Teens gone wild in South Ozone Park

From WPIX:

Stores along Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park are being terrorized by teens from I.S. 226, the Virgil I. Grissom Junior High School.

We have video of one incident that occurred April 28. Dozens of marauding teens stormed into New Era Lumber looking for a classmate who sought refuge there.

According to her father, the schoolmates were after her because she’d refused to help them attack another girl. This is some situation, huh?

Huge development site for sale in Astoria

From the Wall Street Journal:

A potential massive residential development site is up for sale near the Astoria waterfront in Queens. The 4-acre site at 3-15 26th Ave. was formerly a lumber yard and featured in the film "Freejack," with Mick Jagger. But it is now being marketed as a potential site for residential development.

Arthur Mirante, of Avison Young, which is marketing the site, says based on initial discussions with the Department of City Planning, the site could be rezoned to accommodate 800,000 square feet of residential development.

Astoria, which has a large Greek population, also has been attracting young professionals to its bars and night life. The city rezoned a large portion of Astoria in 2010, which allowed for large new residential developments on some of the city's main streets.

There are several large industrial sites along the waterfront that could potentially be targets for residential rezoning, according to brokers.

The sellers of the site will be seeking about $100 per buildable square foot, or upward of $80 million. "It's not an area where manufacturing distribution has a long life left in it," Mr. Mirante says.

Clogging up College Point Blvd

"Hello,
First of all -- love your blog.

This may or may not be fodder for a future installment, but, I'd love to know why the businesses along College Point Blvd just outside of College Point -- under the Flushing bridge and near the lumber yard -- are able to double -park day in and day out with their cement trucks and other heavy equipment vehicles and completely clog up the busy road while people like yours truly are trying to get to work. They have their entire industrial property to use while they get their trucks ready. Unless they are paying the city and are under some CP Blvd road-leasing agreement, this has really got to stop. I and my fellow commuters have the same right to the road as they do, and there needs to be a massive ticket-issuing operation so this practice will stop. Right now, it seems to just be accepted/ignored.

Thanks-
anonymous"