The 18th hole needs protection!

From CBS 2:

Cracked windows, shattered windshields and dented cars … again and again.

The culprits? Golf balls.

Dozens were scattered all over Raymond Hublall’s home on Commonwealth Boulevard in Little Neck, because right across the street is Douglaston Golf Course.

“From 2010 to now I’ve spent approximately $5,000,” Hublall said.

His neighbors have seen similar damage. The situation is not just proving to be expensive, it’s also dangerous. Hublall said one errant shot injured his niece.

“She was walking in from roadway walking into my front door and she got hit by the golf ball,” Hublall said.

Just to give you an idea of how many golf balls end up on some of these properties, Hublall produced a box filled with them. He said he collected all of them in just a couple of months.

Back in 2014, neighbors complained to local leaders and got netting installed. The only problem is it doesn’t protect the 18th hole.

Fox visits golfers at Kissena Park

From DNA Info:

A young fox was spotted on the fairway at the Kissena Park Golf Course in Flushing Saturday by a group of golfers, and he wasn't too shy.

The fox came out from a grassy area surrounding the course near the 11th hole at about 1 p.m., the golfers said.

It spent a little time sniffing around a player's club before scurrying away, according to video.

Trump's $269M taxpayer funded golf course now open

From A Walk in the Park:

Trump Golf Links At Ferry Point Park, located on the former Ferry Point Park landfill surrounded by housing projects near the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx, is now open for business - for the rich.

It's April Fools Day every day for the city's tax payers as billionaire Michael Bloomberg's gift to billionaire Donald Trump finally opens today but not before sticking the taxpayers with a reported $269 million dollar bill.

In one of the most fiscally irresponsible deals made during Bloomberg administration the city paid to build the country's most expensive municipal golf course for the billionaire real estate developer.

The project, one of the Parks Department's most scandal-plagued developments, was originally supposed to open in 2001 and cost the tax payers only a few million dollars.

But the city's cost to build the luxury course isn't the only thing that has skyrocketed since Trump signed the deal in 2013: Prices to play at the exclusive course have also continued to go through the roof.

Green Fees. In a further bilking of taxpayers, the city is allowing Trump to charge the public more than three times what is paid to play at other Parks Department golf courses.

The original contract signed by Donald Trump's Ferry Point Partners for green fees in 2013 listed $100 for a round of golf (Monday-Thursday), and $125 on weekends and holidays. He was also allowed to charge non-residents $25 more on weekends without the approval of Parks or the city.

Since then the sky-high green fees have dramatically increased even further.

The green fees are now $141.00 during the week and $169.00 on weekends. For non-residents prices are now $190.00 during the week and $ 215 dollars on weekends.

Trump is also permitted to increase green fees annually according to his agreement.

Trump is required pay the city nothing through the first four years of his 20-year contract. Years 1-4: No Fee. Year 5: $300,000 or 7% of Gross Receipts plus 3% of sublicense gross receipts. By the 10th year, he is required to pay $360,000 or 7% of Gross Receipts plus 3% of sublicense gross receipts. By year 20, he is required to pay the city $470,000 or 10% of Gross Receipts plus 3% of sublicense gross receipts.

Hardhat required when living near golf course

From WPIX:

Julio Rosario and his father-in-law Anthony Dolce live next door to each other on a nice block in Bayside, Queens. They’ve got the beautiful public Clearview Golf Course across the street.

A nice life, right? It would be if golfers could hit straight.

“Ever since we moved we’ve been getting pelted by these golf balls. On average, at least 20 a week,” Julio told me. “My car is damaged multiple times over the years, my house, my fence.”

And he’s worried every time his little kids have to go out.

Anthony told me, “I’ve had windows broken on my truck. On my wife’s jeep and now she has a dent on the roof of her car.”

Julio says the NYC Parks Dept. is giving him a hard time when he complains. It won’t cut down trees, claims it doesn’t have room to put up a net and told him if golfers cause damage, he’ll have to find them himself and pursue litigation himself.

