Mayor Adams orders involuntary removal of mentally disturbed people from public places and the subway

 

New York Times

Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.

Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a “moral obligation” to help them.

“The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent,” Mr. Adams said in an address at City Hall. “Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.”

The mayor’s announcement comes at a heated moment in the national debate about rising crime and the role of the police, especially in dealing with people who are already in fragile mental health. Republicans, as well as tough-on-crime Democrats like Mr. Adams, a former police captain, have argued that growing disorder calls for more aggressive measures. Left-leaning advocates and officials who dominate New York politics say that deploying the police as auxiliary social workers may do more harm than good.

Other large cities have struggled with how to help homeless people, in particular those dealing with mental illness. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a law that could force some homeless people with disorders like schizophrenia into treatment. Many states have laws that allow for involuntary outpatient treatment, and Washington State allows people to be committed to hospitals if a judge finds that they pose a threat to themselves or others.

Officials in New York said the city would roll out training immediately to police officers, Emergency Medical Services staff and other medical personnel to “ensure compassionate care.” But the city’s new directive on the policy acknowledges that “case law does not provide extensive guidance regarding removals for mental health evaluations based on short interactions in the field.”

The policy immediately raised questions about who, exactly, would be swept up in it, and some advocates for people with mental illness warned it could face legal challenges.

Existing state laws allow both the police and medical workers to authorize involuntary hospitalization of people whose behavior poses a threat of “serious harm” to themselves or others. Brendan McGuire, chief counsel to the mayor, said on Tuesday that workers would assess people in public spaces “case by case” to see whether they were able to provide basic needs such as food, shelter and health care for themselves.

The city directive states that “unawareness or delusional misapprehension of surroundings” or “delusional misapprehension of physical condition or health” could be grounds for hospitalization.

 

Amazon truck culture dominates public streets for people

 

 

 NY Post

It’s the “law” of the concrete jungle.

Amazon delivery drivers who cause traffic chaos when they commandeer huge stretches of Big Apple streets are getting more brazen, with one claiming that cops gave them license to do so.

“The [NYPD] … said it’s OK to double park here,” said driver Shawn Evans from a frenzied “mobile distribution hub” — a euphemism for the mammoth trucks that double and triple park while workers scurry to unload their contents onto cluttered streets and sidewalks.

Evans said he had been unloading at his location along Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side for more than three hours with a truck containing “1,500 … 1,600” items.

“The NYPD does not allow Amazon delivery vehicles to double park or violate any parking regulations,” a department spokesman countered. “If these vehicles are observed in violation, a summons is issued.”

Evan’s truck was not an outlier. The Post found at least four Amazon delivery trucks hogging up sections of Columbus this week. Some Amazon employees confirmed they had been double-parked for hours.

Many of the the trucks are surrounded by what appear to be city traffic cones — but actually belong to Amazon, multiple delivery men said.

The problem is not unique to the Upper West Side. With its ultra high-density high-rises, the Upper East Side is also uniquely susceptible to Amazon delivery jams. Last November the City Council passed a bill aimed at curbing the issue by introducing loading-only parking spots in affected neighborhoods — but so far results have been limited.

“It is like Whac-A-Mole,” said Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, adding that trucks would move from one location after a complaint to another. The veteran lawmaker says she has gotten at least 20 constituent complaints about the issue this year.

“It’s an endless challenge,” she said.

Across 118th Street

 

 Impunity City

 This scene takes place in South Richmond Hill on 118th Street and 103 Ave.

In the middle of the road yeah. 

 

 

 

All signs indicate that current mayor de Blasio’s Department of Transportation, which is run by one of his Brooklyn aristocrat city planning buddies Hank Gutman, did a major less than half ass job laying the blacktop on this. Because this is what it looked like a week before some creative type did a near approximation of Homer Simpson’s rage motivated contemporary art piece.

Truly a WTF FUBAR in process.

