Thursday, January 26, 2017

Main Street fire was massive


From CBS 2:

Crews remain on the scene Thursday of a massive fire in Queens that destroyed more than a dozen businesses and disrupted subway service.

Flames and thick black smoke from the 4-alarm fire rose above Roosevelt Avenue Wednesday afternoon as the blaze spread.

31 comments:

JQ LLC said...

Queens is burning.

And the predatory developers are tethering their fingers and laughing maniacally for new space is available for another glass tower.

Anonymous said...

Very suspicious indeed, should be investigated.

Anyone knows what happened with Strawberry Farms?
I heard the land was sold for 6 Million.

Joe Moretti said...

The 1970’s gave us the phrase “The Bronx is Burning” not only literally but figuratively as well with a borough in crisis. Well, now it is Queens time.

QUEENS IS BURNING.

And just like the Bronx, this one is literally and figuratively. Lately there have been some big major fires in Queens, the most recent in Flushing yesterday that destroyed dozen of businesses, but we also had a similar fire in Kew Garden Hills this past December and during the summer in Sunnyside.

But Queens is also burning figuratively with rampant over-development (such as seen in LIC), poorly thoughout development as we are seeing in Jamaica and then there is the plain old shitty type of development with cheap third world multi-units with rusted balconies run by slumlords and filled with illegal conversions and slobs along with all the garbage and problems that arise with these eyesores.

Anonymous said...

The fires started in a Chinese restaurant.

I'd wager that the flu was filthy with grease and that there were multiple building violations.

Anonymous said...

3rd world wiring, 3rd world jerry-built, 3rd world attitudes.
yes, Flushing a "World of Choices", should perhaps be a "Third World of Choices".

Flushing used to be a nice pleasant place. What the hell has happened there?

Is this Exhibit A of the Democratic Party hijacking government and converting communities into malignant little Democratic Cells attuned to the party's needs (with Democratic voters, Democratic Party themed programs, and employment opportunities to run those programs for the Democratic party faithful)?

Does it serve the interests of Queens Democratic Party rather than our city or our nation?

Is this an East Asian colony in United States established in exchange for support of the Democratic Party?

It is certainly not diverse or pluralistic as we should expect for communities in our nation. Be interesting to hear the response of one of the Party faithful for a dialogue.

Anonymous said...

There used to be a nursery on the corner of 146th adn Bayside Av.
The fairly large house also burned/fire damaged.
What the hell is going on in Flushing?

Anonymous said...

A Flushing based firefighter told me in an off hand conversation a few months back that Asians often try to put out fires on their own till it gets to a point its out of control and then they call it in.

Anonymous said...

As per Strawberry Farms, in lieu of your source for the reported $6 million sale, I can report that even mild questions to any of the Korean owners at their smaller store, Rasberry's is not even acknowledged any longer. My guess they will never rebuild. Meanwhile, the loss is still
felt, as the guy runing the back cold cuts section, is just not very good, the bread selection, formerly really first rate and full of variety, is just
barely ok, mostly because it is undersized. Worst the parking is for the most part just unavailable, A new paying across the street is not worth the cost, outrageously so. For my now occasional visits, it's on meter free Sundays, or walk up from the drugstore a block away.
Sorry to drag on here, but I see only more disgusting housing being put in the old location.

Anonymous said...

As per Strawberry Farms, in lieu of your source for the reported $6 million sale

Neighborhood gossip, that's why I asked the question, maybe some of you guys heard something. The owners of the store did not own the land.
If the land was sold the owners cannot do much.
Raspberry Farm is Ok, still beats a lot of stores including Key Food by a wide margin in both prices and freshness. The parking is not bad - after 7PM or on Sundays as you stated.
Smaller store and the owners are trying to make it better from what I can see.

Anonymous said...

Investigators say it was sparked by a stove fire, caused by cooking.

Anonymous said...

