Long time Astoria blog closing down

 

Astorians

 I'm writing to announce that this website will be closing down on December 31st.

It's hard to believe this forum is over 17 years old. It all started in 2004 when a small group of us realized there wasn't really a good online forum to share information about some of the great spots in Astoria and just talk about the neighborhood we loved. At first it was just a few of us posting on here, but as the "Freeze Peach Cafe" (managed by my partner Meesh and I) opened and the community around the cafe grew, this online community also grew bigger and bigger.

For many years astorians.com was the most active community discussion site in the community, and it thrived with lots of active posts, and some awesome volunteer moderators that kept all of us relatively well behaved. Lots of people met here (some even got married!), and we talked A LOT about a lot of stuff.

But here in 2021 it feels that there are more options than ever for discussing community issues online, and that the time for a site like this has largely faded. The activity level on the site is much lower than it was at its peak, and it's a significant struggle to try and keep things going and fend off spam (which admittedly I haven't done a great job of for a long time). Rather that let it get taken over by spammers and hackers I've decided it's time to put the site to rest. All good things come to an end.

Many thanks to all who have made this site possible and giving it life all these years:
Moderators or major contributors: mcdirk, daisy, AJTNYC, Astoria Luv, 28Grand, megc, wasabisam, jayme and others

And of course; thank you.

I'd love if you took a moment to share a memory or two about how the site was useful to you through these years, or maybe a memory from your interactions with the people here.

Sincerely,
merm

Gothamist continues to lose readers, city public radio station guts it

 

NY Post

The lay offs were part of deeper cost-cutting at WNYC that impacted 14 positions or 4 percent of staff, across the organization as it copes with a dramatic fall off in contributions due to COVID-19, despite landing $8.9 million from the federal payroll protection program, the news organization said.

WNYC CEO Goli Skeikholeslami in a memo told to staffers that the station is entering fiscal year 2022 with “a sizeable deficit” as sponsorship funding plunged 27 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels. “And we cannot achieve our goals and meet our commitments while shouldering a fourth year of losses.” 

Skeikholeslami said the cuts affected four jobs in news and 10 in other departments. The company also implemented a series of other cutbacks, including the “freezing of pay hikes for employees making over $100,000, cutting retirement contributions to the 403(b) plan by 50 percent from July through year end and capping vacation carryover days at 10 this year and five next year.”

“In aggregate, the actions we are announcing today reduce our deficit by $3 million for FY22, enabling us to get on a path to financial sustainability.  Without taking the additional cost-saving measures, the number of staff cuts would have been far greater,” she said.    

Both Del Signore and Robbins were survivors of Gothamist’s near-death experience in 2017 when Joe Rickets, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, pulled the plug on it and sister website DNAinfo. 

Aw, I was looking forward to Robbins' follow up story of the big "open streets"mystery alleging the NYPD had something to do with throwing the barricades in Newtown Creek. Idiot.

Simply having a wonderful Queens Crap time!

Where has the time gone?

Where have the tweeders gone? (A lot went to prison.)

Documenting filth in Brooklyn

From WPIX:

When it comes to litter, Alexandra Larger says she understands how candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and empty soda cans end up on the street, but seeing chicken bones and rubber gloves littering the blocks near her home in Bed-Stuy just never made sense.

So now she’s started documenting the sightings on her blog “Streets of Brooklyn.”

“I can’t recall ever seeing anyone eating a fried chicken thigh in the middle of the street – can you? And as far as the rubber glove situation … I don’t even want to know,” Larger writes on her blog.

Larger says she never notices garbage like this popping up in wealthier neighborhoods around the borough. So she decided to start snapping pictures of the unusual sightings and posting them online.

Well, someone has to say it!

Good morning,

I wanted to let you know that your site was featured in BrickUnderground's article highlighting New York's best (and most beloved) neighborhood blogs.

Best,

Virginia

Joe Moretti kisses Jamaica goodbye

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Time to head to greener and much cleaner pasture and time to finally say goodbye to Clean Up Jamaica Queens and eventually good riddance Jamaica and all its ghettoness. I feel that way too much of my time was wasted in a community where way too many people do not give a shit, too many bottom of the barrel types live and some of the worst, corrupt and lazy elected officials ever are in office. I would look around this community and just shake my head and say "what the fuck am I doing here and fighting for". Look at many parts of this "community", if you could call it that, it is one big total mess with very little to offer anyone outside of low-class ghetto trash and immigrants who do not know better. Every time getting angry at Jamaica is time that I wasted and can never get back, so time to move on and end this.

