School bus jam on Grand

From the Times Ledger:

Maspeth drivers want yellow buses busted.

Residents who attended a meeting with the 104th Precinct April 20 complained of school bus drivers who double- and sometimes triple-park outside PS 58 with impunity.

“It seems to me if you’re yellow, you’re sacred,” said resident Manny Caruana, who called on the officers to write more tickets. “This has been going on since the school opened.”

When the buses double- and triple-park outside the school, at 72-50 Grand Ave., they effectively narrow the road to 1 1/2 lanes of traffic, Caruana said, causing a dangerous situation. Cars often have to swerve into the opposite lane of traffic to get around the yellow vehicles.

And yet there is ample room along the avenue for the buses to park normally.

The only problem is that the spaces are often occupied by parents who are also determined to drop off or pick their kids despite its being illegal to park in front of the building during school hours.

“God forbid little Johnny should walk a block to school,” said another woman at the meeting. “I’ve always seen the handicapped bus double-parked because some mother is in the space.”

Last Thursday, lines of minivans along with an ice cream truck pulled into the spaces reserved for the school buses, forcing many to double park right beside the vehicles of parents.

Too much crime, not enough punishment

Editorial from the Daily News:

New York City is overrun by habitual criminals who are degrading the quality of life without fear of punishment, according to astounding new data.

The state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports that a whopping 8,824 mopes had been convicted of five or more misdemeanors within the three years that ended Dec. 31. Some 1,600 of them had 10 or more convictions in the same time frame and 169 had 20 or more.

These people must be stopped. They are stealing, dealing drugs, vandalizing property and cycling through the Criminal Court revolving door largely unpunished. New Yorkers are lucky if they are off the street for more than a couple of days.

Commissioner Sean Byrne started collecting the numbers to get prosecutors and judges to come down harder on repeat misdemeanor offenders. Good luck with that. It has never worked before and the max they would face in any case is a year in jail.

Only a get-tough law will do the trick.

The Legislature - including the soft-on-crime Democratic-controlled Assembly - must finally deem repeat misdemeanants eligible for treatment as felons.

Ideally, the law would bump a fourth misdemeanor conviction up to a felony with hard time. But this is too much for the Assembly to bear. Mayor Bloomberg has called for setting the standard at a seventh conviction and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance says he would happily settle for pegging it at eight or more serious misdemeanors in five years.

Enough is enough. Too many people are being victimized.

Still spinning in his grave

From the Daily News:

Visting the Morningside Heights tomb of the 18th President just got better with the addition of a brand-new visitors center.

Overlook Pavilion in Riverside Park, across from the General Grant National Memorial, was recently revamped and now serves as an attraction for visitors.

It opened with a thunderous boom on what would have been Ulysses S. Grant's 189th birthday.

The pavilion, which overlooks the Hudson River, had been closed since the mid- 1970s due to the city's financial crisis. Nearly 40 years later, the exterior of the pavilion has been restored to how it looked when it opened in 1910. But the inside underwent a massive overhaul that now includes a bookstore, restrooms and a community meeting room.

Interesting that the News would omit an actual photo of the pavilion. Well, here it is:

(No signs indicating where the rumored restrooms, bookstore and community meeting room are...)

Here's the curb next to the pavilion:



When you cross the street back over to the tomb, you come across barricaded steps that are too fragile to walk up:


Here are shots of the slate sidewalk next to the tomb:


And here's where tourists enter:

You and I would be heavily fined if the sidewalks in front of our property were in this condition. Why restore a part of the monument but neglect the stairs and sidewalks? Aren't any of the pols who represent this area embarrassed by the conditions at Grant's Tomb? No ice cream money for the National Parks Service?

See previously, from 2007: Rolling over in his grave

Trapped on Clemente Court

From the Forum South:

Halfway down 82nd Street between Atlantic Avenue and 91st Avenue in Woodhaven there is a narrow roadway between two houses that a passerby may mistake as a driveway. Except this small road doesn’t lead to a garage; rather it travels between two houses into an expansive lot with three homes. Welcome to Clemente Court.

“It’s a nice [place] to live,” resident Ahmed Bhuiyan said. “No problems at all, except,” he trails off. There is a laundry list of items that makes living on Clemente Court difficult.

In 2009, Bhuiyan’s son fell and hurt his leg. Emergency operators did not recognize the address of the house, and Bhuiyan had to give a house number on 82nd Street and carry his son there.

Sanitation workers don’t enter Clemente Court, so residents have to haul their garbage to 82nd Street.

There are no workers to plow the area, and the court doesn’t have a fire hydrant.

