Some progress made by abandoned house dumping ground in Jamaica

 

Queens Chronicle

Within days of the Chronicle paying another visit to one of Jamaica’s more infamous eyesore properties, there was some limited action taken on behalf of neighbors who have been living with the abandoned house and frequent dumping ground for nearly nine years.

But just how long the corner property and its boarded-up house at 107-58 164 St. will remain clean or if the city will take any further action remains to be seen.

“There was cleanup,” neighborhood advocate Pamela Hazel said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “They cleaned the yard. A big red couch I saw last time I went by was gone. I hope it stays that way.”

The Chronicle on Oct. 1 took several photos of the property. Trash was strewn throughout the front yard, as per usual. The seemingly omnipresent pile of dumped trash and debris in the backyard also was there, though the red couch, tree limbs and brush were a different and larger pile than the Chronicle photographed back in June.

While the building is under a full vacate order following a fire last winter, clean, sharp holes have since been cut in some window boards and walls, cuts that from the sidewalk appeared to be sharp and precise enough to have been made by hand or power tools.

The paper last week forwarded the photos, along with others from June, from November 2016 and from 2013, to the city’s Departments of Buildings, Health and Mental Hygiene, Law and Environmental Protection seeking comment as to what possibly might be done to find a permanent solution.

Emails also went out to the offices of Mayor de Blasio, Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan), Councilman Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans), Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and state Attorney General Letitia James.

The Department of Buildings, where records show complaints about the property were first filed in 2012, said in an email Tuesday that inspectors had visited he property since Friday.

“Our inspectors did find excessive debris in the yard of the property, and a short garden wall around the property that was in a state of disrepair,” the email said. “As a result we issued two violations to the property owner for failure to properly maintain the property.”

City tax records list the owner of the property as Resource Capital Group LLC with an address of 99 Wall St. in Manhattan.

Cuomo shuts down the subway at night to discourage homeless occupation

CBS News

The city that never sleeps is being forced to get some rest starting next week, when New York City's subway system will begin shutting down overnight. Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the unprecedented move Thursday, which they said is necessary to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. 

Starting Wednesday, May 6, New York City subways will shut down from 1-5 a.m. to clean the public transit system on a daily basis. Ridership has decreased by 92% during the pandemic, and those hours have the fewest number of riders, the governor said.

Currently, the MTA is cleaning its network of trains and buses every 72 hours — but Cuomo said it's not enough. The governor said disinfecting the transit system daily is necessary so essential workers can get to work safely, without fear of being infected during their commute. "This is going to be one of the most aggressive, creative, challenging undertakings that the MTA has done," he said during his daily press briefing.

Look at that imbecile, can't even hold the tank by himself. I suggest Cuomo do his hands on governor act at any nursing home and help push a gurney with a COVID-19 casualty on it.

You know the homeless can easily adapt and just roam or dwell on the streets for four hours then go back on the train at 5:01. The only people this affects are all the night shift workers. Another stupid reaction decision by the unreasonably lionized Governor and the loathsome Mayor.

DEC too lax with Whitestone brownfield cleanup

Great report by Ryan Brady in the Queens Chronicle:

In September, the Department of Environmental Conservation changed the brownfield cleanup program track for the Waterpointe development planned in Whitestone. A Track 2 residential cleanup was first planned for the site, where a single-family housing development is planned.

But after the agency discovered that material at the site used as fill did not meet the residential use soil cleanup objectives, it changed the project to Track 4 restricted residential use, a less stringent one. And though the DEC initially had said that single-family homes could no longer be built there, it reversed its stance after Community Board 7 protested.

The agency decided to stick with Track 4 restricted residential use when it reverted back to the single-family housing plan. And while the DEC told the Chronicle that the option is permitted when the homes are controlled by a common entity, as the Waterpointe ones are planned to be, Whitestone resident Robert LoScalzo believes that the agency cannot allow them to be built with that track.

As proof, he points to the sheet that the DEC sent CB 7 when it initially changed the brownfield cleanup and said that single-family homes could not be built. It said, “Restricted residential use provides for common ownership or a single owner/managing entity of the Site, however, single-family housing is prohibited.”

