But does the fountain work?

From NY1:

Borough President Melinda Katz and other elected officials cut the ribbon on the newly-dedicated Women's Plaza in Queens Tuesday. It now has new masonry, benches and plants.

The monument on Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike used to be home to a statue called the "Triumph of Civic Virtue." It depicted a man standing over two women symbolizing corruption and vice.

“It really represented old-fashioned, old-fashioned thoughts about women,” said Claire Shulman, a former Queens Borough President.

As do you, grandma!

Activity at Civic Virtue site

"Hello Crapman:

Drove by Borough Hall today and noted that the green plywood fencing surrounding the Civic Virtue site was down. The workers were hosing the site with water. I spoke to them and they said that blue boxood and white lilies - the colors of the Queens flag - will be planted in the fountain area. Flower planting to come from somewhere in New Jersey. Will Katz have a ribbon-cutting ceremony very soon?

Check out my post here with today's photos of the renovated site.

All the best,
GtheA"

Glad to hear we're even outsourcing flower planting.

Planted ruin construction underway

From DNA Info:

Repairs to a damaged fountain in Kew Gardens began this week and will include plans to transform the site into a plaza dedicated to women of the borough, according to the Queens borough president.

The $720,000 restoration project by the city's Department of Design and Construction will repair the stonework at the base of a fountain at the corner of Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike on the ground of Borough Hall. The project will also improve landscaping, install benches and a plaque to honor the borough's women.

Restoration of Civic Virtue statue: $50,000 vs. Creating new plaza: $720,000

Translation: Someone's relative needed a contract.

Queens women to be honored with a planted ruin

City ignores public, proceeds with plan previously rejected by Helen Marshall

[This summarizes prior events concerning the Civic Virtue statue and the Queens Boulevard plaza site, then presents new information concerning a bidding process that closed on May 18, 2015 for work at the plaza site.]

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Specifications

I am Robert LoScalzo, the media producer/activist who sued the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS”) in 2013 to force it to comply with the Freedom of Information Law and turn over records pertaining to the controversial removal of the colossal 22-ton artwork statue “Triumph of Civic Virtue” from the Queens Boulevard public plaza site where it had stood since 1941, to a private Brooklyn graveyard. DCAS had removed the statue without consulting Queens Community Board 9 and against the will of area residents and officials, who did not want the statue removed.

As you may recall, I am also the one who discovered and exposed that City taxpayers paid $49,464.00 for a fine art conservator to provide “all labor, materials and equipment necessary for the conservation of the Civic Virtue sculpture,” plus another $49,801.00 for a fine art handling company to provide “all labor, equipment and material necessary and required to design and fabricate a custom armature [cage] to support and lift the Civic Virtue statue for its relocation to the Green-Wood Cemetery.” Contrary to what the City led the public to believe at the time, it was unnecessary to relocate the Civic Virtue statue to Green-Wood Cemetery in order to repair and restore it – and taxpayers need not have incurred the additional $49,801.00 expense to do so. Queens lost a valuable art asset, although taxpayers footed the bill to restore it.

After the Civic Virtue statue was removed and the public wondered what would happen to the Queens Boulevard plaza site, I am also the one who unearthed the disappointing plan devised by DCAS to convert the statue’s fountain base into a “planted ruin.” According to plans dated April 2, 2013 (PDF attached), "DCAS wishes to keep the original fountain as a planted ruin, a scenic backdrop to a busy and important intersection in the borough. … [T]he fountain, although left as a 'ruin', will be planted with grades and groundcovers and act as a landscape folly to enhance this prominent corner."

2013 DCAS Planted Ruin Plan

DCAS’s “planted ruin” plan was ridiculed on the popular QueensCrap web site, which declared: “Planned ‘Civic Virtue’ replacement a total embarrassment.”

