Cellar murder story’s twist

From NBC:

The father of two toddlers who were found seriously hurt in their Queens home last week — one of whom later died — jumped to his death from a Midtown hotel, police sources said.

Mohammad Reza Torabi, the father of the 1-year-old twins, was found dead Saturday after jumping from the Renaissance New York Hotel 57 on East 57th Street, according to police sources.

Police had been interested in questioning Torabi about the incident prior to his death, the sources said.

Where the most selfish dog owners live

From Brick Underground:

...a report from RealtyHop, which looked at 311 poop complaint data for New York City and other cities. With over 84,000 registered dogs in the city (which the city's Department of Health estimates is just 20 percent of the total dog population), there were 2,458 poop complaints logged in 2017, a decrease from the prior year.

Worst neighborhoods by borough
Average yearly complaint per 10,000 households in 2017

Soundview-Bruckner (the Bronx) 46
Ozone Park (Queens) 20.3.
Cypress Hills-City Line (Brooklyn) 19.1
Mariner’s Harbor-Arlington-Port Ivory-Graniteville (Staten Island) 18.0
Hamilton Heights (Manhattan) 11.5

Cleanest neighborhoods by borough
Average yearly complaint per 10,000 households in 2017

Stuyvesant Town-Cooper Village (Manhattan) 0.8
Brooklyn Heights-Cobble Hill (Brooklyn) 1.0
Co-op City (the Bronx) 2.1
Springfield Gardens North (Queens) 3.1
Grymes Hill-Clifton-Fox Hills (Staten Island) 6.9

Gianaris suddenly concerned about LIC's dearth of open space

From the Times Ledger:

State Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) and several Long Island City community organizations are urging the city to include park space in Court Square as the neighborhood continues to grow at an unprecedented pace.

Gianaris called on the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Department of Transportation to renovate public land located underneath the Queensboro Bridge ramps between 23rd Street and Thompson Avenue and turn it into public space to reflect a proposal made in the 1999 Department of City Planning study.

“Long Island City is one of our fastest growing neighborhoods and we must ensure community needs are met as we grow,” Gianaris said Sept. 21. “More public park space must be part of the planning process and utilizing this parcel would be a great way to start.”

The public-owned lots are currently used by the city Department of Transportation and while the city can not build on them, it has proposed transferring air rights to The Lions Group, which plans on building two residential towers at 27-01 and 26-31 Jackson Ave. The Court Square Civic Association organized a rally against that plan last Saturday at the corner of Dutch Kills Street and Jackson Avenue.

DeBlasio's kicking the can down the road on homelessness

From City Limits:

The lie began in 2014, when Bill de Blasio campaigned for Mayor on the platform of ending the “tale of two cities.” He said he would end inequality in our City. He said he would help the most vulnerable.

The lie continued in 2017 when he was reelected, and he said he would create the “fairest big city in America.”

Meanwhile, today we still have over 61,000 people living in shelters in New York City. The impacts of this cannot be understated: homeless people’s lives are endangered, their physical and mental health deteriorates, kids miss school, working people lose their jobs, and so much more. No one should ever have to face these spiraling circumstances.

Since he took office, Mayor de Blasio has continued to praise his administration for dealing with a homelessness crisis of record proportions. He’s made half-hearted attempts to deal with the immediate crisis of homelessness by issuing rental assistance vouchers that don’t cover average rents in our city. When people are able to find housing with these below-market rent vouchers, they are relegated to few far-flung neighborhoods where the housing is often in poor conditions. Seeing this lackluster attempt to help homeless people find housing, City Councilmember Steve Levin introduced a bill in January to raise voucher values to meet fair-market rent and to guarantee that voucher recipients continue to receive the assistance as long as they meet eligibility requirements.

But beyond providing New Yorkers with subpar vouchers to find housing, de Blasio has a bigger stain on his record when it comes to housing the homeless: his Housing New York 2.0 plan. Out of the 300,000 units of affordable housing in his plan, the mayor has committed only 15,000 units—five percent—for the homeless.

Jails, jails, everywhere!