According to LoScalzo, allowing the one-family homes is “a bastardization of what they’re obligated to do under the regulation.”

To further back up his argument, the Whitestone resident pointed to a set of DEC regulations that became effective in 2006, which also says that restricted-residential use does not allow one-family homes.

The agency has also said that the Edgestone Group, the firm that owns the site, was responsible for the fill that led the track to be changed. LoScalzo wonders why the company was not punished at all for using it. “By virtue of dumping material there, they failed to comply with the standards for Track 2 cleanup,” he said. “Why are they so easily off the hook by DEC simply changing the cleanup to Track 4?”

We hear LoScalzo was present at Senator Avella's event yesterday at the Waterpointe site, and addressed the press separately afterward. Stay tuned for more because it looks like he's not done yet.

Charles Park needs regular cleanup

Hi "Crappie, last week I was at Charles Park in Howard Beach and I saw a group of about 10 National Park Service workers with clip boards and cameras looking over the park. I was on the beach doing a cleanup of trash and they called me over to chat and take my picture. I proceeded to complain about all the trash and debris that accumulates on the beach and that there is no one who's job it is to keep it clean. Only for one summer they had a worker that would clean the beach each day but after Hurricane Sandy he was reassigned to the Jamaica Bay Nature Refuge.

I was told by one of the officials that they are looking for volunteer coordinator's to organize the community and would I like to be that person. I told them the job shouldn't be left to volunteers and that it should be the job of the NPS to keep the park clean. He said that there was nothing in the budget to hire a worker.

I then asked him that the NPS and NYC Park's was supposed to join up and help each other out with all the parkland NPS has and he said NYC Park's can't help they have more than they can handle. He also said many parks even Central Park depends on volunteers to help keep it clean.

My thoughts are that here in the USA there are many people out of work and we are spending billions on all kinds of projects and sending billions of dollars all over the world to nations that hate us and we can't even afford to clean a park in an affluent neighborhood like Howard Beach where families come to rest and relax.

Each day the tides bring in trash from boaters and what winds up in the sewage system. Each day fruits, vegetables and food is washed up from Hindu religious ceremonies. Each day people who fish and party leave behind beer bottles and trash. Just as the NPS has to clean the bathrooms and sweep the playground and empty the litter baskets they must clean the beach. Some of the debris on the beach includes sections of heavy boards from docks and have nails and bolts sticking out. They are a hazard for beach goers and to boaters if the debris is washed out with the tide.

I personally don't like to sit and see trash so I always like to cleanup my area and have taught my children to leave a park a little cleaner than you found it but this is a big dirty job that shouldn't be left to a few volunteers that will do periodic cleanups." - Rich

Woodside resident single-handedly cleans up historic cemetery

Let's hope it stays this way. You can see the "before" photos here.

Taking matters into their own hands

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Fathers Day weekend and yet another Saturday where Jamaica residents who are fed up with inaction by local elected officials (like Senator Leroy Comrie) and unanswered calls by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and staff, take matters in their own hands and take over the abandoned park/empty lot at 109th Ave & 171st Street in Jamaica, which has become an eyesore of overgrown weeds, garbage, broken down rusted playground equipment, remnants of what were once benches in the first phase of cleaning up this lot which is owned by a real estate company David Landau-Crown Realty of Brooklyn, who refuses to take care of this property.

So Jamaica resident & community advocate Pamela Hazel along with other activists like Gene Sassine, Larry Love, Lyle Braxton, a man who goes by OK and a couple other residents took matters into their own hands and did the first phase of this cleanup by cutting weeds and branches that are going out into the sidewalk. Other clean-up phases will follow.

Jamaica sty property finally cleaned

"Last week, the month's long stinking fiasco finally ended. The sanitation department cleaned James Fobb's sty. It took two visits for D.O.S to remove the volume of garbage mixed with furniture. It was also done after the Easter holidays.

