Sacrificial Hams

 

 NY Post

Animal sacrifices are surging in Queens, with chickens, pigs and rats being tortured, mutilated or killed in “twisted” religious rituals in parkland surrounding Jamaica Bay, The Post has learned. 

In a little over a month, at least nine wounded animals or carcasses have been discovered in the federally-managed Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel — including five live pigs with partially severed ears.

Creatures recovered from the revolting scene also include a near-dead baby rat tied up in a bag with chicken bones; a freshly-decapitated chicken head; a live hen in distress; and a dead dog with its neck snapped. 

“It’s continually getting worse. The animal sacrifices are happening more repeatedly, more times a week,” Sloane Quealy, co-founder and president of Zion’s Mission Animal Rescue, told The Post.

“The sacrificers know it’s open season.”

 One of the distressed pigs was found emaciated in a food-filled crate in July, with a deep gash running down its face and its body covered in oils and spices, said Kristen Latuga, who has taken in all five of the ailing swine at her Long Island animal sanctuary, Brucie’s Angels.

Several rescuers and a local religious leader suggested the torture was linked to a sect of Hindu devotees who worship the goddess Kali and have practiced animal sacrifice in the area surrounding Jamaica Bay for decades.

“It’s a misconstruing of what the scriptures say about conquering the animalistic values,” said Acharya Arun Gossai, who runs the Bhuvaneshwar Mandir temple in Ozone Park.

“They’ve twisted it and they’ve sacrificed an actual animal rather than sacrificing the animalistic qualities of man.” 

Jamaica Bay has been a popular religious site among members of the Hindu Guyanese and Indo-Caribbean diaspora living in nearby neighborhoods, including Richmond Hill and Ozone Park. 

Along the waterway, which has been nicknamed the “Ganges” by some, after the sacred body of water in India, people regularly gather to give offerings, typically flowers and fruits, and leave statues of deities as well as prayer flags. 

This week, The Post observed Quealy and another animal rescuer, Kim Fraser, track down a trio of piglets that had their ears and tails cut off — roughly 100 feet away from a pair of statuettes of Hindu deities resting atop a mound of turf alongside a trio of flags.

Prayer flags were spotted nearby bundled up in the brush.

Followers of other religions whose rituals involve animal sacrifice, such as Santeria and voodoo, also have been known to use beaches and parks surrounding Jamaica Bay to carry out bloody rites. 

Wrestlemania in Howard Beach

 

Queens Chronicle

 The Our Lady of Grace School auditorium in Howard Beach transformed into a willful wrestling ring last Saturday, with around 200 enthusiastic residents eagerly attending to witness East Coast Professional Wrestling. It was more than just body slams — it was pandemonium with a purpose, as proceeds were donated to the church.

  

This guy is my favorite. He looks like Cardinal Dolan as the Penguin.

 

Howard Beach station beatdown victim loses half her vision

 

NY Post

The Queens mom savagely beaten by a ranting homeless man at a Howard Beach subway station confirmed for the first time that she will lose her eye because of the attack.

“I’m going to be blind in my right eye now,” said Elizabeth Gomes. “The nerve system is completely damaged and the eye is just deflating.”

Gomes, 33, said she is scheduled to meet with a specialist at New York Eye & Ear Infirmary on Feb. 13 to learn the next steps in getting a prosthetic eye.

“I mean honestly, I still wake up everyday and I still can’t believe it. I still think to myself ‘Wow I lost my vision at 33 years of age while I was just going to work. How can my life ever be the same,’ ” Gomes said.

Her life tragically changed shortly after 5 a.m. Sept. 20 as she got off the subway at the Howard Beach A train station on her way to her security guard job at Kennedy Airport.

A man who had been ranting about the devil hit her over the head with a bottle and then chased her before throwing her into the side of a token booth and then repeatedly pummeling and stomping on her.

The stomach-churning assault, which was caught on video, shows a good Samaritan trying to help, but being chased away by the assailant as the attack continues.

Waheed Foster, 42, was indicted in September on attempted murder and assault charges.