Donald got a real sweetheart deal

From the Daily News:

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently wasn’t satisfied with simply handing Donald Trump control over one of the most expensive public golf courses ever built in this country – the new $236 million, 18-hole Parks Department course scheduled to open next spring at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx.

Bloomberg’s aides quietly added a slew of financial giveaways in the 2012 deal with The Donald that no other city golf course concessionaire enjoys, a Daily News review of Parks Department golf contracts has found.

Those giveaways include: no concession fees for four years; then decades of extraordinarily low revenue-sharing with the city; tens of millions of gallons of free water annually; even a five-year delay for Trump to build a $10 million clubhouse, his only major capital investment in the project.

Start with the greens fees, the basic charge for a round of golf; virtually all of the city’s existing 13 public golf courses charge $48 per person during weekend peak hours, higher for non-city residents.

But the new Trump National Golf Course at Ferry Point plans to charge nearly three times as much — $125 per person.

Trump’s split of revenues with the city, however, will be far less than all other courses.

City on the hook for $236M for Trump's golf course

From the Daily News:

The price keeps growing for Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, the course the Parks Department has spent the past 14 years building at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx.

The city now expects to spend an astonishing $236 million to complete the Ferry Point project by next spring over a former landfill, according to new figures compiled for the Daily News by the Independent Budget Office.

That includes $181.4 million for the 190-acre golf course itself, plus another $54.6 million for 30 acres of adjacent new parkland and a waterfront esplanade, the IBO says. The total is more than 10 times the original cost when construction started in August 2000.

Even though the course will not open until spring 2015, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a symbolic ribbon cutting there in October with golf legend Jack Nicklaus, who designed the course, and with Donald Trump, the developer City Hall selected two years ago to operate it.

What Bloomberg did not mention then is that construction costs have continued to climb during the past two years — by another $32 million for the course and another $13 million for the adjacent parks, according to the IBO.

Trump could end up paying less in annual fees to the city than some hot dog vendors do for their stands.

Ferry Point, in other words, will be one of the most expensive golf courses ever built, not too far behind the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles ($260 million) or the new local favorite for Wall Street executives, the Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City ($250 million). It will even surpass the luxurious Bayonne Golf Club ($160 million) in New Jersey.

The others are exclusive private clubs and were built with private money. Ferry Point, on the other hand, is being financed by the taxpayers. It is still labeled a public course despite greens fees that are expected to cost more than $125.

Bloomberg didn't rush back after train accident

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Bermuda on Sunday when a train derailed in the Bronx, the most recent time that the mayor has been out of town when a major incident in New York City occurred, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Bloomberg, who steps down on Dec. 31 after 12 years at City Hall, was playing golf Sunday at Bermuda’s majestic Mid Ocean golf club, a person who spotted the mayor said. The Metro-North Railroad train derailment — killing four people and injuring more than 60 others — occurred at roughly 7:20 a.m. New York time.

Mr. Bloomberg was golfing in the early morning and did not leave the course until roughly 1 p.m, the person said. Bermuda is one hour ahead of New York time.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, a 71-year-old billionaire businessman, declined to discuss his whereabouts on Sunday. The mayor did not attend any of the briefings at the scene of the accident Sunday, but he visited with the injured at two hospitals after nightfall.

Malcolm lived high life off campaign donors

From the Times Ledger:

State Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis) received more than 86,000 votes in November, which was more than enough to secure him another term in office considering the fact he ran unopposed in 2012.

But the lack of competition did not stop the senator from spending more than $100,000 worth of donor’s dollars last year on miscellaneous campaign expenses, including travel, meals and hotel stays, according to state finance records.

Lodging in cities such as Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, Fla., meals at swanky Manhattan restaurants and tens of thousands of dollars spent on airfare are just some of the items that showed up on the political heavyweight’s financial disclosure forms.

In all the categories specified by the state Campaign Finance Board, Smith spent a total of $270,000 throughout the year, with a little more than $6,000 as listed going to printing costs and another $105,000 for professional services.