My goal from the get go was to bring major awareness to the horrendous garbage problem and other quality of life issues here in Jamaica and throw them into the public's eye and especially into the many useless, corrupt and lazy politicians faces of the Jamaica community who have done such a disservice to this place. So in that sense, I have accomplished the goal that I had always set out to do, I never had visions of grandeur nor did I think I would ever carry this out for as long as I did. But like everything in life, all things come to an end and my part has ended.

Click the link to read the entire farewell.

Obsessive Garbage Collecting Lady of Elmhurst starts blog

Dear Queens Crapper,

Hello! I moved to Elmhurst, near 43rd Avenue, four years ago, from Brooklyn. I quickly noticed that the section of 43rd Avenue between 72nd and 74th Street (where the railroad cut is located) is a much neglected, often filthy, and probably dangerous section of earth. Recently I decided to "put hands to iron" (to quote Dave Rosasco of the Woodside Neighborhood Association) and try to clean up this 2-block stretch. I started a blog a couple weeks ago, on which I will chronicle the issues that affect the people living in the area. The big three are DRUGS, illegal dumping, and an abandoned-and-open-to-the-public building on the corner of 74th Street and 43rd Avenue. On Saturday mornings I walk 43rd and collect what litter I can (often I fill a large black trash bag just with the debris I find between 72nd and 74th Streets), and I call 311 to report excessive dumping. (People frequently dump construction material and furniture.)

I call myself the "Obsessive Garbage Collecting Lady of Elmhurst", or O.G.C.L.E., and my blog is: ogcle.blogspot.com If you think your readers might be interested, please feel free to share this link. I am hoping to bring awareness to the problems affecting my neighborhood. DSNY is great about picking up the illegal dumping piles when I call 311, and Dromm's office and CB4 have also responded when I have e-mailed them. But the issues we have are ongoing, and require constant attention and nagging from more than one (ie, me) person who lives near 43rd Ave.

Thank you very much,
Emily (aka, the O.G.C.L.E.)

Jamaica garbage situation getting serious attention

From the Queens Courier:

When Joe Moretti moved to Jamaica, Queens, back in November of 2010, New York City was about to experience one of the worst blizzards in its history. As more than a foot of snow covered the streets and sidewalks of his new neighborhood, Moretti was unable to see what really lay beneath. It wasn’t until the snow started melting months later when he saw that the piles of snow covered up piles of garbage.

“There was a vacant lot next to my building that always had a bunch of garbage all over the sidewalks around it and people would keep putting more. I started taking pictures and sending them to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) and 3-1-1 because I wanted it cleaned up,” said Moretti, who has now been living in Jamaica for almost four years. “As I started walking all around Jamaica, I kept seeing more and more garbage, so more pictures and more reporting to the [DSNY].”

Moretti even took to YouTube, and posted music videos about it. While the videos garnered some media attention, Moretti wanted to get even more attention on the problem.

“I thought, ‘How can I crank this up some notches?’” Moretti said.

And that is when “Clean Up Jamaica Queens” was born. “Clean Up Jamaica Queens” is a blog Moretti started in 2013 to highlight the worst problems in the area: garbage strewn in to vacant lots, sidewalks and streets. He uses harsh language and writes in a tone that many might find offensive, but at the end of the day, he gets his point across.

“That has helped to bring attention to this major problem in Jamaica. Everyone is now talking about the garbage problem, whether they are offended by what I say or not. People are starting to do something. At the end of the day we all want the same thing: a cleaner, safer and better community, I just happen to do it in a loud and different way,” Moretti said.

He posts pictures that he takes around the neighborhood and writes a few choice words for some of Jamaica’s elected officials.

“Our leaders have been completely useless on this issue and have failed to do anything. They need to make sure that all the laws on the books such as littering, uncovered garbage cans and household garbage in public garbage cans are enforced,” he said. “People here feel they can do whatever they want because there are no consequences. It truly is the Wild Wild West of Queens.”