From the Times Ledger:

There was tension last week as Kew Gardens residents expressed their opposition to the city’s proposal to reopen the existing Queens Detention Center complex as part of the city’s plan to shutter the Rikers Island prison over the next 10 years.

Hundreds of Kew Gardens residents attended the Queens Scoping Hearing, held Wednesday, Sept. 26 at Queens Borough Hall, located at 120-55 Queens Blvd. City officials were unable to finish their sentences amidst the loud interruptions in the Helen Marshall Cultural Center.

Misael Syldor, of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform — who was born and raised in Queens — delivered the testimony.

“At Rikers, people come out worse off than when they go in,” said Syldor. “The proposed facility in Queens is an opportunity for us to be closer to our loved ones, legal representation, and other services that will help them rehabilitate and become productive members of our communities.”

Audience members were divided on the closing of Rikers Island and the implementation of community-based borough jails. Residents who stood up to speak stated that there was no community involvement on the city’s plan to reopen the Queens jail complex.

In August, the de Blasio administration announced a proposal to redevelop Queens Detention Complex — located at 126-02 82nd Ave., adjacent to the Queens Criminal Courthouse — and the neighboring municipal parking lot into a corrections center with space for 1,510 prisoner beds.

“Why is $10 billion being funneled into the jail plan when that money can be used for creating affordable housing, our public schools and creating new roads,” asked Grace Wong. of Fresh Meadows.

Residents stressed the issues of overcrowding, parking availability, nearby schools, and transportation in the neighborhood.

Andrea Crawford, counsel to the Kew Gardens Improvement Association, said the city’s plan to build the jail complex will “cripple the neighborho­od,” and has no economic benefits to the community.


From CBS2:

Residents gave city representatives an earful in the Bronx Wednesday night in response to a plan to build a jail to help replace Rikers Island.

The opposition was loud and clear as families from Mott Haven spoke out angrily against the city’s plan to open a jail at an old tow pound on Concord Avenue.

“Some of us residents have made lives and raised families on Concord Avenue for over 70 years,” resident Myra Hernandez said. “We are enraged.”

Hernandez lives two blocks from the proposed site in the Bronx.

“For anyone to propose that this is going to be beneficial for these communities that are oppressed and marginalized, has no clue,” she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to close the jails on Rikers Island and move towards a borough-based jail system. It would build facilities on the Concord Avenue property in the Bronx, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Centre Street in Manhattan, and 82nd Avenue in Queens.

From the NY Times:

When the city moved its youngest inmates from Rikers Island to a juvenile detention center last week, the goal was to shield them from the violence of the adult jail and place them in an age-appropriate setting, as required under a new state law.

But so far the mayhem has followed them.

Since last week, when the city’s youngest offenders began moving into Horizon Juvenile Center, there have been at least five violent episodes. These brawls among inmates have caused dozens of injuries to correction officers assigned to the center, union leaders said.

On Wednesday, 20 correction officers suffered minor injuries when a fight involving 16 inmates from two rival gangs broke out about 11:30 a.m., correction officials said. The officers’ union said the fight started when one group of teenagers, who were in school at the facility, spotted members of a rival gang in the hallway.

After the fight, unions representing correction officers and social workers, as well as two City Council members, criticized the mayor and city officials for moving the young inmates before addressing safety and security concerns.



Oh, shit!

Auburndale cellar becomes murder site

From CBS 2:

Police said they were called to a home on Ashby Avenue in the Auburndale neighborhood shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Sources told CBS2 the woman lived in the basement unit with five children, all under the age of 10. She was the only adult home at the time, sources said.

Police said officers found the little girl, identified as 1-year-old Elaina Torabi, unconscious and unresponsive and rushed her to Flushing Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Her brother was taken to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in critical condition.

The Administration for Children’s Services removed three other girls, ages 2, 4, and 5, from the home, unharmed. Sources told CBS2 there was no ACS history at the house.

Coliseum Gym gone but they left their crap behind

"How is this allowed to happen??....if I did anything remotely like this inf front of my property I could get a HUGE SUMMONS.