These problems occur because Clemente Court is an unmapped street—not owned by the city. City workers don’t enter these private streets to maintain the area, but they also can’t enforce any traffic rules so parking is never an issue.

When cars park too close to the driveway leading to Clemente Court, it makes making the turn off or onto narrow 82nd Street “impossible” Bhuiyan said. He said there have been times when he has walked or taken a cab because he could not take his car out of Clemente Court.

“I’m trapped. No way to get out of this,” Bhuiyan said. “I should be able to take my car in and out anytime.”

Bhuiyan contacted Councilman Eric Ulrich’s office, and staff member Arlene Brown has been working with various city agencies to mitigate the problems.

LIC drinkers lose their beach

From the Daily News:

The city told Water Taxi Beach last month to make way for the development of Hunters Point South, a massive residential and retail complex.

The city rejected the company's proposal for an alternate location, said Tom Fox, owner of Water Taxi Beach.

Petitioners took to the Web to throw their support behind the scrapped beach.

"Greatest view ever. Favorite spot of many. Please reconsider," one petitioner, Amanda Nocito, wrote on the website.

Joe Conley, chairman of Community Board 2, said the club atmosphere is exactly what turned locals against the beach.

"It's still a great idea, but introducing the concept of sun, sand and alcohol didn't work out. We'd welcome the beach, but without alcohol," he said.

City water is whale habitat

From Metro:

The world’s biggest animal is swimming just off New York City’s shores.

A total of six whale species have been spotted from Long Island to New York Harbor, scientists announced yesterday.

Whales have been known to surface near New York, but it wasn’t until researchers submerged sound recorders off Long Island in 2008 that they found out how many and how often whales are found just off Lower Manhattan.

“I was completely shocked,” said Christopher Clark, director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell, who studies whale sounds. “Off New York, we’ve found that we have some of the greatest animals on earth.”

DOI investigator busted

From NBC:

An investigator in New York City's top watchdog agency was found in violation of several ethics laws and demoted from his post as a result, according to a disposition released by the Conflicts of Interest Board.

It is believed to be the first time that an employee from the Department of Investigation has been the subject of a conflict of interest disposition.

COIB concluded that David Jordan, a deputy inspector general, misused his position and city time for his own benefit while working as a sales representative for a private business.

Jordan worked at ACN, a multi-level marketing sales company, while working as a city investigator over a nine-month period in 2009 and 2010, according to COIB. Jordan tried to sell products to employees, get them involved in his sales operations and used office resources to conduct sales demonstrations, all of which would have earned him commission from ACN.

Jordan was demoted and reassigned to an administrative role in the department. In addition to his demotion, Jordan, who made $92,401 in 2009, received a $15,000 salary cut.

Jordan did not return messages seeking comment.

Visiting Maspeth's Clinton Diner

In business since 1935. Click photo for story.

Baseball stadiums lack C of Os

From the Wall Street Journal:

The cash-strapped New York Mets have failed to occupy more than 20,000 square feet of retail space as the team begins its third season in its $800 million Citi Field stadium, the primary reason the Queens stadium has failed to receive a final sign-off from the city.

A city official confirmed late Tuesday that the Mets have yet to receive a final certificate of occupancy for the stadium because a significant portion of the facility is empty. "We don't give the final certificate to vacant areas," the official said. "It has to be occupied."

The Mets' cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees, also have failed to receive a final certificate of occupancy for the team's new $1.5 billion stadium in the Bronx, but for entirely different reasons.

In the Yankees' case, officials at City Hall confirmed the team neither sought nor received final approval from the Public Design Commission, a little-known city agency that was established in 1898 and is charged with ensuring that the design of all art, exterior architecture, street furniture and landscaping meet public standards.

But some city officials acknowledge the Bloomberg Administration hasn't been pressing the Yankees to comply with the commission.

An official with the Mets said the team is actively trying to fill the vacant space, which it estimated at closer to 15,000 square feet of the 1.2 million-square-foot facility. A spokeswoman for the Yankees denied that the team flouted city rules and promised to seek final approval "shortly."

Both teams have been getting temporary certificates of occupancy from the Department of Buildings, which means officials believe both facilities are safe to occupy.

Church has change of heart

From the NY Times:

In February, Mr. Kim said that the spires would be taken down and capped as soon as the weather permitted. But the company the church hired never did the job, Mr. Kim said.

About a month ago, United Methodist began working with another contractor who took a different approach.

“He said, ‘Why do you insist on taking them down?’ ”recalled Marie White, who joined the church in 1957. “They can be stabilized and redone.”