Nonetheless, thanks to staff member, Andy from Councilman Miller's office. Andy took the time to visit the site with me a few Sundays ago. He said, "This place is worse than I thought."

Unfortunately, this fiasco will happen over and over again because the CHRONIC PROMISER, Borough President/Melinda Katz, is ONLY making awarding winning speeches. She and her staff are preoccupied with speeches, meetings and conferences.

Meanwhile, the primitive inhabitants will strike again. Soon they will discard of their furnishings, kitchen and other household garbage, at Fobb's site again.

The primitive inhabitants are confident that no one will bother them. They are sure that Katz will be on her next speech assignment. Therefore, she will have no time for law-enforcement.

During her campaign, she claimed to be a fixer; that will resolve issues from day ONE. Well, ONE YEAR has past. She has done very little.

Residents know that Joe & I are responsible for most of the clean-up in Jamaica. We will not allow the CHRONIC PROMISER to take credit for our hard work.

WE will hold KATZ, the CHRONIC PROMISER accountable because it is her damn job to deliver services. It is her damn job to bring agencies together to deliver services.

So far, she has delivered motivational speeches and no resolution.

As for the CHRONIC EXCUSE-MAKERS, Ms. Velazquez/ counsel and Ms. Boranian/liaison; at the B/P's office. Do your damn job. Make yourself available to receive residents' calls.

Other issues that need attention: the speeding, noise making trucks. The park at 109 & Merrick. The half done paint at the trestle and the dungeon bus stop.

No, you will NOT be allowed to sweep these issues under the rug, while voters are suffering.

Oh yea, What Ever The Hell It Takes."

Pamela Hazel: Social Media Journalist for Justice.

Parkway Hospital building gets a polish

"Hey, love your website, keep up the good work! . I just saw your post about Parkway Hospital in law and order. I own a cleaning company Hudson Power Washing that just removed all the graffiti off the back of the building a couple of weeks ago. It looks pretty amazing compared to what it used to look like. Hopefully it stays like that for a while."

-Nick.

Help sought to finish anti-graffiti project

From the Queens Courier:

Graffiti has been a problem in Hamilton Beach for decades, creating eyesores all around the neighborhood.

And the bridge that connects Hamilton Beach to Old Howard Beach over Hawtree Creek, known to residents as the “blue bridge,” is one of the most notorious spots for defacement.

But some residents, who are fed up with the look it gives the neighborhood, took clean-up matters into their own hands.

“One day, while hanging on my boat with some friends, we all started talking [about] how the bridge made the neighborhood look degrading,” said Laura Weiser, a resident of Hamilton Beach for 12 years. “So, I decided to do something about it.”

And she did.

As Weiser was starting to paint the southern portion, on her second day of painting, she slipped, fell and tore tendons and ligaments in her left wrist. Because of this injury, she could not finish painting the side and has left it a quarter of the way done.

She is now hoping that some residents will follow her good deed and help finish painting the concrete as she will not be able to do so for another six weeks.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

From PIX11:

Trash is not an uncommon sight along New York City streets.

Neighbor across the city regularly organize clean-up projects. In Long Island City, one group helped clean up an area around Queens Plaza.

A website in Jamaica, Queens routinely calls on elected leaders and neighbors to pitch in and help.

NYC’s Department of Sanitation has more than 6,000 workers who collect 12,000 tons of trash and recycling every day. They also sweep the city’s 6,000 miles of streets and empty 25,000 corner litter baskets.

For equipment and help organizing a neighborhood clean up, contact building management or the DSNY’s Community Liaison Unit at (646) 885-DSNY.

Report trash to NYC 311 here.

Developers want Flushing Creek cleaned up

From the Times Ledger:

A coalition of developers, businesses and environmentalists have launched a bid to clean up Flushing Creek.

More than 800 million gallons of raw sewage flows into the finger-shaped body of water, which separates Willets Point from Flushing, every year, according to researchers.

Sludge seeps into the creek from combined sewage overflows anytime there is even minimal rainfall because the city’s sewer system cannot handle the extra water.

