Queens is hungry

 

QNS 

A new report from the state’s Department of Health found that 30.9% of Queens adults — the second-highest percentage among the five boroughs — self-reported that they were “always, sometimes or usually worried or stressed about having enough money to buy nutritious meals in the past 12 months.”

Only the Bronx had a higher percentage among the boroughs, at 39%.

The research, conducted county-by-county throughout the state, paints a grim picture of health in New York. Within the New York City boroughs, Staten Island (Richmond County) reported the lowest percentage of food insecurity, but still came in at 22.1%. Statewide, food insecurity was reported by nearly one in four adults.

Bronx had the highest percentage among New York’s 62 counties, with Queens ranking second. Brooklyn ranked third, at 30.1%.

Lack of nutritious food can have serious health impacts.

“Hunger stresses the body and mind, and can result in malnutrition, inability to concentrate, anxiety and depression,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement. “In addition, adults who experience food insecurity are more likely to report chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and cancer.”

Board Of Education caught wasting school and PPE supplies

A tale of two Astorias

 

Queens Patch

Volunteers are helping Astoria Houses tenants get cooking as they approach nearly two months without gas in their kitchens.

Queens Together, a local organization dedicated to restaurant advocacy and community service, led a team of volunteers and elected officials distributing crockpots and grocery items Sunday to the dozens of families in the NYCHA complex who have had no cooking gas since Sept. 23.

The outage is affecting 48 apartments, a NYCHA spokesperson told Patch last month. It's unclear when gas service will be restored.

"Where NYCHA has let residents down, the Astoria Houses community has stepped up," City Council Member Costa Constantinides said in a statement. "A gas outage should not take away our neighbors' ability to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday rooted in family recipes and celebration."

Since the outage was first reported, NYCHA provided residents with hot plates and is making unspecified "additional contingency measures," the agency said.

  Queens Patch 

 Fourteen apartments in a new Astoria building have hit the city's "affordable" housing lottery, but prospective tenants must make at least $70,000 a year to be eligible, records show.

Applications are open through Dec. 4 for a mix of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units in a new residential building rising at the corner of 31st Avenue and 21st Street, according to the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

The one-bedroom apartments will rent for $2,050 a month, and the two-bedroom apartments will cost $2,500 in monthly rent.

Apartments come with in-unit laundry, and building amenities include an elevator and gym. Parking will be available for an additional fee.

The developer is slated to receive tax breaks in exchange for building the "affordable" units.

School cafeterias are failing health inspections

 

NY1

Hundreds of city schools aren’t making the grade, flunking city health inspections, a NY1 investigation found.

The worst offenders?

I.S. 227 in Queens, one of the borough's most sought-after schools. Health Department Inspectors found 140 mouse droppings there, including in the students' dining area.

There was moldy watermelon at P.S. 277 in the Bronx, and at PS 42 in Queens, moldy green beans.

In all, inspectors last year found roaches crawling on 99 lunchroom floors, fruit flies in 80 cafeteria kitchens, and in 22 drains, flies where serving utensils are washed.

"It's not acceptable," said Richard Carranza, New York City's schools chancellor. Adding, "kids should never be served any kind of food that is not safe."

According to the records, in the first eight months of 2018, 934 schools had critical health code violations—the kind that would get any restaurant shut down.

That compares to 1256 violations in the 12 months of 2017 and 1456 violations in 2016

John Liu's awkward political ads

Just 20 Seconds on Unifying People pic.twitter.com/JfBVqccNkv

— John C. Liu (@LiuNewYork) October 29, 2018

From the NY Post:

Liu’s ad was in terrible taste, according to Republican Jewish activist Arthur Schwartz.

“‘Jews like pastrami so this will resonate with them.’ —Moronic New York democrat politician,” Schwartz tweeted Monday.

The campaign said they didn’t intend for the ad to create indigestion.

Just 20 Seconds on the Reproductive Health Act pic.twitter.com/shN9cO2aRQ

— John C. Liu (@LiuNewYork) October 29, 2018

"I'll fight for abortion rights as soon as I finish stuffing my face with lox!"

Just 20 Seconds on the NYS Liberty Act pic.twitter.com/aRbTF67i9F

— John C. Liu (@LiuNewYork) October 29, 2018

Not sure what he's eating here. An empanada? In fact I'm so distracted by trying to figure that out that I forgot the point he was trying to make.

This, on the other hand, is truly nightmare-inducing but it's doubtful that Trump cares.