  

Although this is another embarrassingly abominable display of city neglect and incompetence and another example of the city infrastructure dilapidation, this will eventually be remedied with a better and hopefully more thorough renovation, because this evolving crater is not to first to infect 103rd Ave. For their were similar former and potential cave-ins discovered on numerous blocks west from this current blight.

 

NYC Plans To Make Eating & Drinking Road + Sidewalk Sheds Permanent

 

 

 Neighborhoods United

Dear Neighbor,
We wanted to make you aware that the Department of Transportation is initiating a public meeting at every Community Board in the city to push through the ZONING TEXT CHANGES that will allow Open Restaurants and Bars to become PERMANENT. 

In many areas,  the eating and drinking sheds have become severely problematic. As such, we are adamantly opposed to Outdoor Dining Sheds becoming a permanent fixture in NYC. 

We appreciate that these sheds were a lifeline for the hospitality industry during the pandemic and allowed residents a safe place to social distance. Since Covid restrictions have been lifted, we think it is time for the emergency dining sheds to be retired, and the sidewalk cafe process is reinstated regarding alfresco dining.

However, you feel about the Open Restaurants program, no public input or proper environmental impact study was commissioned. Instead, the city rammed the sheds through behind closed doors with little to no oversight, calling it an unbridled success with few issues to resolve. And agencies, like the Dept. of Transportation, testified two weeks ago that there was no increase in noise or any other quality of life or safety issues related to Open Dining Sheds. This is demonstratively false!

We now have the opportunity (and one last chance) to come out and voice our concerns.

WE URGE YOU TO SHOW UP! IT IS IMPORTANT TO HAVE BODIES AND VOICES IN THE ROOM!

Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment Committee
Tuesday, July 13 at 6:30 pm
Boys Club of New York
287 East 10th Street (at Avenue A)

*Please attend all four upcoming citywide community board meetings, if you can?  Click here for more info about when and where.

FYI:

• Citywide Text Amendment: Open Restaurants (zoning changes to facilitate outdoor dining 
• Click here for the text amendment application

We appreciate your consideration, and please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Kind regards,

Diem Boyd, LES Dwellers
Tamara Daley, Orchard Street Block Association
Jan Lee,  The Chinatown Core
Stuart Zamsky, The East Fifth Street Block Association

 

 

First bike boulevard forced onto community will be considered today.

 Queens Post

The open street is currently closed to through traffic from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on most days. Local traffic, however, is permitted access for parking, deliveries and drop-offs at all hours.

The DOT plans to reduce vehicular traffic on 39th Avenue to prioritize it for cyclist usage by reducing speed limits, diverting cars to other streets and making some cross streets one-way as part of the bike boulevard proposal.

The agency also hopes to connect the bike boulevard to existing bike lanes and signed routes. For instance, workers plan to install shared bike lanes on Barnett Avenue and 43rd Street to connect to the Skillman Avenue bike lane.

The DOT aims to transform the five selected streets into bike boulevards by either November or December this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio previously announced in May.

The agency will first present proposals for each bike boulevard to local lawmakers and community boards like Queens Community Board 2 in the coming weeks.

The Queens CB2 meeting Wednesday starts at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. It is unclear what time during the meeting the DOT will make its presentation.

Lisa Deller, chairperson of the community board, said the board has yet to weigh in on the plan.

 

High noon

 

NY Post 

Brazen gunslingers are shooting the daylights out of the Big Apple.

After a shocking execution in Park Slope and last Saturday afternoon’s shooting spree in Times Square, The Post requested crime data to see if the impression that criminals have become bolder in broad daylight is true.

Sadly, it appears so.

As of April 25, the NYPD recorded 374 shootings this year — and 119, or 32 percent, occurred between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. During the same period last year there were 213 shootings — with 63, or 30 percent, happening in daylight.

The 2-percent uptick in the percentage of daylight-to-overall shootings was not as worrisome to the cops’ union as the surging frequency of daytime gunplay: the increase from 63 shootings last year to 119 this year represents an 89-percent explosion.

“The increase in brazen, broad-daylight shootings just confirms what we already knew: violent criminals have no fear anymore,” Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch told The Post.