DCAS’s “planted ruin” plan was also rejected by Helen Marshall, then Queens Borough President. Marshall’s spokesman Dan Andrews said “renderings that were presented to Marshall ‘were not acceptable to the borough president.’ ‘She would like to see it as a place where people can sit and reflect on the contributions of different women whose names she had wanted engraved there,’ Andrews said. The proposed renderings, Andrews said, did not include the women's memorial. Marshall would also like the fountain to be restored at the site, but the renderings did not include it. They called for flower plantings instead.” DNA Info

Concerned about the lack of any public process to plan the use of the Queens Boulevard plaza site and to consider the potential return of the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue, on April 8, 2014 the Civic Virtue Task Force met with Barry Grodenchik, a top aide to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz (and now candidate for City Council District 23), and Nayelli Valencia Turrent, Katz’s Director of Cultural Affairs and Tourism, to discuss those issues. When Grodenchik asked if the Task Force had a “Plan B” in the event the statue would not be returned, the Task Force replied: “Institute a legitimate public process to plan the future use of the plaza site.” Grodenchik said he would discuss that with Katz and then get back to the Task Force. He never did.

On July 3, 2014 the Civic Virtue Task Force wrote to DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch about those same issues, asking (among other questions): “What opportunities are there for community input and planning, regarding the future use of the Plaza site and the potential return of Civic Virtue?” DCAS never answered the question, and never instituted any public planning process for the plaza site.

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Drawings

Which brings us to the news: My most recent Freedom of Information Law request to the Office of the Queens Borough President reveals that the NYC Department of Design and Construction (“DDC”) has already solicited bids for a project called “Planted Fountain Restoration” at the Queens Boulevard plaza site, the centerpiece of which is essentially the 2013 “planted ruin” plan devised by DCAS which Helen Marshall rejected. The deadline for contractors to submit bids for this work was May 18, 2015. As far as I am aware, this has not been reported anywhere.

According to the bid solicitation documents: “The project consists of creating a sitting area around the existing historic fountain. The fountain basin will be stabilized and waterproofed and turned into a planter, and the fountain steps will be reconstructed. Benches, lighting and pavement will be added to create an accessible plaza.”

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Plaque

The bid specifications also require a 9” x 18” bronze plaque displaying the inscription: “THIS FOUNTAIN PLAZA IS DEDICATED TO THE WOMEN OF QUEENS.”

A few observations:

• The bronze plaque refers to “this fountain plaza” – however, there won’t be any actual functioning fountain. What is left of the fountain will be buried under the flowers and plants. It is wrong to call this a “fountain plaza” when the fountain is in fact eliminated under this plan.

• The City is proceeding with this plan, despite not addressing reasons it was rejected by Helen Marshall. She had wanted the fountain to be restored, not planted over; and she had wanted the names of women engraved at the site.

• From the very beginning, the City’s plans to remove the Civic Virtue statue and to determine the future use of the plaza site have been secretly made by powers-that-be who have refused to implement any public planning process or to consider what the community and taxpayers actually want. DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch, DDC, Melinda Katz, Barry Grodenchik and Nayelli Valencia Turrent apparently are continuing this imperious policy of dictating the use of the plaza site and abandoning the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue in a private Brooklyn graveyard, contrary to what constituents and taxpayers want.

• The public has never asked for any planted ruin or dedication to women at the plaza site. On the other hand, the public has requested the return of the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue from its temporary loan to Green-Wood Cemetery.

• To be very clear: We could have had the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue returned to Queens Boulevard, standing on top of a newly-restored fountain base, with its waterworks turned on every day and fully operational – think mini “Trevi Fountain” on Queens Boulevard, and you get the idea. Instead, we’ll get a “planted ruin” and a bronze plaque, while the Civic Virtue statue – newly restored at taxpayer expense – remains abandoned in a private Brooklyn graveyard. That is lunacy, and an utter failure of Queens leadership.

• Melinda Katz laments the fact that Queens receives the lowest per capita Department of Cultural Affairs support among the boroughs. But by allowing a unique and colossal artwork such as Civic Virtue to be taken from the borough to a graveyard, to be replaced by a mediocre “planted ruin,” Queens only proves the borough’s true status as the laughingstock of this City’s cultural affairs.

