Caption Council Member Lincoln Restler

  

@ImpunityCity

Activity at Civic Virtue site

"Hello Crapman:

Drove by Borough Hall today and noted that the green plywood fencing surrounding the Civic Virtue site was down. The workers were hosing the site with water. I spoke to them and they said that blue boxood and white lilies - the colors of the Queens flag - will be planted in the fountain area. Flower planting to come from somewhere in New Jersey. Will Katz have a ribbon-cutting ceremony very soon?

Check out my post here with today's photos of the renovated site.

All the best,
GtheA"

Glad to hear we're even outsourcing flower planting.

Homeless shelter imperils 125-year old business

From the Queens Courier:

For more than a century, one East Elmhurst family has been helping their neighborhood bloom.

Donhauser Florist, located at 71-01 Astoria Blvd., was established in 1889 by Hans Donhauser, a German florist who immigrated to the United States. While working at a Brooklyn cemetery he heard that St. Michael’s Cemetery in Queens was in need of a florist.

He then moved to East Elmhurst and built a greenhouse on 71st Street and Astoria Boulevard. After a few years, 12 more greenhouses were added and a flower shop was built on 49th Street and Astoria Boulevard.

Donhauser’s family worked at the shop, including his sons, daughters and even his great granddaughter Gladys.

“When your parents are in the business, you’re in the business,” said Gladys about working at the shop since she was 12 years old. “It’s all I’ve known.”

Donhauser Florist moved to 71-01 Astoria Blvd. and replaced one existing greenhouse, while the other 12 were later sold to become the Westway Motor Inn.

Gladys, who grew up at the house currently still standing next to the shop, has owned the store since 1977 together with her husband William Gray, who initially started working at the 49th Street shop.

However, the Grays, who have been married for 60 years, say business has been up and down ever since the city’s Department of Homeless Services decided to first use the Westway Motor Inn, located right next door, as a temporary homeless shelter.

“It was once an exquisite hotel with beautiful rooms and a pool,” Gladys said. “Since about a decade ago we started to have problems with it. People were afraid to come around the shop.”

Two weeks ago, the city approved converting the motel into a permanent homeless shelter housing more than 120 families.

Sheridan home sold, to be restored

From the NY Times:

The show is over for a Queens house that became a goofy landmark for its forest of fake flora and over-the-top decorations that infuriated many neighbors.

The house, 93 Puritan Avenue in Forest Hills Gardens, has been sold by the longtime owners who had turned it from a stately Tudor home into the notorious House of the Plastic Flowers: a curiosity that attracted sightseers.

The buyer is a local real estate agent who is in discussions with television producers about documenting the renovation of the house into a home-makeover segment.

“It will be a huge undertaking,” she said. “All I want to do is bring it back to normal. Ms. Malek explained that she was friends with the Sheridan family for years and was able to assure Mr. Sheridan that the house would be in good hands.

Problems at MacDonald Park

Macdonald Park Maintenance Problems

Why we wear poppies today

From the West 12th Road Block Association:

The idea for a Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy came to Miss Moina Michael of Georgia while she was working at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' headquarters on a Saturday morning in November 1918, two days before the Armistice was declared at 11 o'clock on 11 November. The Twenty-fifth Conference of the Overseas YMCA War Secretaries was in progress. On passing her desk, a young soldier left a copy of the November Ladies Home Journal on Moina's desk.

At about 10.30am, when everyone was on duty elsewhere, Moina found a few moments to read the magazine. In it she came across a page which carried a vivid color illustration for the poem "We Shall Not Sleep" (later named "In Flanders Fields") by the Canadian Army doctor John McCrae.

Reading the poem on this occasion - she had read it many times before - Moina was transfixed by the last verse - "To you from failing hands we throw the Torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields."

She then conceived of an idea and started the practice of wearing red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States was the first veteran organization to promote a nationally organized campaign for the annual distribution of poppies assembled by American disabled and needy veterans. In 1924, the VFW patented the name "Buddy Poppy" for their version of the artificial flower.

Case dismissed, garden stays?

From the Queens Courier:

At a dead end in Whitestone, a colorful garden encircled by stone extends from the fence of a mustard-colored stucco home and into the middle of a city street.

The property owner of the house, located at 148-12 on 2nd Avenue, was issued a summons by the Department of Transportation (DOT) on April 1, 2010, that found the projections, including the garden and the fence, impinge on city property.

The department ordered homeowner Rocco Sacco to remove the structures. After failing to comply, he was issued three more summonses over a period of several months. But, the matter dates back much further.

At the Environmental Control Board (ECB) hearing held on May 4, 2011, a DOT representative affirmed the charges against Sacco comprised of four violations for “encroaching on city property” by building a fence on the sidewalk and a garden in the street.

However, Sacco’s representative, Carl Sulfaro, contested the violations, saying that Sacco did not plant the garden, does not have jurisdiction over it and does not own it, according to the ECB hearing document.

After the DOT representative presented photos and a property information sheet of the site, Administrative Law Judge Loriann Hellmann found that the DOT did not meet its burden to show that the encroachments were either on city property or out of the bounds of Sacco’s property. She also found that the DOT failed to show that Sacco actually planted the garden on the street.

Hellmann dismissed all four violations. The DOT now has 30 days to appeal this ruling.

Spring at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge

10000 Birds has an interesting set of photos of spring at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. If you've never been there, now is definitely the time to visit.

Daffodils at stalled development site

Miss Heather's done it again, folks. Be sure to visit LIC's newest community garden...a lovely view of which may be found at the town's finest Scarano building.