Grand Avenue concretions

Someone discharged concrete into the street on Grand Avenue in Maspeth in 2 locations. Here's the first one, near Hamilton Place.

And here's the second one, near 69th Street.

I wonder what DOT wants pedestrians to look for here. It's the drivers that have the responsibility to stop at the stop sign. It's the poorly maintained roadway that seems to need attention.

Auburndale arboricide

"Auburndale - old trees sawed down at 45-28 Francis Lewis Boulevard to make way for another hideous McMansion. When will this end?" - Anonymous


It won't.

Farewell to another old house

Hmm. An old house on a nice big lot? You know what's coming...
Yep, 72-22 57th Avenue was torn down.
Coming soon? Crap. The new owner applied for permits to build four 2-family houses. If the zoning hadn't been changed to R4-1, they would probably be 3-family houses. Thank goodness for small favors.

The plan examiner disapproved the plans, but it's only a matter of time before we see some Fedders magic here.

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.

The sordid history of the Four Sparrow Marsh project

From the Daily News:

Construction on a project that includes a major car dealership has quietly started on a controversial piece of land in Mill Basin twice tied to scandal-scarred politicians who have tried to help developers buy the land from the city.

In April, the Bloomberg administration announced it had sold the 110,000-square-foot parcel near the Four Sparrow Marsh and the Belt Parkway to Brooklyn auto dealer Lilaahar (Sammy) Bical, owner of Kristal Auto Mall, one of the biggest Cadillac dealers on the East Coast.

Bical was helped in his bid to obtain the land after paying tainted state Sen. John Sampson (D-Canarsie) a $10,000 "retainer fee" to help arrange a sit-down with Bloomberg administration officials, the News reported last month.

Those meetings occurred in early 2012, and this past March the city sold him the land for $4.2 million.

Sampson and his lawyer, Zachary Carter, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The FBI is investigating whether Sampson broke the law by seeking and receiving retainer fees from Bical, and another businessman, in an unrelated case, who sought his assistance in dealing with the government, sources said.

Originally, the city planned to sell the land to Forest City Ratner to build a mini mall. That plan was scuttled in September 2011 after a Forest City Ratner official was revealed to have asked disgraced former state Sen. Carl Kruger for state funds, according to a criminal complaint.

As part of the new deal, the city also sold Toys R Us the land it currently occupies for $13 million.

The first part of construction, which has just begun, entails carving out a spot for a new parking lot for the toy store, which park advocates charge is being built on protected marsh land. The expanded car dealership will later be built on the old Toys R Us parking lot, city officials said.

Conservation groups and park advocates plan to sue to block the city's sale of the land on the grounds that it lacked proper state approval.

977 rental apartments proposed for Rheingold site

From the Daily News:

A Brooklyn-based developer hopes to build high-rise apartments on the Bushwick site that was once home to one of the city’s great blue-collar breweries.

But when Read Property presented its plans for the gleaming complex this week, the local community board questioned whether the proposal set aside sufficient space for working families.

The 10 buildings would rise up to eight stories and include 977 rental apartments and ground floor retail space.

Community Board 4 delayed its decision on whether to give the plans the thumbs-up, putting it off until the developer provides more information about the project’s affordable housing component, its impact on local schools and its inclusion of adequate parking.

LIRR considering re-opening Elmhurst Station

From CBS New York:

The Long Island Rail Road’s Elmhurst station closed in 1985, when ridership was measured in the dozens, but the railroad thinks there might be a reason to reopen it.

LIRR President Helena Williams said there’s been early enthusiasm for the project, which would cost an estimated $30 million, but they want that yearning down in black and white.

So surveys will arrive in the neighborhood mailboxes in early July. It will be in English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

“We need evidence that there’s true ridership,” Williams said

Williams said adding a new station to the Port Washington Line would not slow service, especially with improvements being made already.

Rep. Grace Meng said it’s a good fit for a vibrant neighborhood.

Rep. Joe Crowley joined Meng, saying it could be a boost to quality of life.

