Sacrificing life and limb for housing equity

 

 Queens Eagle

Another worker was injured at the construction site of a Rockaway affordable housing development being run by a construction company that lawmakers in January demanded be taken off the project, the Eagle has learned.

Earlier this month, a construction worker contractor Joy Construction was injured while working on building Edgemere Commons, a planned affordable housing development in the Edgemere section of the Rockaway peninsula.

The city’s Department of Building’s later found that the site’s safety coordinator had recently fallen out of compliance with their licensing, which had expired.

In January, several elected officials rallied at the site, calling on Joy Construction to be removed from the project due to a previous history of worksite incidents at other developments and because of a separate worker injury at Edgemere Commons.

On Feb. 8, DOB inspectors were called to the worksite, located at 5119 Beach Channel Drive, to investigate reports of a worker injury, according to the Department of Buildings.

At the site, it was determined a worker fell off a ladder after a harness they were wearing caught on a handrail.

The worker sustained minor injuries and complained of back pain, and was transported by an ambulance to a local hospital. DOB further determined that all required safeguards were in place, and they found no unsafe conditions at the scene at the time of their inspection.

However, while on site for the injury, DOB found that the site safety coordinator’s license had expired about a week prior and that the coordinator had not properly renewed their license.

A Stop Work Order was put in place by the Department of Buildings. The order was eventually lifted four days later when Joy brought in a new site safety coordinator for the job.

“I hate to say I told you so,” said Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, who rallied against the contractor in January. “Unfortunately, I am disappointed by the news of this injured worker and the discovery of an expired site safety license, which prompted a Stop Work Order, but I am not surprised.

“Joy Construction has a troubled and well-documented history of criminal lawsuits, hazardous workplace conditions, and fatal worker injuries,” he added. “At a recent rally, my elected colleagues and I urged the city to remove Joy Construction from the Edgemere Commons project and out of the Rockaways entirely. I wish the injured worker a full and speedy recovery and will continue to demand accountability and fight for workers’ rights, dignity, and safety.”

Construction on Edgemere Commons began in May 2022. The project is a $100 million affordable and supportive housing development, which will bring 2,000 affordable homes, retail, community space, medical facilities and outdoor public space on the site formerly occupied by Peninsula Hospital.

The first phase of the project, directly adjacent to the construction site in question, was constructed using union workers rather than Joy, a private contractor.

In January, four local elected officials for the Rockaways and Southeast Queens rallied with union members to call for Joy’s removal from the project over the contractor’s recent history of workplace incidents, including an injury at Edgemere Commons in December that resulted in a $10,000 fine after the contractor failed to report the incident.

Lawmakers also raised concerns over an incident at a Joy Construction site that left a worker dead at the site of a Bronx project a year earlier. ]

“We are demanding that Joy come off of this project,” City Coucilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers said in January. “Joy has an unfortunate track record that has seen many deaths on construction projects where they have not taken enough care and concern for the worker. That is unacceptable.” 

Not so fast, let's hear some virtue signalling banalties from the Queens Borough Redundancy that won't lead to any fundamental changes for worker safety at the site...

 Queens Borough President Donovan Richards was not present at the rally, but said at the time that if issues persist, then a new contractor should be considered.

“Queens has been, is and forever will be a union borough — a borough where we uplift, protect and support the working people who make up our organized labor movement,” Richards said. “Safe, plentiful and prosperous union participation in the first phase of Edgemere Commons’ development via Arker Companies reflected that fact, and as we embark on the second phase of the project with Joy Construction, it is my belief that our brothers and sisters in labor should be treated the same way by the contracting company tasked with the job.”

“Should those common sense standards not be met as construction continues, then a new contracting company must be brought in to complete the project,” he added. 