This month, that process began: Several concrete blocks were poured in an outdoor churchyard. This week, cables are being attached to the blocks to secure the steeples from four different directions, Mr. Kim said.

“It will stabilize for wind or earthquakes or whatever,” he said.

Stabilizing the spires is cheaper than demolishing them, but it is only the first step in restoring the church, Mr. Kim said: The building needs a new roof and new paint; it suffers from severe termite damage; and it has large cracks that are visible in its facade.

It is unclear how those repairs will be financed.

New taxis to be made in Mexico

From Lost City:

A big, bulbous, boxy minivan? That's what the winner of a taxi competition is, the Nissan NV200...

Nissan beat out Karsan, a Turkish company that was going to make a vehicle capable of running on an electric-only engine, and pledged to build the cars in Brooklyn. Nissan will build theirs in Mexico. (Another suspicion confirmed: Bloomberg doesn't care about the welfare of the outer boroughs, and isn't interested in any industries in New York beyond finance, construction and tourism.)

Additionally, there are already calls for an investigation of a conflict of interest in the contract-letting. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and Assembly member Micah Kellner. A consultant in the competition, Ricardo Inc., has had past dealings with Nissan, a former client.

DOB stops homeowner from building for 5 years

From the Daily News:

After more than five years of delays and lawsuits, Bhogendra Sharma is finally moving into his South Ozone Park home.

Sleazy contractors and a protracted battle with the city Buildings Department have left him emotionally and financially drained, he said.

Sharma said he has spent almost $500,000 on stalled renovations, mortgages and taxes on a house he couldn't even live in until a few weeks ago.

Two different contractors working on his home racked up a number of violations before abruptly disappearing from the site, leaving Sharma with stop-work orders, possible fines and a unlivable, unfinished home.

Finally, Sharma did what many frustrated Queens homeowners dream of doing: he sued the Buildings Department.

He said the agency violated due process by slapping him with a $5,000 fine without a hearing.

The case was settled last fall in federal court. While not admitting any wrongdoing, the city waived the fine and lifted the stop-worker order.

A new contractor is finishing up work on the house. And Sharma is pursuing a lawsuit against one of his former contractors. He said he hopes city agencies will step up enforcement of contractors or lawmakers will find a way to crack down on the problem.

Update on Jamaica gas site

Dear Queens Crapper,

Having invested time and effort in covering the story for us, I thought it would be in order for me to update you on developments since I last made contact.
Last Wednesday; April 27th, National Grid finally came out to reflag the site with the caution flags that used to mark out the path of the buried gas lines.
Kindly find the pictures of how the site now looks attached (in total corroboration of what we have been saying that the site has enough going on already for there to be need for any additional use imposed without risk to lives).
I also found some pictures of some of the practices of the building owner over the site in the past that worry us going forward as long as the site is left unfenced and open to his access.
We'll be in touch.
Thanks once again and God bless. - Felix

Homeless mess on GCP

From WPIX:

For years it’s been a dumping ground for trash off the Grand Central Parkway, now people who live on Stronghurst Avennue, say the homeless have moved in.

PIX11 News found piles of garbage, clothing, even a suitcase in several trash piles off the Parkway.

Looking past the trees and trash, there were visible tents of possibly homeless people who have created makeshift homes on the side of the Grand Central Parkway.

In start contrast, just across the street are the plush well-manicured lawns of Queens Village.

Why is Leon Nascimbene's headstone at Elmhurst Park?

There's a headstone at newly opened Elmhurst Park! Goodness, what a story. The Daily News has more.

Lots of fake parking placards out there

From the NY Observer:

As many as one in four parking placards currently used by motorists in New York City are fake, according to a new study by transportation advocates, and city lawmakers are latching onto the report to push for tougher enforcements.

Currently, there are 78,000 valid parking placards distributed by various authorities in the city. The president of Transportation Alternatives, Paul Steely White, said his group surveyed six neighborhoods, and out of 1,450 permits found, 343 were fake. "That means that between 10,000 and 25,000 fake permits are used regularly in the city," White said.

That's more than the 12,000 yellow taxi cabs currently on the road here, he noted.

Photo from Streetsblog

Streets of Iraq better than Ozone Park?

From the NY Post:

A city lawmaker faced off with Mayor Bloomberg's transportation officials over the city's expansion of pedestrian plazas yesterday, claiming they haven't done enough research on the impact of the plazas on surrounding neighborhoods.

"I truly think that they're not studying 'what do we do' when pedestrian plazas are constructed and traffic is diverted to other streets," City Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), Transportation Committee chairman, said during a hearing.

"What traffic-mitigation plans do we have? How do we make sure that we're not just shifting and diverting traffic and that the problem that we had in one spot moves to another?" he said.

