The gentrification trolley that refuses to die

Gothamist

 In 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would begin working on the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a $2.5 billion streetcar that would trace the waterfronts of the two boroughs from Astoria to Sunset Park. The mayor's announcement came after a group of real estate developers somehow had the same idea, and donated nearly $250,000 to de Blasio's nonprofit, but the mayor assured everyone that the BQX would pay for itself, thanks to rising property values.

A year and many "visioning sessions" later, Sunset Park residents fought to take their neighborhood off the BQX's map, leaked documents and independent reports showed the city's funding scheme to be extremely dubious, the streetcar route was found to be susceptible to serious flooding, and the BQX looked to go the way of the carriage horse ban: a full-throated promise backed by stacks of cash that turned into a whisper in the wind.

But the BQX wasn't dead, just dormant. The de Blasio administration released a new plan for the streetcar in 2018 with a shorter, 11-mile route from Astoria to Red Hook and a bigger price tag, $2.7 billion.

This week the city's Economic Development Corporation and Department of Transportation pledged to start presenting their case to the public early next month, with the goal of coming up with a final design by 2023, and finishing construction in 2029—eight years after Mayor de Blasio leaves office.
In the short-term, the city is aiming to get a draft Environmental Impact Statement done by 2021, de Blasio's final year in office.

“From community board presentations and on-the-ground outreach to briefings with elected officials and public workshops, NYCEDC and NYC Department of Transportation are moving forward with a far-reaching process that provides multiple opportunities for feedback prior to the environmental review phase," the city said in a statement.

Hate to say that I told you so, but I told you so.

Update:

Thought this interview with the dope from park slope needed to be included, as the Blaz tells Errol Louis (who hilariously presumed that this was dead) that even though the city is earmarking another 2 billion to get the BQX started, it's going to need federal funding. Surely because everyone in the towns that it will traverse and the district council members are all dead set against it. Just quit it, Bill.

Mortality rates of homeless people went up

 

NY Post

More homeless New Yorkers died last year than in any other in the past decade — despite promises by Mayor Bill de Blasio to make their lives better.

Homeless deaths from July 2018 through June 2019 totaled 404 — a staggering 39% increase from the previous fiscal year and the highest number since 2006, when the city began recording the deaths.
Sixty percent died in a hospital. The rest died outdoors or in other places that the city didn’t specify in its annual report, which is mandated by law.

The top five causes of the deaths: drugs, heart disease, alcoholism, unspecified accidents and cancer.
Ten people were killed; 15 killed themselves.

Far more men died than women — 313 to 91.

Even with the deaths, the homeless population spiked in fiscal 2019 — reaching an all-time high in shelters of 63,839 in last January, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

The number of homeless has climbed nearly every year since the de Blasio took office, and spending on city homeless services has more than doubled.

This, despite the mayor’s repeated promises to “turn the tide” on homelessness.

“An ever-growing homeless population is unacceptable to the future of New York City . . . it will not happen under our watch,” de Blasio said days before his swearing-in on Jan. 1, 2014.
In response to the skyrocketing number of deaths, a coalition spokeswoman called on the state and the city to provide more affordable housing.

“No person should have to live — or die — without stable housing,” Jacquelyn Simone said. “This report should serve as a tragic reminder why Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo must both step up with housing solutions at a scale to meet the need.”

The Great NYC Ferry Subsidy Robbery and city bus austerity

NY Post

Ferries help the poor? That’s rich.
 
Mayor Bill de Blasio has insisted that his administration’s heavily-subsidized ferry service would help poor New Yorkers get around, but newly revealed data shows it’s been a plaything of the rich almost from the jump — figures the city sat on for months.
 
An internal survey taken in July 2017 — two months after the service’s inception — found that the median rider’s income ranges between $100,000 and $150,000, a trend that held as of another poll conducted in the winter of 2018.
 
The results of the surveys were obtained by The Post through an eight-month Freedom of Information 

Law battle with the Economic Development Corporation, the city-controlled non-profit that manages the ferry service and solicited the data.
 
The EDC for months rebuffed The Post’s requests as it claimed it was still searching for the records — but City Councilman Antonio Reynoso had a different explanation for it.
 
“The city was being misleading about what information they had, and also didn’t want to give the information because it would prove a point that many of us were already making,” said Reynoso (D-Brooklyn/Queens).

Impunity City

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”
                                                                                                S’chn T’gai Spock.

