23

Caption our dear leader

 

 

 

"It's not about freedom or personal choice. COME ON MAN!!!"

Elmhurst war memorial bombed with profane graffiti

 

NY Post

A Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Elmhurst, Queens was desecrated with swastikas, profane graffiti and the term “baby killers.”

New York City Councilman Robert Holden shared images of the vandalism on Twitter Wednesday, and vowed to work with police to make an arrest.

“I am deeply disgusted by this cowardly act of vandalism at the Queens Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” the Democrat wrote.

“I am working… to make sure the perpetrator is brought to justice. I offer a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the sick soul who did it.”

This fucking city...

587

 

Vigils set for tonight and tomorrow

From the Times Newsweekly:

Candlelight vigils are scheduled outside three local police precincts [tonight] and Tuesday, Dec. 22-23, honoring the two NYPD officers assassinated in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 20.

The 104th Precinct Community Council announced it would hold its vigil at 7 p.m. Monday night in front of the 104th Precinct's stationhouse, located at 64-02 Catalpa Ave., two blocks east of Fresh Pond Road.

People of all faiths are organizing a similar candlelight vigil tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m. at the 108th Precinct's Long Island City headquarters, located at 5-47 50th Ave.

Finally, the 112th Precinct Community Council will honor the lost officers at the precinct's Forest Hills stationhouse, located at 68-40 Austin St., at 6 p.m. Tuesday night.

Drunken vandals caught

From the Queens Chronicle:

The two men who trashed part of a World War II memorial in Woodhaven while in a supposed drunken haze have been caught, according to community leaders.

"WE GOT THEM," the Woodhaven Business Improvement District posted on its Facebook page. "We have been notified that the two perpetrators that stole our Wreath and American Flags from our World War II Monument on our Forest Parkway Plaza Area only to destroy our Wreath and desecrate our American Flags have been arrested."

The post states that the two men are "unfortunately" Woodhaven residents.

And in other positive war memorial news, the Captain Malcolm Rafferty monument featured in this post has been restored by NYC Parks and Newtown Historical Society.

Construction alienates public parkland in LIC

The following 2 shots were taken in September 2013, from Google Street View:

"Hello, next time you're in LIC, take a look at Rafferty Triangle park at Jackson Ave/44 Dr/ and Hunter St. About 2 months ago, the massive construction site next to it put up a construction fence around its site, 43-25 Hunter St, and extended the fence into a large part of Rafferty Triange including an area with several benches. My gripe: Why can this private company (Rockrose) take away a relatively brand new park and sitting area? I notified 311 and got nowhere. Thanks for the help!" - Dan

So, I took the bait and headed over there. This is what I found:

And then I looked through the construction fence:

This is all bad, but hopefully temporary. The saddest sight of all was the monument to Capt. Malcolm A. Rafferty, which has been vandalized.

It apparently has been left in this condition for a long time, as it is pictured this exact same way on Parks' website.

In Queens, nothing is sacred except the rights of developers. Not parkland. Not memorials to our dead soldiers.

Ridgewood monument should get more respect

From the Queens Chronicle:

On Jan. 31, 1968, Private First Class Richard Gilley, of Maspeth, was killed in action on a Vietnam battlefield three weeks shy of his 21st birthday.

Almost 50 years after his death, a memorial dedicated in his name sits unkempt and dirty next to the former American Legion post at 776 Fairview Ave., underneath the Forest Avenue station along the M train line, in Ridgewood.

Multiple homeless people live alongside the chainlink fence in front of the memorial and bottles, plastic bags and old food containers litter the area surrounding Gilley’s plaque and rusting flagpole.

The property the shrine sits on belongs to the Greater Ridgewood Youth Council, which plans on moving into the adjacent building it purchased in 2009, but hasn’t yet due to financial reasons.
Until 2004, the building belonged to American Legion Post No. 562, which dedicated the memorial in 1972.

GRYC Director Bob Monahan said his organization deserves some of the blame for not maintaining the memorial properly, but that beautification work should start in the near future.

“I would imagine over the next week or so that we’ll get rid of the weeds. We’ll do the best we can to clean it up,” Monahan said. “That whole corner is being replaced and it’s going to be a beautiful little area. It will be quite stunning.”

According to Monahan, the GRYC has attempted to clean the area before, which also includes a general plaque for all soldiers killed in Vietnam, but the presence of homeless people living next to the monuments precludes the space from staying clean for very long.

In 1972, this may have been an ok spot to place the monument. But this is 2014 and just the fact that there is a train station above this spot that hosts a number of daily slobs who throw stuff down onto the tracks is reason enough to move it out of there.