The NYC Public Design Commission (PDC) may still have to approve any plan for the plaza site. A cursory review of all PDC agendas at the PDC web site from the year 2012 to the present time did not show any Queens Boulevard plaza site renovation on any PDC meeting agenda.

Questions Raised:

(1) If Helen Marshall rejected the “planted ruin” concept, and DCAS and DDC are now proceeding with essentially that plan, has Melinda Katz approved it? Or are DCAS and DDC doing whatever they want at the plaza site?

(2) Which contractor firm is the winning bidder for the “Planted Fountain” work at the plaza site? What is the total price of the winning bid? Has a contract actually been awarded and executed yet?

(3) Has the Public Design Commission approved the plans for the fountain/plaza? If not, when will it?

(4) Presuming that the PDC must approve any plan for the plaza site but has not yet done so, why would DCAS and DDC solicit bids for a specific plan for the plaza site, without first obtaining PDC’s approval of that plan?

Where will Civic Virtue finally rest?

From Pix11:

...what will become of the empty space at Queens Borough Hall? The city and the office of the Queens Borough President is considering landscaping the area and adding plants to honor the women leaders of the borough.

Richard Iritano and the members of Civic Virtue Task Force question the deal that gave the statue to the cemetery in Brooklyn for an undefined amount of time.

Rally in the works to bring Civic Virtue back to borough hall

From the Forum:

Time has not put a damper on the fight to bring Civic Virtue back to Kew Gardens and advocates said they were planning a major rally for the cause.

Richard Iritano, leader of the Civic Virtue Task Force, said he and his team were making hundreds of phone calls and emails to organize one a massive effort against the removal of the historic statue and call for its immediate return to the front of Borough Hall. After months of waiting for letters of support and other commitments from Queens elected officials, Iritano said he was ready to press forward alone if he needed to.

“We want this to be a democratic process and so far, we’re not getting any cooperation,” Iritano said. “Where are the letters of support? We will move ahead with this rally with or without them.”

Now, the activist said he hoped to see those same elected officials come back to supporting the cause as he and his task force assemble another massive rally for next month.

“The consensus has long been established. We want it back,” Iritano said. “There still seems to be all these delays and stall tactics coming from those in office.”

Robert LoScalzo, a documentary filmmaker and member of the task force, learned through a Freedom of Information Law Request that $49,464 city dollars went towards the restoration work of the statue and another $49,801 paid for its transportation.

Katz tells Civic Virtue group that she's not interested

From the Queens Tribune:

The group hopes to get the support of Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, but that appears to be unlikely.

In its press release, the group said they met with two of Katz’s staffers, Barry Grodenchik and Nayelli Valencia, to state their case for bringing the statue back to Queens. Iritano said that Grodenchik told them they would consider that, along with other options for the site, and have more meetings scheduled with them in the future.

When asked about the issue and the meeting, a spokesperson for Katz said the Borough President’s position on what to do with the vacant area remains unchanged from what she said earlier this year: she prefers that the site be converted to a plaza that honors women of Queens and outside the City for the work they have done. This was an idea first mentioned by her predecessor, Helen Marshall.

Iritano said Grodenchik gave them the impression that they would consider bringing back the statue and they had no knowledge of Katz’s position prior to their meeting with Katz’s staffers in April of this year.

Katz’s spokesperson said they should have not gotten that impression and the Borough President’s position on the matter remains unchanged, despite the meeting.

Hmmm...Perhaps we can alter the statue to honor women of Queens. Here's my proposal:

Push to have Civic Virtue returned to Queens

Letter PDC GreenWood 140605

From Triumph of Civic Virtue:

Given that Civic Virtue was moved to Green-Wood over the objections of local officials and residents, and that City taxpayers footed bills totaling $99,265.00 to not only conserve Civic Virtue but to aid and abet its move to Green-Wood, the Task Force was amazed to find during a recent visit to Green-Wood that the cemetery has installed a sign in front of Civic Virtue that denies both of those facts, and conveys false and misleading information about the circumstances of Civic Virtue’s temporary loan to Green-Wood.