The NY Post reported the other day that the prime demographic that frequently uses the NYC Ferry are upper class people making six figures.

But we all knew it.

The fucking New York City Economic Development Corporation knew it.

The goddamn New York City Mayor knew it.

And both of them fucking spent every second of city time trying to hide it for two years.

The NYC Ferry is mostly used by the wealthiest commuters by the river towers that are owned and run by all of Mayor deFaustio’s developer overlord donors. Notably at the ports on the west Brooklyn coast line where it’s a leisure walk away from them (plus Hunter’s Point in Queens).


The current cost for each taxpayer for each $2.75 ride across the rivers and under the bridges is currently at $9.75. A seven dollar loss for each ride millions of people don’t take or don’t bother to take because they don’t live near the ports. And because they probably have no need and use for the boats because they are just plain inconvenient for where they are located and where they need to go.

If they are not the overvalued rental market rate rent paying tower people, it’s tourists and hipsters going to Rockaway Beach. Which is probably the most popular destination of the city gentrification yachts. Which is where some of this profligate spending on this boondoggle is located.


Because whats constantly overlooked about this obscene and overtly useless and consistently vacant aqua transit service is that there is a free shuttle bus service when you get off the ferry. Although ever since this started, you have to pay another fare to get on a city bus. 



 Now above is the Rockaway port, the picture was taken in 2017 late in the summer when it first started. It should be noted that these stylish shuttle buses weren’t available until late August and the city was actually using big ass charter buses to transport upper class denizens to the beach.

 

Above is the city bus stop for the Q22, now why are free ferry shuttle buses necessary when you can just set up a free transfer from the city bus to go to your desired destination, because both buses go to the same places east and west of the peninsula. Why clearly spend money irresponsibly on some private company buses when you got a long time city transit service right there in front of your face?

Use long weekend to watch the BP forum

It's a riot!

Schools Chancellor Carranza walks out on town hall following complaints to his face from parents with kids being bullied in his schools

NY Post

 Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza was jeered off the stage at a packed town hall meeting at a Queens middle school Thursday as anger over school safety boiled over.
 
The Department of Education boss faced the wrath of more than 500 parents at MS 74 Nathaniel Hawthorne in Oakland Gardens.

“What is happening here?” parent Katty Sterling yelled at Carranza. “We’re not getting answers! Nobody is giving answers!”

Exasperated, Sterling told school officials how her daughter had twice allegedly been assaulted by a female classmate at MS 158 Marie Curie in Bayside and is now too afraid to return to school.
 
Her daughter’s tormentor was never suspended and remains in class, according to Sterling.

“The other student is sitting in school getting all the privileges and what is my daughter doing? Sitting at home, sick, getting traumatized!” Sterling screamed at the dais just feet from Carranza.
MS 158, one of the district’s highly regarded schools, has been hit with a string of ugly incidents in recent months, including a vicious lunchroom fight last week and a classroom sexual assault last month. Both incidents resulted in arrests.

Tired of an attempt at reassurance by School District 26 Superintendent Danielle Giunta, Sterling had approached the dais to give Carranza and other officials a piece of her mind.
As she vented her frustrations, others in the audience joined in.

After several unsuccessful attempts to quiet the crowd, Carranza rose and exited the stage as the hooting continued.
Earlier in the meeting, after the superintendent spoke, a school dad whose daughter was allegedly forcibly touched in an MS 158 classroom in November, tried to address the panel.

But panel members told him they were answering only questions that had been submitted in writing before the meeting — and that he was out of order.

NY Post

A mom whose daughter was seen in a viral video being beaten at a Queens school and who tried to confront schools Chancellor Richard Carranza about it at a meeting Thursday ripped him for abruptly walking out while she and others were trying to get answers.

“I will be honest with you,” said Katty Sterling, whose daughter was attacked in a cafeteria by a bully at MS 158 in Bayside last week. “I really don’t think he cares. He didn’t say a word, he just sat there. He had no answers for what the parents were asking. And then he left.”

A crowd of more than 500 parents and teachers swarmed the meeting of Community Education Council 26 Thursday night to address concerns over what they say are spiraling classroom conditions.

MTA would like to keep congestion pricing plan a secret

NY Post

The board that will recommend congestion pricing tolls to enter Midtown must deliberate in public and not behind closed doors, the state Committee on Open Government has ruled.