“They know that the police are underfunded, understaffed and hobbled by pro-criminal politicians and a broken justice system,” he added. “They know that if we arrest them in the morning, they’ll be back out in time for dinner. If New Yorkers don’t want a city where criminals control both the night and the day, they need to push elected officials to act

 

Homeless man gets murdered on the street a month after criticizing and avoiding city shelters for their lack of safety

 

Queens Eagle

It’s become a weekly event for Lukasz Ruszczyk: Sanitation workers visit him on the sidewalk beneath the train tracks that mark the Ridgewood-Glendale border. A Department of Homeless Services employee encourages Ruszczyk to move into a city homeless shelter and looks on as the Sanitation crew tosses his stuff into a garbage truck.

Ruszczyk declines the recommendation to leave, and the laborers come back a few days later. They have visited three times in March, according to notices left by outreach workers informing Ruszczyk of the pending sweeps.

Ruszczyk, 38, says they can keep coming. He has no intention of leaving unless it means securing a permanent and private home. 

“I went to a shelter. I was robbed several times,” he told the Eagle Tuesday, minutes after the latest sweep. “I’d rather freeze than go back.” 

Queens Post

Lukasz Ruszczyk, who was living on the streets of Ridgewood, succumbed to his injuries at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center nearly five days after he was assaulted by another homeless man, police said.

Ruszczyk was found intoxicated and beaten, laying on the sidewalk by a bus stop at Forest Avenue and Putnam Avenue on Friday, April 30 at 3 a.m. A witness called 911 and an ambulance rushed him to Wyckoff Heights, police said.

Doctors discovered that Ruszczyk had bruising about his torso and had suffered a severe brain injury — signs of an apparent assault. Hospital officials called officers from the 104th Precinct to investigate.

Police later learned that a woman had called 911 just before 6 p.m. on Thursday to report a group of homeless men fighting at the same location where Ruszczyk was found hours later.

Officers arrested 35-year-old Piotr Wilk, who is also homeless, on murder charges.

And now a word from the original Crapper:

So this Ridgewood homeless guy refused to go to a shelter because they are too dangerous yet the RTU calls people racist for opposing these same shelters and fought for him to remain on the street where he was killed. You can't make this up.

What's your opinion? We like to know-JQ LLC (channeling the old WPIX editorial guy)

Buttinski bike lobby led coalition demands more cars off the streets

 

 Gothamist

 A diverse coalition of more than 80 advocacy groups and nonprofit organizations is asking the next generation of city leaders to imagine what it would take to install 500 more miles of bike lanes, 1,000 miles of year-round open streets, and one block of car-free streets in front of every public school in New York City.

On Monday, the group Transportation Alternatives issued a challenge it calls “NYC 25x25.” The advocacy group is asking the next mayor, city council and borough presidents to commit to converting 25% of streets currently used by vehicles into other purposes, by 2025.

“This is a watershed moment for New York City,” Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, told Gothamist/WNYC. “We need to look at this intersection of COVID, of racial injustice, economic inequities, and ask some serious questions about the future of our city and our budget and we need a new crop of leaders who are willing to look at streets as an asset, instead of a liability.”

 

The proposals come at a time when the number of candidates running for mayor remains sprawling, and few have distinguished themselves on transportation issues. The debate over how to use street space has intensified during the pandemic after what many consider a successful run of open streets during the pandemic and a boom in cycling, but also a recent uptick in traffic deaths.

Other suggestions from the coalition include adding 19.4 million square feet of bike parking, designated locations on every block long enough for taxis to drop off passengers and for trucks to make deliveries without blocking streets or bike lanes.

The latest proposals have the backing of disparate groups in the city from the tech industry nonprofit Tech:NYC, to the New York Building Congress, and the Institute for Public Architecture.

“Lack of quality transportation options makes it difficult for many of the people in the low-income communities of color we serve to access resources, such as employment, education, good food, and health care, that are needed to be healthy and financially stable,” Tracey Capers, executive vice president and chief program officer at the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, wrote in a statement. Her group works with Citibike to get more bike shares into Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“Likewise, we support the re-allocation of our public spaces, including the creation of more car-free bus lanes and protected bike lanes, to better serve the majority of our residents, who don’t own cars,” Capers added.