Craphouse owner compares it to renaissance painting

From the Daily News:

The owner and designer behind Queens’ first ever energy-efficient “passive house” rebuffed critics of the three-story home’s Lego-like façade Tuesday.

The future home of Tom Paino and his partner at 45-12 11th St., which Paino called “The Climate Change Row House,” features black, grey and white tiles in a sky pattern that local bloggers maligned in a barrage of posts last week.

But Paino compared the naysayers to yokels who attacked three-dimensional paintings during the Renaissance.

“People tried to throw rocks at the pictures because they weren’t used to paintings that had depth,” he said. “This house is going to be an example in the architecture world.”

But Paino’s design provoked viral putdowns on the web last week. Real estate blog Curbed ran a post about the house entitled , "Could this row house be the ugliest building in Queens?,” and popular local blog Queens Crap wrote that the house must have been designed by "Frank Lloyd Crap" in a Wednesday post.

A more supportive blogger admired the façade because the cloud design "reminds me of Legos," but Paino said he isn't paying any of them any mind.

"I have no idea who these people are," said Paino. "All I can tell you is that the façade is dramatic enough so that people walking by stop to look at it."

Ah, leave it to the Daily News to feel it necessary to get the crapmaker's side of the story when blogs poke fun at the crap. Here's the major part of the story that they left out:

Tom Paino bills himself as a preservationist. In fact, he was once a board member of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. For years, he claimed he was "restoring" his early 20th century rowhouse. Instead, he rebuilt it like this. Hypocrisy knows no bounds, especially in Queens where actual preservation is a joke, and this house is a punchline. But at least people are stopping to look at its dramatic façade!

You can either laugh at this stuff, or cry.

Queens-based photography

"I'm a long-time Queens Crap fan.

I'm a native New Yorker (grew up in Jackson Heights, Newtown HS, Queens College, now in Bayside) and have been bike riding through the five boroughs forever. About ten years ago I started bringing a camera with me.

I've recently started a website about my NYC bike riding and photography. As part of that, I have a blog that I use to record some of the humorous or offbeat things I see in my travels.

City Lights Photos

Please read over my bio on the site. I think you will see someone who loves Queens and New York as much as you do."

Thanks.

Mark Lutin

Queens Crap profiled by real estate website

From The Real Deal:

Queens Crap
(queenscrap.blogspot.com)
Neighborhood: Queens
Founded: 2006

Queens Crap chronicles the daily frustrations of residents, especially when it comes to real estate — the blog’s logo proclaims its focus on the “overdevelopment and ‘tweeding’ of a borough.”

The blog’s unpaid and anonymous founder told TRD that the site focuses on “what many would consider to be small issues, but are big issues to those affected by them, like missing lane markers on a repaved highway, or a developer tearing down a quaint old one-family home and replacing it with a multi-unit nightmare.”

But the site also covers large-scale developments, like the Bloomberg administration’s proposal for a new mall, tennis stadium and soccer stadium at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Queens Crap — where all contributors and commenters are kept anonymous to protect them from retribution — has no advertising or monthly site stats, though it has gotten 5.2 million page views since 2006, according to a tracker on the blog.

“I do it because I know many people throughout the borough are affected by the same issues, and in order to effect positive change, they need to know they are not alone,” the blogger told TRD in an e-mail.

Rest in peace, baby deer

From Bayside Patch:

A baby deer died Wednesday morning as it attempted to escape from a playground at Bayside High School in which it became trapped, police said.

The buck had found its way onto the fenced-in area after a gate had been left open, police at the scene said. It died as it attempted to escape.

"It was banging itself against the fence repeatedly," an officer at the scene said.

Joan Tennenbaum, who lives near the school off 208th Street, said her daughter, a schoolteacher, first spotted the deer around 9 a.m.

"She said it was jumping around in the air and hurting himself," she said. "There was blood all over the ground."

Tennenbaum said she believed the animal did not likely live nearby.

"Someone probably caught him and brought him down from upstate," she said.

Animal Care and Control officers removed the deer's body from the scene around 10:15 a.m.