“Our whole mission is to promote projects that clean up the creek and we want to return it to community use,” said Alexandra Rosa, a consultant who presented the group’s plan to Community Board 7 Monday night.

The group, Friends of Flushing Creek, is composed of a number of developers and businesses, some of which own land adjacent to the creek.

Representatives from Skyview Park, Crystal Window and Door Systems and developers F&T Group are stakeholders in the group and sit on the organization’s board of directors.

“We need a creek people will want to come to that meets water standards,” Rosa said. “We are all about restoring the creek so it can be used by the community.”

Rosa said the group’s initiative complements an effort by Claire Shulman’s Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corp. to redevelop a 60-acre waterfront property bordered by Flushing Creek, Prince Street, Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard.

Shulman’s LDC was awarded a $1.5 million Brownfield grant by the state in 2011 to explore the possible development.

Rosa, Shulman’s former chief of staff, stressed in an interview that Friends of Flushing Creek is operating separately from the former borough president’s effort, but added some of the same stakeholders in the LDC are also involved with the group.

So they're about restoring the creek because it will make money for the developers on the board. We aren't dumb.

Eyesore cleaned up by volunteers in Jamaica

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

A beautiful Easter weekend, sunny skies and warm temperatures, but here in Jamaica garbage prevails as always, while our local leaders as usual drag their feet and asses on this horrendous garbage problem that plagues our community, posses a health risk, devalues property values and affects quality of life in such a negative way.

Well, some ladies of Jamaica, including friend, comrade-in-arms and community activist, Pamela Hazel, have taken matters in their own hands to clean up a notorious dumping ground that has been a major eyesore for years, while local politicians and leaders twiddle their thumbs. At the corner of 108th and 164th St, sits a vacant house owned by James Fobb, that has been not only a big dumping ground for garbage, but a place for homeless and criminals to go inside according to residents.

Since their calls to leaders about cleaning this up have fallen on deaf and dumb ears (not too mention all the lame excuses they have to hear, like “private property”), they decided to roll up their sleeves, put their masks and gloves on and clean this eyesore up. As Pamela puts it, they did not want to see the eyesore this Easter weekend.

The below 10 minute video shows their efforts and some strong words about our lazy ass elected leaders, including Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.

Restaurant expansion to replace current eyesore

From the Queens Courier:

Mizumi restaurant is pumping funds into a planned expansion that will clean up the eyesore next door, a defunct gas station, The Courier has learned.

Owners of the sushi restaurant and buffet bought the former Getty gas station on 231-06 Northern Blvd., which has been tagged with graffiti for more than a year, and plan to replace it with an extension of the eatery.

Besides cleaning off the vandalism, the Chiang family, which owns Mizumi, hired Advanced Cleanup Technologies to remediate any environmental concerns caused by the gas station or expansion as it sits directly in front of Alley Pond Park.

Hindus clean up Jamaica Bay

From the Forum:

Bundled up in coats protecting them from the still-cold spring, the volunteers – young and old, from Queens and throughout the city – spread out across the beach at Jamaica Bay Sunday afternoon, picking up items scattered across the sand that, to those who left them there as religious offerings, represented beauty and prosperity and renewal. Once lovingly handled by worshipers on the South Queens coastline, colorful statues of such Hindu gods and goddesses as Vishnu, Lakshmi, and Ganesha line the sand in a less perfect form than they once were – their plastic shoulders chipped, their painted facades water-worn.

Spending a couple hours on the shore where many Hindus – especially those from nearby Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, and South Park – go to pray, the volunteers comb the beach for items that worshipers take to Jamaica Bay because it has become an adoptive Ganges River – the spot in India where the water is perceived as sacred and where people will take religious items to be blessed. But, because Jamaica Bay has become such a draw, the coastline has also become increasingly littered with religious items that were put in the water but wash back onto the shore, alarming area park workers and environmentalists who worry what the non-biodegradable goods doing to an ecosystem home to many species of wildlife.