The MTA last fall claimed the Traffic Mobility Review Board is not covered by the Open Meetings Law, and therefore its meetings are not open to the public because it is an advisory board.
But the Committee on Open Government disagreed.

The panel’s meetings should be open to the public because it was established in state law to help create policy, Kristin O’Neill, the committee’s assistant director, said in a Nov. 21 ruling.
The MTA has yet to respond to the decision, transit advocates said.

 We want the TMRB’s meetings open to the public. Congestion pricing is going to affect millions of people and provide billions of dollars in revenue to the MTA,” said Lisa Daglian of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.

“There will be people who won’t like paying a congestion fee but at least they’ll know how the decisions were made,” Daglian said, adding that “there should be no back-room deals.”

Frank Seddio resigns from chairing Brooklyn Democratic Party

Gothamist


After nearly eight years as head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Frank Seddio has stepped down. "Good riddance to Brooklyn’s dirty, undemocratic Democratic boss," the Daily News editorial board proclaimed on hearing the news of Seddio's retirement.

Seddio was criticized during his tenure for perpetuating Kings county's powerful political machine, which is responsible for endorsing judicial candidates, choosing nominees during primary elections and setting party rules. So-called proxy voting plagued how meetings operated when they were held, and reformer club New Kings Democrats perpetually pushed Seddio to make the party operations more transparent.

"Let me just say that if I were any more transparent, I would be arrested for lewdness," Seddio told Gothamist in a phone interview on Monday. "I don't know what else to do. Should I take off my underwear and let them see the rest of my body?"

Despite how disgusting that would look, yes.

Maybe getting frogmarched out of his house in his britches by the feds might be in the future regarding his embezzlement case in New Jersey and where the money went from his debt in chicken restaurants in Kentucky.

 

Woman killed by plywood blown off building in Flushing

NY Post

A flying piece of signage from a Queens produce market struck and killed a 67-year-old Long Island woman Thursday morning, police said.

The woman, identified by police as Xiang Ji of Westbury, was walking outside 41-28 Main St. in Flushing about 9:45 a.m. when she was struck by what city building officials described as “an aluminum-covered plywood panel.”

The panel was part of a vertical sign that authorities believe was blown off the building’s roof by gusting winds.

Firefighters later removed the remainder of the sign.

Police from the 109th Precinct said cops responded to several 911 calls from the scene and found Ji “unconscious and unresponsive.”

She was taken to New York-Presbyterian Queens hospital, where she was pronounced dead, authorities said.

Building department investigators were dispatched to the scene and issued the property owners a violation for “failure to maintain building in a code compliant manner.”

“Following our full investigation, we will take aggressive enforcement actions against responsible parties as warranted,” the officials said in a statement. “We have ordered the owners to immediately erect a sidewalk shed around the building.”

The owners of the building, Kam Kee Realty Inc., have 18 open violations at the site, including for illegal work without a permit and “unpermitted business signs,” building officials said. The company could not be reached for comment Thursday.

MTA holds first Queens bus route redesign proposal hearing in a basement and commuters are pissed

PIX 11 News

 Changing bus routes is a guaranteed way to draw a crowd in the city.
MTA New York City Transit is in the process of a complete redesign of all the routes in the city.

The proposal for Queens was released two weeks ago. Elected officials and riders calledfor a meeting with transit officials to discuss the plan.

Additional sessions will be held over the. next month. Comments can be made on line.

Read about the Queens proposals here .

The entire plan for all five boroughs can be found here . 

Looks like commuter rage resonated with Byford and his entourage. Those links are now 404's.

Tenant kills his landlord

NY Post

 A deadbeat, rent-owing tenant shoved his Queens landlord down their building’s front stairs so hard on Sunday that the man later died — and the whole thing was caught on the home’s security camera, the victim’s grandson and police sources told the Post.

Landlord Edgar Moncayo, 71, was trying to collect rent around 3 p.m. at his 102nd Street building in Corona when 22-year-old tenant Alex Garces allegedly pushed him down the stairs, cops said.
His grandson, Nicolas Jativa, 20, told the Post that Moncayo was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m. Monday after being on life support with head trauma at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst.

“My grandmother wasn’t home when this happened, she was on her way back home already when she got a call from a neighbor telling her what had happened,” the grieving grandson said. “As soon as she saw my grandfather she just dropped to her knees and started crying. I didn’t believe it until I saw the video for myself and it’s horrible.”

Police attributed Moncayo’s injuries to a landlord-tenant dispute and were looking for Garces and possibly a second person for questioning, according to officials.