In the “other” category, the southeast Queens politician spent $110,088 on expenses such as $1,270 billed to the Hilton Hotel in West Palm beach, $175 for a meeting at an Italian restaurant in Tampa and thousands in payments to American Airlines and Jet Blue.

Smith also documented nearly $30,000 in fund-raising expenses, including $23,378 for an annual golf outing at the Cold Springs Country Club in Huntington, L.I.

A spokeswoman for Smith declined to comment on his expenditures beyond the golf outing and a car expense.

Liu looking into golf course

From the NY Times:

Were we to commit ourselves to making a master list of what New York City needs more of, it is fair to say that many of us would wear a third or fourth pencil down to the nub before settling on an 18-hole golf course and the increased presence of Donald J. Trump. And yet, with the renovation of a major portion of Ferry Point Park in the southeastern section of the Bronx, this is what New Yorkers will receive.

The city is spending $97 million to construct a public golf course in the park; it is scheduled to open in the spring of 2014 and to be operated by Trump National and International Golf Clubs. At that point, residents of a borough where more than 30 percent of people live below the poverty line will have what will surely be seen as a welcome opportunity to improve their handicaps (for green fees higher than those at most municipal courses).

The construction of the golf course, which has a long and embattled history — the budget, to cite one aspect, has swelled by $40 million since 2008 — gained renewed attention last week after The Daily News reported that MFM, a contracting company the city is using on the project, had been linked to a troubled outfit, Felix Associates. MFM’s owners have a passive financial interest in Felix Associates, one of whose principals pleaded guilty to bribery charges two years ago.

Although MFM has not been accused of any wrongdoing, the city’s Department of Investigation had recommended that the Department of Parks and Recreation consider hiring an auditor to oversee dealings with the company. The parks department chose not to do so.

Further sullying matters is the unrelated fact that elevated levels of methane gas have been found just outside the golf course’s perimeter during construction. The Ferry Point golf course will sit on a former landfill.

From the Daily News:

The city controller has begun looking at cost overruns and delays at the golf course the city is building for Donald Trump in the Bronx, the Daily News has learned.

Last Thursday, Controller John Liu sent city Parks Commissioner Veronica White notice that he was reexamining the agency’s handling of the project, which is behind schedule and has ballooned in cost to at least $97 million from $22.5 million.

Liu is reopening a 2007 audit by then-Controller William Thompson that found lax oversight by the Parks Department caused the city to lose $25 million in overpayments and potential earnings at the project.

On Thursday, Liu informed Parks that the audit “will determine whether the Parks Department carried out or implemented recommendations” from that prior audit.

Donald Trump's golf course belching gas

From the Daily News:

High levels of explosive methane gas have been discovered next to Bronx homes that abut a dump the city is turning into a golf course for Donald Trump, a Daily News investigation has found.

As construction of the $97 million links has accelerated this year, methane in quantities the state considers potentially volatile has been repeatedly detected in test wells just yards away from homes.

Residents of this working-class neighborhood had no idea — and weren’t too pleased.

“That concerns me. What are we breathing?” asked Stephanie Machuca, whose Balcolm Ave. condo sits about 25 feet from a green-capped well that registered excessive amounts of methane in May.

The Trump golf course is now under construction on top of a dump that was closed in 1963. The decomposing garbage that’s still underground creates methane, a highly volatile gas that’s been percolating under Ferry Point for years.

Occasionally the test results showed higher levels of methane. But in recent months, the tests have regularly detected concentrations at the project’s edge far in excess of the LEL, records show.

The state is aware of this rash of high methane levels. In response, it has decided not to shut down construction but to increase the frequency of monitoring. “We’re concerned about movement of landfill gas.

Okay, why the hell are we building a golf course for Donald Trump? And using shady contractors, to boot?

Sweet deal for Donald

From the Daily News:

Looks like the Donald trumped the city in bidding for a 20-year deal to run a $97 million taxpayer-funded public golf course long considered a Bronx boondoggle.

Under a proposed deal with the Parks Department, the oft-delayed 18-hole course will bear the billionaire developer’s name when it opens in spring 2014: Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point Park.