Not only that, think of the scads more development we can encourage!

Idling trucks in College Point

From NY1:

At 4 a.m., the blaring beeping of backing up trucks is a rude awakening to residents living near the intersection of 14th Avenue and 130th Street in College Point, Queens.

"The kids are waking up and they say, 'Daddy we cannot sleep.' And I close the windows. It still doesn't help," says resident Turan Ates.

And it's not just the early rumblings of the trucks coming and going from TNP Trucking Company that have residents up in arms.

"The trucks are revving up all hours of the day and night and you just cannot sleep. It's as noisy as listening to this truck that just passed by," says resident Faneeza Alie.

Those living next to the trucking company claim the trucks idle for 30 minutes at a time creating a ton of noise and pollution. Residents says they've made countless complaint to the city, to no avail.

"The DEP, we calling them and they say they coming here, they can't find anything. I mean I can give you proof every time that they are idling," says Ates.

When NY1 called DEP, a spokesman told the station since 2011 there have been 86 complaints about the location. Seventy inspections were conducted there but no violations were issued since, according to the spokesman, no trucks were documented idling more than three minutes.

Still, neighbors say they have the time stamped video to prove the trucks are idling. NY1 called TNP Trucking Company but they had no comment. In the meantime, residents are pleading for the city to assist them with this serious quality of life issue.

This is County's pick for council member?

From the Queens Chronicle:

The race to replace outbound and embattled Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) heated up Tuesday night at a forum held by the Auburndale Improvement Association at St. Kevin’s Church, as candidates tried to balance staying on message while answering a battery of specific questions presented by the civic.

The group devised a strict format for the evening, allotting 15 total minutes to every candidate. The first three minutes were dedicated to introductory statements. The remaining 12 were meant to address a list of questions handed to them ahead of time, covering topics such as overdevelopment, real estate taxes and the Federal Aviation Administration’s new and disruptive flight patterns to LaGuardia. There would then be three audience-submitted questions.

The rules dictated the candidates would speak on a first-come, first-serve basis. The race’s two Pauls — Graziano and Community Board 7 member and political scion Paul Vallone — arrived two minutes apart with Vallone coming in second.

A perturbed Vallone opened his remarks by noting Graziano refused to acquiesce his opening speaking slot despite the former’s prior commitments to his daughter’s soccer team, calling it an embodiment of some of his opponent’s character, without actually naming who he was talking about.

In some cases, blatant dodges or outright lies were spoken. When asked about the source of his contributions — specifically if any of them came from lobbyists or developers — Vallone launched into a big wet kiss for the Campaign Finance Board’s work, and voters’ ability to check out his campaign funding sources themselves.

In addition to the above, Vallone also referred to a local civic organization as "the damn Broadway-Flushing Homeowners" [at 1:54 on this video]. This ridiculous lapse in judgment speaks volumes about Mr. Vallone's character as well as the Queens County Democrats that chose him as their candidate.

He also embarrassingly chided the timekeeper when the timer went off at 3:10. He demanded equal time as the previous candidate (Graziano) who he claimed was up there "for about a half hour", but apparently was ignorant of the fact that the timer went off simply to let him know that he should wrap up his opening statement. (The truth be known, each candidate was given more than 15 minutes and just about the same amount of time, as the times on these videos show.)

And then at 10:35, listen to what Vallone says about the Dilluvio decision. The Dilluvio decision, in a nutshell, is about a homeowner in the Broadway-Flushing area who erected a wall on his property. Under Rickert-Finlay restrictive covenant rules, walls are not allowed in the front yard. The Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association sued, the court ruled in their favor and Dilluvio appealed several times. The final appeal resulted in a win for Broadway-Flushing. The attorney representing Broadway-Flushing is former assemblyman Vincent Nicolosi, not Paul Vallone. So what does Vallone mean when he says, "We won"? He said himself that he is not currently a "damn" Broadway-Flushing homeowner, and he was not involved in the case. In fact, the candidate consulting for Broadway-Flushing on deed restriction cases is actually Paul Graziano. And Nicolosi donated to him.