Greenwood’s plainly inaccurate sign states (1.) that the City of New York “could not afford to conserve” Civic Virtue and was “without the funds to do so”; and (2.) that the City could not afford the conservation expense because Civic Virtue “lacked the support of local officials”. Those statements only promulgate the self-serving, false narrative that Green-Wood has concocted around Civic Virtue, and they could not be further from the truth.

CivicVirtue Handout 140610

“Green-Wood may have hauled Civic Virtue into the cemetery, but that doesn’t entitle Green-Wood to re-write history, and to mis-inform the statue’s visitors about the taxpayer funding of the statue’s cleaning and conservation, or the fact that elected officials and the public actually pleaded to keep Civic Virtue on Queens Boulevard,” said Task Force member Robert LoScalzo.

Accordingly, on June 5, 2014, the Task Force sent letters to Green-Wood President Richard Moylan and to Public Design Commission President Signe Nielsen, demanding that Green-Wood immediately remove its false and misleading sign, and that any prospective replacement sign be subject to a public hearing and approval by the Public Design Commission.

CivicVirtueTaskForce NEWS RELEASE 140606

Planned "Civic Virtue" replacement a total embarrassment

From Triumph of Civic Virtue:

Ever since plans to exile the Triumph of Civic Virtue statue to Brooklyn came to light, enquiring minds have wanted to know: What will replace the statue at its former location on Queens Boulevard?

On July 29, 2013, DNAInfo reported that Queens Borough President Helen Marshall was “in negotiations with the departments of Design and Construction and Citywide Administrative Services” concerning the future use of the Queens Boulevard site, but that “renderings that were presented to Marshall ‘were not acceptable to the borough president.’”

Thanks to a new Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) Request made by Robert LoScalzo (who has previously successfully sued the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS”) to obtain Civic Virtue records), now we know how DCAS intends to utilize the former site of the statue: As a “planted ruin”.

Records obtained by LoScalzo discuss the fountain that served as the base for the Civic Virtue statue. The statue has been exiled to Brooklyn, but what is left of the fountain base is still at the Queens Boulevard site. According to the records:

DCAS wishes to keep the original fountain as a planted ruin, a scenic backdrop to a busy and important intersection in the borough. … [T]he fountain, although left as a ‘ruin’, will be planted with grades and groundcovers and act as a landscape folly to enhance this prominent corner.

An artist’s rendering of the proposed “planted ruin” shows the fountain area closed off behind a cyclone fence, with wildflowers sprouting from the fountain and surrounding property.

Is DCAS serious? They’ve removed the colossal statue and artwork from Queens, and intend to leave behind a “planted ruin” to “act as a landscape folly”?

A “landscape folly”?

Who writes this stuff, and how dumb do they think we are?

Read the full prospective from the NYC Department of Design and Construction.

Former home of Civic Virtue looks lonely

"Now on partial display: The Pedestal" - anonymous

Civic laziness

Dear QC,

Some time back shortly after the Triumph of Civic Virtue had been removed, the tarp left over the site was tagged with graffiti, as you posted on your site prior. Those who have walked by the site lately may mistakenly believe it was cleaned up, but a closer look proves that to the contrary, all DCAS has done is flip the tarp around.

Queries made to DCAS have been met with silence.

This site continues to offer emblematic examples of failure, neglect, and obfuscation from city government on issues in Queens.

Sincerely,

Jon Torodash

Civic Virtue's spot still noisy

From the Daily News:

The controversial statue, “Triumph of Civic Virtue,” is long gone from its perch on Queens Blvd. — but its noisy legacy remains.

Every eight minutes, the loud wail of bird screeches blares from an electronic device mounted at the statue’s former site — a poop-reduction system that has long outlived the structure it was designed to save.