Coliseum Gym is now OUT OF BUSINESS...but they left a bunch of junk on sidewalk..." - anonymous

More photos of the mess here.

Foreclosure looms for Acropolis Gardens

From The Real Deal:

A Wells Fargo-managed trust is looking to foreclose on a 618-unit co-op development in Astoria after its owners failed to make a loan payment.

French bank Natixis issued a $45 million mortgage in April 2017 on Acropolis Gardens, the 16-building complex bordered by Ditmars Boulevard, and 33rd and 34th streets. The debt was pooled into a securitized trust managed by Wells Fargo, according to court documents, with monthly repayments of $13,596.

But the Wells Fargo-managed trust filed a foreclosure action on Monday, after the property’s condominium board, Acropolis Gardens Realty Corp., missed a July payment.

The failed payment followed the trust’s discovery of multiple legal actions against the condo board.

Strange College Point shooting

From NBC:

In Queens, the hunt is on for four masked men who shot and killed a driver after a fender-bender escalated in College Point. Wale Aliyu reports.

Environmentalists are concerned about LGA plan

From AM-NY

Flushing Bay, once derided for its unseemly smell and murky waters, has started to make a comeback in recent years.

Thousands of people use it to practice and race dragon boats. Families stroll along the promenade, no longer repelled by the powerful rotten-egg smell known to permeate cars driving by on the Grand Central Parkway.

But advocates worry the slow but steady progress will be wiped out by a controversial proposal to build an AirTrain that links LaGuardia Airport with the subway and the Long Island Rail Road.

The first steps in the environmental review process are slated to start later this week, and advocates for the bay are hoping they will get an opportunity to be heard.

“I think it would really take away so much of the work we have been advocating for — clean water, increasing community access,” said Hillary Exter, an avid dragon boat racer and board member of Guardians of Flushing Bay, a watchdog group. “Building the AirTrain either in the water or along the promenade really destroys what is a tremendous resource for the city.”

Skillman Ave bike lanes questioned after fire truck incident

From Sunnyside Post:

A new video posted to a local Facebook group shows a firetruck being blocked from traveling down Skillman Avenue–raising questions about public safety following the street’s recent redesign.

The video, just over a minute long and posted to the Woodside Pride group at around 8:45 p.m. yesterday, shows an angled firetruck from the local Engine 325/Ladder 163 firehouse on 51st Street, with lights and horns ablaze, unable to turn onto Skillman Avenue.

Two firefighters are also seen on the street, seemingly trying to direct the truck.

The truck appears to be blocked by at least two cars stationed in a striped buffer zone on Skillman Avenue, part of the Department of Transportation’s reconfiguration of the avenue to make way for protected bike lanes and other safety measures.

The truck eventually reverses a couple of feet back before pulling forward into 51st Street, presumably to make a turn onto 39th Avenue.

The video has already been shared by dozens, with many worried about the prospect of a delayed firetruck.

Several, despite the cars stationed over a new buffer zone, blamed the firetruck’s holdup on the newly implemented protected bike lane design, which included the elimination of a travel lane at the site.

Woodside megaproject being negotiated

From Sunnyside Post:

The size and scope of a large project proposed along Queens Boulevard in Woodside is currently being negotiated, with discussions of a smaller development with a public school on the table.

Council Member Robert Holden, who represents the district where Madison Realty Capital has proposed a two-tower project at 69-02 Queens Blvd., is working with the developer to decrease the development’s density and add an elementary or middle school at the site.

“We’ve been negotiating for the past month or so,” said Daniel Kurzyna, spokesperson for Holden. “They seem open to it.”

The project as currently envisioned includes a 17 and 14 story tower with a total of 561 apartments, of which 169 would be affordable. Some ground level commercial space is also part of the proposed project.

But the project, larger than what is permitted under current zoning, can only be built as planned if its rezoning application passes a lengthy public review process. The review process, however, is soon coming to an end, with a City Council vote scheduled some time before the end of the year.

Negotiations have mainly focused on shaving off some stories from the taller building and including the school in a district with an overcrowding issue.