"My worry is that when we have instituted pedestrian plazas, we have only moved traffic to other surrounding streets."

While most council members praised the plazas, Vacca pressed Department of Transportation officials to more thoroughly study traffic, air quality and business impacts on areas around the pedestrian plazas.

Inside the RKO Keith's of Flushing

From the NY Times:

Over the past year and a half, Mr. Lambros has photographed 20 abandoned theaters in the Northeast, and has plans to visit others farther afield. Two of his subjects are in New York City: the Loew’s Kings Theater in Flatbush, Brooklyn, which is being restored, and the RKO Keith’s Theater in Flushing, Queens, which is scheduled to be transformed into something else entirely: a $160 million complex with apartments, retail space, a senior center and parking. (The theater’s landmark lobby will be preserved.)

In the meantime, the Flushing theater is a particularly poignant example of Mr. Lambros’s work, which he calls “After the Final Curtain.”

“It’s this big, giant empty space in the middle of a busy city,” he said. “That one, more than any other one, is incredibly sad, because of the way it’s fallen apart over the years. The ceilings have collapsed, and there’s all this gorgeous architecture that’s been ruined due to water damage.”

The photographs in the slide show above were taken during six or seven visits to the theater. It is pitch black inside, Mr. Lambros said; he used a combination of a hand-held lantern, a wireless camera flash and long exposures to illuminate the imagery.

How not to publish a news website

Thanks to WPIX for a great laugh!

City can't afford Brooklyn Bridge Park maintenance

From Crains:

The slim chance that the 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park might be completed anytime soon is getting slimmer. A committee responsible for identifying ways to cover the estimated $16 million a year needed to maintain the space faces a deadline in a month, and how it will accomplish the goal is unclear.

“If we don't have a financial model, we won't be able to proceed with construction,” said Regina Myer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp., the nonprofit charged with planning, building and maintaining the park.

The city, which assumed control of the project from the state last year, will contribute about $50 million more toward completing the park only if it can reach an agreement with BBPC on a program for self-sustained funding.

The initial plan calls for building six residential properties with a total of as many as 1,300 units, most of them along the edge of the 1.3-mile waterfront park. Residents would pay for the benefit with what amounts to a surcharge, which would help maintain the park at their doorstep.

Why did we take over this extremely expensive project without first having a way to pay for it? Why is the City denying other neighborhoods park space but prioritizing one that they'll never be able to maintain? Sounds like another High Line boondoggle.

Marshall encounters immigration fraud at nail salon

Bodega owners packing heat

From the Daily News:

A crusader for city bodegas wants to turn deli owners into Dirty Harrys - by urging them to pack heat behind the counter.

Luis Ducasse, head of the Bodega Association of the United States, has been targeting cornershops and delis in crime-ridden neighborhoods, handing out gun-license applications to owners.

"Deli owners make for easy victims," he said. "A person can come in wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun, and the person behind the counter has no place to go, or way to fight back."

The pistol push began after at least 12 deli owners from the Bronx and Queens told Ducasse they were victims of an armed robbery in the last few weeks, he said. At least three deli workers were killed in robberies this winter, he said.

Well, what are they waiting for?

From the Times Ledger:

Warehouse construction has slowed on the St. Saviour’s site in Maspeth as the city is planning yet another round of negotiations to acquire the property and build a park. But community activists say money is not the most pressing issue.

According to a city source, the owner of the property, at 57-40 58th St. in Maspeth, approached the city and is trying to strike a deal, although the two sides previously came up with property values that differed by millions of dollars.

But Christina Wilkinson of the Newtown Historical Society said money negotiations should come later since the legal process for the city to acquire the land could take years.

“They’re doing it backwards, and it’s putting the whole thing in jeopardy,” she said. “They really need to start now ... this process takes a long time.”

The process is called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and, according to the city Parks Department web site, agreeing on a price is not the first step.

The ULURP process includes many planning stages and plenty of reviews by committees. Only an initial start-up cost is required, a cost that the Parks Department said it had in a letter to the Juniper Park Civic Association late last year.

The letter stated that after donations from Borough President Helen Marshall and City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village), the city said it had the money to begin the process.

But it has not set the wheels in motion — a decision that baffled Wilkinson.

“You didn’t have the money, but now you have it. So what’s holding it up?” she said.

Bloomberg?

Here's more from the Forum West.

New book isn't vibrant and diverse!

From the Daily News:

Nicole Steinberg grew weary of books about Queens that harped only on its ethnic diversity.

So the former Jackson Heights resident has compiled an anthology that reflects her experience growing up in the borough and being viewed as an outsider in New York City.

