The de Blasio Chainsaw Massacre

Impunity City 

 While there was an original plan to improve the park to keep the water level from overflowing that caused major damage to NYCHA buildings across the FDR drive that was done in coordination of the community concerns by placing berns against the highway’s path, The Blaz abruptly threw that plan in the garbage and memory holed it, then his minion city planners at the Dept Design and Construction came up with an entirely new plan that warranted the leveling of 1,000 trees and construction of a 10 ft platform of where the current park stands at a cost of 1.45 billion dollars. As expected, this did not go over well with the residents and community activists who have been adamantly demanding to stick with the original, less destructive and  less expensive plan. 

Compounding this situation even further was East River Park activists were trying to get FOIL documents to see who was behind the new project and what they received was full of redactions just like every other FOIL de Blasio and his crack team of narrative control minions released in the last 8 years.

When the day came to announce the NYC’s new East River Coastal Resiliency plan in April on his variety show press briefing, The Blaz read from his dais of cheat sheets and his honeypot fauxgressive council crony Carlina Rivera read from her laptop all the wonderful improvements the new plan was going to bring to the community that used the park, even though it will not be ready for over a half decade, which was another sticking point for residents and activists. After many months of protests by activist groups East River Park Action and 1000 People for 1,000 Trees, they managed to get a stay on the demolition in November, but it was instantly overturned by a city judge with close ties to the Blaz and his Brooklyn Machine political allies.

Shockingly, right when the contractors and the chainsaws started chopping the first of the parks trees, a state appeals judge ruled another stay maintaining the legal suspension of the demolition. At least it was supposed to, because despite the best efforts of the protestors and their attorney Arthur Schwartz, the contractor boss of the resiliency demolition took the court order and threw it on the ground like it was garbage right in front of the protesters and the cops.

 

Rest in peace bubala

  

Crains New York

Rumors about the future of a Jewish funeral home in Queens have been laid to rest.

Parkside Memorial Chapel at 98-60 Queens Blvd. in Rego Park will become a 51-unit residential project spanning about 72,000 square feet, according to plans that owner David Matatov filed Tuesday with the city Department of Buildings.

The mixed-use development would stand 7 stories tall and include commercial and community space, along with 15 parking spots. JFA is the architect of record.

A firm linked to RB Realty Capital purchased the building from Parkside Memorial Chapels in July for slightly less than $11 million, property records show. The developer filed an application Wednesday to demolish the 2-story building, but the application has not been approved yet, and the demolition permit has not been issued, according to the DOB.

Parkside has multiple other locations in the city, including at 1700 Coney Island Ave. in Midwood, Brooklyn, and at 114-03 Queens Blvd. in Forest Hills, Queens, according to its website.

Representatives for RB Realty did not respond to a request for comment.

City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz told the Queens Chronicle in February that the project planned to replace the funeral home would be an affordable-housing development for senior citizens. Her office did not respond to a request for comment on whether that is still in the works.

Why are these people so shy? Don't they want to help the housing insecure and retired senior citizens?

Goodnight, RKO Keith's Theater

 

Hello luxury tower.

 

Jehovahs selling a Ridgewood teardown

Well lookie here. 60-12 Menahan Street is a goner, with a demo permit filed recently. After JQ's post about the Van Sicklen house, I decided to look up the provenance of this larger than average home, and while I didn't uncover much in the way of original ownership, I did find that the current owner since 2003 is the Watchtower.

I'm almost surprised, given the location, that it didn't become some sort of hipshit commune but who knows what the next owner will do?

de Blasio's D.O.B. enables illegal demolition of house

 

 THE CITY

 Before the first fireworks launched on the Fourth of July, booms and bangs were already reverberating around a residential block near Prospect Park.

That morning, despite a city order halting construction work, a small demolition crew revved up a backhoe and began ripping apart what had once been a three-story house at 1935 Bedford Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, alarming local residents.

“Everyone heard a huge crash,” said Cal Hadley, who lives adjacent to the property on Fenimore Street. “We all looked out the window, thought there was an explosion.”

For years, Hadley and a group of concerned neighbors have complained to city agencies and local politicians about what they asserted were unauthorized demolition, unsafe conditions and trash dumping at the site and a property next door at 1931 Bedford Ave.

The city Department of Environmental Protection found asbestos at the site in 2018 — and last year fined the owner more than $68,000 for multiple violations of asbestos-removal safety rules. While DEP certified the site asbestos-free as of this March, locals, especially many who live in a neighboring co-op and on Fenimore Street, fear they’re inhaling toxic particles kicked up by demolition. 

Bedford Holdings JV, LLC, an entity associated with developer Gabriel Sakaff, purchased the side-by-side lots on the Bedford Avenue block in 2017. Where two homes once stood, only half of one remained until Wednesday, its backside gutted and debris strewn across the lots.

Sakaff intends to build a seven-story residential building with at least 39 apartments and a community facility, city records show. THE CITY could not reach Sakaff at any of the phone numbers or emails provided on applications his firm submitted to the city Department of Buildings.

 ince work on the property began years ago, residents of the neighboring co-op in the fast-gentrifying neighborhood have complained about debris blowing into their homes. “I can’t get fresh air because I have to keep my window closed,” Olga Baly-Noel, who’s lived in the co-op for more than 20 years, recently told THE CITY.