Iron Coffin Lady documentary airing this week

From the NY Post:

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2011, a backhoe dug into an excavation pit in Elmhurst, Queens, and struck iron. Construction workers assumed they had hit a pipe. But when the claws of the backhoe emerged from the ground, it was dragging a body clothed in a white gown and knee-high socks.

Scott Warnasch, then a New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner forensic archaeologist, initially viewed the finding as a recent homicide. “It was recorded as a crime scene,” Warnasch, 52, told The Post. “A buried body on an abandoned lot sounds pretty straightforward.”

It turned out to be anything but. The almost perfectly preserved body was actually that of a woman born decades before the Civil War. She had been buried in what was once the grounds of a church founded in 1830 by the first generation of free African-Americans. Now a new documentary, “The Woman in the Iron Coffin,” premiering Wednesday on PBS, provides the woman’s identity.

The Post can reveal that researchers believe her to be Martha Peterson, who worked for a local white man with abolitionist leanings.

Forest Hills is a ghost town

From the Queens Chronicle:

The recent disappearance of several Forest Hills fixtures continues an apparent trend in the neighborhood: the closing of businesses that its residents depend on.

Yellowstone Hardware & Supply Corp., founded in 1954, sold its last nuts and bolts back in November. As of Aug. 28, the venerable branch of Sterling National Bank, a cornerstone of the intersection of Continental Avenue and 108th Street, would offer no more interest or loans. This past spring, Key Food, which for decades stood at the corner of Queens and Yellowstone boulevards, closed its automatic doors forever.

A one-block stretch on Austin Street between 71st Road and 72nd Avenue reveals five deserted retail spaces, including those formerly occupied by New York & Company, a women’s clothing retailer, and a grocery store. A bridal shop is gone, too, along with the building that housed it. According to a hairdresser who declined to give his name but who indicated he has worked in the salon across the street for the past 14 years, the building was demolished about six years ago. The space remains an abandoned construction site.

Even a casual walk through the neighborhood offers plenty of other examples of properties that remain vacant. Continuing down Austin Street, one finds the window-covered remains of Sky Cafe, which served up tasty treats at the corner of 70th Road. A nearby AT&T Authorized Retailer is out of business, too, as is Barnes and Noble, one of the last remaining bookstores in the borough.

Toward the end of the street, where it meets Yellowstone Boulevard, Austin Wellness Pharmacy is but an empty shell behind a gated door.

The S&B Clothing Showroom for Men, which adjoined Key Food on Yellowstone, has been gone for years, perhaps a decade, some speculate. It was recently joined by the shuttered Aron’s Bakery, on the far side of the Long Island Rail Road trestle.

On the service road of Queens Boulevard, opposite MacDonald Park, an entire row of mom-and-pop businesses is gone: Party World, Urban Cuts & Color Salon & Spa, Yuriy’s Shoe Repair, Liz Cleaners, Worldwide Postal & Parcel Services and the corner Piu Bella restaurant.

The Queens real estate frenzy

From Brick Underground:

A new market report from StreetEasy shows that Queens continues to be the borough on the rise, in more ways than one, as buyers cast a wider net in search of more affordable housing.

The August 2018 report indicates prices for houses in the borough reached an all-time high of $536,028, with a 7.1 percent annual increase. Prices in the borough are now 23 percent higher than they were in 2013. Houses are also changing hands in Queens faster than in Manhattan; houses in Queens moved off the market a month faster than Manhattan listings.

A bright spot for buyers looking to Queens: It also experienced the highest share of price cuts in the city, growing 3.4 percentage points to 10.2 percent. And rents in the borough, while seeing the first annual increase since September 2017 with a modest .5 percent growth, reached $2,164—still significantly less than Manhattan and Brooklyn rents.

Civic punishes anti-Machine candidate

From the Times Ledger:

Oster Bryan, the former candidate who ran for an Assembly seat in southeast Queens against incumbent Clyde Vanel (D-Queens Village) in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary was asked to resign from his post as the president of the St. Albans Improvement Association.

Bryan believes that an $8,000 grant sent to the civic association before the Sept. 13 primary by Vanel was at the heart of the decision of him getting booted from organization.