Flushing has been a home to suspicious fires going way back to the early 1980s.
Urban renewal through arson.
Anyone remember the site of the old Continental fruit and vegetable market on the south side of Main Street?
Some burned down property there was determined by the FDNY to have been the result of arson...fire bombed...in fact.
That property was later built upon by the "Great Eastern Bank". Joseph Liu, John Lui's father was an officer of that bank...later arrested by the Feds for some hanky lanky business there.
Those were the days when Tommy Huang was in power. Donald Manes, his pal , and many other politicians, got campaign donations from this notorious criminal developer.
He bought the Democratic Party at wholesale prices.
There was a mysterious fire at the RKO Keith's Theater, while he owned it.
Is not, John Liu a relative of Tommy Huang, through Tommy's wife's family (Alice Liu Hauang)?
What a tight knit little group.

So , who owns these fire destroyed buildings?
Was this an out of hand kitchen fire or an accidentally-on -purpose creation to collect insurance and build huge upon the ashes?
You can bet that CB7, Flushing BID, Flushing Chamber of Commerce, One Flushing, will all dummy up on the incident.
WTF have they all been doing all these years but contributing to the overcrowded, overbuil, underserved conditions on Flushng for personal gain?
In a Taiwanese-Chinese colony, like Flooshing, we all just look the other way.
"Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown"!

P.S.
There is still a vacant lot, north Roosevelt just east of Main Street, that was the site of a fire years ago.

Burn, baby, burn!
Who needs to be in Chicago , Detroit, or Watts L.A. when we've got a conflagration epicenter like Flushing?
Welcome to third world Flushing, where life is cheap, and overdevelopment is rampant.

Laws? Those are for Occidentals to follow!

Remember this....we do not offend the Asians because they drove out the Blacks.
That is the dirty little social engineering plan that's been going on here for at least three to four decades.

Contain the corruption, law breaking, filth in the downtown hub, but keep it out of Gene Kelty's Whitestone or Chuck Apelian's north Flushing cul de sac.

Welcome to downtown Deadwood where anything goes, and usually does!




Anonymous said...

Why is it that Manhattan's Chinatown's restaurants do not have fires?
Because they are in the tourist corridor. Whereas Flushing's, underdeveloped properties , need to be improved.
The fire insurance payment will become the seed money for building bigger.
Who owns this site?

Maybe the Flushing Chamber of Conflagration knows!

Anonymous said...

This was a fire sooooh bad that the MTA had to close the Main Street #7 station because of being inundated by water.
Nice! Who needs terrorist attacks when we have got such dangerous conditions, home grown, right under our noses.
Gene Kelty, chair of CB7 is still with the FDNY, I believe. Let's see what he can find out.
Is the MTA investigating if any permanent water damage has been done to compromise the Main Street station?

Anonymous said...

Not until the Asians arrived in Flushing were there such a rash of fires.

Anonymous said...

Burned up over Flushing burning?
Vote out all of its crooked incumbent politicians beginning with Grace Meng. Her father is a convicted criminal.
The fruit does not fall far from the tree.
Peter Koo is a useless piece of slime, at his best.
Give CB7 a good enema.
It's a bogus board, always sucking up to developers.

Anonymous said...

Marilyn Bitterman is gone?
Follow suit with Chuck "follow the buck" Apelian.
This perennial shady land abuse chair, has been selling out Flushing for years.

Anonymous said...

I once got a lift in a fire truck to the firehouse, where we re doing some volunteer work.
The firefighter told me that they were investigating restaurants who stored propane tanks improperly in basements that could take out a whole city block if they went up.
Where the fuck is the DOB and FDNY and ALL of our city officials today?

Anonymous said...

Where will all of the illegal workers go now?

Anonymous said...

It's not their ethnicity, it is their quantity, which is also bad for them because it doesn't let them assimilate or adjust. The old Chinese were nice people, but the products of the brutal Cultural Revolution are cold and confused.

Anonymous said...

This is just a neighborhood away from the huge business gutting fire on Vleigh Place a few weeks back. Has the Forest Hills arsonist branched out?

Anonymous said...