The tenant initially told cops the fall was an accident that happened as he tried to carry his mattress out of the building and hit the front door, causing Moncayo to fall, police sources said.
But the landlord’s family reviewed video from the Ring video camera installed on their door and saw a horrifying series of events unfold.

In the video, the victim can be seen standing in front of the building on the phone with his wife trying to hold the door shut to keep Garces from leaving, the grandson said. The tenant was able to get the door open, however, and allegedly pushed the landlord down the steps, where his head hit the concrete, he said.

Queens prosecutors got promoted despite repeated trial misconduct

 

Gothamist asks in their headline if Katz will keep them in charge. On the Queens D.A. website under divisions and bureaus you get this:

 When you click press releases you get this:

When you click photos, you get this:

  So who the hell knows who's there. Transparency, the Queens Machine way

Interim Queens BP Sharon Lee recruiting community board members

QNS

 Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee is accepting applications from qualified and civic-minded individuals interested in serving on one of the borough’s 14 community boards, which play an important advisory role in considering land use and zoning matters in their respective districts.

The deadline for prospective and current community board members to submit completed, signed and notarized applications to the Borough President’s office is Friday, Jan. 31. For the upcoming round of appointments, the two-year term of service will begin on Monday, April 1.

“Civic engagement is a hallmark of our borough and city governance is only strengthened by the residents across Queens who make their voices heard and represent their neighborhoods and communities,” Lee said. “Government is more effective and accountable when it works in close partnership with active, dedicated residents and relies on them for their insights and broad expertise.”

The community boards each hold monthly full membership meetings that are open to the public. They also hold hearings and recommendations regarding the city budget, municipal service delivery and numerous other matters that impact their communities. All Queens community board members are appointed by the borough president, pursuant to the City Charter, with half of the appointments nominated by the City Council members representing their Community Districts.

Each board has up to 50 unsalaried members. All community board members who wish to continue serving are required to re-apply at the conclusion of their two year term and are subject to review and reconsideration.

Lets get to know our two month BP

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced on Nov. 13 the appointment of Sharon Lee as deputy borough president, effective Nov. 17. Lee, the former senior advisor and press secretary for John Liu when he was the city comptroller and a key figure in his failed 2013 mayoral campaign, will replace Melva Miller and become the first Asian deputy borough president in New York.

“Sharon has been a trusted member of my senior leadership team for years and I could not think of a more prepared or knowledgeable person to serve as deputy borough president,” Katz said. “Her vast experience in New York City government, her deep relationships across the full spectrum of Queens communities and her passion for inclusion, equal opportunity, fairness and justice will prove invaluable for the future and direction of our great borough.”

Keep on Obstructin' 2020, big rigs still being stored on the Conduit in South Ozone Park

Who's running Queens?

 queensbp.org

Shouldn't the acting BP be listed here? Or at least info about the upcoming special election?

If we're getting the "QT1" then why do we need the BQX?

Hi again,

If the MTA is redesigning the Queens Bus Network and including a limited stop Astoria-Downtown Brooklyn route (QT1), why the hell are we moving forward with the BQX (other than tweeding)? Non-brainwashed minds want to know.

Is the QT1 reserved for poor people?

"Baby box bill" and DHS fail to protect twins at homeless hotel

From Fox News:

New York City police have reported the tragic deaths of twin two-month-old babies at a shelter for homeless families that was once a LaGuardia Airport motel.

The father woke up from a three-hour afternoon nap and found the infants not breathing in separate cribs, WNBC-TV reported.

The cribs were filled with pillows, the station reported.

Doctors were unable to save them at the hospital, the station reported.

In 2017, Gov. Cuomo signed the "baby box bill." From The National Herald:

The baby boxes, which are designed for infants six months old or younger, will be distributed in areas of the state with the greatest infant mortality rates. They are designed according to the safe infant sleep guidelines of the Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and discourage high-risk behaviors on the part of parents that are associated with Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID). Each baby box has a firm mattress with a fitted sheet which are two key elements for safe sleep.

Parents will also be given educational information on the dangers of co-sleeping and the risks when blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, and loose bedding are used. Many parents of newborns have no idea that these seemingly innocent items in a crib can put a sleeping baby at risk.

So... did DHS not get the memo about the bill? Did the state not supply them? What the f*ck happened here and why is it that it seems no one will be held accountable?