A reader pointed out to me that the "reporters" at Gothamist (who have banned the Crapper from commenting even though I passed along countless story tips because I had the audacity to criticize their coverage of bike lanes) thought what happened to this animal was hilarious. Which makes me even prouder to have been banned by them...

Quinn says she doesn't work for the little people

From Bloomberg News:

Donny Moss, who blogs for votechristinequinnout.com, says Quinn backed the term-limits extension for Bloomberg because her own mayoral prospects were tarnished. The New York Post in 2008 reported that she participated in a practice, which predated her leadership, whereby money was allocated to fictitious organizations so it could be doled out to community groups later in the budget year.

Quinn ended the practice and instituted rules that required council members’ names to be linked with any appropriations of discretionary funding. A federal investigation closed in 2011, without any action taken, Quinn has said.

“She has betrayed the public trust by overturning term limits, by stripping the City Council of the democratic process, using discretionary funds and committee assignments to control the way council members vote,” Moss said in an interview.

Quinn shrugged off the criticism.

“I don’t work for them,” she said. “My job is not to make some random no-name blogger happy. My job is to get things done, and that means working with and for everyone who can help move agendas forward.”

So she has told us point blank that she doesn't work for the citizens of our fair city, she works for lobbyists, developers and other assorted fat cats. What she wants is more important than what we want.

True News agrees.

Carrozza now a blogger

From Douglaston Patch:

Former northeast Queens assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza has joined the Huffington Post’s Expert Panel as a blogger.

Carrozza, who will offer advice on elder law and estate planning for Huff Post Money, served 14 years on the state Assembly and covered Douglaston, Little Neck, Bayside and Whitestone.

Her first blog entry, “Don’t Let the Government Write Your Will," can be read by clicking here.

Real estate blog becoming charity

From the Daily News:

Long Island City writer Nancy Verma is overhauling her popular local blog — and it’s more than a superficial redesign.

Because liQcity.com continues to attract more neighborhood readers, Verma, 36, said the time has come for her to take a more active role in local issues — and that’s why she is turning her blog into a nonprofit group.

Verma has lived in the neighborhood for seven years and worked as a real estate consultant. She launched the blog in response to the area’s rapid development.

“I had never seen my environment transform so dramatically before my eyes,” she said. “There was really a demand for information.”

She now has more than 20,000 monthly visitors to her site and posts often spark lengthy debates in the comment section.

With her new project, she wants to keep a revamped version of the blog active but also directly advocate for responsible development and partner with local businesses, artists and civic leaders.

With her nonprofit status, she’ll be able to apply for grants and access new resources.

Google removes blogs critical of Bloomberg and Quinn

This morning, LGBT civil rights activist and political blogger Louis Flores woke up to an e-mail from Google’s Blogger service, informing him that one of his principal political blogs (No Third Term : http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/) was censored by Google. Ostensibly, the No Third Term blog was marked as “spam,” but the blog entirely contains content that has been critical of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

But not only was the No Third Term blog deleted by Google’s Blogger service, but Mr. Flores’ entire Blogger account was “disabled.” Consequently, all of Mr. Flores’ blogs have also been removed.

Before sending this press release, Mr. Flores filled out a web form, asking Google to restore his blog.

“I ask all political bloggers to contact Google on my behalf, to demand that they restore my blogs and my account,” said Louis Flores, 38, from Jackson Heights, Queens.

People are encouraged to contact : press@google.com

This morning’s censorship followed just hours after Mr. Flores published a controversial blog post on the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog, which traced back to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn the problems that the Occupy Wall Street social movement have been having with protest permits. Note that the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog and the controversial post (http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupywallstreet-protest-permits.html) had been temporarily removed/deactivated by Google’s Blogger service.

“If Google believes in doing no harm, it should not allow the censorship of political blogs, whose only aim is to demand accountability from elected politicians,” said Mr. Flores. “But Google has a pattern of doing this. Just weeks before the 2009 mayoral election, Google’s YouTube service censored artist and political blogger Suzannah B. Troy’s entire YouTube account, and in March 2011, Google’s Blogger service censored political consultant and activist Gary Tilzer’s blog, too. This harassment of political activists and bloggers must come to an end.”


UPDATE: Blog has been restored. Thank you for your advocacy.

