A Memorial Day garbage walk

A Memorial Day walk to Blink Gym, but not really different from any other walk in Jamaica. My question, would this be acceptable anywhere else?

As soon as I walk out of my apartment building on 170th St, I encounter this:


In front of empty lot at 169-23 90th Ave

and this:


In front of empty lot at 169-23 90th Ave

I turn onto 90th Ave, the other side of the empty lot to see this:

Empty Lot at 169-23 90th Ave

A few feet and I encounter the next empty lot on 90th Ave and this:

The front of another empty lot on 90th Ave

I have not even gotten two blocks yet, but as I move into the next block (this is near where the $50 million retail project is going up and  across the street from the Marshall’s Department Store and the Police Station), I see this:

Side of house at 89-27 168th Place. The smell is awful, either a bunch of dog shit in there, a baby diaper or someone took a shit in there.

You can actually see a small piece of dog shit to the left.

Right around the corner, this major eyesore that has just gotten some garbage dumped there.

Abandoned Home at 89-64 168th Place

I have only walked three blocks so far, pretty damn amazing. This all near the $50 million retail project.

Now I am walking back from the gym and I walk along 164th Street where the stores of the Colosseum Mall are and I see this, which was a mess on Saturday, but slobs added more garbage today.

The stores along 164th Street. This was a mess on Saturday and now more garbage has been tossed into the mix.

And this:
Stores along 164th Street between Jamaica Ave and 89th Ave.

And this:
Stores along 164th Street between Jamaica Ave and 89th Ave.

A turn on 89th Avenue reveals this “Jamaica Revealed”:
164-11 89th Ave. This spot is a great pissing place for the local natives.

And nothing says GHETTO like this:



So this was just a few blocks from my apartment, TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE (unless you live in Pakistan or India). Councilman Ruben Wills, who I am not a fan of, was right in the NY1 four-part garbage series when he said “It’s the community”. Claudia Filomena, Queens Director for the Mayors Community Affair Unit was wrong when she stated in a Queens Chronicle article in regards to the Jamaica trash/litter problem: ““There are areas in Manhattan that have trash and graffiti as well,” Felomina said at the meeting.”

No, Ms. Filomina, there are no areas in Manhattan that look anything like what is going on in Jamaica. I probably have traveled all over the 5 boroughs more than you or most people and have NEVER encountered anything quite like what I see in Jamaica. This past Sunday, I walked all over the West Village, the East Village, Lower East Side, Union Square area and saw nothing that resembled the few blocks that are pictured here, so please do not give me that bullshit statement.

The Jamaica community is a result of too many low-class ghetto people who think nothing of throwing trash everywhere, new low-class third world immigrants who have no respect for their new community and think throwing garbage is normal, absentee landlords of run-down third world looking apartment buildings, owners of vacant properties that are not taken care of, litter laws that are not enforced by Department of Sanitation, a slew of section 8 housing where some of the people have no respect for their community or themselves, corrupt local officials, do very little local officials, community boards that are just an extension of the local officials, community and business leaders with blinders on whose catch phrase is “vibrant and diverse”, a mayor who has pretty much abandoned anything outside of Manhattan and so-called upstanding community residents who say nothing, do nothing, ignore the situation and do not hold their elected leaders accountable. All of this is a recipe for disaster, a dying Jamaica community.

If anyone can tell me if any of this is acceptable, say something now. If anyone thinks that my last paragraph is incorrect, say something now.

CASE CLOSED!

Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/

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/

Inside the mind of our Queens CAU Director

From Urban Review, Fall 2005:

Having worked in Bayside for nearly five years [as executive assistant to Congress Member Gary Ackerman] and having grown up near the area, I see both the pros and cons of this new designation. While it's true that Bayside maintains the Small Town, USA atmosphere that is rare in a constantly growing borough like Queens, it is also an area that is demographically homogeneous. The area is majority white and middle to upper middle class. The area also remains quite expensive, with house prices ranging from $450,000 to $750,000 and over.

However, while theoretically the rezoning is meant to protect the character and integrity of the neighborhood as a whole, I believe that it is also meant to prevent the neighborhood from fully representing the diversity of the rest of the borough. The majority of McMansions are being built to house ethnicities besides those who currently reside in the area.

Ultimately, I believe that zoning designation as restrictive as the R2A is meant to prevent people from being able to choose what they want their house to look like. It can only end up creating neighborhoods no different than those created by William Levitt a half century ago.

- Claudia Filomena, then a Hunter College Master's degree student.
Now she's a Community Affairs Unit Borough Director for Queens. (There are 2. And I have no idea who Morgan Jones is.)

Claudia is clueless about zoning and overdevelopment. It's obvious why she was hired for her current job as apologist for the Bloomberg administration.

Has anyone actually ever seen this person or received assistance from her? How about just an e-mail reply? I've heard nothing but complaints.

Why do we have a CAU anyway since they never actually assist anyone?