“It's terrible this noise,” said Debra Mays, 50. “I walk here everyday after work and I am telling you, this is annoying.”

The News contacted the city to ask why the box is still operating nearly nine months after the statue was moved to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery — prompting the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to say it would remove the device in the coming weeks.

Until then, the box will continue to emit two sounds — one inaudible to the human ear and another which is a random mix of birds of prey.

City paid to repair and remove Civic Virtue

From the Times Ledger:

Taxpayers shelled out $100,000 to clean the exiled Triumph of Civic Virtue statue and help move it from its perch outside Borough Hall to a private cemetery in Brooklyn late last year, city contracts show.

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services banished the neglected statue to Green-Wood Cemetery in Kings County in December, justifying the move by saying private dollars would be used for upkeep.

But before the relocation, the city inked a $50,000 contract with Pennslyvania-based Kreilick Conservation to provide conservation and preservation treatment to the controversial sculpture, which included cleaning the entire piece and patching cracks with faux stone material.

The department paid another roughly $50,000 to Washington, D.C.-based Surroundart to build a custom steel cage that lifted the 17-ton artwork off its base in December, according to documents provided to TimesLedger Newspapers.

The contracts were given to TimesLedger by Queens activist and filmmaker Robert LoScalzo, who is currently suing to try and obtain communications between the city and the cemetery.

“This asset — that is no longer an asset to Queens — has been essentially privatized in Brooklyn with little to no explanation to the public and against the wishes and protests of everyone,” he said.

An indefinite loan agreement between the city and Green-Wood estimated the cemetery would pay $165,000 for transportation and $27,500 to put a protective coat on the statue. The cemetery will also build a new base for Civic Virtue, since its Borough Hall perch, including the fountain and underground plumbing, was also in need of repair, the city said. Green-Wood could not provide TimesLedger with the actual cost nor how much it would spend on long-term preservation.

LoScalzo has a hunch the taxpayers’ money could have been better spent refurbishing the statue at its former Borough Hall home, and hopes a judge will force the city’s hand to release communications between the department and Green-Wood Cemetery to find out more.

“It’s not lost on me the symbolic significance that a statue representing the triumph of civic virtue over vice and corruption is not welcome in our borough,” he said.

Someone is suing to get Fat Boy back

From the Daily News:

A Queens-based filmmaker has sued the city over its hastily-enacted plan to pluck a deteriorating statue off Queens Blvd. and move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Robert LoScalzo claims the city has refused to turn over emails and other communications involving the removal of the Triumph of Civic Virtue from its longtime perch outside Queens Borough Hall.

“There are still too many unanswered questions,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led a campaign to keep the statue in Queens and is working with LoScalzo on the legal action. “How was a heavy construction project like this done in quick secrecy?”

Plans to move the statue were unveiled during a little-known Design Commission meeting in November, when most civic leaders and lawmakers were focused on recovery efforts after Superstorm Sandy.

One month later, the statue was moved to Green-Wood.

Cemetery officials said all of the conservation work on the statue has been completed and it is awaiting a new granite base.

Great, now you can bring it back to where it belongs.

Garbage in Jamaica symbolic of bigger problems

Another Saturday morning walk to Blink Gym revealed the true “Jamaica Revealed”. Of course “Jamaica Revealed” refers to the event held several weeks ago about bringing potential businesses to the downtown area, which I am all for, but how about cleaning up the damn house first folks. This garbage problem in Jamaica is atrocious. How atrocious? Well my walk back from Blink Gym revealed a major eyesore along the Colosseum Mall Stores on 165th between Jamaica Ave and 89th St. (and this was not early in the morning either). One particular eyesore, which looks like it has been in the making for a while, is pretty amazing considering this is right in the downtown area and part of the 164th Street Mall Association. Someone is not doing their job.

This is right near 89-41 165th Street. I have seen this for a while and wondered how long before anyone said anything. Well I am still waiting.

And the beat goes on…..

……and on and on.