Foster, who killed his own grandmother when he was 14, had been arrested weeks earlier for violating parole in another case, but was let go thanks to state reform laws.

Gomes has been unable to return to work and still fears being around groups of people. She lives with her mother and fiancee, Clement Tucker, and their 3-year-old son. She has two other children, ages 10 and 12, and Tucker has two.

Mayor Adams MIA as South Queens floods

What I woke up to outside my house. Reminds me of when I woke up on Sandy. pic.twitter.com/HAM5cQNk7E

— Jonathan Lazo (@JonathanLazoNY) December 23, 2022

  

QNS

Major flooding from Thursday night’s storm has taken over the coast in the southern Queens neighborhoods of Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways.

Residents are being asked to move to higher ground for their own safety, according the NYC Emergency Management. 

 "There is major tidal flooding in Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways, please move to higher ground,” NYC Emergency Management tweeted out this morning. “Also remember, all it takes is 6 inches of standing water to move a car, never walk or drive through flood waters.”

The National Weather Service in New York has issued a Special Weather Statement for New York City for rapidly falling temperatures, gusty winds and falling wind chills. They also warned about standing water becoming black ice late this afternoon in the early evening hours. Travel is not recommended.

Early this morning, the city said that the ZIP codes affected by Friday’s storm will be 11224,11235, 11414, 11691,11692, 11693, 11694 and 11697. 

AMNY

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration handled the city’s response to flooding in coastal areas of Queens like Broad Channel and the Rockaways while reporters wondered where he was Friday.

The mayor was absent from a Friday afternoon briefing that City Hall officials provided about the storm. According to First Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, Hizzoner was outside of the five boroughs, but in contact with the administration as they coordinated the response.

Grillo, who serves acting mayor when her boss is out of town, said Adams decided to take two days off and “get some rest.” She confirmed the mayor is outside of the five boroughs, but wouldn’t disclose where when pressed by reporters several times.

“I certainly do know where he is,” Grillo said. “But let me just say this to you: he might as well be here because we’ve been speaking to each other constantly throughout the day, and speaking with all of us to keep updated on what’s going on and to actually direct us to do this. But the mayor decided to take two days off and get some rest and instead of course he’s dealing with this, but just not here.”

Grillo was surrounded by a cadre of administration officials including Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives – and future first deputy mayor – Sheena Wright, city Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and several others.

Iscol said his agency has been fanned out across the city, along with personnel from other city agencies, throughout the day responding to the damage wrought by the winter storm. The flooding, he said, was caused by a three-foot storm surge exacerbated by the new moon and windy conditions.

“This is a difficult weather event,” Iscol said. “We needed to prepare not only for rain, but also a tidal flooding that was made worse by the new moon in addition to large amounts of wind offshore that was piling water into New York Harbor in addition to Jamaica Bay, adding about three foot above mean tide flood surge.”

JFK station attack emphasizes Mayor Adams transit safety policy failure

 

Eyewitness News 

 

The Wild Ones Redux

This is one of the funniest embarrassing moments of @NYCMayor so far. Illegal ATVs and dirt bike riders disrupting the announcement of the first @LinkNYC sentinel tower in the Bronx.

Now that's what swagger looks like pic.twitter.com/M0xoqcHHOS

— JQ LLC: The Impunity City (@ImpunityCity) July 11, 2022

 

Queens Chronicle

Despite a push from Mayor Adams to address the ongoing issue of ATVs, dirt bikes and other unlicensed vehicles taking over the streets in packs, videos have continued to circulate and complaints to be aired, especially after this past weekend, as traffic again was thwarted by the brigades.

Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park) said it has been “three Sundays of absolute terror,” as the collection of unlicensed off-roaders bombard the streets of Rockaway, Broad Channel, Howard Beach, Woodhaven, Ozone Park and even the boardwalks.

She said a combination of 300 to 500 motorcycles, ATVs, dirt bikes and more fly through at high speeds, jump curbs and terrorize neighborhoods.

And the problem, she said, affects the greater Queens County.