"It often felt like I didn't fit in," said Steinberg, 28, who regularly hung out in Bayside, Flushing, Forest Hills and Rego Park as a kid.

Queens, she added, is "sort of this in-between place where you're not really part of Long Island and you're not really from the rest of New York."

That identity crisis is key to "Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens."

Released in February, the 206-page book covers race, class, industrial growth and other factors that define Queens, while describing the borough as "New York City's biggest underdog."

Never felt like the borough had an identity crisis (that's the same lame reasoning behind the Ed Koch Bridge) but I'm glad someone else out there is sick of the vibrant, diverse mantra. It's gotten really old.

Daily News focuses on illegal conversions

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg ordered top aides to crack down on illegal apartments Tuesday - a day after a blaze in a chopped-up Bronx building killed a 12-year-old boy and his parents.

Conceding the city has not done enough, Bloomberg said he told the fire and buildings commissioners to "develop some new strategies for going after building owners that we suspect are most egregiously responsible for dangerous illegal conversions citywide."

He said the spread of illegal apartments "has been a problem for many, many years," and acknowledged the city's efforts have fallen short.

"Obviously it's just not enough," the mayor said.

The concession came as Bloomberg confirmed that the deathhouse at 2321 Prospect Ave. had been converted into a warren of illegal apartments.

"The real disgrace here is building owners who put profits ahead of people's lives ... and allow extremely dangerous conditions to persist," Bloomberg said.

One could say the same about the City.

From the Daily News:

Drug dealers commandeered the first floor of an illegally converted Bronx firetrap and wouldn't let city inspectors inside, the Daily News has learned.

FDNY and Buildings Department inspectors came to the Prospect Ave. building several times to follow up on complaints about apartments carved into single rooms, neighbors and law enforcement sources said.

"It was the drug dealers who wouldn't allow people inside," said a neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "The Fire Department came by so many times I can't even count."

Sounds like the City also had an NYPD problem in this area.

From the Daily News:

It's even worse in Queens. More than half the complaints about illegal apartments in the entire city came from Queens in 2010, records show.

The city has fielded 31 complaints this month at a two-family tan, brick home at 114-12 95th Ave., in Jamaica, including seven for illegal conversion. A neighbor who didn't want to be identified said: "It's a death-trap. It's like a hotel."

A similar situation appears to exist with a two-family at 206-12 46th Ave. in Bayside, which has logged 158 complaints.

"I've seen 10 to 15 people living there," one neighbor said. "It would be hard to escape a tragedy being so crowded."

From the Daily News:

Two years ago, it took just 10 days for inspectors to show up. Now it takes a month, records show.

"We don't call nobody anymore," said Herb Sanes, 89, who lives at the Jade Apartments in Flushing, Queens, where he and his wife, Lillian, 87, have repeatedly called the Buildings Department about illegal apartments - and nothing seems to change.

"You give up after a while."

The Jade Apartments, at 140-11 Ash Ave., are a prime example of the city's glacial pace at confronting the longstanding problem of illegal apartments.

On Nov. 10, 2009, a caller told the department there were four illegal apartments on the sixth floor. Five days later, the Daily News published a photo of one of the apartments, a one-bedroom clearly divided in two by Sheetrock to accommodate six people.

Despite the publicity, it took inspectors eight months - until July 21, 2010 - to respond. They checked twice and closed the case when they couldn't get in.

Meng debuts translation pamphlet

From the Daily News:

Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) is creating a multilingual and multicultural pamphlet providing immigrants with a crash course in English and locals with a way to communicate.

The pamphlet - to be published by year's end - is expected to feature translations of phrases such as "Can you help me please?" and "Are you open tomorrow?" into languages including Spanish and Mandarin.

There will also be a section on courtesy reminding newcomers not to cut in line and not to sell items on the street without a permit.

The pamphlet will not only help newcomers, Meng said, but also encourage longtime residents to shop in stores that speak a different language than they do.

"We want to encourage people to learn the language and to welcome customers whether the stores speak English or not," Meng said.

Hevesi's honest graft provokes reform

From the Times Ledger:

Long before disgraced former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi was charged in October for his role in a pay-to-play scandal involving the state pension fund under his watch, a little-known treasurer of Saratoga County, J. Christopher Callaghan, knew something was up — and it was in plain sight.

Callaghan, who ran on the Republican line against Hevesi in 2006, said a New York Sun editorial from May of that year pointed out how Hevesi had large contributions donated to him through the wife of Elliott Broidy, the head of the California-based Markstone Capital Partners, and Hevesi invested $250 million of the state’s pension funds into the hedge fund.