The 127-year old advocacy group the Municipal Arts Society is another organization that backs the expansion of streets for public use. Tara Kelly, the society’s vice president of policy and programs, told Gothamist/ WNYC that her group came up with the idea of pedestrian islands in the early 1900s, calling them “isles of safety.” She said this is just the next generation of smart thinking about how to use city streets.

“This past year in particular has demonstrated that importance, our access to public space for recreation, for protests, for transportation, for getting a bit of sunshine, stepping out of our apartments,” Kelly said.

This will really make all those who bought cars last year tinkled pink at this proposal.

 

 

Coronavirus stats lag of homeless people sleeping outside and in the subway

THE CITY

Hidden in plain sight between a children’s playground and the stream of traffic into Brooklyn, a homeless encampment sits hard by the Manhattan Bridge.

Three makeshift “bedrooms” allow residents to hunker down for the night under an open sky, just a few feet from one another. There’s no sink or soap to follow the city’s wash-your-hands admonition and no sign of hand sanitizer. A pale blue surgical mask lies in the dirt.

A table in one of the bedrooms includes a paperback copy of “Birth of Tragedy,” by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

In the time of coronavirus, this encampment lies outside the reach of the frantic effort to contain an illness that had killed more than 770 New York City residents as of Sunday afternoon. And as the virus spreads, it’s touching the ranks of New Yorkers who live outdoors, bedding down on sidewalks and subways.

 

A man camps out in Times Square on March 24, 2020. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Last week, only one unsheltered person had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, according to city officials. By Saturday, there were four — three of whom remain hospitalized.

As for the rest of the estimated 3,200 New Yorkers living on the streets and in subways, keeping tabs on where they are or on who is infected is proving a steep challenge.

The city has stopped tracking down close contacts of those who have COVID-19 as the number of those infected skyrockets, so there is no account of who these four unsheltered individuals had contact with in the days before they tested positive.

Meanwhile, police are breaking up encampments around the boroughs, THE CITY has learned.

“This population is finding it remarkably difficult to do the things they’re being told to do,” said Josh Dean of HumanNYC, a group that presses to house the unsheltered homeless. “The general guidance is to stay at home and wash your hands and unsheltered homeless people can’t do that.”

 

Willets Point United: DOT Gives Mets Brand New Roadbed, “Stolen” from Willets Point

Willets Point United

On Thursday, June 27, 2019, the New York Mets will hold a ceremony to rename a portion of 126th Street “Seaver Way” – aided and abetted by the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT).

It’s no coincidence that DOT very recently repaved the seven-block stretch of 126th Street to be renamed “Seaver Way.” And DOT repaved it, even though the condition of that street beforehand did not require resurfacing.

 

 

Could it be any more obvious, that DOT repaved that street to beautify it for the photo op during the Mets’ street renaming ceremony? That's an unjustifiable expenditure of taxpayer funds

 

But for Willets Point, the biggest insult is that DOT needlessly repaved 126th Street, while not repairing the nearby, severely dilapidated streets in Willets Point, which property and business owners have pleaded with the City for decades to fix.

 

If these street conditions existed in any other neighborhood of the City, they would be deemed an emergency and repaired right away on that basis.

 

 

 

 

It's like this city is showing contempt for these businesses and telling them to get out right to their faces. This is no different than what a slumlord does to rent-stabilized tenants.

Francisco Moya, who represents this district, is not helping these businesses and doesn't seem to want to.

“Tom Seaver may not have laid the bricks of Citi Field, but he helped set the foundation this franchise is celebrated for,” said Councilman Francisco Moya, who sponsored the street-renaming legislation.

“Whether you were fortunate enough to watch Tom Seaver lead the Amazin’s to a World Series championship in 1969, or you grew up in the glow of that greatness, Queens residents have always known their ballpark was built on his right arm.”