 

Redeploy the police to calm traffic

 

Manhattan Institute 

In the race to reform policing, a few advocates and politicians have recommended that New York City police be removed from traffic enforcement. State Attorney General Letitia James, for example, concluded that the NYPD should cease conducting noncriminal traffic enforcement in her review of the department’s handling of the George Floyd protests. Brad Lander, a member of the city council and erstwhile safe-streets advocate, proposed “removing NYPD officers from routine traffic stops” for infractions such as speeding. He suggested that they “only enforce driving behavior that visibly and immediately endangers public safety (e.g., drag-racing, visibly erratic, aggressive, intoxicated, or road-rage driving).” Others have recommended assigning the traffic-enforcement function to a new, unarmed enforcement agency, or have suggested increasing the use of automated enforcement tools like speed cameras to replace police.

These ideas are ill-considered and dangerous. Police traffic enforcement saves lives, reduces street disorder, and plays an important role in criminal investigations. The events of 2020, which disrupted the NYPD’s traffic enforcement, laid these facts bare.

 

The primary purpose of the NYPD in enforcing the traffic laws is to reduce crash-related injuries and fatalities. Before the pandemic, the department held regular “TrafficStat” meetings to ensure that its 77 precincts focused on this goal. These meetings, modeled after the department’s CompStat management accountability system, required precinct executives to meet with department leaders at police headquarters and explain their precincts’ responses to traffic safety problems. At these meetings, department bureau heads asked pointed questions to precinct executives about their enforcement at collision-prone locations, drunk-driving arrests, and approach to safety education and outreach. This forum ensured that officers enforce the right violations in the right places while focusing on the overarching goal of the department’s traffic strategy: injury reduction on the roads.

This process has been effective in focusing enforcement on violations that endanger road safety. In 2019, the department wrote 747,343 tickets for moving violations. Of those, 90.4% were for “hazardous violations”—offenses such as speeding, texting, and failing to yield to pedestrians. These are the violations that elevate the risk of crashes and injuries, according to department data. Equipment violations, which reformers often argue function as pretexts for police harassment, [5] accounted for just 3.1% of the tickets issued. These violations include minor infractions such as nonfunctioning lights. Given limited time and resources for traffic enforcement, it’s a department priority to concentrate its efforts on offenses that will reduce injuries.

This focus matters. There is considerable evidence that police traffic enforcement reduces crash injuries and fatalities. When the City of Fresno Police Department increased the staffing of its traffic division from 20 to 84 officers in 2003, officers wrote 229% more traffic citations between 2002 and 2004. Injuries from collisions dropped 9.3%, and fatal collisions fell 42%. In the surrounding county, enforcement dropped 6%, while rates of injury collisions and fatal collisions did not change. Research published in The Lancet showed that traffic convictions reduce drivers’ relative risk of a crash in the period following their conviction. Another study showed that after 35% of the Oregon State Police were laid off in 2003, the subsequent drop in enforcement led to 11% and 17% increases in injury and fatality crashes, respectively.

This is consistent with recent experience in New York City. In March 2020, the department shifted resources after the onset of the pandemic. A substantial percentage of officers also fell ill to Covid-19. Traffic enforcement plummeted. In April, officers wrote 14,290 tickets for moving violations, 85.2% fewer tickets than the 96,559 tickets they wrote in April 2019. In May, the department redeployed officers as a result of the protests following the murder of George Floyd. The agency did not return to regular levels of enforcement for the rest of the year.

From March 12 to December 31, 2020, the NYPD wrote 52.9% fewer tickets than it did during the same period in 2019. During that same period, fatal crashes spiked 16%, resulting in 31 more traffic deaths, compared with the previous year. In the first quarter of 2021, traffic enforcement was down 37.2%, when compared with the same period the previous year—and fatal crashes were up 9.7%, compared with the first quarter of the previous year. The change in traffic dynamics, however, confounds any analysis of this correlation. Mode share (travel by public transportation, automobiles, bicycles, and ferries) changed, vehicle miles traveled fell, and motor vehicle speeds increased. The increase in fatal crashes argues for more enforcement of dangerous driving behavior, not less.

The contemporaneous increase in street disorder in NYC reinforces this point. There have been several anecdotal reports of increased reckless driving and other road incivilities. Complaints of drag racing, in particular, increased during this period. After March 12, 2020, 911 and 311 complaints involving drag racing spiked 226%, with 8,450 total complaints for the rest of the year, versus 2,587 during the same period in 2019. All these behaviors demand police traffic enforcement.