The Sun editorial credited the Los Angeles Times with first running a story about Hevesi’s connection to Broidy.

In a phone interview Monday, more than a week after Hevesi was sentenced to one to four years in prison on corruption charges, Callaghan said he pounced on the revelation but nobody noticed.

“To me, that’s one of the great ironies here,” Callaghan said. “This particular incident ... was in print as early as early 2006. It just didn’t seem to be of interest. We released press releases. It’s not like we had any secret information. Everything we knew about Markstone had been published in the newspaper.”

From the NY Post:

This doesn't seem fair: Not only do state taxpayers have to pay disgraced ex- Comptroller Alan Hevesi's room and board for the next 1-to-4 years -- they've still got to pay his pension, too.

That is, even as the twice-convicted felon pockets pennies a day for stamping license plates upstate, he'll still be drawing a whopping $105,000-a-year payout.

Which is why it's such good news that Gov. Cuomo unveiled a bill Tuesday to end the practice.

"It is long past time that we learned the lessons of the Hevesi case and made permanent changes to our system that will stop [such] corruption," Cuomo said.

Nearly a dozen convicted former lawmakers are in the same circumstance, netting big checks while behind bars.

And even if alleged criminals like state Sen. Carl Kruger and former Sen. Pedro Espada are convicted by juries of their peers, those same peers will still have to pay taxes to support their retirement.

Their pensions are protected by the state Constitution -- so only newly elected officials will be subject to the law Cuomo proposes.

What better reason, then, to pass it quickly?

TB crossing our borders

From the Daily News:

Tuberculosis cases hit a record low in the city, but the disease is still rampaging through Chinese and Ecuadoran communities.

Health officials say immigrants are bringing the contagious lung disease here from their homelands.

In 1992, the height of the city's TB epidemic, 70% of the cases were in New Yorkers born here. Now 80% of the cases stem from those born abroad.

Doctors suspect the disease is dormant among immigrants until they come to the U.S.

Although a TB test is required for permanent immigration, those who arrive illegally or for school may not get the pinprick exam.

Health officials' priority is early treatment to prevent its spread, but TB often goes undiagnosed because the sufferers are poor, undocumented or leery of government.

Cross Bay Blvd blight

"I'm living here 6 yrs as a condo owner at Magnolia Court Condominiums located on Cross Bay Blvd and South Conduit Ave in Ozone Park, Queens NY 11417.

The builders at the time of development and sales at the 48 unit development in 2004, advertised a commercial site with office buildings, up scale retailers with parking available at the entrance on Cross Bay Blvd, directly in front of the condo units located on the Blvd between S. Conduit Ave and 149th AVE.

To this day, some 7 years later, no construction has been implemented....the land is for sale, strewn with weeds, mice and a fence that keeps collapsing and leans precipitously onto S. Conduit ave.

Among the reasons for their purchasing their unit, many condo owners thought this would be a pleasant addition to our property...but it has gone bust!" - anonymous

Lots of ponds

Click photo for story - it's a 2 pager!

The Bloomberg solution for illegal immigration

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg has a fix for the nation's immigration debate: Send 'em to Detroit.

"If I were the federal government," Bloomberg told David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday morning. "Assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years."

Detroit has suffered a devastating population loss in recent decades, losing 25% of its citizens since the last census.

Meanwhile, immigrants are clamoring to enter the United States.

Bloomberg says he can fix both at once.

The immigrants would arrive in Detroit, "start businesses, take jobs whatever," Bloomberg said. "You would populate Detroit over night because half the world wants to come here ... You can use something like immigration policy - at no cost to the federal government - to fix a lot of the problems that we have."

It might seem like an easy solution to Bloomberg - but the mayor of Detroit isn't so sure, a spokeswoman said.

"There are things that would have to be considered before we just open the flood gates and say everyone come in," said Karen Dumas, a spokswoman for Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.

I guess he's solved all of NYC's problems since he's giving advice to Detroit now. Why are we a Sanctuary City again?

O'Neill's Restaurant destroyed by fire

From the Times Ledger:

The 83-year legacy of a Maspeth bar and restaurant ended in flames Monday morning, when O’Neill’s was was completely gutted by a five-alarm fire.

Hundreds of residents stood in the street and watched the neighborhood institution burn to the ground throughout the night.

“Hundreds of people were out,” said George O’Neill, the owner of the bar. “And do you know what they were doing? They were crying.”

The blaze began at around 11:30 p.m. and originated in the basement kitchen, according to firefighters at the scene

Employees of the restaurant said that after an uncontrollable grease fire, several cooks ran up the stairs amid smoke and told yelled for everyone to get out.