During the clamor on July 4, residents called 911. Several agencies, including the NYPD, FDNY and DOB’s emergency response team, arrived and forced demolition to stop. DOB officials issued a $12,500 fine to Bedford Holdings for violating city orders.

After city officials left, a man neighbors identified as Sakaff began “raving up and down the sidewalk” and shouting obscenities, said Leif McIlwaine, a co-op resident. A neighbor, James Parks, recorded a video showing a confrontation between the man and McIlwaine. In another, the man blows a kiss into the camera before storming off down the street. THE CITY reviewed the footage.

The demolition crew returned the next day to tear down the home. Residents confronted and filmed the workers, who left before the authorities arrived. The DOB issued several more fines to the property owner on July 6, city records show.

On the night of July 14, a worker used a hacksaw to remove a lock that FDNY placed on a fence surrounding the property, according to local residents who filmed the incident and called the police. That heightened local concerns about demolition work.

A DOB spokesperson initially told THE CITY that demolition work couldn’t proceed until the owner obtained proper permits, contractors produced an engineering report on the site’s conditions and remedied unsafe conditions, and the DOB inspected the site.

Now, city officials are reversing course on their stop-work order

City gives permits to squeeze another affordable luxury housing building in L.I.C.

 

LIC Post

 Building permits have been filed for a 12-story mixed-use building in the Queens Plaza section of Long Island City.

The plans call for a 125-foot-tall structure at 42-62 Hunter St., according to documents filed with the Dept. of Buildings on Dec.10.

The building will contain 27 apartments and will take up more than 30,000 square feet. There will be three units on each floor from 2 through 9, with one unit on each of the upper floors.

The plans call for retail space on the first floor and in the cellar. There will also be 15 bicycle spaces and a compactor room in the cellar. The plans do not include space for parking.

Man's house torn down while he was in Florida

From NBC:

A law in New York’s biggest town allows the town to demolish homes deemed “dangerous” or “abandoned” — and it is affecting hundreds of people.

“This was the lot,” Phil Williams said as he stood in an empty yard in the West Hempstead neighborhood he once called home. “And as you can see, there is nothing left.”

Williams went to Florida in December 2014 for knee surgery. When he returned months later in August, his house was gone.

“I bought the house from my dad in 1974,” Williams recalled. “My wife and I lived there. We had six children that lived in the house.”

The Town of Hempstead tore down Williams’ house according to Chapter 90 of town law.

It’s a law that allows building inspectors to identify and demolish structures that they deem are dangerous or abandoned. Currently, the town is dealing with 850 open Chapter 90 cases.

The town’s definition of dangerous is defined, in part, as something that is "…unsafe structurally, or a fire hazard or a nuisance to the general public."

"The house was not a danger. It’s just a ridiculous statement," Williams said.

It wasn’t just the house that was a loss for Williams, though. Decades worth of personal belongings and memories — all of them, gone.

Now, he is taking the town to court.

Another large building coming to Queens Blvd

From The Real Deal:

A partnership between the Chetrit Group and Queens developer Mount Sinai Properties pre-filed permits to build a 122-unit apartment complex at the former site of the Queens Motor Inn.

The partners are looking to build an 11-story residential building at 43-21 64th Street in Woodside, just a few blocks the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The planned structure would contain 122 apartments, according to documents filed with the Department of Buildings. Plans call for a nearly 99,000-square-foot property with about 95,000 square feet for residential space and 3,400 square feet of commercial space. Amenities at the property include recreation rooms on the eighth floor and a rooftop space, according to the plans. The ground floor commercial space is earmarked for a car showroom.

Chetrit and Mount Sinai acquired the property, which used to have the address of 64-11 Queens Boulevard, for $13.4 million in August of last year. Demolition permits were filed for the two-story building on the site in August of 2016. The property used to house the Queens Motor Inn, a motel that rented rooms by the hour.

Clearing the land for...what?

From George the Atheist:

All traces of the former owner, the late Armin Urban, now removed from the properties immediately south of the Steinway Mansion.

What next?

Work expands at Steinway Mansion

From George the Atheist:

After 5 months of inactivity since purchasing in March the properties (18-39 & 18-41) immediately south of their Steinway Mansion on 41st Street, the new owners of these adjoining lots, Salvatore Lucchese and Philip Loria, are currently demolishing the residence, storage sheds, and garage of the late Armin Urban, the previous owner.

And what will we now, pray tell, have here?

Losing their religion in Astoria

From the Queens Gazette:

The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island has filed plans to develop a five-story apartment building at 46-09 31st Avenue in Astoria, the former home of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.

The new building will feature a ground floor community room and lobby, 6 apartments on each of the second through fourth floors, and three apartments on the fifth floor, according to the plans.

The Diocese has not announced plans for demolition of the existing building, which is no longer used for Episcopal services, a spokesperson said.

Rego Park teardown

From Forest Hills Post:

A standard-sized house on a standard-sized Rego Park street is going to be demolished.