"A Flushing based firefighter told me in an off hand conversation a few months back that Asians often try to put out fires on their own till it gets to a point its out of control and then they call it in."
well let's be honest here, that's probably a lot of people.

Anonymous said...

blast from the past -1970's-Main st. stores from Sanford Ave. to the library burnt down.Many longtime Caucasian owners never wanted to sell to new comers at that time ?

Main St. strip mall @ 76 ave also burnt recently ?

Anonymous said...

I accuse those lazy bastards at CB7 of not doing the job they should have been doing.
Instead of insisting that a curb be put on development until the infrastructure could be upgraded, they sold themselves for money...developers's money.
Does Apelian have a Swiss account? C'mon....this rug head is living high on the hog. Some cash must have come from somewhere....huh?
Bingo....maybe Asian interests?
Hmmmm....le's see of the FBI can be called in to investigate this most corrupt center of Queens.
Where there's smoke there's fire. Where there is fire there's corruption!
Investigate Apelian!

Anonymous said...

Yes, there was an arson for hire ring operating in the 1970s....about the time Tommy Huang arrived in the U.S.A.

Anonymous said...

Any toxic materials leach into the #7 station below with the water used to douse the fire?
Call the DEP to check it out. Ah....fughettaboutit...they are mostly Chinese who use the subway.
They don't count. Now if this were White Forest Hills......hmmmm!.

Anonymous said...

How come NONE of the elected officials have ever convened a task for e to deal with the rampant overdevelopment and collapsing infrastructure? Calling Peyer Koo, Grace Meng. Chinese officials will never criticize their own.

Anonymous said...

Let the whole damned town burn. I's an eyesore anyway. Then maybe something nice and modern could replace the old shit.

The Flushing Phantom said...

A lot of Flushing property is still owned by some old Jewish families like Schwartz and Mehran, Gerson, etc. and rented.
Gerson, for example, owns the old chamber of commerce building.
Who owns this burned property?
Is it Chinese or the "olde tymers"?
Are some tongs forcing out the old property owners? Anti Semitism? Anti Caucasian? Anti Asian? You never know.
Or are these mom and pop stores being victimized by, who knows who?
There are a lot of unanswered questions here. This is not a question of a simple stove fire that got out of hand.
Real estate values rule in Flushing. Pols have been bought by developers since the early 1980s.
I suspect that the Stavisky dynasty has profited much since then.bring in the Feds and look deeply into the area.
A lot will be discovered.
Sure enough, a bunch of one or two story shops are bound to be replaced by something much taller.

Anonymous said...


@The Flushing Phantom

This corruption needs a very big investigation.
The tongs built the Flushing Sheraton in record time. Union labor? Hahahahaha

Also illegal businesses in residential neighborhoods, cooking with propane is a major disaster waiting to happen.

Call Preet, call the IRS, the FDNY and start making noise!

Anonymous said...

Former Assemblyman convicted criminal Jimmy Meng, father of do nothing Congressmember Grace Meng is said to have belonged to some tong...not Tommy Huang's tong...but another. All of these"societies" have some questionable roots in China. They need federal investigation if even Preet can penetrate the cloud of inscrutability that surrounds them.
This might seem off the wall...a digression...but did Donal Manes really commit suicide...I mean through his own heart....or was he murdered by some vested interests?
Then we have Cecilia Chang. Google her suicide. Women do not hang themselves usually. Hmmmm....another mysterious Oriental incident.

Anonymous said...

SInce I did ask a previous commentor if they knew the source of a 6 million $ amount having maybe been paid for the site of the former Strawberry Farms supermarket, and that likely the previous operators did not own the property, and as the location had been the scene of a huge fire, with so many other fires in the area, I saw two large prominent signs this morning, Jan 31st placed on the wood clading boarding up the site that said:
Space for Lease by Owner" with a phone number below. SO, obviously I recon Strawberry will not get rebuilt. What the zoning is I do not know but I am sure anything could go up on the site with a likely Asian developer.