The roughly 20 people patronizing and working at the bar were all evacuated by the time firefighters arrived at the scene.

Two girls who lived next door had to flee their house and the FDNY had to evacuate the apartment building next door, according to Deputy Chief Mark Cuccurullo of the FDNY.

Joe Crowley's definition of democracy

From City Hall:

Want to become an Assembly member? One way is to raise money and run a campaign. Another option—seemingly more frequently exercised in the city’s most sizable borough—is to work for an Assembly member, then eventually win an uncompetitive special election, in which all you need a small group of insiders to give you the Democratic line. Assembly Audrey Pheffer, who is leaving for the plum patronage pastures of the Queens County clerkship, already has reportedly lined up the Queens Democratic Party’s support behind her chief of staff. And as soon as Assembly Member Nettie Mayersohn announced her retirement, her chief of staff already had the party’s support. It may not be good democracy, but it’s good politics on the part of Joe Crowley, the Queens county chair. Of course, Crowley learned from the best, winning his congressional seat in 2006 when it was handed to him by former county chair Tom Manton.

Flushing gambling parlors raided

From the NY Times:

Seven people in Flushing, Queens, were arrested in connection to underground gambling parlors in the Chinese community, the police said on Thursday.

The authorities periodically raid illegal gambling operations, which thrive throughout New York’s Chinese population. But the network of gambling parlors has come under particular scrutiny by the authorities in recent weeks since four businesses — two in Manhattan’s Chinatown and two in Flushing — were robbed by a crew of armed gunmen. The police say they suspect the robberies were the work of the same group.

All of the recent arrests occurred during a sweep of four apartments in Flushing between 7:20 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, officials said.

Police officials did not say what precipitated the raids. They occurred on the same day that The New York Times published a story describing the recent robberies and exploring the subculture of underground gambling in the Chinese population in New York.

Amen.

City didn't take out its own trash for 5 years

From the Times Ledger:

The president of a Queens Village civic association said a wooded area between the Grand Central Parkway and Stronghurst Avenue is being treated like a garbage dump — and the trash has sat there for five years.

Kathi Papa, president of the Bell Park Manor Terrace Community Council, said she was told recently that the city Parks Department, not the city Department of Transportation, is responsible for clearing the garbage. But the agency has not removed it.

“It’s been here for five years,” Papa said Friday as a reporter toured the area littered with dozens of garbage bags.

“They bagged everything, left it here,” she said, referring to the DOT workers. “The pattern is they come in with one group of guys, bag it and then a second group of guys takes it away.”

But she said it has been five years since a crew disposed of the most recent trash.

“That’s a lot of garbage to forget about,” Papa said.

The civic president said she called City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) about the problem last week and that he told her the Parks Department is responsible for the garbage removal.

“I’ve never seen the Parks Department over here,” Papa said.

About a month ago, Papa said, a homeless man settled in the area, ripping up some of the trash bags and living off its contents, including making a canopy for himself.

Medicaid fraud rampant in Rego Park

From NBC:

Medicaid is a health care program reserved, primarily, for the poor. Benefits are based on federal poverty guidelines. To be eligible in New York State, a single person must earn less than $17,000 a year.

With that in mind, you might expect the most impoverished neighborhoods would be the ones that generate the most Medicaid bills.

Not so.

It turns out, the state’s highest Medicaid billing total can be found within a relatively affluent community: Rego Park, Queens.

With the help of the New York Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, NBC New York examined Medicaid data from all of the state’s nearly 15,000 zip codes.

The analysis found Rego Park -- a neighborhood with a median income above $50,000 -- generated more than $1.5 billion in Medicaid reimbursements in 2010. Because the health care program is aimed at helping poor people, the findings had even regulators scratching their heads.

By running data queries, Little discovered one of the state’s largest Medicaid managed care contractors uses a Rego Park address to process bills -- a clear reason for the high billing volume.

That doesn’t mean investigators won’t continue to have their eyes on the Queens neighborhood.

In his data query, Little also discovered pharmacy reimbursements make up the second largest share of Medicaid bills in Rego Park. That is significant because Rego Park pharmacists have been snared for fraud in the past. Most recently, federal prosecutors busted Rego Park’s ASA Pharmacy for taking part in a $2.5 million kickback scheme.

Currently there are thirteen Rego Park medical service providers who have been banned from participating in Medicaid.

City prefers concrete over grass

From CBS:

Even in a city where officials sometimes make curious decisions, the Department of Transportation’s campaign against Whitestone resident Gretchen Brent and her husband is an A-No. 1 head-scratcher and she has a question for Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“Why did you pick on me for the violation? I just don’t get it. I just don’t get it,” Brent said.