A demolition permit was filed for 64-53 Ellwell Crescent on July 27, about two weeks after the home was bought for $1.4 million.

The owner is listed as NLA Realty, with Nikadam Aylyarova signing the paper work on behalf of the company. No building permits have been filed to replace the structure.

The house is located directly across the street from a new development, which features large Greek columns and a concrete yard.

Illegal demo leads to garage collapse

From PIX11:

The owner, 1771 Weeks LLC, was ordered to “repair or replace” the garage.

Unfortunately, the owner, according to DOB inspectors, “hired contractors to unsafely begin demolishing the … rear garage … without a permit.”

The allegedly illegal work went on for two weeks.

On June 15, the birthday party was planned to take place at backyard picnic tables not far from the garage at 1771 Meeks. That’s when nearby residents heard what one man described as “sounding like a gunshot.”

The garage had collapsed and bricks came raining down on an area close to those picnic tables.

“It could have been fatal,” resident Marcel Sukhlall said, if the collapse had occurred just one hour later, when the party was scheduled to begin.

FDNY and DOB inspectors rushed to the scene. A stop-work order was issued for 1771 Weeks Ave. and vacate notices were put up on three surrounding buildings.

Hey, we can't impede progress!

Kew Gardens house dating back to 1899 is teardown-bound

From the Queens Gazette:

The three-story Tudor style home at 116-17 Grosvenor Lane was built in 1899—one of many homes located in a forest-like setting.

The Grosvenor Realty Group acquired the property in September, 2017 for $1.35 million and has announced plans to demolish the home in December.

The developer is planning to build a 65-foot-tall, seven-story residential building at the site that will feature 19 apartments and a first-floor residential lobby, along with a laundry room and parking in the cellar for an unspecified number of bicycles.

19 apartments and parking for bicycles? Great. Grosvenor Lane used to be one of the most lovely lanes in the borough. Now it's almost completely crappified.

Sunnyside teardown almost $10M

From Sunnyside Post:

A Queens Boulevard property marketed for its development potential is changing hands for $9.9 million, according to a press release issued by the real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield.

The brokerage firm said Friday that it had arranged the sale of 43-10/24 Queens Blvd—a property that incorporates about half the block on the south side of the boulevard between 43rd and 44th Streets. Eight stores occupy the space—including Amazon Pharmacy, Dave’s Bagels, Riko and Taiyo Food.

The property has been owned by Geoffrey Henderson, the president of Manhattan-based Henderson Holding Corp., since January 2015. That company purchased the one-story building for $7.28 million. The new buyer has not been named and the transaction has yet to close.

The stores currently occupy 8,500 square feet. However, an owner can develop a 43,700 square foot mixed-use building, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Future of KGH site is up in the air

From the Queens Chronicle:

More than a year has passed since a fire destroyed a strip mall in Kew Gardens Hills. And the site’s future is a big question mark.

On the night of Dec. 30, 2016, a blaze destroying the 14 businesses from 77-39 to 77-63 Vleigh Place, including a kosher pizzeria, bakery, law office and barber shop.

The Department of Buildings condemned the building the next day and slated it for demolition on Jan. 11, 2017; the project began last September and was signed off as completed by the city on March 28.

The block is now a large concrete pit, partially filled with dirt and enclosed by windowed green barriers. A Caterpillar demolition excavator, as well as scattered construction waste and materials, can also be seen on-site.

Another tower for Dutch Kills

From the Queens Gazette:

The owners of a parcel at 41-05 29th Street in the Dutch Kills section of Long Island City have submitted pre-filing permits for development of a 24-story, mixed-use tower at the site.

The 290-foot tall tower will feature 66.940-sqare-feet of residential space with 84 apartments measuring 707-square-feet each, including some larger rental units, and 2,050-square-feet of ground floor retail space, according to information posted on the YIMBY (Yes, In My Back Yard) website.

Permits are in place for demolition of an existing structure at the site. The developer has not announced an estimated completion date for the project.

Fight is on to stop "Bayonne Boxes"

From CBS 2:

A fight between New Jersey housing developers and supporters of historic preservation is heating up as Victorian homes from the 1800s are being replaced by the spread of so-called “Bayonne Box” homes.

Now, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has put a moratorium on demolitions until the city council can vote on a new ordinance governing tearing down old homes.

“The goal is really kind of recognizing the city’s history and some of the nicer buildings there. Not every building needs to be protected, but there are some that should,” he said.

“The new ordinance basically is designed so that each (developer) that applies for a demolition permit will go before the Historic Preservation office,” said Amatuzzo. “Then each house would get a fair assessment on its historic value, architectural style, it’s contributing aesthetics to the neighborhood, and if it ties to any historic event or family or person.”

A group of developers is fighting back with a lawsuit.

Battle of old vs new in @jerseycity preserve historic homes or build new “Bayonne Box” homes... more tonight @CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/ATsn6aIapl

— Meg Baker (@megbakertv) April 13, 2018

Dulcken demolished

From George the Atheist.

Dulcken House is being chainsawed

From George the Atheist