Forget it Jakie, it's the Department of Transportation Alternatives

 

NY Post

The city Department of Transportation struck out on this one.

Big Apple DOT officials botched a Queens road sign for the Jackie Robinson Parkway, misspelling the color-barrier-busting baseball Hall of Famer’s name.

The sign at Myrtle Avenue and Forest Park Drive features a likeness of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ great — atop the words “Jakie Robinson Parkway.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Glendale native Kira Incantalupo told The Post on Sunday. “Poor Jackie Robinson.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” said Incantalupo, 37. “I mean, nobody wants to have that. It’s a memorial for somebody. It should be corrected.”

Local resident Quana Martin, 32, found the typo disrespectful.

“I just feel it’s a little odd because how do you not know how to spell his name? He’s a well-known figure.”

Queens teen JP Ward had a harsher take.

“It’s f–king stupid,” the 17-year-old said. “I wouldn’t say it’s disrespectful, but it’s definitely stupid.”

Robinson became the first black ball player in Major League Baseball when he was called up by the Dodgers in 1947, breaking the sport’s decades-old color barrier.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, a decade before his death.

“This spelling mistake is absurd,” City Councilman Robert Holden added of the road-sign typo on Sunday. “You don’t have a few eyes looking at these signs? DOT is a mess.

Question: When did anyone call number 42 "JR"?

Landlords publicly shames DSS worker tenant for stiffing them on rent

NY Post 

In a sign of the times, a fed-up Queens landlord posted two giant banners calling out his allegedly deadbeat tenants for owing him $17,000 in back rent.

“MY TENANTS ON THE FIRST FLOOR ARE NOT PAYING RENT” read the bold posters slung above the first-floor rental on 175th Street in Springfield Gardens.

Landlords Calvin and Jean Thompson posted the banners — which can be seen from the Belt Parkway — in the hopes of shaming their tenants into paying up. It was also featured in a TikTok video that got more than 14,000 likes — and supportive comments like, “Not paying your bills is ghetto.”

The Thompsons, who are married, have owned the two-family home since 1989. They began the process of trying to evict Marie and Eugene Lamour and their daughter Kathia in Queens Housing Court last month.

But with nearly 200,000 eviction cases pending in the city after pandemic protections and the state’s eviction moratorium created a historic backlog, the landlords see humiliation as the next best tactic.

“The signs are very embarrassing and shameful for them,” said the Thompsons’ son, Calvin Jr. “That’s the only voice we have at this stage: freedom of speech.”

The signs seem to be working: Kathia Lamour tried to cut one sign down, Calvin Jr. claims.

“When she calls Uber, she won’t do it in front of the house anymore,” he said. “She runs to the end of the block, so they don’t see them.

“It’s uncomfortable that we have to hang these up, but we’re $20,000 uncomfortable, so I think a sign is very minor.”

Problems began in July when the Thompsons raised the rent on the Lamours’ three-bedroom pad from $1,800 a month to $1,900, the first rent hike in nine years, according to Calvin Jr.

The Lamours didn’t want to pay the 5% increase. Kathia, who works for the city Department of Social Services and makes $46,731, according to GovSalaries.com, told The Post she tried to drop off $1,800 in rent instead of the new amount, but the Thompsons refused to take it — so she stopped paying altogether.

It's easy to sympathize with Ms. Lamour for standing her ground here, because in her municipal position she's probably very aware of how dangerous the shelters the DSS "runs and monitors" are

The Parking Games

Thieves welcome themselves to Ozone Park sign

Queens Eagle

Southwest Queens has a sign-stealing scandal.

Thieves made off with a brand new “Welcome to Ozone Park” sign last night, hours after elected officials and civic leaders installed the refurbished marker near the Howard Beach border, Councilmember Eric Ulrich said Tuesday.

Ulrich and other community members joined workers from Cannon Signs & Awning to install the new sign near the corner of 149th Avenue and Cross Bay Boulevard Monday morning. The burgundy board replaced a famous, but weathered version of the sign that was first introduced in 2003.

The next morning, it was gone. 

Under cover of darkness, the thieves sawed through the wooden signposts near the base and fled, Ulrich said. He posted photos from the scene of the crime on Twitter.

“It’s probably the most selfish act that I’ve seen in a long time,” Ulrich said. “Somebody’s a real sicko.” 

Ulrich said he contacted the 106th Precinct to file a police report and also notified the Queens District Attorney’s Office. 

NYPD Spokesperson Sophia Mason said police do not yet have a suspect description, but the investigation is ongoing.

Ulrich said officers are pulling surveillance footage from a nearby hotel and private homes in the area.

He said he suspects at least two people were involved in the heist because the heavy sign required two people to carry off a truck on Monday.