Bad neighbor blog

I've had to endure the crappiest neighbors for more years than I care to remember. Despite calls to the city for help for either their noise, trash, illegal burning..., we've gotten precious little effective response.

Because of this, I have decided to start a blog chronicling and documenting their exploits. It is 93-45.blogspot.com. I have named it after their house number, but deliberately left off the street number. I hope that this might be of interest to you and your readers and perhaps lead me to some solutions for their BS.

yours,

Rich Parkwood

(my "name" stand for RICHmond Hill, Ozone PARK and WOODhaven communities of which I live on the cusp of.)

NY Post steals yet another story from a blogger

My buddy Andrew Fine (yes, he's a realtor, but a helpful one) posted a story on his blog on March 1st about a Chuck E. Cheese in Harlem having a sign at the front door prohibiting gang attire.

The NY Post ran a story today about the same thing without crediting Andrew or his blog as a source and acted as though they got the scoop.

This is nothing new, folks.

The old guard feels very threatened by the popularity of blogs.

They've done the same thing to Miss Heather many times.

Apparently, they don't think it's either appropriate or necessary to give credit where credit is due. Now if bloggers saw something in the Post and then repeatedly reported the Post's exclusives as if they discovered them, I'm sure there would be a scathing editorial in the Post or perhaps a Peyser piece about how wrong this is.

You'd think a billionaire like Rupert Murdoch would be able to employ enough talented people to get enough original material to fill his rag on a daily basis.

Instead they have employed Queens Tribune alumni to recycle bloggers' stories.

The Voice calls Queens Crap one of "Gotham's Best"

From the Village Voice:

[The Populist]
Queens Crap
Proprietor: "Queens Crapper"
QueensCrap.blogspot.com

The proprietor of Queens Crap wouldn't send us a picture, saying, "That kind of defeats the purpose of having an anonymous blog, doesn't it?" If you read the blog, you'll understand why the author wants to keep a low profile.

QC slashes hard at borough (and city) politicians, some of whom earn the name "Tweeder," a reference to the rapacious ward-heelers of Tammany Hall days. QC sometimes runs—along with selected, damning news bites—brief commentary, like this message to Mike Bloomberg: "Term limits were good enough to remove Giuliani after 9/11 (what got your ass in office in the first place), and it's good enough to get rid of you now." Mostly, these days, QC is content to run satirical headlines ("JFK Clusterfuck Coming") or pictures, like Congressman Gary Ackerman with his hand in a cookie jar. The blog's commenters are lively, and sometimes borderline racist, obscene, or unkind (one on former Beep Claire Shulman: "Shulman is a backstabbing pig who puts on kneepads for the Mayor"). Vox populi!

And that's just what you see on the site. Though mum about it, the Queens Crapper is a public-spirited citizen who goes to the meetings and has learned how to work the system. "The website is only about half of what the Queens Crapper does," QC tells us. "I get private e-mails asking for advice about how to tackle certain issues, and I respond privately."

That was a surprise to us—from the tone of the blog, we said, it seemed like QC doesn't expect things to change at all. "Oh, that's where you're wrong," QC says. "I do expect things to change. I think the era of complacency is about to come to an abrupt end, and I hope to document it." In fact, the blogger adds, "there are many talented unsung mid-level city employees that go out of their way to help their fellow citizens on a daily basis and are not just there to collect a paycheck. I would give them kudos on my site, but it might get them fired."

Why not run for office? "Because attending meetings all day is boring, and this is so much more enjoyable." —edroso

Blog helps reunite stolen dog with his owner

On October 3rd, this was put up on Sunnyside Post:

This dog is looking for its owner. It was found on 46th Street and 43rd Ave. outside the Turkish deli.

The dog was rescued on September 30, and has been cared for by a member of Sunnyside United Dog Society (SUDS)

This was passed around through dog rescue circles, and the dog was thought to be the dog in this flier:

Notice the date that he was stolen and the date he was found are the same.

So e-mails were exchanged which eventually led to a happy reunion 5 days later, on October 8th (yesterday):

"Sorry to get back to you so late. I was inseparable from Thruster!! And yes, he is Thruster. The couple that found him...took good care of him. He is now safe and happy in our house!"

The dog theft was caught on surveillance tape, which hopefully was turned over to the 110th Precinct.