So the Blaz DOES know crime is up in the subway

  

Wall St. Journal

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says that crime on the subway is low, but his office is still launching a travel-buddy program for government employees who feel unsafe commuting to work.

The city announced the program in an April 30 email to employees ahead of an estimated 80,000 government workers returning on a rotating schedule to their offices this month. Most municipal offices had been closed over the past year because of Covid-19 lockdown measures.

Returning employees have the option of signing up to be matched as travel partners with another worker in their neighborhood, according to the email, which The Wall Street Journal reviewed. A spokesman for Mr. de Blasio said it was too soon to say how many employees signed up for the program.

“Our mission is to make New York City safer for everyone; that’s why we have transit officers and mental health teams in the subway system, and that’s why we’re spearheading this effort to make our colleagues feel comfortable after a year away from the office,” the spokesman, Mitch Schwartz, said in a statement.

Officials at the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subway, have spent months calling for more police officers in the system.

Looks like the Blaz doesn't know what the hell he's talking bout either about how unsafe the subway is. 

Oh, look no further where that Thrive funding is being spent; on chaperones for frightened city workers from gentrified parts of Brooklyn.

Marine Park development stopped because of multiple violations and residents complaints.

 

Brooklyn Paper

City regulators shut down a Marine Park development site after the builders flagrantly ignored city-approved construction blueprints — and put workers’ lives at risk in the process, according to a Department of Buildings spokeswoman.

“We issued a stop work order for the site…and issued violations to the contractor for disregarding the approved plans and putting workers in jeopardy by skirting safety regulations,” said Abigail Kunitz.

Neighbors filed 11 official complaints to the department since June 2018, claiming that the project at the intersection of Avenue T and Hendrickson Street was not conforming to the permitted plans by exceeding height limits and creating an unapproved elevator shaft, among other violations. 

The department eventually conducted an inspection on the site on Feb. 5 and found the outlaw elevator shaft — including a bulkhead that rises well above the two-story building — as well as missing guardrails and netting meant to protect construction workers, according to Kunitz.

On an otherwise sleepy street stocked with one-family homes, the sizable height of the rising building alarmed neighbors, who claimed the structure did not match the plans posted outside of the site. 

“It is two completely different structures than were presented to people on my block,” said David Fitzgerald. “It now has a massive steel frame with a four-story tall elevator shaft. We don’t even know what this building is.” 

The building also entirely eclipses its next-door neighbor, blocking all the sunlight to the adjoining backyard, according to Fitzgerald

“The whole building blocks out all the light from that man’s backyard,” he said. “It may not bother everybody, but the ones that think like me — that’s just not right.”

Teenage inmates were safer at Rikers

From PIX11:

Teens were transferred out of the Rikers Island jail complex to the Horizon Juvenile Facility in the Bronx, but the mom of one teen now at Horizon believes her son was better off at Rikers.

The mother spoke with PIX11 on the condition of anonymity, she doesn't want anyone inside Horizon to retaliate against her 17-year-old son. His teen years have been spent in and out of courts and jail. She believes on Rikers Island he had access to more libraries and programs. The mom also said visits have been difficult at Horizon after several miscommunications.

"Nobody wants their child to be locked away, but what you want most of all, is that if they are, that they are being treated as a person," she said.

She isn't the only worried parent. Jimmey DeMoss, a single father from Queens, also has a 17-year-old son at Horizon.

“He’s in there to learn a lesson, but the lesson I think he's learning is the wrong lesson,” DeMoss told PIX11 News.

Bus shelters being inspected after collapse

From AMNY:

About 1,400 bus shelters across the city have been shut down for safety inspections after one collapsed earlier this month in Staten Island.

JCDecaux, which operates all of the city’s 3,500 bus shelters, discovered bolts in the Staten Island shelter that appeared to be corroded, according to company spokesperson George Arzt. No one was injured when the glass and metal shelter collapsed on Oct. 5, Arzt said.