Their route, she said, seems to be from the Marine Parkway Bridge, along the Rockaway Peninsula, over the Cross Bay and Addabbo bridges and through Howard Beach and Woodhaven.

Videos shared to social media show the packs blatantly disregarding traffic rules and halting the flow.

Some even take to Facebook to warn others, like one user who posted in the Howard Beach Dads group on Sunday warning Howard Beach residents to stay off Cross Bay Boulevard at that time because what she said looked like over 100 ATVs and dirt bikes were “flying through and driving recklessly” in Broad Channel. She called the scene “unnerving.”

Phyllis Inserillo, co-president of the Howard Beach Lindenwood Civic Association and Ariola’s chief of staff, said she was caught in the middle of it on Sunday while trying to turn onto Cross Bay.

“I had the green light to go,” she said. “They had no care in the world. They were giving me the finger ... cursing me out like I was doing something wrong. I could not believe it.”

Then she watched as a woman leaving Cold Stone Creamery got knocked right over on the sidewalk by the motorists, launching ice cream everywhere.

At the end of June, the NYPD and Adams announced in a press conference that nearly 100 of the vehicles had been seized and were crushed and he laid out a summer plan that included appointing patrol borough inspectors to map motorbike ride-outs, hosting weekly strategy sessions, utilizing field intelligence officers to identify storage and meeting spots and analyzing 311 complaints.

Odorama drama in Howard Beach

Queens Chronicle  

Linda Miranti decorated most of her house for Christmas already but now she does not know if she will be able to have her family over for the holidays, or if she will even be there herself, because of a strong stench that has filled her home and wafts through the air around 88th and 89th streets in Howard Beach.

Starting around Nov. 10, Miranti’s home, especially her garage and the front of her house, has had a strong odor of what she thinks is methane.

She said it gives her migraines and nausea and makes her skin itch. “I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve been so sick,” said Miranti, a 75-year-old grandmother. “Everything is an effort. I can’t live like this.”

She has been sleeping on the couch in the back of her house just to escape the smells and her son has been pushing her to stay with him but she is reluctant to leave.

Miranti’s neighbors experience it too, but it is not as bad in their houses as it is in hers. When her next-door neighbor, Barbara Smith, walked into her house, she noticed the odor right away, despite all the candles lit and cleaning Miranti has done to try to mask it.

“How do you stay down here?” Smith asked her. “I’m literally dying,” Miranti responded.

Miranti has lived in Howard Beach for 47 years and said she has never experienced anything like this. People are used to smells from the nearby bay but this is different, she said. She and Smith wonder if it could be related to the work being done near Spring Creek Park off of 165th Avenue.

Miranti has made several calls to 311 that were referred to the Department of Environmental Protection, and National Grid and the FDNY have come but no gas leaks or sewer blockages were detected.

Miranti is not alone in her persistence. Nicole Bruno lives on the next block and has been experiencing the same thing.

“I’m going on four weeks of calling multiple times, as well as most of the people on my block,” said Bruno. “They just don’t come or can’t fix it.”

“I can’t even open a window. If I do, it absorbs the whole house and you get headaches. It’s disgusting — you shouldn’t have to smell sewage,” said Bruno. “You know, all this money we pay to live here.”

 

Cross Bay Over Easy

 

Ephemeral Big Bow Wow

 

 

Queens Chronicle

 Several generations of Howard Beach got a heavy dose of nostalgia and reconnection last week after two neighbors wrangled their old aquaintances to celebrate a renowned hangout from their youth: The Big Bow Wow.

“If you grew up in the ’70s – you would know that Howard Beach was known for having ‘The Big Bow Wow,’” Lynn Stancati, the reunion organizer, wrote to the Chronicle.

The burger, roast beef and seafood restaurant, which spread over a block of Cross Bay Boulevard contained a game room replete with pinball machines, seated racing cars, Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. It had charcoal burgers, hot dogs, pizza and french fries for the kids and hot roast beef and gravy sandwiches, chili, soups and a clam bar for the adults.