MTA is being opaque about perplexing Queens bus route redesigns

 

Hello Queens Crapper,

 

By any chance will you share the MTA’s latest proposal on the Queens Bus Network Redesign on your blog? It will probably affect many readers’ school and work commutes especially with the elimination of many existing routes. The MTA doesn’t seem to be getting the info out to the riders/customers probably a calculated move.

It will be difficult for many seniors and families with small children that rely on bus service and are unable to travel by train (many stations are not ADA compliant and are without elevators).

Thank you!

 

 

Here’s the proposal:

https://new.mta.info/queensbusredesign

 

 

Here’s the MTA online comment form:

https://mta-nyc.custhelp.com/app/comments_queensbus

 

 

Shithole Hunters Point library under federal investigation

NY Post

Books aren’t the only thing being checked out at this Queens library.

The feds are now probing the problem-plagued new library branch in Hunters Point, The Post has learned.

The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn hired an architectural expert to conduct a December survey of the $41.5 million book hub to look for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, new Brooklyn federal court filings in a lawsuit against the library reveal.

An attorney for the city’s Law Department blew the lid off the probe in documents filed for the pending suit, saying they needed more time because they’re still awaiting the investigation’s results.

The decade-in-the-making outpost of the Queens Public Library system was hailed by officials as a “stunning architectural marvel” when it opened in September.

But it has since come under fire for its stacks of design and construction problems — including a three-tiered fiction section, a rooftop garden and a reading space on the children’s floor that are all inaccessible for people who use wheelchairs.

The feds’ investigation was launched around the time a disability advocacy group and a Queens woman with mobility problems sued the library and the city, demanding they fix accessibility issues at the new, 32,000 square-foot branch.

Michelle Caiola of Disability Rights Advocates, which filed the suit, said: “We certainly welcome the US Attorney’s involvement as it brings more pressure to bear on the city to make the library fully accessible as quickly as possible.”

It is unclear what steps the feds will take if they find that the Hunters Point branch

The NYC EDC must be stopped

Queens Eagle

From Coney Island to Sunnyside; from Jerome Avenue to Bay Street; from newly created districts to forgotten neighborhoods, New York City is being irreparably transformed by the corporate interests that run this city.  At breakneck speed, we are witnessing the mass displacement of long-time residents and small businesses that have made this city great because our elected officials have handed the reins of city governing — what we elected them to do — to corporations and corporate lobbies whose insatiable greed puts their shareholders’ interests above New Yorkers’ when it comes to rezoning, jobs and many other matters in NYC. 

Unfortunately for the 99 percent, this is not just a city “gone rogue”, but by design and courtesy of a city agency known as the Economic Development Corporation. This group of unelected and unaccountable men and women, most of whom are “prominent in the financial, commercial, industrial, [or] professional…community of the City of New York” as mandated by the EDC, act as kingmakers to decide which industries, neighborhoods and projects should stand or fall.  Ostensibly created to drive and shape New York’s economic growth, the EDC ironically siphons off money from the budget of the city’s Small Business Services, and then either stands idly by as our mom-and-pop shops fall like dominoes, or precipitates changes that ultimately destroy them, as they did to businesses in the Garment District in favor of the tech sector. 

For those who don’t know, the EDC turns out to be a pretty powerful tool for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who directly selects or approves all 27 members of its governing board — with one important exception.  EDC’s bylaws require our mayor to consult with a group called the Partnership for New York City (PFNYC) before he selects the EDC’s chairman of the board.  Who makes up this group that calls itself, “The Partnership”, and whose chosen member sits atop the EDC?  They are private equity firms like Blackstone, media conglomerates like NewsCorp, pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, controversial consultants like McKinsey and about 250 other “CEOs from New York City’s top corporate and investment firms” that make up its bulk, according to 2017 tax filings.  

What does this mean for us, and how are our needs being met in this supposed democracy? Well, while we go about our daily lives, “The Partnership” testifies on our behalf before the State Assembly that “gig workers” essentially prefer to live paycheck-to-paycheck rather than be hampered by health insurance, workers comp or other benefits that come with stable employment.  They also oppose commercial rent stabilization and aggressively promote real estate growth knowing that “truly affordable housing, schools and better transit has severely lagged the rapid pace of growth.”