Firecracker damages memorial

From the Queens Chronicle:

For many in Howard Beach, the namesake of Charles Park is a mystery. But for those who know who Frank Charles was, his is a story every neighborhood resident should know.

That’s why several years ago, the American Legion Post #1404, based in Broad Channel but including a number of Howard Beach residents as members, sought to construct a memorial sign telling the story of Charles, the first resident of Howard Beach to die in action at war.

In May, five years, one hurricane and over $5,000 later, they unveiled a sign on the east side of the park facing Hawtree Creek where Charles lived, only to find last weekend that it had been damaged.

“It’s terrible,” said Ed Murray, past commander of American Legion Post #1404. “There’s no respect.”

A hole blew open in the Plexiglas panel protecting the sign and a large dent mars the back of the sign.

“I think it was a firecracker, an M-80 probably,” said Ray York, another past commander of the troop. “Some kids, probably on the Fourth of July. They must have taped it on the glass and lit it.”

Initially, some residents, including Dorothy McCloskey, president of Friends of Charles Park, thought it was a bullet, but no fragments were found, nor did it penetrate through the steel skin.

“If it was a bullet, it would have gone right through,” York said.

Murray pointed to red powder on the bottom of the sign inside the glass as a sign that a firecracker was the likely culprit.

MTA to vacate Manhattan slave graveyard

From the NY Post:

The MTA will likely shut down its East Harlem bus depot because it sits atop a 17th-century African burial ground, two transit sources told The Post.

The 126th Street facility — home to the M15 fleet that traverses Second Avenue, the city’s busiest bus route — could close permanently as early as June, one of the sources revealed.

The Post first reported three years ago that the agency had confirmed the existence of the burial ground, used by Harlem’s first house of worship, the Elmendorf Reformed Church, from 1665 until 1869 to bury slaves and freed slaves.

Community activists began lobbying to relocate the 67-year-old depot, a former trolley yard, to memorialize the cherished ground and even establish a cultural center around it. At the time, the MTA maintained it would continue to study the issue but planned to go ahead with the refurbishment of the depot in 2015.

Now the agency appears ready to wash its hands of the 104,000-square-foot building, sources said.

It's a shame that slave graveyard in Elmhurst isn't owned by the MTA.

WTC sphere is staying

From the NY Times:

Rededicated in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan on March 11, 2002, as New York City’s interim memorial, the “Sphere” has been sitting for months behind a construction fence while the park is renovated. No one in a position to know what might happen to the 25-foot-tall bronze globe, which still bears the scars of Sept. 11, 2001, would disclose anything publicly about where it might end up. Or when.

So when a work crew arrived on Wednesday and began dismantling the sculpture, placing one hemisphere on the back of a flatbed truck, and a crew member said that he could not divulge where the “Sphere” was headed, it seemed as if the cloak of secrecy was about to swallow the sculpture whole.

To make matters even more puzzling, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the sculpture, and those of the National September 11 Memorial, which is frequently mentioned as a possible final setting for the “Sphere,” said they knew nothing about the move.

The parks department did know about it, however. On Wednesday evening, Arthur Pincus, an assistant commissioner of the agency, said the “Sphere” was simply being moved about 550 feet within the park, to a spot much closer to Castle Clinton, to accommodate the renovations.

Originally they were going to remove the statue.

In a hurry to cover a memorial

"Hey, wanted to send you this picture of a memorial someone spray painted on the sidewalk at the fatal Queens Blvd accident from this past Monday between Van Loon St and Reeder St (I was not the one that painted FYI nor know who).

I saw it on the way to work this morning and took a picture of it then. When I came home this evening, there was an Asian man with a can of paint stripper removing it from the sidewalk already. Guess I was lucky to snap a picture of it while it was day, maybe? BTW, they left the application of chemical stripper still on the sidewalk at this hour of 8PM, with a few cones around. God help any dog or animal (or kid) that walks through it or licks it...

I guess even Asians don't care about other Asians dying in front of their business (there's an Asian real estate brokerage right on that corner where it's applied).

I know it's still vandalism, graffiting the sidewalk, but I guess it's the speed in which this memorial was removed. Who knows."

Justin

Metropolitan Avenue Ghost Bikes

Came across this "Ghost Bike" on Metropolitan Avenue recently. Ghost Bikes are memorials sponsored by friends and family members of cyclists killed on the road.

This one looks like it could use some maintenance.

Interestingly, another Ghost Bike down the street, without a name, is in better condition than the one with the sign.

I wonder if the bikes will be featured in "Lockbox 2013", whatever that is.