It also had another neighborhood fixture, Charlie Coleman, known as “Charlie the Cop,” a security guard who would dispense coins to kids for the games.

Both a stern authority figure and a sympathetic ear for the kids who were gossiping about teen drama, Coleman, now 80, played an important role in the lives of the teens who would spend as much of their waking hours as they could in the arcade, starting around the age of 12.

“Whenever our parents would come looking for us, they would ask Charlie. And he would know but he would never rat us out,” said Stancati.

Stancati partnered with her childhood friend Toriann Maiorino to put together the reunion, which was held at the rooftop bar of Vetro on Crossbay Boulevard, in part as a way to show their appreciation for the role “Charlie the Cop” played in their lives.

Coleman, who lives in Jamaica, came to the reunion with several family members. There have been several Bow Wow reunions over the past several decades, and Coleman said that he’s stayed in regular contact with a lot of the neighborhood kids after it closed down.

“A lot of them call me and I call them,” he told the Chronicle at the reunion.

In order to show her appreciation, Stancati organized a cash raffle and sold commemorative T-shirts to benefit Coleman, raising $800 that she said would go toward funding a trip for him to visit his family in Alabama.

Frank Charles Park still remains in bad shape

  Hi Crappy, it was three years ago when I sent you an expose on Frank Charles Park and the lousy jog the National Park Service(NPS} does there . I also wrote to NPS and the local papers and contacted the local politicians about the conditions there.Well nothing has changed, we see the same dead trees and dead branches directly above where people walk and sit. The bathroom only takes one man and one woman at a time in a park that has a playground, tennis courts, ball fields, picnic tables and a beach. The beach accumulates trash everyday from the tides and from some beach goers and needs to be cleaned on a regular basis. The beach has serious erosion and picnic tables there are unusable.

 

 

 

 

  Why have these conditions been allowed to continue for so long? The NPS says they are underfunded and understaffed. The politicians say they know there are problems and will see what they can do. Why can't obvious safety problems like dead trees be at least addressed? If someone is killed or injured and sues for millions of dollars where is the money going to come from ,us the people who pay taxes. Howard Beach is a nice community and I'm sure people pay plenty of taxes and this is New York the biggest city in the USA so why are we not getting treated better by our government?

 

 

  
  The National Park Service has shown they cannot operate a community park at the standards the NYC Parks can and should turn over control of the park to the city.NYC Parks are usually well maintained and they are have more experience with operating a park and have created many beautiful parks within the city.

 Hope it doesn't take someone dying before something is done but sadly that seems to be.

House in Howard Beach is teetering into the drink

News 4 New York

You know what is also horrible about this story, when the anchorman says "Look at this". Well what do you think we are doing you moron?

Department of Education decides to put a Pre-K school under a fitness club on a busy boulevard

Queens Chronicle

 
Construction on the street-level space beneath Planet Fitness began several weeks ago and stirred intense interest — and not a few rumors — in Howard Beach.

The city’s Department of Education last week confirmed that the store-front is being converted into three classrooms for pre-K students, ages 4 and 5, under a contract with the building’s new owners, Manhattan-based Gindi Capital.

The new school will accommodate 45 children starting next September, a DOE spokeswoman said.
The opening of the new school raises questions about how it will be able to guarantee the safety of kids on busy Cross Bay Boulevard during drop-off and pickup times.

As well, how will the kids fare with the noise from a busy gym directly overhead?

“I’m not convinced this was the right place,” said Joann Ariola, head of the Howard Beach Lindenwood Civic Association. “I’m worried about parents triple parked on Cross Bay and meanwhile cars are all stacked up behind them.”

Howard Beach residents worried about parking traffic with new chain gym opening.

 Queens Chronicle

 
A king-sized, new gym that opened last month in the heart of Howard Beach without building permits or a gym license is swimming in hot water over its parking.

Hat in hand, a lawyer for Planet Fitness last week came before Community Board 10 and acknowledged that the new club “rubbed the community the wrong way” last month when it skipped the customary legal approvals for new businesses to open.

