Van Bramer spends a half million dollars on a new flagpole

 

Sunnyside Post

A new flag pole will go up in the Blissville section of Long Island City where a century-old pole was located before it was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

The original flagpole, which was part of the Blissville Veterans Memorial that was established after WWI, was cut down by the city shortly after it was damaged by the hurricane.

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer said that he had been trying to get the Dept. of Transportation to erect a new pole at the site—which is located where Greenpoint Avenue, Review Avenue, and Van Dam Street all meet—with little success.

Van Bramer said that the agency had failed the community and that he has decided to step in and allocate $500,000 from the city budget to have it replaced.

“The Blissville Civic Association, Community Board 2 and [local resident] Thomas Mituzas have been trying to get the DOT to take responsibility and shamefully they refused at every turn,” Van Bramer said. “Ultimately, I wanted to get this done for the community.”

The $500,000 will be used to replace the flagpole, upgrade the memorial and the public space that surrounds it.

“I want this to be a civic space that the people of Blissvillle can take pride in,” Van Bramer said. “It is of great significance to the residents.”

 

Flag vandalism suspected in Rockaway

From CBS New York:

It’s a mystery in Rockaway Park – someone or something is making a mockery of the American flag, and residents want to know what is causing it.

Old Glory waves prominently along Rockaway Beach Boulevard, mounted on angular poles that are attached to utility posts between Beach 110th and Beach 116th streets.

...over the weekend, some American flags on the strip disappeared. Poles were bent, and some flags were left dangling.

Many residents said given that the damage was done just before Independence Day, it is disgraceful.

A representative of the local community board said the main concern right now is safety. The board is looking to have the poles taken down before someone gets hurt.

The Rockaway Civic Association put up most of the flags right after Superstorm Sandy. Others, including the now-damaged ones, went up around Memorial Day.

1980s pedestrian plaza has seen better days

From the Queens Chronicle:

...in the late 1980s, the elevated tracks over Jamaica Avenue were torn down east of Richmond Hill and the E train was extended to Jamaica Center, passing directly below the intersection. A new station was built along the E line, this time underground, and the DOT restructured the roads to make the intersection safer and help traffic flow better.

The end result was a triangle-shaped plaza, two blocks north of Jamaica Hospital, bordered by the Van Wyck Expressway service road, Jamaica Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue. In the center of the plaza is a kiosk that serves as an entrance to the Jamaica-Van Wyck subway station, which opened on Dec. 11, 1988.

When the plaza was built in the late 1980s, future-Queens Parks Commissioner Richard Murphy told Community Board 9 that he wanted to have it added to his agency’s jurisdiction.

But that never happened, and today no one is sure which agency is responsible for the plaza and CB 9 District Manager Mary Ann Carey wants someone to take on its maintenance.

“The park is a mess,” Carey said. “And we have no idea whose responsibility it is.”

A flagpole on the site is littered with sticker ads and blue graffiti scars the concrete barriers that separate the sitting area from green spaces, and much of the latter is overgrown with unkempt shrubbery. Litter, everything from old newspapers to empty potato chip bags, is scattered on the ground around the benches.

They forgot to mention the bums and piss stench.