Whitestone neighbors unhappy with meat dried outdoors

From Eyewitness News:

Chicken and pork, dried and seasoned, have been left hanging from a line in a backyard in Whitestone, Queens.

The home cured meat is causing a clash between neighbors on 7th Avenue, who say the tenants moved in a month ago and the meat went up about a week ago.

"All of a sudden, we had chicken and bacon hanging from the fence and awning next door to my house," said Eugene DiFolco, a Whitestone resident.

Residents say it's attracting flies and rats. They say thankfully the stench simmered down when the temperatures dropped.

"It's to eat. It's to eat for Chinese food," the homeowner said.

A woman at the home told me her family cures to meat to make traditional Chinese food.

The Health Department says in general this is legal if it's for personal consumption and if it does not become a nuisance to other residents.

RKO Keith's bought by Chinese developer

From the Queens Tribune:

RKO Keith’s, the historic and long-defunct theater in downtown Flushing, was purchased by a Chinese developer, Xinyuan Real Estate Co., for $66 million on Monday, the company announced in a press release.

The announcement marks the next chapter in a long history of changing hands and stalled development at the landmarked theatre, which is located at 135-35 Northern Boulevard.

The theater’s ornate lobby and ticket foyer were landmarked by the Landmarks Preservation Committee in 1984. Over the past two decades, the landmarked interior has made it challenging for developers to move forward on plans at the site. Xinyuan Real Estate will now be the next developer to try to repurpose the theatre.

Xinyuan Real Estate was one of the first Chinese real estate developers to enter the U.S. market. In September 2012, the company made its entry in the New York market by purchasing land at Kent Avenue and South 8th Street in Williamsburg. That project, known as the Oosten, is still under construction, and will contain over 200 units of luxury condos. The company has another project in Midtown Manhattan as well.

Because Governors Island isn't overcrowded enough

From AM-NY:

Governors Island -- open to the public through Sept. 27 and offering free weekend tours, two forts (Castle Williams and Fort Jay) and a bevy of cultural and recreational opportunities -- is the latest "neighborhood" to be featured in NYC & Company's insider guides.

The selection of Governors Island as a featured destination will be announced this week in Shanghai as part of a new initiative to boost Chinese tourism in NYC, already up 250% in five years.

Meanwhile, in California...

From the Daily News:

Shortly after sunrise, dozens of federal agents swarmed an upscale apartment complex in the Orange County city of Irvine, where authorities say a birth tourism business known as You Win USA Vacation Resort marketed to pregnant women who were then charged $50,000 for lodging, food and transportation.

Investigators said women were coached to lie about their travel plans when applying for tourist visas and to wear loose clothing to hide their pregnancies, and they were promised Social Security numbers and U.S. passports for their babies before returning to China.

In one instance, a trainer in China helped fabricate employment and income information for an undercover federal agent posing as a pregnant client to secure a tourist visa. The undercover agent was encouraged to fly through Hawaii, where customs officers were believed to be more lenient than in Los Angeles, according to a copy of an affidavit in support of a search warrant.

The business netted its owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past two years and helped Chinese tourists deliver more than 400 American babies at just one Orange County hospital, the court papers said.

Tuberculosis outbreak in Brooklyn

From DNA Info:

There has been an outbreak of tuberculosis among young Chinese immigrants in Sunset Park, according to a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene alert.

There have been 15 confirmed cases since June 2013, with seven of those identified since September, according to the alert. Health care providers were advised to look out for symptoms including fever, a cough lasting several weeks, night sweats and weight loss.

“While overall tuberculosis (TB) rates in NYC have declined steadily over the past two decades, the proportion of cases among persons born outside of the United States has increased to 84%, and local TB transmission continues to occur,” the alert read.

Most of those stricken with the disease have been young men who frequent Internet cafes and work in out-of-state restaurants.

You have to live in very close contact with someone for an extended period of time in order to pass TB along. Officials may want to look into the living conditions of the victims.

Flushing madame busted in NJ

From the Daily News:

A Queens woman was arrested for running a New Jersey brothel after police found her in a car filled with hundreds of new condoms, authorities said.

Jing Hong Xia, 51, of Flushing, has been charged with promoting prostitution and maintaining a brothel.

Police first discovered the Englewood bordello after someone reported women were held there against their will.

Investigators forcibly entered the rental house to find no one living there Dec. 23.