“They are trying to remove as president, and they are saying it’s because I ran for public office, but that makes no sense to me,” said Bryan. “There is no such rule on our books that says I can’t.”

The eight-page bylaws from the civic association did not indicate a member or leader of the organization could not run for office; however, a letter sent to the former candidate said that he knew of the funds that were sent to the civic association before he decided to run and put the needs of the nonprofit at risk.

“It appears that you had no interest nor respect for the welfare of this organization and its members. Instead you choose to join the race for the Assembly seat after already knowing Assemblyman Clyde Vanel gave the Civic a grant,” said the letter that was sent out by the organization’s Vice President Martha Oliver.

Vanel implied he had nothing to do with Bryan being asked to resign and that funds were sent to the civic association long before the primary race; however, he did not have records on hand as to when exactly he offered the grant as of Wednesday night.

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." - 1 Timothy 6:10

Major World seeks major rezoning

From The Real Deal:

A disgraced car dealer from Queens who recently pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud is now looking to rezone one of his auto lots in Long Island City under the city’s affordable housing program.

Bruce Bendell, a former senior manager at the Major World family of dealerships, is looking to upzone the site of a shuttered Kia dealership on Northern Boulevard to make way for an 11-story mixed-use building with 244 apartments.

But the 64-year-old is facing up to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty in July for failing to report $3.5 million in receipts and payroll expenses on Major World’s 2009 tax forms with the Internal Revenue Service.

Business owners harassed over size of signs

From AMNY:

A number of store owners along Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven have received violations for their signs in recent months.

Others, hoping to ward off future fines, are pulling down their storefront signs.

The result is a streetscape pockmarked with blank spaces above shop fronts and merchants who said they were struggling before being hit with an unexpected fee.

“I was told there was a complaint about my sign, and I find that hard to believe,” said Vasiliadis, who heard about the violation in August. “I’ve been here nine years. Where would the complaint come from?”

Buildings Department officials confirmed they examined the sign at Avenue Diner after receiving a call about it through the 311 line.

Similarly, city personnel inspected Caridad Restaurant across the street, after the agency received a 311 call about its awning in June. Officials said owner Bruno Taveras’ 14-foot sign was illegal and anchored to the facade without a permit.

“We are here almost 20 years, and I never heard anything about the sign,” said Tavares. “They also said I need insurance. But I already have insurance for the establishment. Nobody in court wants to hear that.”

Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Buildings Department, said signs under six-square-feet do not need a permit.

I'm glad to see that DOB has taken care of the illegal conversion problems and now has time to go after this menace.

Crazy big development to replace NYPD garage

From GlobeSt:

Construction has begun on the conversion of a former New York City Police Department parking garage in Jamaica, Queens into a mixed-use development that will feature more than 380 affordable housing units.

A host of city officials were on hand for the groundbreaking for the Archer Green Apartments project on Friday, including New York City Economic Development Corporation president and CEO James Patchett; Housing Development Corporation EVP of real estate Paula Roy Carethers, Department of Housing Preservation and Development; Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Councilmember I. Daneek Miller, State Senator Leroy Comrie, Assemblywoman Alicia Hyndman, representatives with construction manager Omni New York LLC and community leaders.

The redevelopment of the NYPD parking garage is the first major milestone to arise from the Jamaica NOW Action Plan, a $153-million neighborhood revitalization initiative announced in 2015 by the de Blasio Administration, Queens Borough President Katz and the NYCEDC.

In addition to the 100% affordable housing units, the Archer Green Apartments will also feature approximately 15,000 square feet of community facility space and 68,800 square feet of retail and commercial space. The project is expected to create nearly 350 construction jobs and more than 300 permanent jobs upon completion.

Roof collapse in Astoria

From PIX11:

Crews are on scene after a building partially collapsed in Queens early Wednesday.

Fire officials received a call shortly after 4 a.m. about a partial roof collapse at a mixed occupancy one-story building on 48-15 25th Ave. in Astoria.

Authorities arrived to find the marble business' roof and front exterior wall partially collapsed.