For its first four years of operation, he will have no financial obligation to the city — and in year five, the compensation will only be $300,000, the Daily News found.

In contrast, a hot dog vendor agreed three years ago to pay the city more than $600,000 annually for a lease to peddle tube steaks outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A review of the proposed Trump agreement also shows “The Apprentice” puppet-master received city approval to run the public course as a part-time private playground.

The ex-presidential hopeful would control 20% of the weekday tee times for private use without any Parks Department oversight.

Getting to the bottom of Horace Harding

From Little Neck Patch:

Ready to set the record straight was Kathleen McGrath, an amateur Queens historian and self-proclaimed expert.

"Horace J. Harding was an affluent financier and director of the New York Municipal Railways System. But he was also an ardent supporter of Robert Moses’ 'great parkway' plan who used his influence to petition for a highway from Queens Boulevard out to Shelter Rock in Nassau County," McGrath said.

Though McGrath was quick to speculate that Harding had ulterior motives—aside from public interest—behind promoting the construction of the road which now bares his name.

"He was a big golfer and wanted to build a road that would provide better access to the Oakland Country Club where he was a member," she said.

When Queens was king of golf

From the NY Post:

There's a tree that stands in front of 50-11 228th Street in Bayside, Queens, which very few people stop to look at anymore. It’s tall and spreads its shade from sidewalk to sidewalk, people stopping underneath in their cars and hustling into their homes, all in the name of haste.

“I don’t know nothing about no golf course,” one resident said recently as he came out onto his screen-enclosed porch shirtless, holding back his barking dog and refusing to give his name.

Not many know about the course that used to be here, and, as old as the tree is, it might only have the faintest memory.

That’s because Oakland Golf Club not only has disappeared physically, it has disappeared from the consciousness of a golf-crazed region. Right there in northern Queens was a cog in the early-American golfing landscape, a course that was home to the famed amateur Walter Travis, that hosted the legendary Harry Vardon on his American tour of 1900, and that was redesigned by the master Golden Age architect Seth Raynor in 1921.

Yet, in the post-WWII suburban expansion of New York City, ground was sacrificed in the name of progress. The death knell for Oakland came with the construction of the Long Island Expressway in 1952, the final nail in its coffin driven in by the Clearview Expressway in 1960.

To round off the list of great city courses gone missing, look upon another tree that currently sits in front of 230-41 28th Avenue, just north of Bayside High School. If the tree goes back about 60 years, it would have stood next to the wonderful green complex of the 16th hole at Dr. Alister MacKenzie’s Bayside Links.

MacKenzie designed Bayside just before going to help out Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts with Augusta National, and he built it as a playable track with the same spirit as his beloved municipal courses in his homeland of Scotland.

Bronx golf boondoggle gets worse

From CBS 2:

Rudy Giuliani's dream of building a highfalutin Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course on the site of a toxic waste dump in the Bronx has become Michael Bloomberg's nightmare, but the city is still going through with it even though it's $100 million over budget and is expected to be at least 12 years late.

"It is a complete waste of money. It's a boondoggle and it's something that never should have gone forward," said Geoffrey Croft of the NYC Park Advocates.

There are a lot of questions. Like what happens if the golfers hit their balls into the cemetery next door? Who wants to play on a toxic waste dump? And how much will it cost? The original plans called for charging $120 for a single round of golf. The Black Course at Bethpage, where the U.S. Open was held this summer, charges $60 on weekends. Weekdays are cheaper.

So who can afford to pay $120 for a round of golf?

"The mayor and the real estate developers -- certainly not the people who live around here," Croft said.

An avid golfer, the mayor said the city still plans to build the course, though it is, as he said, "embarrassingly" delayed and has a new problem.

"What we don't have is a developer who's willing to build the clubhouse and that's the problem at the moment," Bloomberg said.

And here's the rub: if contractors don't meet their targeted completion date, which is four years from now, it will be another mayor's problem.

The original development plans were drawn up by Robert Moses in 1949. He promised a sandy beach, lots and lots of public parkland and a tiny golf course.

