an ally, or to do some good in the borough.
As for the subject of machine-sponsored poverty in Jamaica, that is a facet of the subject that gets us squarely on the same side. The question is whether they are the targets of your ire, or if it's those who reap the effects of their corruption--i.e. the "low class scum" whose poverty is so institutionalized that their notion of civics is merely to take in whatever ways possible. I'm not going to take part in what I consider an already deeply-rooted war on the lower classes in this country by heaping more blame in their direction.
I appreciate that QC keeps the heat on this entire body of politicians in Queens, who from the top down are some of the most outrageously corrupt, greedy, disingenuous electeds I've ever seen. Aside from Tony Avella, every one of them is a disgrace to the citizens of this borough. To me, you keep the attention on them, not those at the bottom, whose relationship to the ideal of civic responsibility could only be farcical at best.
"I'm not going to take part in what I consider an already deeply-rooted war on the lower classes in this country by heaping more blame in their direction."
War on the lower class? This is about acting like pigs. People shouldn't throw their trash all over the place, and when they do, they should be called out for it. My family came to this country dirt poor, yet their homes were meticulously maintained and the thought of litter was something quite foreign to them. What's changed?
It seems clear that those who live in Jamaica and other parts of Queens that are farthest away from Manhattan are being priced out of their own city, and the feelings of disenfranchisement and hopelessness that come with this are expressed by the type of unsightliness that Joe chronicles.
I totally agree with the recent comment from Crapper. My attack on "low class ghetto slobs" or "low class immigrants" is by no means an attack on lower economic people, the lower class or saying anything negative about people living in poverty, which by the way has a lot to do with our elected leaders (and corporate executives who run the leaders), who have done very little in helping to move people up the economic ladder, from not raising the minimum wage to moving jobs overseas and keeping people down in a rigged system or allowing communities like Jamaica to stay down and not lifting a finger to help the quality of life in these types of neighborhoods and communities.
Communities like Jamaica and communities of color and immigrants tend to get the short end of the stick. Lack of resources, slow to respond to quality of life issues to building homeless shelters or other questionable development in these neighborhoods, knowing that the people in these communities for the most part will not stand up and fight against this, in fact they count on this (what they did not count on was a loud foul mouth white boy moving into Jamaica and calling them on their shit whatever means it takes). Things that would never happen in a white community or many Manhattan neighborhoods. When was the last time a homeless shelter was put on the Upper West Side or the Upper East side. When was the last time you saw a white community, where Auto Body Shops made a mess of their community.
My attack has to do with exactly what Crapper stated, acting like slobs and pigs tossing garbage and litter all over your own community. That has nothing to do with poverty or even low economic people, many who are not slobs and pigs. My phrasing of "low class ghetto slobs" or "low class immigrants" has to do with how you treat a community from littering to not taking care of a building you own (which many immigrants do in Jamaica) to disturbing a neighborhood late at night with loud music and not caring about others in the community.
Regardless of where you are on the economic ladder or what country you came from, one should have respect for you community and not turn it into a dumping ground. And to make excuses for people's upbringing or that they came from a third world country where things like this are done is total bullshit and takes any type of responsibility off these individuals.
And like Crapper, my family came to this country with little money, were never educated, not even grade school, never learned to speak, read or write English, yet maintained their home and the outside of their property. They never littered, they cleaned up not only their sidewalks but out into the curb as well (and not just tossing it in the middle of the street). This was their new home and they took pride in their home and their community.
So, no what I am doing or saying is not an attack on the lower class (there is a major distinction between lower class and low class), it is an all out attack on slobs and the crooked, corrupt and lazy leaders who are not doing a damn thing to better a community that they were elected to do and serve.
"the feelings of disenfranchisement and hopelessness that come with this are expressed by the type of unsightliness that Joe chronicles"
No, it's more like this is how they lived back home and they decided to bring that vibrant diverse aesthetic with them.
It seems clear that those who live in Jamaica and other parts of Queens that are farthest away from Manhattan are being priced out of their own city, and the feelings of disenfranchisement and hopelessness that come with this are expressed by the type of unsightliness that Joe chronicles.
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And what, the answer is to just make a mess of your community. That whole disenfranchisement is total bullshit that you bring up. Many people choose to not live in Manhattan or further away from it. I mean if that was the case Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Long Island and Connecticut would be ghettos, since they are so far from Manhattan.
No, I do not think these people are trying to make a stand against being disenfranchised (which they are not or even would not want to do). They are what I have been saying, they are just low-class ghetto slobs and low-class third world immigrants, period. Nothing more, nothing less.
Joe is right....if the people in Jamaica don't care, then the city will not. The city should treat Jamaica better after all it is close to the train station and could be a gold mine if the city cleaned it up. The people need to start caring about their neighborhood though. Joe and his crew are out there everyday trying to keep Jamaica clean and spread the word of cleaning up Jamaica. I have a friend who lives in Jamaica and she keeps her property spic and span....I think the people over there treat their properties like crap. The people in Jamaica should be lucky that they are fortunate enough to even have a roof over their heads so they should take care of their properties and the government should be helping this community build to the nice area it once was many many years ago.
The unsightliness is not deliberate on their part, is how I mean. I think that we really need to consider the connection between poverty and depression. You think the people who live this way enjoy it?
Lack of pride in one's surroundings is symptomatic of a much larger collective mental outlook. Where blight is curtailed in NYC these days, it is the norm in almost all other major cities. Jamaica doesn't compare in scale to North Philly, Camden, Detroit, St. Louis, or parts of other industrial cities in the US, where inner-city residents have no opportunities to speak of other than the military or retail. I should know as I come from such a place.
It might be fruitful to widen your perspective and take into account some of the bigger picture forces at play. It will help the judgments to come down a notch or two. But I anticipate being dismissed as some misguided idealist...
The unsightliness is deliberate on their part. When you sit on a park bench eating fast food and then just toss your trash on the ground when there's a trash can 3 feet away, that's not depression, that's being a slob. When you can put your trash out for collection but instead dump it at a bus stop, you're being a slob. Depression? That's quite an stretch.
How I mean is that we are quick to use terms like "economically depressed area," while never considering the mental toll that a person's environment can have on his view of what the world is. Throwing trash on the street, as you put it, is symbolic of an illness that reaches far beyond Queens.
It's a symbol of not being raised properly and of selfishness. Just like graffiti.
Civic associations, PTAs, community volunteer groups, mentoring programs, outreach programs, environmental activist groups, business associations all help make for a strong and thriving community. Look at Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Douglaston, Sunnyside, etc. They are exceptional products of concerned and hard working residents.
Anon, your whole "not deliberate on their part", "symbolic of an illness", "poverty vs depression" is a wide load of bullshit and has no relevance to this topic what so ever. You have gone so far off topic and have stretched this so far to be even believable.
And you comparisons of NYC, one of the richest cities in the world does not compare at all to the cities you listed such as Camden, Detroit and St. Louis, it is apples (no pun intended) and oranges. I don't even know what your point is by bringing up a depressed city such as Detroit (bankrupt) or Camden. By the way North Philly is a neighborhood, not a city. You might as well compare NYC with Somalia. Your argument makes no sense.
Again bottom line, the people we are talking about are just plain slobs. Stop trying to diagnose those people. Slovenliness is not a disease. We are not talking about a mentally homeless person throwing garbage on the ground, we are talking about people who live in a home or apartment and pay rent, etc.
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