 

Hey, Frankie, how about naming this neglected road after Pat Zachary? One of the guys the Mets traded for back in '77.

 

Willets Point businesses have had it with the broken roads

Queens Chronicle

 
Fifty businesses in Willets Point signed a petition sent out last week to Department of Transportation Borough Commissioner Nicole Garcia, requesting to meet with her about the industrial area’s dilapidated, cratered streets.

Decades have passed since most of the streets in the Iron Triangle were repaved. They have been compared to those of Kabul, Afghanistan.

The DOT did do some repaving work in the area several weeks ago. It fixed up the western border of Willets Point, 126th Street between Northern Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, right by Citi Field. It also had workers resurface two blocks at the northern boundary of the area, 126th Place and 127th Street between Northern and 34th Avenue.

But Willets Point business owners didn’t respond with much, if any, praise. The vast majority of the area’s shops are located more centrally within it. The west side of the 126th Place block that the city repaved doesn’t have any businesses on it.

Critics charged the DOT just wanted to make 126th Street look nice for an anticipated ceremony celebrating the block by Citi Field being co-named for Mets legend Tom Seaver. They said the agency did the one-block repavings on 126th Place and 127th Street to placate business owners who might be upset.

The DOT says it does not have the in-house resources available to repave Willets Point at large.
The agency also hasn’t responded to the petitioners, according to Irene Prestigiacamo, an Iron Triangle property owner who wrote the letter to Garcia on behalf of Willets Point United.

“Being very frank with you, I don’t expect to [hear back] right away,” she told the Chronicle.

I highlighted this because the DOT did something similar in South Richmond Hill last October when they resurfaced three blocks days before a movie was being shot on Lefferts Blvd.

 

Overdeveloped Jackson Heights wants to convert street to a park

From CBS 2:

More than 100 people gathered at Travers Park in Jackson Heights calling on the city to keep promises they say were made about expanding a pedestrian plaza, reports CBS2’s Aundrea Cline-Thomas.

“We are here today yet again to demand that Howard Koeppel and his car dealership get this service road out of our park,” said one protestor.

Koeppel Mazda opened a location last fall along Northern Boulevard.

The $1 million construction project included creating a service entrance on 78th Street, an area the protestors say the city promised would become a pedestrian plaza.

Why demand an actual new park when the government has you begging for crumbs...

Bad roads are to blame for added costs

From CBS 2:

A new report finds they cost drivers in our area an average of $2,800 a year.

Part of that $2,800 is spent at car mechanics, reported CBS2’s Aundrea Cline-Thomas.

Drivers consider it a necessary evil to get to work, but traffic backups and potholes are an all-too familiar site in our area.

The cost of wear and tear adds up. A new report from TRIP – a national transportation research group – found drivers in the New York City area spend nearly $2,800 a year. It’s more money spent on car repairs, wasted gas by sitting in traffic and being late for work, all because the roads are so bad.

“It’s distressing to see that here in the metro area 2/3 of pavements are in poor condition,” said Carolyn Bonifas Kelly of TRIP. “That means two out of every three miles you’re driving on you’re hitting potholes, you’re hitting rough roads.”

The larger concern is that the deteriorating infrastructure could keep more jobs from coming to the area.

Experts say the solution is more transportation funding from the state and federal government.

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.

City's biggest sinkhole?

From PIX11:

Rene Rodriguez says he was dumbfounded but not surprised, when he saw a massive sinkhole open up outside his home on Manhattan Avenue near 101st Street on the Upper West Side Tuesday morning.

It’s a sinkhole he and many residents who live in the area have complained to the city about since 2013.

“It just got bigger and bigger and they would fill it up with asphalt, asphalt and more asphalt and yesterday it finally gave in,” Rodriguez told PIX11 News.

After calling 311, both ConEdison and the Department of Environmental Protection arrived to the scene. Workers assessed the damage, put up a few cones and then, according to Rodriguez, left.

“It’s what, Wednesday the eighth, 2 o’clock in the afternoon and the sinkhole is still here,” he said. “If it was Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue this matter would’ve been settled already.”