School cafeterias are kinda dirty

From PIX11:

Nearly half of New York City public school cafeterias have been slapped with serious health code violations, including rodents and insects, according to a new report.

More than 1,100 critical violations were found at nearly 700 cafeteria in 2017, NYCity News Service — a CUNY Graduate School of Journalism student news service — reported. About 20 percent of those citations were considered critical, which means they're more likely to contribute to food-borne illnesses.

There were mice, rats, roaches and flies.

Reporter captures food pantry debacle

Great job by the Queens Chronicle's Ryan Brady in following up on our original story:

A Queens Crap blog post from last month featured a complaint from an anonymous person about the crowds that come when the synagogue gives out food and block the entrance to a nearby community driveway.

Nisanov said that people who come to the food pantry are encouraged to avoid blocking the community driveway.

“Whenever there’s cars coming by, we always ask the people to move,” he said. “Even when there is no car coming by, we always tell people, ‘Please, it’s a driveway; we don’t want anyone to get hurt.’”

But when the Chronicle went to the location on Wednesday morning during the time of the food pantry’s operation, an entrance to the community driveway was blocked by a number of people waiting in line.

The rabbi added that the synagogue being in the area has benefited it in other ways.

“A house of worship and especially a synagogue in the neighborhood has raised the values of homes tremendously,” he said.

The Board of Standards and Appeals issued a variance for the building to be a synagogue with an accessory apartment for the rabbi in 2007 on the condition that it get a new certificate of occupancy reflecting the usage, according to the agency’s executive director, Ryan Singer. The certificate was necessary for the variance to legalize the building’s usage as a synagogue. The building did not have one by 2011, the deadline to do so under the conditional variance.

Residence illegally converted into synagogue

"This building's C of O is for residential use but illegally converted to be synagogue/place of worship. Worse, they now purchased the property next door 150-60 78th road, and performed major renovation work to connect the 2 buildings together, expanding the illegal usage.

Every Sunday, they hand out donated perishable food and vegetables and other types of groceries to people. I have nothing against charity, but they have crowds blocking the entrance of the common drive way and leaves rotting and unwanted food stuffs by the street tree, and stored the empty vegetable cartons outside the 150-60 garage overnight for pick up.

They did try to manage and clean up but these kind of activities does not belong to a residential neighborhood. There are tons of summonses and ECB violations but mostly were ignored and written off." - anonymous

Is a restaurant being run out of this single-family home?

From the Times Ledger:

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) rallied outside a single-family rental home in Bayside Tuesday with many concerned neighbors fearing potential hazardous consequences from what they allege is a commercial food operation being conducted illegally.

Residents lodged complaints with the appropriate city agencies and called on Avella to look into the suspected business being run at 33-31 204th St. Avella said he called on both the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the city Department of Buildings to investigate.

The Health Department sent cease-and-desist orders to both the property owners and the tenants after attempting to investigate resulting only in a violation, which was paid.

But neighbors still claim they smell potent food odors and burning oil at all times of day and night. They also say they have seen a large propane tank being taken inside and many different people go in and out of the home carrying large food containers while double parking cars for pickup and drop off daily.

Brooklyn manages to top Queens in disgusting food handling showdown

From Brooklyn Daily:

An ingenius Brooklynite cooked shrimp on a 72nd Street stoop — literally, on the concrete — during a hot June afternoon, neighbors say. Seeing the dozens of decapoda roasting on the doorstep between 11th and 12th streets was too much for one Dyker denizen to stomach.

“I thought, ‘Man, that’s dirty if somebody’s gonna eat that,’ ” said Vinny V., who lives nearby on 74th Street and asked that his last name not be published for personal reasons. “What if a dog comes by and pees on it?”

Vinny wasn’t convinced residents were actually cooking the shellfish — rather than just defrosting them — until he returned to the block later that day.

“We came back and the shrimp were on the sidewalk,” he said. “They were following the sun with the shrimp.”

A woman who answered the door at the residence on July 7 said she did not know anything, and did not speak English.

Another neighbor speculated that sun-drying might be a traditional rural cooking method that only appears gross on city sidewalks.

Pan Am contract rejected...for now

From DNA Info:

Comptroller Scott Stringer has rejected a contract for the homeless shelter in the former Pan Am Hotel, citing concerns about the safety of those living there, his office announced Monday.