“It’s not the way we wanted to do it,” the attorney, Frank St. Jacques, told the board.

Planet Fitness had to appear at Community Board 10’s monthly meeting last week to obtain a city gym permit, called a physical culture establishment license — an approval it is supposed to obtain before opening.

CB 10 used what is usually a pro forma application as an opportunity to upbraid the gym’s owners about jumping the gun on its opening and extract promises to make new parking arrangements at the club.

Planet Fitness, which has been under construction on Cross Bay Boulevard at 160th Avenue for nearly a year, has worried nearby homeowners who watched nervously as the building went up and wondered if the influx of new customers would overwhelm the 148-space parking lot it shares with a Rite Aid drugstore and several smaller stores nearby.

Lawsuit filed over rowdy group home

From PIX11:

Recording from their living room window, the Wlodys say they’re fed up with their neighbors. Right next door, sharing a wall with the Wlody’s in Howard Beach, is a group home for developmentally disabled adults, run by Birch Family Services.

Since 2013, the Wlodys say their home, once a sanctuary, turned to hell. They say thousands of photos and videos they’ve recorded themselves illustrate what occurs almost daily.

“It’s upsetting. It’s also traumatizing. The thuds, the crashes and the screaming that carries on for the longest time,” said Corinne Wlody.

The Wlodys say they have witnessed staff at the group home use abusive language and exhibit near violent behavior.

They say they’re concerned for the vulnerable residents and want the public and the families of the residents to know what is really happening behind closed doors.

They're Building It Back badly

From PIX11:

After the tri-state area was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy back in October 2012, "Build It Back," a federally funded program supervised by New York City was created.

The goal of the program is to help people get their homes back.

We get a lot of complaints about delays in Build It Back projects and other issues, but Frank Scarantino has a new one. The Build It Back project next door is flooding his home.

“This wall — they just created it. And when it comes into the street from the high tide this gets all flooded,” Scarantino said. "And the water does not go away for a minimum of a week to two weeks.”

The program is supposed to be helping, but instead they’re causing all kinds of problems for the people next door. Scarantino and his wife fixed their home without the help of Build It Back.

Scarantino told me that the contractor said they will build a retaining wall. The only question is, when?

Charles Park needs some NPS love

Frank Charles Park in Howard Beach is part of the Gateway Recreation Area and controlled by the National Park Service. The original idea was that people who might not afford a trip to a National Park would be able to just a short trip away. NPS controls thousands of acres of parkland in Brooklyn,Queens, Staten Island and Sandy Hook NJ. They are a tremendous asset to the city and as our city grows our parkland will be more precious.

In the past any problems at Gateway was usually met with "we are understaffed and under funded". Unlike NYC there is no 311 to call with problems,you can write them or leave a message and you might not get a response as is my case.

I've even wrote letters to local papers about the conditions of Charles Park and nothing is done. The condition of dead trees and dead limbs has existed for years and what would seem like a safety priority, isn't.

Recently a woman and her kids were clobbered by a branch in Central Park and the tree looked healthy and she's suing the city for $225 million. This is a cost effective measure for NPS, just hire a tree cutter now,this is an emergency situation.

My other gripe is that the bathroom which has just one bowl for men and one for women. This park has a children's play ground, tennis courts, ball fields, picnic tables and a beach, one bowl doesn't cut it.

Thanks Rich

Religious ritual is bad for the environment

"Hi Crappy, this is what goes on in Jamaica Bay at Frank Charles park in Howard Beach and the parking area on the south side of the Joseph Addabbo Bridge.This land is under National Park Service control and they claim they can't stop it because it's a freedom of religion issue.They dump into the water all kinds of fruits, vegetables,flowers,and food.On land they also leave behind statues,pictures and reams of cloth flags.

There is supposed to be an ecology minded group within the Hindu community that has been discouraging this practice and they say they do a cleanup once a month but I have never seen them at Charles Park. Last week I saw NPS clean the beach with a four man crew, they say they come every Sunday.