"The home was set up strictly for prostitution," Englewood Police Detective Capt. Timothy Torell said in a statement. "It was a self-contained operation, complete with washing machines and driers to clean bed sheets and towels."

Officers kept watch over the house as they waited for a search warrant.

Xia and three women drove up to the house in a 2013 Lexus the next day. Police took them in for questioning and later searched the house with a warrant.

Investigators found and seized financial records, computers, televisions and a closed-circuit television system that they said shows prostitution has taken place on the grounds.

Xia was taken to Bergen County jail on Christmas, where she was held on $11,500 bail.

Result of rezoning Queens Blvd

From Curbed:

The 69-unit building is being developed by Steve Cheung (based in Bayside) and will be designed Michael Kang (an architect based in Flushing). It will entail 55,000 square feet of residential and 5,500 square feet of commercial space. There will also be a small communal space and an asymmetric rooftop that will form penthouse terraces, plus a garage with room for 59 cars. According to YIMBY, about a quarter of the development was backed by foreign money (probably Chinese) under the EB-5 visa program, which grants green cards to foreign investors whose projects will produce American jobs.

Above is a screenshot from Google Street View of the site. The lot is across the street from the former St. Mary's elementary school. I'm not sure why there's a pedestrian bridge depicted where the Entenmann's outlet store is in the rendering. I wonder what kind of prices they'll get being a block away from the Metro Motel (hot sheets/family homeless shelter).

Although Curbed & YIMBY made a big deal about this being in Elmhurst (and Curbed actually linked back to this blog, thanks) the project is actually in Woodside which was rezoned along with northern Maspeth in 2006. (Elmhurst wasn't rezoned at all.)

Beware of the fake monks

From the NY Times:

In Times Square, amid the dozens of Elmos, Mickey Mouses and superheroes who work the crowds for loose bills, new costumed characters have come to seek their fortunes.

They are mostly men of Chinese descent, with shaved heads, beatific smiles and flowing robes of orange, but sometimes brown or gray. They follow a similar script: Offering wishes of peace and a shiny amulet, they solicit donations from passers-by, often reinforcing their pitch by showing a picture of a temple for which the money seems to be intended. Then they open a notebook filled with the names of previous donors and the amounts given.

The men appear to be Buddhist monks; a smaller number of similarly dressed women say they are Taoist nuns.

No one seems to know who they really are or where they come from. The police have taken no official stance, stepping in only when the monks become aggressive. Various Buddhists have confronted the men, asking about their affiliation or quizzing them about the religion’s precepts. The men remain silent or simply walk away.

They have become ubiquitous — so much so that the Naked Cowboy, the Times Square performer whose real name is Robert Burck, now simply refers to them as “co-workers.”

“They’re littered all over,” he said.

Even in New York, where people soliciting money are practically a tourist attraction, these monks tend to stand out, both for their attire and for their sense of entitlement. They offer the amulet and, in some cases, a bracelet; if they are not satisfied with the donation, they unabashedly demand $20 or more.

This year, the police have arrested at least nine people who have presented themselves as monks, mostly on charges of aggressive begging or unlicensed vending.

But merely begging in the streets is not against the law. The police have largely left these men alone, to the consternation of Buddhist leaders in New York’s Chinese neighborhoods, who portray them as nothing more than beggars who undermine Buddhists’ credibility.

Pastor convicted of immigration fraud

From the NY Post:

A Queens deacon has been convicted of helping Chinese immigrants seek asylum over bogus religious beliefs by coaching them in how to lie to the feds.

Liying Lin, a 30-year-old deacon at the Full Gospel Global Mission Church in Flushing, was found guilty by a Manhattan federal jury on Tuesday on three of the four counts of immigration-fraud charges she had faced.

The feds say she offered paid lessons on Christianity to immigrants and then coached them on how to falsely seek asylum by claiming they were persecuted by China for their religious beliefs.

She is one of 26 defendants indicted by the feds in 2012 for allegedly participating in separate but overlapping immigration-fraud schemes related to the submission of hundreds of asylum applications containing fabricated claims of persecution. Most of the defendants are law firm staffers, including six Big Apple lawyers and many paralegals.

Dominican Republic and China are largest sources of immigrants

From Capital New York:

China is poised to overtake the Dominican Republic as the largest source of immigrants to New York City.

Today, New York City is home to 8.34 million people. More than three million of them, or 37 percent, come from other countries. That compares to just 18 percent in 1970.