Empty lot next to Homecare Supplies at 168-30 89th Ave. How much garbage and rodents are hidden in these high weeds?

In front of house at 89-16 172nd St.

Problematic lot at 170-19 89th Ave.

And all of this is supposed to draw quality businesses in our area? All it draws in are low-class ghetto trash and low-class third world immigrant trash and the crap that goes along with it.

How bad is our Jamaica garbage problem, well at 112th Precinct Community Council meeting last Thursday, which  covers Forest Hills/Kew Gardens, City Council candidate Jon Torodash, who I know, had this exchange with Claudia Filomena, the Queens director for the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, which the Queens Chronicle covered (http://www.qchron.com/editions/central/trying-to-improve-neighborhood-streets/article_08f05777-caf5-5ba1-b4fb-072e9c7eaf0f.html):

City Council candidate Jon Torodash brought up his own concerns.

“Jamaica has a tremendous trash problem and it has since been growing along Queens Boulevard and there have been individuals who have been documenting it,” he said. “It’s happened on DOT properties, residential properties, and no one is coming out there and no fines have been issued.”

Filomena explained that in certain situations, such as a vacant lot, the Department of Sanitation can clean up the property.

“But in Queens you have a lot of buildings that have just been abandoned and we try to do as much as we can,” she said. “Because you have a lot of absentee landowners and property owners in the area, it makes it difficult. We can bill them, but at the end of the day, they can choose to ignore the fines. Unfortunately it’s kind of just a Band-Aid. We can also reach out to the banks that own those properties but many of them are out of state and don’t always come up with the best solutions either.”

“It is obvious that Manhattan and certain areas of Brooklyn and Queens are better maintained than others, and it’s simply not right,” Torodash wrote in an email after the meeting. “Although Jamaica is not technically ‘in my district,’ it is a hop, skip and a jump from the subways and buses. The slow incursion of graffiti and trash buildup into any area is a troubling indicator of neighborhood decline, correlating with increased crime and lowered property value. We don’t want the problem to creep in: It should be aggressively pursued."

"It’s downright nasty the way some of these streets look,” Gretta Harison said. “Some people probably say they’re used to it, but that’s not a good thing. We shouldn’t be used to trash all over the place and last time I checked, Queens was part of the city that Bloomberg represents. It seems like he forgets that sometimes.”

“There are areas in Manhattan that have trash and graffiti as well,” Felomina said at the meeting. “We want to help property owners and residents keep their neighborhoods clean and I know that in the Jamaica area there are a lot of issues with trash but there is only so much that we can legally do. We encourage anyone who sees trash or graffiti to call it in.”

Torodash was not satisfied.

“It amazes me how Queens Borough Hall can be strewn with trash, a broken handrail, peeling paint on its flagpole and unwashed graffiti for months (on the tarp over Civic Virtue’s former site) but still the city could muster $100,000 to pay for yanking the Civic Virtue statue away from City Hall and come up with $20 million for a glass atrium where healthy cherry trees once stood,” Torodash wrote. “It’s really not that complicated: Inspectors must seriously ramp up their issuing of citations and pass enforcement up the chain of command quickly to deal with the repeat and serious offenders who flout the law.”

Jon took the words right  out of my mouth.

Pretty fucking bad, when someone running for city council, not in our community and does not live in our community, is more concerned than our own elected officials who are pretty much non-existent on this issue. Where the fuck are your concerns Cook, Wills, Meeks, Scarborough, even you Mr. Comrie?

And sure just as I predicted earlier, we heard from Wills, Meeks and even disgraced Malcolm Smith in regards to violence and guns in conjunction with the horrific killing of 14-year-old D’aja Robinson by some punk ass gang member, who needs to have a bounty on his head “DEAD OR NOT ALIVE”. They were saying the usual empty bullshit that politicians like to say during these times (“This is a tragedy”, “We have to get the guns out of our community”). But words mean nothing, action means everything and none of you have really done anything on this issue. Why wait for a change in Washington, take care of matters in your own back yard and stop these young punks from running wild in our garbage strewn community. It is not like this is the first time,  this has been going on for years and as usual, to take the words of Stevie Wonder, “You haven’t done nothing”. Hell you clowns cannot even take care of the garbage problem. You are just media whores, looking for an opportunity to put yourself in the spotlight. Nothing but hollow bullshit.