The Brents got a ticket for not having a sidewalk on one side of their corner lot — a place that has been a swath of grass since the house was built in 1918. None of the other houses on either side of that Seventh Avenue block have sidewalks, so the Brent’s sidewalk would go nowhere – and they’d have pay for it.

“I’d say $7,000 to $8,000 I would say,” Gretchen said. “Isn’t it crazy?”

None of the other Seventh Avenue residents got tickets and if they did there might be unwanted consequences.

If the DOT decided to make everyone in the neighborhood put in a sidewalk then many trees in the neighborhood would have to be cut down, something that makes little sense in a city where the mayor is trying to green every acre.

The future of 5 Pointz

From WNYC:

For years, the building has evolved in this way with the artwork. So the recent news that 5Pointz might be torn down came as a bit of a shock to artists and admirers of the space.

In March, Wolkoff proposed razing the warehouse and constructing two residential towers, plus retail space. His son David said the development would include a gym, a pool, a billiards room and hopefully other amenities that the neighborhood is lacking, like a supermarket.

But the Wolkoffs are also mindful of the art on the walls.

“We appreciate the art that’s there,” David said. “But there’s a bigger issue – there’s the issue of what Long Island City needs, or what we believe Long Island City needs, which is an exciting area.”

Wolkoff said the development may also include loft space for artists, and possibly, a wall in the back so graffiti artists can continue to paint.

“We believe that we can create a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week area, like downtown Brooklyn,” David said. “An exciting, great area. And it just hasn’t happened here in Long Island City, as of yet.”

Even though it could take years for the project to be completed, the news has prompted a global outpouring of support for 5Pointz, including independent petitions to save it.

Is building atop a gas line a wise move?

From the Queens Chronicle:

In addition to their contention that allowing commercial activities to take place over a “sensitive” public utility facility could cause an accident, neighbors argue the linking of the two stores on the short residential block is bound to overwhelm the neighborhood with traffic. They also say it would damage a parcel that residents consider a neighborhood park.

The grassy area, next to the gas facility, still has some greenery, but most of the plant life has been uprooted and lost due to people driving over the sidewalk to park there. The walkway is cracked and broken in several places and the dirt pressed into grooves from the weight of tires.

“It was like a park — people would come there and walk their dogs,” said resident Nikki Ogunkya. “It was nice for the street, but now to walk past it everyday — it’s devastating.”

Felix Ogunkya, Nikki’s husband and the leader of the protest, said that National Grid was unaware of what was happening on the land until he called them. Staffers told him if residents see people parking on the site to call and the company would send someone out to investigate.

“They do it everyday,” Ogunkya said. “How often can we call them?”

He recently enlisted the help of City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-South Ozone Park). Ogunkya said the lawmaker reached out to National Grid and asked them to replace the yellow caution flags, which the utility promised to do within 48 hours — that was on April 19, and they were still not there on Monday.

Karen Young, a spokeswoman for the utility company, said the land where the gas lines are located does not belong to National Grid, so they can’t put up a fence around it. She further asserted that the construction of a driveway on the land would not cause safety issues.

Young suggested that complaints about the broken sidewalk be referred to the city’s Department of Transportation, but said the utility would go out to the site to replace the yellow flags.

Anytime people want to build near or over a gas line, they are required to call a national hotline, Young said, so that representatives from various utilities can check to make sure the area is safe for construction. She did not specify if the landowner in this case had done that.

Similarly, Jennifer Gilbert, a spokeswoman for the DOB, said the owner and contractor are obligated to follow such rules, however, she did not say whether the agency checks to make sure they have done this before it approves the permits.

Anyone else notice a major problem here?

And now a follow up from the organizer:

"National Grid came out to re-insert the yellow caution flags that used to populate the site Wednesday afternoon (I am attaching pictures of the flags so you know what they look like). Unfortunately, none of these flags remained on the site before I brought it to Councilman Wills' notice and he then impressed on National Grid the need to come out to re-insert them.
Interestingly however, just like the Queens Chronicle's report suggests, National Grid support for this is such that they 'graciously' avoided putting any flags up along the path of the proposed driveway even though I have videos that show that there used to be flags right in front of the door that the driveway is to link up to our street. I could think that this was just a co-incidence on their part, but I stopped believing in co-incidences with these guys since I have witnessed what they have been able to do through the DOB: National Grid may just be the next 'helper' to come along for them. Regardless, they are bent on getting this project finished whatever may be the cost or risk!
Anyway, thanks again for all your support. I'll be in touch.
God bless,
Felix"