Day of the Squirrel

 

CBS New York 

 

Today Rego Park, tomorrow the world

Flushing Meadows park building is falling apart

Photo: Geoffrey Croft

From the Daily News:

Squirrels and sandbags are here to stay.

Or so it seems at the run-down Olmsted Center in Queens’ Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which is $1.6 million over budget and delayed with no end in sight, the Daily News has learned.

For years, workers have complained about the conditions inside the center, which dates to the 1964 World’s Fair.

The grievances include squirrels crawling into the building’s dilapidated walls and routine flooding from the ground during minor rainstorms.

Department workers are forced to place sandbags at entrances to prevent water from pouring inside.

In 2008, the Bloomberg administration set aside $25 million to revamp the low-lying building, which houses approximately 500 architects, engineers and other support staff.

But the project stalled and the department’s capital base remained a leaky mess.

Ah, Flushing Meadows. What a dump.

Bowne Park neglected under new regime

It seems as though all maintenance of Bowne Park has ground to a halt since January 1.

Here are some recent pictures – this garbage has been UNTOUCHED for almost TWO WEEKS!!!


This is the first thing you see as you enter the park at 159th St. and 29th Ave.


And this is the second.


Some garbage by the pond – courtesy of the brats that play ice hockey at night!


What is this thing? Too bad it isn’t a garbage pail? Just where are all the garbage pails?


Oh wait – found one! I was looking in the wrong place – it’s IN THE POND!!! And it’s not alone.

It’s been there for weeks – there was plenty of time for the Parks Dept. to have fished it out. Except that there’s NO STAFF!


And here’s a cheery sight – this little guy has been well-preserved by the snow – he’s been here for weeks as well.




And, finally, let’s give a warm round of applause to the morons running the snowplows. They’ve managed to rip up grass ALL OVER THE PARK! Clearly they don’t know its layout. That’s why we need dedicated employees.

Bowne park, like the rest of Queens (except for the newly yuppified areas), is in a sorry state of decline. The people that still think it’s a great park never saw it in it’s heyday.

One final question – why were almost all the trees on the 29th Ave. side of park cut down one Saturday by Parks employees? They couldn’t all have been dead or infected.

And where the hell is the Bowne Park Civic Assn. in all of this. Have they been disbanded? What is their function if not to monitor conditions and report problems to the powers that be?

Crappy – thank you for this invaluable forum.

Regards,

Flooshing Rezident

Fear not! Paul Vallone has appointed cultural and community affairs liaisons! They'll take care of this posthaste!

Squirrels gone wild in Glen Oaks

From Fox 5:

Aggressive squirrels seem to be taking over Glen Oaks Village in Queens, even taking up residence under the hood of Natasha Conklin's car.

This neighborhood does not have any alternate side of the street parking regulations, so residents can leave their cars parked in the same spot for days at a time. That makes it a perfect nesting spot for the creative critters.

One pesky squirrel even slipped through someone's window and ate a cookie.

Maintenance crews in Glen Oaks Village have been using humane squirrel traps to capture the squirrels, but they say they've only caught 30 and they need help from the Department of Health.

The Department of Health said it does not have a squirrel removal policy and the Glen Oaks Village development will have to contact a wildlife trapper for assistance.

Nuisance squirrels in Forest Hills

Baby squirrels getting the help they need

"I thought I would drop you a line and see if you might be interested in writing a story about Empty Cages Collective's urban wildlife rescue & rehabilitation work in New York City--specifically squirrels.

Empty Cages Collective has been inundated with injured and orphaned squirrels this spring -- as well as phone calls nearly every day to admit more into our wildlife rehabilitation project. Virtually all of these animals are the victims of negative human impact-- people cut down their nest trees or trim branches where nests are, the mothers are killed by cars or poisoned, and other babies come to us sick and dehydrated because people inadequately tried to care for them themselves to make them into pets (squirrels make terrible pets and are miserable captives and should be allowed to live their lives freely in their native habitats, not incarcerated in a cage in the name of an "exotic pet".) Other people and businesses orphan these animals by trapping and killing or trapping and relocating their mothers because they deem them to be nuisances (you reported about this in Astoria a few years back).

Many of the wild animals we admit we "pull" from NYC Animal Care & Control where they are to be killed because ACC isn't willing or able to take care of these animals. Many of the orphaned and injured wild animals we admit are from Queens.

Here is a photograph of one of our many orphaned babies (we have 12 tiny orphans currently, as well as some older adults).
All of these animals will be released once they are healed or old enough to survive on their own! It would be nice to bring attention to the fact that these animals are worthy of compassion and humane treatment, are generally in trouble due to negative human impact rather than nature, and do have options if they are truly injured and orphaned and in need of assistance."

Best,
PJ McKosky, NYS-licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator
Empty Cages Collective

Bayside house in sad shape

From the Queens Chronicle:

At the intersection of 40th Avenue and 216th Street in Bayside, what was once an urban tragedy has become urban legend: a bereaved widow, whose firefighter husband died in the line of duty, secluded herself in her home, leaving its exterior vulnerable to four decades of decay and only a specter of herself in her neighbors’ imaginations.

According to East Bayside Homeowners Association President Frank Skala, Louise Miller moved into a nursing facility just last year, at which time some neighbors assumed the octogenarian had died. Prior to that, Miller’s son Eric, who lived only a few blocks away, had attended her lawn in haphazard fashion; somehow, he overlooked the blue Buick Skylark parked there for 15 years and the overgrown trees growing on the building’s southwestern wall.

Today, the ramshackle, brick, one-family house is an eyesore, albeit a mysterious one, to the otherwise manicured residential community. The doors and windows on the ground floor have been cemented over because the Department of Buildings found the structure open, vacant and unguarded. The second-floor windows are shattered, and the building, abandoned by its one human resident, is now inhabited by raccoons and squirrels.

Skala described the structure: “It looks like one of those apocalyptic movies, like a hydrogen bomb went off.” If the house had been maintained, it would in this real estate market be worth about $800,000. “Now, it’s not worth 70 cents,” Skala added. The property’s current condition and assessed value of $21,713 lowers its neighbors’ market values.

Dinner is served...

How'd you like to see this outside your window? A lady in Sunnyside had such an experience...

Looks like this was taken from one of the new condo projects on Queens Blvd.

Courtesy of Citybirder.

Bloomie extends war on obesity to park animals

I've been exchanging e-mails with Scott from You're a Disgrace Mayor Bloomberg. I sent him this photo with the following caption:


There are 4 things in this photo that Bloomberg absolutely hates:

1) Trans fats
2) Urban wildlife
3) Expectant mothers
4) Trees

But then Scott kicked it up a notch:


On the heels of banning most bake sales in New York City's public schools, Mayor Bloomberg is taking his fight against urban obesity to a new, and some say, bizarre level. The Mayor's office just announced that the next target in the war against sugars and trans fats is the City's abundant park animal life.

"The animals living in New York City's parks, the squirrels, birds, raccoons, etc., have an open invitation to the biggest buffet in the world," the Mayor said at a press briefing."But, as many of us who live here can attest, they are also among the fattest and laziest."

The program is still in development, but it will include an anti-littering campaign, increased street trash pick-ups, and a calorie-labeling program based on the initiative launched last year for New York's human residents.