You just don’t get the correlation between garbage run-down communities and crime. They go hand in hand FOOLS!

Joe Moretti
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/

We have a replacement for Civic Virtue!

It's Yoshi!

Civic Virtue cover up!

Dear Queenscrapper,

In our continual pursuit of the truth behind the circumstances of the removal of Triumph of Civic Virtue, we have received some tangential documentation from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) in response to our FOIL request, but not the information that we actually asked for. Among these documents are the Request for Proposals (RFPs) for services related to preservation of the statue and construction of the armature used for its transport to Green-Wood, in which we have found something quite unusual.

As a former intern with NYC Small Business Services, I had the opportunity to post several dozen RFPs. All of them were posted 3-4 weeks before the submission deadline for interested contractors, and often longer when addenda were involved. On DCAS' own open list of RFPs, this 3-4 week period is also followed. The RFPs related to Triumph of Civic Virtue however, were posted only 7 and 8 days prior to the submission deadline. This quick window is bewildering, especially given the intricate nature of the construction work involved. Furthermore, the required time period for public notice of RFPs appears to be set at 20 days by the Procurement Policy Board. DCAS has also not provided any communications pertaining to the removal of the statue that might have occurred with contractors prior to this time, and refuses to provide any of the communications that took place between itself or any other city agencies and Green-Wood cemetery related to the removal, citing attorney-client privilege.

We spoke to attorneys at the Committee on Open Government in Albany regarding this situation, and their assessment is that DCAS does not have the right to deny these records. We are considering what legal course of action to take at this point in order to receive what we have still not received months ago, namely, all records of communication. Some generalist attorneys have already expressed interest in representing us, but we are still looking for counsel with experience in matters of preservation, records access, procurement, or other NYC municipal procedure to examine documents, research the city and state statutes, and determine other help precedent that might better advise city or state legal authorities reviewing our case.

Please read more here:

http://triumphofcivicvirtue.org/2013/03/18/major-updates/

-Jon Torodash

Still fighting for Civic Virtue

From the Daily News:

The controversial Triumph of Civic Virtue statue may be long gone from Queens Boulevard but some local activists are still fighting to find how and why it was moved.

They filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the city for details of the plans to move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

But the Department of Citywide Administrative Services has yet to respond, prompting the group to appeal to state officials.

“There are a lot of issues going on with this statue,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led the campaign to keep the statue in Queens. “Residents were annoyed enough that we were losing such a great work of art but then there was this whole secrecy and these strange channels through the Design Commission.”

The city Design Commission signed off on the plan to move the statue during a little-known public hearing in November.

Torodash and others complained they had no prior notice about the hearing.

The final moments of Civic Virtue in Queens

The statue was transported down Queens Blvd...

To the LIE...

And eventually over the Kosciuszko Bridge to Brooklyn.

Video available on George The Atheist's blog: While You Slept

And here he is in his new home:

Fat Boy heads to greener pastures

From the Daily News:

The Triumph of Civic Virtue, the controversial Queens statue that has divided local lawmakers and residents for decades, has moved to greener pastures.

A last-minute plea from supporters who wanted to keep the statue at its present perch outside Queens Borough Hall failed to change the mind of city officials.

A crew spent almost 12 hours Saturday carefully removing the statue from its base outside Queens Borough Hall for its journey to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Under an unusual agreement with the city, the cemetery will restore the statue and then place it on display.

“This is a sad day for Queens,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who recently led a rally in front of the statue to demand it be kept in the borough. “The people of Queens wanted this statue. They need to replace it with another large piece of Greco-Roman art immediately.”

No, we need to replace our do-nothing elected officials immediately. Or rather, next November.