I think if NPS is going to allow this the they should clean the beach more often, nobody being on a beach with rotten fruit and it is bad for the health of the water and the animals that need a healthy environment to live." - Rich

Giving a leg up to local wildlife

From QNS:

Ten ducklings that were trapped in a storm drain at a Howard Beach park caught a lucky break when they were rescued by officers of the U.S. Park Police and the NYPD.

On Thursday, June 15, U.S. Park Police Officers Cobaj and McGarry were patrolling in the park when a park visitor flagged them down and told them about some ducks that were stuck in a storm drain, which was located near the North Channel Bridge.

Upon their arrival, Officers Cobaj and McGarry saw ten ducklings stuck inside the drain. Officers from the 100th precinct and the emergency service unit helped Cobaj and McGarry lift the metal gate so they could get inside the gate.

Officer McGarry climbed down into the storm drain and was able to retrieve nine of the ten ducklings. The tenth duckling wandered further down the storm drain, but would later be coaxed out by 100th Precinct Sergeant Quwella Brown.

All of the ducks are said to be healthy and will most likely survive the experience. The ducks will be cared for by National Park Service Biologist Bill Parker until they are old enough to return to the park.

Flooding will get worse before it gets better

From The Forum:

The low-lying south Queens communities of Old Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, and Broad Channel are vulnerable to tidal flooding today, and the conditions are only expected to worsen with projected sea level rise, according to the Department of City Planning, which presented current planning initiatives and priorities for Queens on Monday at a joint meeting of the Borough Board and Cabinet at Borough Hall.

However, particularly in Old Howard, DCP has indicated that it is possible to maintain a strong neighborhood “by supporting resilient retrofits and through investments in street-end infrastructure upgrades.”

Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel are far more challenging, DCP noted. A lack of infrastructure solutions presents obstacles to mitigating the impacts of sea level rise.

The unique built environment of Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel – narrow lots, and narrow, low-lying streets – pose challenges for resilient retrofitting and reconstruction. Existing R2, R3-1, and R3-2 Zoning Districts do not account for narrow lot frontage in the residential areas of these communities, DCP noted. Additionally, new, higher flood elevations present physical and economic challenges to the two commercial corridors: Cross Bay Boulevard and Coleman Square.

However, City Planning pointed out that there are opportunities to identify changes to zoning, both in residential areas and business corridors; to maintain neighborhood character, facilitate customer access to businesses, and enable resilient retrofits and building.

Where the hell is Bill?

From the Forum:

In the past year, the WRBA said it has had several interactions with city agencies that were challenging. For example, in October 2014, the civic asked the Sanitation Department to end what the WRBA characterized as its unfair practice of issuing tickets to property owners in the middle of the night for garbage dumped on their properties.

In a release, the organization said it had become a common nighttime occurrence for people to leave trash outside Jamaica Avenue storefronts, and for Sanitation enforcement agents to write Notices of Violation in the middle of the night, fining property owners for failing to dispose of trash they didn’t know was there.

The WRBA said this was costing struggling business owners hundreds of dollars.

And although Bill de Blasio wrote DSNY when he was Public Advocate, asking the agency to end the practice, nothing has been done on the issue since he became mayor, the Woodhaven civic noted.

In another report earlier this year, the WRBA called out the Department of Transportation for failure to correct inadequate and “dangerous” lighting in Forest Park, to “years’ long” delays in installing needed speed bumps in Woodhaven.

Asked about the mayor’s interaction with civic groups, some leaders said he needs to engage more with the borough organizations that are the voice of residents.

“Mayor de Blasio is not as active with community groups as previous mayors,” said Joann Ariola, president of the Howard Beach-Lindenwood Civic.

Bob Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, was blunt when asked about accessibility.

“We write letters and fill out online forms and we NEVER get a response,” Holden said, adding that when de Blasio was Public Advocate, his office reached out to the JPCA often.

“Since he’s been mayor, nothing,” Holden said, noting that while some city agencies are better than others when it comes to responsiveness, he noted that the Mayor’s Office is “totally unresponsive.”