Tamika Haney, 35, is no longer sure who owns the two-and-a-half-story house at 151 Hendricks Ave. in New Brighton, where she lives on the second floor with her nine children, ranging in age from 1 to 19 years old.
She moved there in April 2005 from a shelter in Brooklyn. She said, “The city gave me a list of apartments, and this was one of them.”
Over the past five years, conditions in the house have deteriorated significantly.
“The basement is filled with raw sewage,” Ms. Haney said. “The smell is horrible, and my kids and I are breathing in this stuff.
“There are holes in the ceiling and floor, and squirrels come inside. I don’t have an oven — it’s been broken for four years. The kitchen sink doesn’t work — I have to wash my dishes in the bathroom tub.”
The city’s Department of Finance lists the building’s owner as Angelito Chuakay, who has a mailing address in Secaucus, N.J. Ms. Haney confirmed he was her landlord, but said he and his wife, Aurea, have not returned any of her telephone calls recently.
Public records of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) show 119 open violations at 151 Hendricks Ave., 96 of them listed as Class B, meaning hazardous.
An HPD inspection last month documented a collapsing ceiling in Ms. Haney’s living room, a hole in the kitchen ceiling, a broken pipe in the kitchen sink, vermin throughout the apartment and raw sewage in the basement, among other violations.
An earlier inspection in August found exposed electrical wiring, a sagging bathroom floor and doors that created rooms within bedrooms.
When an HPD inspector visited the building in March, flies, roaches and mice were noted throughout the building; electrical wiring was exposed in the basement; there was a leaking pipe in Ms. Haney’s kitchen, and no smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, as required by law.
She is also concerned that the building may have been illegally converted from a one-family to a two-family house. “On the first floor, there’s just a piece of sheetrock that separates the downstairs apartment from the upstairs,” she said.
A mother is questioning the circumstances surrounding her son's death after a fight at a nightclub in Queens.
Beverley Waide clutched a torn blue sweater, dropped her head in her hand and sobbed at the thought that the piece of clothing is what her son wore the night he died.
Her son, 33-year-old Haroon Walfall, went to Bartinis Lounge in Forest Hills Friday night with a cousin and a friend. They told her about a dispute inside that lead to his death.
"He was talking to this girl," Waide said. "Apparently she had her boyfriend there. And maybe he got jealous and he attacked my son. And his friends came at him and they started beating him. They were all stomping at him. Stomping at his face with his boots."
Waide says the bouncer threw her son out. In the car, Walfall complained of the pain, and his cousin took him to Franklin General Hospital, where he died.
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Brooklyn legislator says cash-strapped New York should collect taxes it’s owed before taxing its people any more.
Brooklyn Assemblyman William Colton told 1010 WINS, the state is owed $14.4 billion in delinquent taxes and said the state should do its due diligence to collect the money.
Colton hopes a new website set up by the Department of Taxation and Finance will shame some of those delinquent taxpayers to pay up.
The website names the top 250 violating individual taxpayers and business taxpayers.
“Let’s change Albany by making sure that our middle-income families are not shortchanged by having wealthy companies and individuals get away with billions of dollars of unpaid taxes,” Colton said.
The strip club “Scores” tops the list — owing 14.7 million. Disgraced financier Bernie Madoff is number 147 on the list of individuals — owing $1.6 million.
The list – which has been up since April 2010 – will be updated every month, Colton said.
“They have to get top lawyers to go in and close the tax loopholes and they have to start fighting to get every penny of unpaid taxes that is owned by the wealthy businesses and individuals that are forcing middle income families to suffer,” he said.
Major developers say they won't start building again without significant cuts in their labor costs, with work-rule, benefit and wage savings of 20% or more.
Nonunion contractors are improving their skills and making inroads in the tall Manhattan buildings that have been union-built since the beginning of time.
Meanwhile, union hardhats looking at 20% unemployment or more in their trades have grudgingly accepted work-rule changes and wage freezes on a project-by-project basis - but they're balking at signing onto permanent changes.
Talks have moved along fitfully and recently broke off until after the holidays, but the real battle will come by summer.
Thirty construction unions have contracts that expire by June 30, 2011. When they do, the reverberations could shake New York to its core.
Contractors could reach new deals. Or unions could walk off the job and paralyze construction sites. Or developers could bring nonunion workers onto high-profile midtown jobs and brace themselves for the consequences.
Each day, a dozen or more young men stroll into Queens Supreme Court sporting the Cincinnati Reds' signature red-and-black cap.
The fashion trend doesn't mean the borough has stopped rooting for the Mets in favor of this year's National League Central champions.
Veteran prosecutors say members of the Bloods - the largest and most dangerous gang in Queens - have worked the red "C" into their wardrobe in a direct slap at blue-themed rivals the Crips.
Queens' top gang prosecutor complains the brazen thugs wear the cap to intimidate witnesses or show solidarity with brother gangsters.
Cops and prosecutors say the hats are an especially common sight in Queens because of the Bloods' strong presence in Far Rockaway housing projects for more than a decade.
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