About 3 percent of the first 1,000 shelters inspected revealed corrosion in bolts. He said those have been repaired and reopened.

Back in 2005, the city selected Cemusa to build and maintain street furniture including bus shelters and newsstands. JCDecaux acquired Cemusa several years ago.

The company is initially focusing on the first generation of shelters, but all 3,500 will be reviewed.

Northern Blvd rework coming

From NBC:

Safety changes are on the way for a street that has been dubbed the new boulevard of death -- the Northern Boulevard in Queens.

When you rush to open a bridge before an election

From NBC 4:

Officials plan to open the second span of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge after delays caused by concerns over the stability of the old Tappan Zee Bridge, officials said Sunday.

The Tappan Zee is damaged but stable with "certain key components highly stressed," said Terry Towle, president of Tappan Zee Constructors.

Even if the bridge does fall, it won't affect boat traffic in the water or the new bridge, Towle said.

The span is scheduled to open Tuesday evening, weather permitting, Towle said. That means the bridge will effectively be open for the Wednesday morning commute.

"Even if the bridge does fall"... Alrighty!

The many sidewalk sheds of Queens

From the Queens Chronicle:

For years, residents of the city have been looking at levels of large metal-and-wood structures obstructing their views and detracting from the architecture of their workplaces. Some forms of the composition remain standing for a few weeks, while others become multiyear props that stir controversy among community members.

Often referred to as “sidewalk sheds,” the structures are erected over sidewalks to shield pedestrians from falling debris caused by building construction. According to the city Department of Buildings, the sheds are temporary structures meant to keep sidewalks open for pedestrians while structures undergo renovations.

Residents of Queens are quite familiar with them.

According to an interactive online map released in April by the DOB, the borough has 961 active sheds that stretch over 240,000 linear feet. As of Monday, it was noted that each shed is up for an average of 371 days. But many remain in place for several years.

Some note that they’re unattractive. Others cite the purpose they serve.

It's not just here

From PIX11:

Nearly three dozen people were found living in a single-family home on Long Island in what police called “dangerous and hazardous conditions.”

Officers with the East Hampton Town Police Department served a search warrant at the house shortly after 6 a.m. on Monday, after the town’s Ordinance Enforcement Department issued an investigation into the property.

In all, 32 people were found to be living in the house.

Police said 18 of the inhabitants were found sleeping on mattresses in the basement near the gasoline generator and gasoline storage tank.

Dutch Kills wants firehouse reopened now that it's overdeveloped

From the Queens Gazette:

Neighbors, local lawmakers, union officials and local leaders are renewing their wake up call to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the FDNY, to reactivate Engine Co. 261 before it’s too late to save lives.

The engine company located at a hook and ladder firehouse at 37-20 29th Street in the Dutch Kills section of Long Island City served the community for more than a decade until May 2003, when budget cuts under the Bloomberg administration forced its shutdown.

Ladder Co. 116, which shared the firehouse with Engine Co. 261, remains in service at the 29th Street house. Firefighters, aka “truckees” assigned to Ladder Co. 116 are usually the first to respond to local fires where they force entry, search for victims and ventilate burning buildings. The firefighters also perform rescues and provide medical assistance at fires and in other emergency situations, officials at the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) said.

“All of a sudden, we were left with nothing but a prayer if we needed a local engine company to pour water on a fire,” Dutch Kills Civic Association President George Stamatiades said. “Fifteen years is far too long to be without adequate fire protection. The Dutch Kills community has come of age and we need the fire protection that is justified by our residential growth.

“We will continue our fight for the reactivation of Engine Co. 261 until the city is ready to acknowledge the need for increased fire protection for our booming residential community,” Stamatiades said. “Will it take a tragedy in one of the new high-rise residential or commercial buildings in Dutch Kills for the administration to wake up and smell the smoke?”

Stamatiades, one of dozens of local leaders who battled with city officials more than a decade ago to keep Engine Co. 261 activated, said Dutch Kills was a much different community in 2003.