Oh, how things have changed.

Someone is assuming Bloomberg will still be mayor 4 years from now. Heh.

Queens Teen Accused of Setting Fire at Kissena Park Golf Course

NEW YORK (AP/ 1010 WINS) -- A teenager from Queens is accused of setting a fire that destroyed 38 golf carts and caused more than $400,000 in damages.

Prosecutors say 17-year-old Christopher Casella is expected to be arraigned Monday on arson charges. He faces up to 15 years in prison, if convicted.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown says that Casella and two other people set the fire in a fenced-in area at Kissena Park Golf Course in Flushing, N.Y., shortly before midnight on June 24, 2009.

Kissena Park Golf Clubhouse torched

From Eyewitness News:

The club house and a number of golf carts caught fire at the Kissena Park Golf Course in Queens.

The golf carts apparently caught fire sometime after 1:30 a.m. this morning, and the fire spread to a clubhouse.

The second-alarm fire was quickly placed under control and the cause is under investigation.

Sources tell Eyewitness News that there is video of the fires being set.

Bloomberg the bogeyman

From the NY Times:

...his unbridled fervor for a game associated with the country club set has occasionally landed him in hot water. During his weekly radio address in 2006, Mr. Bloomberg was asked to name a typical job performed by illegal immigrants. He immediately thought of golf.

“You and I are beneficiaries of these jobs,” the mayor told his co-host, John Gambling, adding, “Who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?” The remarks drew howls of protests.

And at a civic meeting in Canarsie, a working-class section of Brooklyn, earlier this year, homeowners interrogated the mayor about rising taxes and living costs. At one point, Mr. Bloomberg asked how many golfers were in the audience — and the answer appeared to be zero.

Former clubhouse gets a Queensmark

On Wednesday, the Queens Historical Society declared [Queensboro Community College's art] gallery a "Queensmark," or Queens landmark, for its role as clubhouse for the prestigious Oakland Golf Club in the early 1900s.

The ceremony doubled as a tribute to students from two English composition classes who wrote persuasive letters urging the college and historical society to honor the structure. It has a mix of architectural styles, with a facade that incorporates white clapboard and stone masonry.

As the clubhouse for the exclusive golf course, the so-called Oakland Building played host to presidential advisor Bernard Baruch and veteran Sen. Robert F. Wagner of New York.

Another club member, railroad magnate Horace Harding, urged construction of a highway from Queens Blvd. to the Nassau County border - now the modern Long Island Expressway - to provide better access to the golf course.

The building's glory days dwindled after the club closed in the 1960s to make way for Queensborough, which converted it into an art gallery in 1981. It has been renovated several times since.

New 'art' for QCC gallery: Site earns Queensmark plaque

Lady Liberty coming to LIC

For 32 years, a human-scale Statue of Liberty has lifted her halogen lamp atop the two-story American Pipe & Tank Lining Co., on West 35th Street. Now, the small-scale Mother of Exiles is observing its final autumn in Manhattan, a half-block from the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The 102-year-old family firm will relocate — under duress — to make way for the Hudson Yards real-estate development. "The city seized our property under eminent domain," said company president Richard Silver, from an office crammed with fishing-trip photos, golf clubs and industry citations. George Shea, a spokesman for the Hudson Yards Development Corp., said the building will ultimately be demolished. American Pipe has been there for 38 years. But Lady Liberty will be salvaged. Silver, 69, intends to bring his "favorite lady" to his company's new Long Island City headquarters.

This Statue of Liberty is about to get exiled

Nice racket they got there

To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound.

During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing.

A Disability Epidemic Among a Railroad’s Retirees

These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum roughly equal to the base salary of their old jobs. Even the golf is free, courtesy of New York State taxpayers.

With incentives like these, occupational disabilities at the L.I.R.R. have become a full-blown epidemic.

Virtually every career employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time.

The L.I.R.R.’s disability rate suggests it is one of the nation’s most dangerous places to work. Yet in four of the last five years, the railroad has won national awards for improving worker safety.