In the last decade, the growth of the foreign-born population, at 7 percent, outpaced the growth of the city's overall population, at 3 percent.

Those numbers are actually less impressive than the decade prior, when the foreign-born population increased by 38 percent and overall population increased more than nine percent.

Immigration from Europe has fallen dramatically as a proportion of overall immigration to New York, while Latin America has surged to the top spot, followed closely by Asia.

By country, the biggest source of the city's foreign-born continues to be the Dominican Republic, with 380,000 Dominicans in New York City in 2011, to China’s 350,000.

But not for much longer, if the current trends bear out. In the past decade, the population of foreign-born New Yorkers from China grew by a whopping 34 percent, compared to the Dominican Republic’s three percent.

Helen's words of wisdom

From the Queens Chronicle:

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall referred to Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing), the first Asian-American congresswoman from New York, as “Chinese” at a rally for the Voting Rights Act on Friday.

“We have this wonderful young Chinese woman who works in this borough,” Marshall said to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who also spoke at the event, held at Borough Hall. The borough president was speaking of the greater role minorities have come to play in the electoral process in recent years.

Marshall’s aides were quick to jump in and mention it was Meng — who was not in attendance — the borough president was referring to.

“Yes, she has done wonderful things for our borough and is a prime example of the strides our borough has made,” Marshall said after she was reminded.

Her office later added that the borough president’s statement was not malicious but that Meng’s name had briefly slipped her mind.

In fact, Marshall spoke quite highly of Meng during the rally and quickly corrected herself by saying, “Oh yes, Grace Meng,” after the initial statement was made.

The congresswoman’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Shortly after, Helen made an endorsement:

Shark fin soup may soon be a thing of the past

From the Daily News:

The New York state Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to outlaw the shark fin trade.

The bill now heads to the Assembly, which passed the same measure last year, only to have it die in the Senate without a vote.

If the bill is again approved by the Assembly, where it enjoys sponsorship from 43 of the body’s 150 members, it will head to Gov. Cuomo’s desk.

Environmental groups estimate that 73 million sharks are stripped of their fins and dumped back into the ocean, where they sink to the bottom and drown. The fins are then used as the main ingredient in the Chinese delicacy shark fin soup.

Since California and four other states banned the sale, purchase and distribution of shark fins, New York has become the leading hub of trade for the coveted product in the United States.

Spotted on a sidewalk in Downtown Flushing

Queens Trib headscratcher

Front Cover

Back Cover

Hello Crapper: Did you see the full page ad on the back cover of the current issue of the Tribune? - "The Development of Nanjing and Jianye District" Commie Chinese $ at work? I ask again, just what is going on at the Tribune?

http://www.queenstribune.com/epaper/E-Paper_021413.html


Regards GtheA

Bunch of lawyers arrested for immigration fraud

From NY Times:

They invented woeful tales of persecution for their Chinese clients. Prepped them on how to lie about having had a forced abortion. Even tutored them on religion.

In all, 26 people, including 6 lawyers, were charged Tuesday with helping Chinese immigrants submit false asylum claims in an effort to stay in the United States, law enforcement officials said.

The indictments describe elaborate schemes based in law offices in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens, which involved teams of paralegals and office managers, translators and a church official, who conspired to dupe immigration officials by inventing stories of political and religious persecution for their clients, officials said.

The indictments say female clients who sought asylum based on China’s one-child policy were encouraged to prepare for asylum interviews by watching Chinese soap operas so they could describe the experience of a forced abortion. Some paralegals were called “story writers” for their knack for inventing detailed tales of persecution. A church official in Flushing prepared clients for questions on religion by offering basic instruction in Christianity.

More than 20 defendants were arrested in raids in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, capping a three-year investigation.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the defendants of “weaving elaborate fictions” and making it “more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”

The indictments charged employees of at least 10 law firms, the authorities said. In the past few years, the firms filed more than 1,900 asylum applications, according to the indictments; officials did not say how many they believe were fraudulent.

Those "left behind"

A reader sent me this story from "Offbeat China," a blog focused on the Chinese community.

In a nutshell, lots of Chinese are entering the U.S. illegally, giving birth here (so their kids are born American), then shipping the babies to China to live with their grandparents while the parents work long hours here for low pay. When the child turns 5, he is shipped back to America to be enrolled in school. There are 10,000 of these children in just the town of Fuzhou, Fujian Province alone.