Stringer said he won't approve the permanent contract between the city and the shelter's operator, Samaritan Village, until his office "receives assurances that anyone staying in these facilities will be safe, all outstanding violations and complaints have been corrected and all documentation that the requirements of the contracting process were met."

The 216 rooms lack kitchens, which are required by law.

Stringer's office sent the permanent contract back to the administration along with a contract for a shelter on West 45th Street in Manhattan run by Aguila Inc., his office said.

When asked about the conditions at the shelter inside the Pan Am, specifically the lack of kitchens that are required by law, DHS Commissioner Gilbert Taylor said they didn't have any immediate plans to add them.

"We don’t have a plan yet to install cooking facilities in that location. We’re not certain that that would be actually the best thing for us to do," he said.

From DNA Info:

Life in the nearly year-old Pan Am homeless shelter is worse than serving time in jail, some residents told DNAinfo New York.

The facility, which opened in June 2015 to help house the record-number of New Yorkers living in shelters, which was 56,602 as of May 5 and included 11,600 families, crams clients into tiny rooms without kitchens — against city, state and federal guidelines.

Instead, the 216-room shelter operator, Samaritan Village, offers three meals a day. But the food is "disgusting" and "garbage," according to nearly a dozen residents, all mothers, who spoke to DNAinfo about how they have found it difficult and expensive to live in a shelter without kitchens.

“The food is still frozen, it’s terrible,” said one mother, who has a 9-year-old daughter. DNAinfo is withholding the mothers' names because they fear retaliation for speaking to the media.

When she moved into the shelter, also know as the Boulevard Family Center, in January she got sick with what she believed to be food poisoning her first week there, she said.

“It’s exhausting when you don’t get enough food stamps because [the] shelter says they provide food," she said. "I did time — the food was better in jail."

Another resident estimates she spends $60 a day on food for her and two teenaged sons, including one with special needs. She usually picks up dinner at McDonald's across Queens Boulevard or at a nearby deli.

“If we had kitchen, I’d spend $20,” she said. “Food is expensive.”

Her tiny room, where her two sons share one bed, is equipped with a small refrigerator but she's forbidden from keeping a microwave.

The one communal microwave broke weeks ago and hasn't been fixed, residents said.

Another mom of three teenagers said she used to buy meals at a local supermarket and heat them in the microwave, but couldn't anymore since it broke.

Schumer wants FDA to crack down on dirty warehouses

From AMNY:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should beef up inspections after the agency uncovered gross violations in a rat-infested Brooklyn food warehouse, Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday.

The warehouse, New Yung Wah Trading Company in Williamsburg, had rodent nests, carcasses, feces and urine, as well as birds flying throughout the facility, defecating on food products, during an October inspection, according to a Dec. 9 warning letter from the FDA. Last year, the FDA sent 90 warning letters to food facilities around the country, according to Schumer. He called for the FDA to treat any facility that got a warning letter as "high risk" and increase inspections; a database for retail food vendors to check on suppliers' violations; and hike penalties.

Knowing what's important

Immigrants! Gays! Food! Gays!

(I also like the outdated shot of Queens Center.)

Compare this to Van Bramer's video, which mentions none of the above:

Neglecting most of your district is not a wise move

He plays up Bushwick history, fails to mention Ridgewood at all, but he loves Mexican food.

Peter Koo uses the phrase "24 hours a day, 7 days a week" twice in his video, but of course the main highlights are diversity! and food! They also somehow shot video of Flushing without showing the huge trash piles on the sidewalk. Impressive! And there apparently are no other neighborhoods but Flushing in Pete's world.

Ants are a godsend

From WPIX:

Some of New York City’s tiniest inhabitants are trash-eating, rat-fighting machines, according to a new study.

Researchers from North Carolina State University found that colonies of ants living in the city’s streets and parks eat thousands of pounds of trash — which is keeping populations of rats and other pests at bay in the process.

The researchers said that the ants that live in the medians of the city’s thoroughfares are particularly helpful. Along Broadway alone, researchers said, ants ate about 2,100 pounds of junk food — the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs — in less than one year.

“This isn’t just a silly fact,” said Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, the author of the study. “This highlights a very real service that these arthropods provide. They effectively dispose of our trash for us.”

The researchers reportedly came to their conclusion after putting specific amounts of junk food in the street medians and city park in 2012 and 2013. Some samples were put in cages that only ants could access, while others were put in the open so other animals could eat them. Researchers left the food out for 24 hours and then came back to see how much the ants had taken.