“We like to put offerings in the water, but, when this practice began in the olden days, those offerings were biodegradable – flowers and fruits; it wasn’t the styrofoam and bottles of today,” said Sunita Viswanath, a co-founder of the all-volunteer group called Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus.

That is why Viswanath and the group’s two other co-founders, Aminta Kilawan and Rohan Narine, launched, along with the U.S. National Park Service, a monthly cleanup program, which began Sunday, at Jamaica Bay. Known as “Project Prithvi,” the initiative continues the work that others in the Hindu community have done to pick up the religious items from the shoreline. Additionally, as part of Sadhana’s work, the co-founders said they are going to different Hindu temples to speak to religious leaders and worshipers about the importance of respecting the environment – a message they said has been well received because it is so core to the beliefs of Hinduism.

“When we show community members the damaged, broken idols that we have collected at the beach, that really gets a reaction,” Viswanath said. “They stop in their tracks and say, ‘Wow, we shouldn’t be doing that.’”

Joe cleans up Jamaica

Because some [officials] do not do their jobs, I HAVE TO. I have been complaining about garbage that gets thrown down onto the sidewalk next to my building at the empty lot at corner of 170th St/90th Ave for some time now. Normally I would pick it up but decided to not do anything for 11 days. Well litter accumulated, dog sh*t all around and the weeds growing high on the sidewalk. But no one did a damn thing about it, the owner never came out, nothing. So on Day 11, I decided to do their jobs and take care of it myself, cleaned up all the garbage and dog sh*t and removed the weeds with my bare hands (since I live in a co-op and have no use for a weed wacker or other tools, plus spent my own money to buy Do Not Litter and No Dumping signs to put on the fence. Before and After photos attached.

You can place the check in the mail.

So what are they going to do now that Blumenfeld Development Group is spending $50 million on a retail projects 2 blocks away from me at 168th St and 90th Avenue? Are they going to just let dirty diapers, cans, bottles, dog sh*t, fast food containers and every other piece of trash that some of our low class residents throw all over the place just pile up or are they actually going to do their jobs? Because nothing says success like a $50 million retail project surrounded by dog sh*t, cheap liquor bottles and dirty diapers. Hey millions were spent on the Merrick Blvd Library and every time I go by it, garbage is all over the sidewalks around it.

Some of them are just plain damn pathetic and a disgrace to the community.

The New York Daily News article on the Jamaica Downtown Retail Project

Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY 11432
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CleanUpJamaicaQueens

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is literally a dump

From WPIX:

The lake is a busy area at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. A family was sick of seeing the trash piling up in the water. They contacted PIX11 Reporter Greg Mocker who put on waders to remove some trash.

Hey, if we adequately staffed the park with workers, we wouldn't need reporters to clean it up. But that would mean the City Council would have to allocate adequate funding for it, and it's much more fun to make deals with developers to sell off pieces of the park in return for a "park fund" that will no doubt get looted (again).

Concern over cleanup under the "Queensway"

From the Queens Courier:

The cleanup of polluted soil in Ozone Park has some residents worried toxic chemicals have spread throughout the neighborhood.

End Zone Industries will begin a long-awaited project to remove just a few inches of tainted soil from under eight storage bays under the abandoned Rockaway Beach LIRR line. The bays are between 101st and 103rd Avenues, from north to south, and 99th to 100th Streets, east to west.

Company representatives briefed Community Board 9 about the project at its April 9 meeting – with some board members upset about the project.

...concerns over a spread chemical, Trichloroethylene (TCE), business disruption and other concerns had board members skeptical about the project. TCE is an organic chemical that’s been used in cleaning solvents, paint thinner and pepper spray, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr. Vincent Evangelista, whose podiatry office is nearby the cleanup, expressed concern over the TCE-tainted brown water about 30 feet under the surface. Evangelista asked Austin and End Zone representatives if the contaminated soil, deemed by End Zone to be non-hazardous, immediately stopped outside of the allotted bays.

Austin acknowledged the soil could have spread to other parts of the neighborhood, but most of it has not been tested.

“There’s always unknowns when you dig underground and into dirt,” he said.