Splitting the vote

From the Queens Courier:

A Democratic Assembly hopeful in a primary race already dividing ethnic lines fears a split Korean community could give the Chinese candidate a golden ticket to the general election.

Myungsuk Lee, who is vying for the potentially open and brewing 40th Assembly District race, expects to face an uphill battle with fellow Korean candidate — and county pick — Ron Kim.

“The Korean community is a little divided between Ron Kim and me,” said Lee, 49, of Flushing. “Their votes are really divided. I don’t think it’s easy to unify them because I will keep running. I won’t give up, and the other candidate won’t give up.”

Kim, a 33-year-old South Korean-born community activist, has the backing of the Queens County Democratic Organization and City Comptroller John Liu. The Flushing resident was an aide to then-Assemblymember Mark Weprin before moving on to work for the city’s Department of Buildings and the Department of Small Business Services, serving also as vice president of the Korean American Association of Greater New York.

Lee, owner and publisher of the tabloid newspaper Korean American Times, is the president of the Federation of Korean American Associations in Greater New York and former president of the Korean American Chamber of Commerce of New York and the Korean American Association of Queens.

While each candidate eyeing the seat will still have to garner enough petitions to make it on to the ballot, Lee and Kim expect to face off with Chinese contender Ethel Chen.

Where does Flushing Commons stand?

From the Times Ledger:

On the heels of what appeared to be a fund-raising trip to Asia, the developers of Flushing Commons are back in Queens and in the process of inking contract deals for the $850 million downtown project.

Michael Meyer, president of TDC Development, attended meetings in cities including Hong Kong and Beijing in early March, e-mails obtained by TimesLedger Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Law show.

Meyer was upbeat, calling the tete-a-tetes “excellent,” but it was unclear exactly what was discussed, since details about the project were not released as part of the information request.

Meyer declined to comment at this stage in the project, but has said in previous interviews that Flushing Commons did not have enough funding to get a shovel in the ground.

A FOIL officer from the city Economic Development Corp. said the documents specifically related to the progress of Flushing Commons — which was approved in summer 2010 but never broke ground — were legally exempt because releasing them would affect a bidding process affiliated with the project.

The officer was not specific, but said the developers were currently negotiating new contract deals as part of the mega-project that is proposed to take the place of Municipal Lot 1 downtown...

But while Meyer was updating the EDC twice a month, community leaders who approved the project more than a year-and-a-half ago have been kept in the dark ever since.

Meng trying to hide her heritage?

From Crains:

Since announcing a bid for an open Queens congressional seat last month, Assemblywoman Grace Meng has largely kept her last name out of the three-way Democratic primary race. Campaign signs, placards and logos belonging to the Flushing politician have simply read: “Grace” and then “Democrat For Congress.”

It's an unusual omission, insiders say, especially in a contested race among candidates with low name recognition. “I've never seen a case where a person didn't use their last name,” said a campaign consultant who has been designing literature and lawn signs for 25 years. (Hillary Clinton went with simply “Hillary,” but she was a widely known former first lady.)

The appearance is that Ms. Meng, a Chinese-American lawyer, is trying to introduce herself in an ethnically neutral manner throughout the northeast Queens district, which is rife with conservative, white Democrats. Her campaign “might want to conceal the fact that she's Asian,” said one insider working to defeat the assemblywoman, who would be the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress.

Ok. Can I first say that Crain's clearly has no idea what the city looks like outside of Manhattan.

Perhaps Crain's ought to "crane their neck" a little higher so they can get a better view of the facts in Queens County. (attributed to the Flushing Phantom).

That suggests Ms. Meng must appeal to working-class whites in places like Auburndale, Bayside, North Flushing, Glendale and Maspeth.

Most of Auburndale, Bayside and North Flushing is not working-class and has a different take on things, particularly Asian-Americans in politics.

"There are conservative Democrats in many parts of the district who aren't exactly forward-thinking,” a Queens Democratic insider said, adding that many are uncomfortable with the recent proliferation of Asians locally.

It's not that the voters aren't forward-thinking; it's that the voters have seen the reality of what each of the Asian-Americans who have been elected to office so far have done, which is to say nothing (at best) and criminality at worst.

No hot water or refrigeration = big problem

I don't think these photos of Top China Buffet on Cooper Avenue in Glendale require a text explanation...