It was discovered that the ants in the medians took the most junk food, eating two to three times what park ants consumed. The ants also ate enough of the food to keep other animals away.

Don't eat these veggies!

From the NY Post:

Herbs and vegetables grown in New York City community gardens are loaded with lead and other toxic metals, a startling state study shows.

Tainted vegetables — some sold in city markets — were found in five of seven plots tested, according to data obtained from the study by The Post through the Freedom of Information Law.

In the study, scientists used safety levels set by the European Union for lead and cadmium, since the United States doesn’t set a threshold for veggies.

Once in the body, lead can remain for 30 years, causing permanent learning disabilities, behavioral issues, hearing problems, heart disease, kidney disease, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and death.

Children, pregnant women and sick people are most vulnerable to lead poisoning, experts said.

Shoppers at a farmers market outside East New York Farms in Brooklyn — where a carrot was tested with nearly three times the safe amount of lead — were stunned by the study.

The Parks Department said gardens involved with the study have all received clean soil and compost.

Doctors handing out food coupons at Elmhurst Hospital

From the Daily News:

Visits to the farmer’s market could soon replace trips to the pharmacy for some patients.

Elmhurst Hospital is the latest city hospital to adopt the Wholesome Wave Fruit and Vegetable Prescription program targeted to overweight or obese children.

Doctors write fruit and vegetable “prescriptions” for their young patients. The writeups are then turned into so-called Health Bucks at certain greenmarkets.

Health and Hospitals Corporation officials said the average prescription translates into $14 of food for a family of four.

Meadow Lake getting a food stand

From the Queens Chronicle:

It appears that new amenities for park goers at Flushing Meadows are increasing frequently these days.

Travel to the north side of Meadow Lake and you’ll find kayaks, paddleboats and bicycles for rent already. Next week, a revitalized snack bar will open in that area known as the Ederle Terrace.

It was named after Gertrude Ederle, a Flushing native, who was the first woman to swim the English Channel.

The terrace was built 10 years ago, replacing the Aquacade from the two World’s Fairs that was razed in 1996. The snack bar opened briefly but has been vacant for five years.

Baig Sedeeq of S & F Petro won the 12-year concession for the snack bar and promises it will be open by Friday, Aug. 8. That will be a busy weekend as the annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Races will ply the water Aug. 9 to 10.

The snack bar menu is still being worked on, but is expected to include hot dogs, chicken wings, french fries and ice cream. Sedeeq promises to be flexible when he sees what people ask for.

In addition, he will sell beer and wine in a separate area. Tables will be available for public use.

The snack bar will remain open through the fall. Hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

F---, that's stupid!

From DNA Info:

The Flushing-raised rapper shows off his time on his global tour with Eminem, where he dove off yachts in New Zealand and cooked sausages in South Africa.

But his favorite spots are closer to home.

Bronson dines at Roberta's in Bushwick, which sources say will open a pop-up location in Rockaway Beach this summer.

And he ends up at Eddie's Sweet Shop in Forest Hills, which he first visited in junior high school and goes to "to feel like a child again."

"Bottom line is you could be anywhere in this f---ing earth, but I'm here — Metropolitan, Queens, New York, Forest Hills, Eddie's Sweet Shop," he said.

After taking a sip of a black-and-white malted milkshake, he uses his signature phrase:
"F---, that's delicious."

He said those words help describe a feeling when you eat something that's too good to describe.

"You just have to curse and be vulgar and violent about what's happening," he said.

I'm ready to be beamed up now, Scotty.

Nasty food sold at Howard beach supermarkets

From the Forum:

From consistently moldy food to a reported freon leak and large holes in the floor, the two Waldbaum’s serving the Howard Beach and Lindenwood communities are a disappointment at best and a health hazard at worst, residents fed up with the chain that has a monopoly in the two neighborhoods said this week.

“They really have us held hostage here,” said Lorraine Caraccio, of Howard Beach. “Do we have other supermarkets? Yes. But are they really convenient to get to? They’re not our local supermarkets.”

For years, residents said they have dealt with a litany of problems plaguing the two stores, including high prices and poor quality food, ranging from moldy meat to expired goods.

“In my opinion, it’s one of the worst stores in the world – it’s dirty; things are rotten,” Caraccio said. “You’ll move a piece of produce and little flies will come out.”

While residents have long complained about the conditions at the stores, they said nothing has gotten better – despite seeking help from Waldbaum’s corporate offices. Waldbaum’s did not return a request for comment for this article.