“City officials said Engine Col. 261 had to go, because there wasn’t enough need for it,” he said. “We’re telling the city to take a new look at Dutch Kills today. Take a look at the new Dutch Kills and Long Island City communities that boast thousands of new residential units that tens of thousands of people call home.”

Illegal demo leads to garage collapse

From PIX11:

The owner, 1771 Weeks LLC, was ordered to “repair or replace” the garage.

Unfortunately, the owner, according to DOB inspectors, “hired contractors to unsafely begin demolishing the … rear garage … without a permit.”

The allegedly illegal work went on for two weeks.

On June 15, the birthday party was planned to take place at backyard picnic tables not far from the garage at 1771 Meeks. That’s when nearby residents heard what one man described as “sounding like a gunshot.”

The garage had collapsed and bricks came raining down on an area close to those picnic tables.

“It could have been fatal,” resident Marcel Sukhlall said, if the collapse had occurred just one hour later, when the party was scheduled to begin.

FDNY and DOB inspectors rushed to the scene. A stop-work order was issued for 1771 Weeks Ave. and vacate notices were put up on three surrounding buildings.

Hey, we can't impede progress!

Bayside cyclist thinks Alley Pond bike lane is stupid

From QNS:

Longtime Bayside resident Helina Cheung, an avid cyclist and runner, said she and neighbors are left befuddled by a bike lane project recently installed in the neighborhood.

“When my husband and I saw the project, we said, ‘This project doesn’t make sense at all,'” Cheung told QNS while onsite.

The project along the Alley Pond Park edge, between Northern Boulevard and Springfield Boulevard, was installed by the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) this past winter. It is one part of a larger safety project presented by the DOT to Community Board 11 in June 2017.

Community board members voted unanimously in favor of the Alley Pond segment of the project, while support for the Northern Boulevard segment, which has faced community scrutiny, has since been revoked. In March, QNS spoke with a local property owner who claimed the project causes “mass confusion” for drivers and pedestrians.

The Alley Pond safety project flipped the existing bike and parking lanes at the location and installed a four-foot protective buffer between the two. The bike lane is now situated closest to the park’s edge and cars are to park in a “floating parking lane.” A lane for moving traffic is situated next to the floating parking lane.

According to Cheung, many cars drive in the floating parking lane or bike lanes, creating dangerous conditions. A lack of signage and worn paint at the site add to this confusion, she said.

Queens Blvd bike lanes to be extended through Forest Hills/Kew Gardens

Courtesy Forest Hills Post

From the Queens Chronicle:

The Department of Transportation has unveiled Phase 4 of its extensive Queens Boulevard redesign plan, but the project has lost one of its biggest original supporters.

Speaking before Community Board 6’s Transportation Committee last week, DOT officials detailed the agency’s proposal for the 1-mile section of Queens Boulevard from Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills to Union Turnpike in Kew Gardens.

This phase of the project is similar to the past three, as it includes bike lanes along the median separating the service road from the main drag.

The stretch of roadway in question will also see the creation of a new crosswalk at 78th Avenue, redesigned slip lanes between the main and service roads, an improved pedestrian island on the north side of the boulevard at 75th Avenue, extended median tips, 200-foot-long left-turn bays at Queens Boulevard and Ascan Avenue and 10 new unloading zones for trucks.

To install the bike lane, the DOT will remove the service road’s parking lane along the median, which contains 220 spaces along the one mile stretch of road.

Originally a supporter of the plan, Koslowitz began to waffle last year, once her office started receiving complaints about the lack of parking and drops in business experienced by entrepreneurs that were blamed on the bike lanes.

The lawmaker said she did not know what kind of compromise could be had between cycling enthusiasts who vehemently defend the bike lanes and area residents who oppose them.

But what she did know, the lawmaker said, is that the boulevard project is both “saving lives” and “killing business.”

“They have to redesign it to where the stores have parking and people have their bike lanes,” she said. “How many people do you see riding bikes down Queens Boulevard? Hardly any. I drive all the way into Sunnyside and I can count the cyclists on one hand.”