Parks Dept working on Doughboy paintjob

George The Atheist passed along these updated photos of Doughboy Park.


A more respectful paint job. It hasn't all been restored, but it's a start. Just in time for Memorial Day.

Photos from GeorgeTheAtheist's blog.

9/11 memorial an expensive embarrassment

From Huffington Post:

With its huge reflecting pools, ringed by waterfalls and skyscrapers, and a cavernous underground museum still under construction, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is an awesome spectacle that moved and inspired some 4.5 million visitors in its first year.

But all that eye-welling magnificence comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The foundation that runs the memorial estimates that once the roughly $700 million project is complete, the memorial and museum will together cost $60 million a year to operate.

The anticipated cost has bothered some critics and raised concerns even among the memorial's allies that the budget may be unsustainable without a hefty government subsidy.

By comparison, the National Park Service budgeted $8.4 million this year to operate and maintain Gettysburg National Military Park and $3.6 million for the monument that includes the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Running Arlington National Cemetery, which has more than 14,000 graves and receives 4 million visitors a year, costs $45 million annually.

Officials at the 9/11 memorial say they face unique challenges that make comparisons to other national memorials difficult.

Foundation officials didn't respond to requests for information about other costs at the site, including the anticipated expense of running the museum, which is still unfinished and might not be anytime soon.

There was also a very expensive pissing contest happening amongst our fearless leaders over this. They supposedly finally resolved it last night. Makes you proud to be a New Yorker, doesn't it?

As for the WTC itself, here's what's being pushed to the side for it. From the Wall Street Journal:

The $7.7 billion that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has committed over more than a decade to remake the 16-acre site has meant that long-planned repairs and expansions at its other properties, especially at the area's three major airports, have been put on hold or scrapped altogether.

The effect has become increasingly visible. When it rains, trash cans collect drips inside the central terminal at La Guardia Airport, which was supposed to be in line for a substantial upgrade before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks upended the agency's plans.

Newark International Airport's shabby Terminal A, which also had been eyed for a redo for years, frequently elicits traveler complaints. Buses clog Manhattan's West Side; the Port Authority had committed money to building a garage where they could idle between trips but postponed the plan after World Trade Center rebuilding costs grew. A proposal to replace the Goethals Bridge has faced delay after delay, though a plan to find a private contractor has been inching forward recently.

If not for the cost of rebuilding in Lower Manhattan, "they would be working on the terminal at La Guardia, I think they would be working on Terminal A at Newark," said Robert Boyle, the Port Authority's executive director from 1997 to 2001. "They definitely would already be doing the Goethals."

PA won't put WTC sphere in storage

9/11 couldn't kill tree

From 1010WINS:

Horizontal pathways of light-gray granite and cobblestone lead to the south reflecting pool and a single Callery Pear tree.

Daniels said the tree, known as the “survivor tree,” was found 95 percent destroyed on 9/11. It was also struck by lightning in 2010 even after being nursed to health in the Bronx.

“It’s a symbol of this country that was struck by lightning, the events of 9/11 — we’re still here, we’re still surviving,” Daniels said.

Firefighter tries to fulfill artist's dying wish

From CBS 2:

Volunteer firefighter Phil Cise made a promise to the then 93-year-old artist who created a painting of the heroes of 9/11 days after the attacks: that he would fulfill her dying wish and build a chapel memorial in honor of those who died, and put the painting there.

A farmer has donated five acres of land for the cause in Alamuchy, New Jersey, and architect Suzanne Sowinski has designed a plan for free.

Size still needs funding for his dream, so he’s selling t-shirts with the image of the painting in the hopes of raising enough money to complete the project.

All the while, he keeps remembering what Hitchcock wrote on the canvas: “This painting is in memory of the firefighters, the police, the emergency medical services, and all the volunteers who died trying to save lives.”

Another dying wish from the artist was that a banner of the painting be distributed to firehouses and police departments throughout the world.

Hitchcock died in 2007 at the age of 97.

Bloomberg wants retired fireman off 9/11 memorial

NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city will contest a court order to list a retired fire captain alongside his former colleagues on the Sept. 11 memorial.

Bloomberg said Tuesday the city "will fight this in court." He says the Fire Department of New York made a reasonable choice to list only active-duty firefighters in an FDNY section on the memorial.

Retired Capt. James Corrigan was working in a private fire safety job for the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. That's how officials planned to list him on the memorial when it opens next year.

His family says Corrigan acted as a firefighter that day while helping colleagues and deserves the same recognition on the memorial. A Queens judge agreed with the family on Monday.

From 9/11 to this?