The sinkhole measures roughly 15 by 7 feet in size, and nearly 4 feet in depth, consuming an entire side of Manhattan Avenue.

The crater makes it almost impossible for traffic to get through, but it isn’t stopping some drivers from trying.

CAC's working on 32nd Ave...

The great work that CAC has done in Woodside and Middle Village is now in Flushing, just south of Bowne Park.

They sure have a lot of crap out on the street.

Anyone want to place a bet on when the work actually gets done and how much it will end up costing? People have been kind of quiet about this one.

Back-to-back-to-back film shoots taking over public streets

"Do Queens residents ever get to park on the street? Not in Long Island City. (Taken on 21st Street and 44th Drive.)" - anonymous

College Point street is flooded 24/7

From the Times Ledger:

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) joined residents of Powells Cove Boulevard last Friday to call on the city to finally address a major flooding condition that residents say has plagued the community for over 20 years.

Avella and residents stood on the corner of Powells Cove Blvd. and 126th St. around a large pool of water that amassed from rainfall earlier in the week that had frozen over and showed no signs of going away.

According to residents who have dealt with this issue for years, they expect the floodwaters to stay there well into spring. Avella said he has been working with residents for the last two years to bring the issue to the attention to different city agencies.

Avella said the location has been inspected by multiple city agencies, including the Department of Transportation, which blamed the flooding on a lack of storm sewers at the location, and claimed that the Department of Environmental Protection must address that before DOT can address the road issues.

Over the summer, Avella brought the issues up to the DEP, which said it would open a 90-day investigation of the location — but to this date, neither he nor the residents have heard what that investigation concluded.

City sold street to unsuspecting woman

From CBS 2:

The map showed a long, skinny piece of property. Sight unseen, Parnell bid $30,000 and won. She figured she’d sell pieces to adjoining homeowners, Aiello reported.

Months later, she learned what the city sold as a “vacant lot” was actually William Court, a 280 foot long street – technically a “privately owned access way.”

Parnell told Aiello she’s willing to sell it back to the city. She said in 2010 the city offered to refund her $30,000, but she declined, because on her tax bill the city lists the property as “vacant land, zoned residential,” valued at $257,000.

“I would like the City of New York to pay me back the value of what the land is worth,” she said. “Not what they sold me for.”

On Friday, a city spokesperson told CBS2 “the city has made numerous attempts to offer her a full refund… she refused.” Even though the city values the property at $257,000, paying Parnell that much “was not an appropriate use of taxpayer money.”

Calamus calamity

From QNS:

Maspeth and Woodside residents have been angered over months of delays in the reconstruction of sewers under Calamus Avenue and 69th Street — and they were even more upset on Thursday night, when they learned the project’s completion is still 15 months away.

Nearly 50 concerned residents of the effected neighborhoods filled the parish hall of St. Mary’s of Winfield on Thursday night to hear why the Calamus Avenue Sewer Project — which has left Calamus Avenue and the surrounding areas a virtual mine field of potholes and craters, detoured the Q47 bus for nearly three years, and been a headache for anyone trying to commute in the area — has yet to move forward.

Ali Mallick, assistant commissioner for the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) North Queens Construction, clarified what documents weren’t accurate and why that was such a major problem for the project. The delays have pushed back the projected completion of the project to May of 2018.

“When I took over about a year ago, I found out that this project was dead, nothing was happening on the project,” Mallick said. “And there were problems with the design due to some unforeseen conditions in the ground because the drawings that we had did not match what was in the ground, so we had to do a major redesign with the work.”

Understanding the communities’ frustrations, Mallick and the DDC are looking at ways to work with the contractor to have the workers expand their work day and even work on some weekends to hopefully expedite the construction process and get the job done before the end of this year.

Other members of the DDC, Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Department of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were on hand to listen and respond to the residents’ concerns.

Noticeably absent from the meeting was a representative from the MTA. Several of the local elected officials reached out to the MTA, alerting them of the meeting and asking them to send a representative.