Meanwhile, the EDC is busy deploying its 500+ employees to get the necessary “buy-in” from communities after it has decided how NYC should be shaped and supported with millions and billions of our taxpayer dollars, despite the fact that we may have other wishes for organic growth, or preservation of what is here now.  They hand out free canvas bags imprinted with not-yet-approved projects, such as the BQX in Queens, to signal to the community that such projects are “done deals” and that nothing can be done to stop them; they fill “steering committees” with our neighbors to get easy approval from those who would give it simply because of the involvement of a person they trust.  

Finally, without shame, the EDC holds public meetings encouraging earnest and unsuspecting community members to write their deepest wishes and darkest fears on yellow, pink and green Post-it notes, then uses them to build Trojan horses — “affordable housing”, “good-paying jobs”, “open spaces” — that instead deliver unobtainable luxury residential towers, part-time non-union jobs, and privately-owned public spaces, open subject to the whims of the private owners.

You see, if the EDC wanted to provide those things to us, they would have done so by now.  In a city teeming with global capital and tech start-ups, with city-GDP rapidly rising to an estimated $2.5 trillion by 2035, endless and unrealized promises of “good-paying jobs” from them sound hollow. They are shiny jewels meant to entice us into handing over more and more of our public land and resources for their investment and private use, until there is nothing left for us to control or enjoy.  

Alas, though our current system of governing may seem damaged and corrupt beyond repair, we can make our city work for us again.  We can dissolve the EDC. We can elect politicians who will take back the reins of city governing and listen to the people, not corporate entities.  We can do many things, but we should get started now and use the 2021 elections to get what we regular New Yorkers want.

Stingy Schneps Media stiffs Metro employees of their severence pay

NY Post

Freebie daily paper Metro Boston folded Wednesday while the ex-staffers of Metros in Boston, Philadelphia and New York learned this week they’re getting no severance whatsoever from their now-former employer.
Two of the papers — Metro New York and Metro Philadelphia — were sold last week to Schneps Media, which is keeping the Philly paper alive while merging the Gotham edition into amNewYork, which it already owns.
The new NY paper was renamed amNewYork Metro for the Jan. 6 edition.
Staffers at all three Metro publications were laid off on Jan. 3 by owner Metro US — only to learn this week they are getting stiffed on severance.
“I found out that I was out of a job by a two-sentence email this past Friday,” lamented a former Metro employee who worked there eight years. “I was expecting severance pay due … but when I got my separation letter from the company, it said I was getting a grand total of $0 in severance.”
Newsday, the former owner of amNewYork, laid off all its workers as well prior to its sale to Schneps. But it at least gave staffers three weeks’ severance for each year of work when the freebie daily was sold in October.
Only three staffers were offered jobs with the new owner. Schneps said this time it expects to make job offers to about 20 former staffers of the Metro papers it purchased.

Gothamist

 Earlier this month, Schneps Media announced that it had acquired Metro New York, the city's long-running freebie newspaper, along with its counterparts in Philadelphia and Boston. It was the latest in a string of purchases for the emerging local news behemoth, which recently snapped up amNewYork, then promptly gutted nearly the entire staff.

As of this week, the two ubiquitous subway papers—once competitors—have now been bundled into a single print product, dubbed amNewYork Metro. Two former editorial staffers from Metro, and none from the pre-Schneps amNewYork, remain employed at the new title. Daily content comes from both dedicated employees and stories published on Schneps' network of other hyperlocal sites, including its flagship Queens Courier, and other fairly recent additions to its portfolio like Brooklyn Paper, Downtown Express, the Bronx Times, and The Villager.

In contrast to the amNewYork acquisition, employees at Metro say they were informed this week that they will not receive any severance pay. Adding to their frustration, staffers said, they were told immediately following the sale that their jobs were likely safe.

"They completely misled us," said one employee, who asked for anonymity so they could speak freely. 

"To be working there for as long as a lot of us had—some people for nearly a decade—and to be treated with this level of disrespect is so unjustified and sickening."

Metro publishers Ed Abrams and Susan Peiffer did not respond to a request for comment. The owners announced just prior to the sale that Metro Boston would cease publishing after nearly two decades, while Metro Philadelphia will continue publishing under Schneps ownership.

“This is an exciting next step for our entire organization offering a unique opportunity to strengthen our position in the daily newspaper market and increase our readership to over 2.5 million readers in print each week and many more online,” Schneps Media CEO Joshua Schneps, a former investment banker who runs the publisher with his mother, Victoria Schneps-Yunis, said in a statement.

Exciting enough to hoard people's hard earned money for oneself too Josh. Yeesh.