City closing stretch of Rockaway beaches for safety's sake

From CBS 2:

Longtime resident John Cori spoke to CBS2 in April about the ongoing erosion that he says should have been addressed and resolved years ago.

“It’s not unexpected,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this and warning the city.”

Cori adds that the Army Corps of Engineers has been slow to act.

“We know the issue, they’re closing the beaches,” he said. “We need to get the federal government in.”

City beaches are slated to open this Memorial Day Weekend, but the area between Beach 91st street and Beach 102nd Street will officially be off-limits. A section of beach in front of the 97th Street concessions area and bathrooms will be open, but there will be no access to the water.

Watch out for cyclists! (They'll run right into you)

From CBS:

Recent complaints suggest that New York City’s bike riders have gone rogue.

With violations on the rise, some bikers have been caught running read lights and in some cases running over people.

Dash cam video from a recent incident shows a mother pushing a baby carriage in a Brooklyn crosswalk when a man on a bike comes out of nowhere and races through a red light, crashing into the woman and her child.

Fortunately they were able to walk away.

“This happens on a daily basis,” Williamsburg resident Gary Schlesinger said. “Obviously bikers don’t feel the law applies to them.”

NY&A deemed dangerous by worker safety group

From Newsday:

A national worker safety watchdog group has named the Long Island Rail Road’s freight provider as one of the most dangerous employers in the United States. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, an advocacy group, included the New York and Atlantic Railroad, or NYAR, in its “Dirty Dozen” list of companies that put workers and communities at risk.

"Safety is our top priority and the LIRR is reviewing its relationship with New York and Atlantic," LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said Friday.

The Glendale, Queens-based railroad, which has worked as the LIRR’s official freight service provider since 1997, was among other U.S. employers on the list, including Amazon and Tesla Motors.

The safety council said its criteria for inclusion on the list was 'severity of injuries to workers; exposure to unnecessary and preventable risk; repeat citations by relevant state and federal authorities; and activity by workers to improve their health and safety conditions.'

Trailer trash in South Ozone Park

"Here are some of the problems people are dealing with in South Ozone Park. If you have driven on South Conduit and North Conduit Aves you have probably passed these tractor trailers parked illegally taking up lanes at these busy intersections and yet they continue to be a daily nuisance in this area. People have gone to community board meetings, to the 106 police precinct regarding this problem only to be told by the community board members, and officers at the 106 that we should just learn to get used to it because they will never go away. People have also been told that it could take months or years for them to conduct a heavy tow operation. It is not right how these owners of about 5-10 trucks have no regard for people’s safety and how police do nothing. Here are some pictures. Now tell me how drivers can see oncoming traffic with these trucks illegally parked here.

Detached trailer parked on north conduit next to speed way gas station located at 129-03 both conduit Ave

Here’s another detached trailer parked on south conduit and 126th street

Here is a dumpster trailer parked on south conduit and 127th street. There are no standing signs posted as you can see in the picture below the one way sign.

Here is a video driving up the 150th Ave ramp from South Conduit.

- Anonymous

Is Center Blvd a danger zone?

From PIX11:

Parents in Long Island City, Queens called for increased pedestrian safety measures along Center Boulevard Friday afternoon.

"We've had many high rises go up in the past couple of years and a lot more families moving in. And we need our city to help us keep our community safe," Heidi Braunstein told PIX11.

Families were joined by City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer in a press conference. He explained why extra measures are need along Center Boulevard.

"There are three schools. There is a massive park on the waterfront that everyone wants to go to," he said.

How do you help a hoarder?

From CBS:

Residents in Brooklyn are desperate to get their neighbor’s home cleaned up.

They say the historic landmark is now an eyesore with trash and junk piled high in the front yard.

It’s a beautiful tree lined block with million-dollar brownstones, but all kinds of things are piled up and pouring out of the front lawn of 253 Sterling Street.

People on Sterling Street said the woman who lives there hoards in her front yard, her backyard, and even in and on top of her car.

Neighbors say the homeowner has lived here for several decades, but the problem has gotten worse in the last few weeks.

Neighbors said they’ve called 311 and nothing has happened.