And below is a photo of the Dilluvio home. See anything strange here?

Click photo for larger version

Maybe someone should tell the Dilluvios that the candidate they are publicly supporting is publicly expressing his happiness at their court loss. I bet they'll love that.

Well, Paul V. sure didn't say much about why he deserves to be a council member or what he would do to help the district during his time at Auburndale Improvement Association Candidates' Night. But we can always just visit his website to learn his positions on the important issues that have been brought to his attention. Astounding amount of info there.

DOB continues to harass Willets Point business owners

From the Times Ledger:

The city again shut down a group of Willets Point businesses that lie in the footprint of a $3 billion redevelopment project set to begin early next year, while talks about a detailed plan to relocate the auto repair shops to Maspeth have been stalled since October.

Inspectors from the city Department of Buildings, acting on reports from the NYPD, shuttered about 10 businesses citing unsafe construction conditions June 13, according to business owners.

“They want to kick everybody out this way,” said Marco Neira, a tenant in Willets Point.

The closings came on the heels of another round of inspections in May. Several shops were closed then near the corner of 37th Avenue and 126th Street, although the city offered to make repairs in that case.

The department characterized the latest round of inspections as routine, but business owners wondered about the timing.

The buildings housing the businesses have existed for decades, they said, but the violations are being issued about six months before developers hope to begin transforming 23 acres of the Iron Triangle into a new mixed-use neighborhood.

It's amazing that the DOB can spend so much time at the Iron Triangle - where no one called in complaints and issue vacate orders to businesses renting from the City - but doesn't have the manpower to resolve illegal conversions in residential zones.

CB2 not too keen on aluminum house

From Sunnyside Post:

The plans to develop a site within the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District were greeted with skepticism by Community Board 2’s Land Use Committee last night.

The architects provided details on the developer’s proposal to construct an aluminaire house – made of metal – and eight accompanying residential units for the first time.

The development would take place on the corner of 39th Avenue and 50th Street, at the site of the historic Phipps playground. The Phipps sold the property in July 2007 to DBH Associates for $1.43 million.

The proposed residential units—which would be contained within one building– would be clad with terracotta-colored panels, with a brick pattern.

About 50 residents turned out for the committee meeting—many holding leaflets that read: “Say ‘No’ to unwanted development in our Community!” Meanwhile, a letter was circulating that had been written by Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer to the Landmarks Preservation Committee voicing his opposition to it.

Many residents questioned whether any type of development could take place on the property. Dorothy Morehead, who is a member of community board 2 and owns a real estate firm in the Gardens, said that the former playground is deemed “open space.” She said that she has never heard of a case where the Landmarks committee has permitted development on “open space”.

The house would essentially be a showpiece or a museum where people could visit. The Aluminaire Foundation, he said, would be leasing space on the site from the developer to keep it there.

The housing units—which would bring income to the developer through rent or condo sales—would act as a buffer between the aluminaire house and the historic brick homes in Sunnyside Gardens.

But Stephen Cooper, Co-Chair of the Land Use Committee, suggested that the aluminaire house – and accompanying units—were not a good fit for the Historic District. “The buildings [in the Gardens] are all essentially the same. They are brick, all two stories tall—essentially all the same look,” he said. “There is not a single aluminum house in the area.”

Cunningham Park truck problem

From the Queens Chronicle:

Residents are frustrated with trucks that won’t go away. Several 18-wheelers, some of which are used to transport cars, park on the north side of 73rd Avenue, between 210th Street and the Clearview Expressway, along Cunningham Park. The trucks come and go regularly, but they usually return.

Sometimes the line of trucks is merely an eyesore in a residential area, but when the Auburndale soccer league plays games on their Cunningham Park fields, the situation is downright dangerous. Since each truck takes up several spots, parents often double- and triple-park when they go to drop off and pick up their children. Traffic on that stretch of 73rd Avenue typically exceeds 40 miles per hour.

“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” Debbie Luongo, the league’s vice president, said.

Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) said that he has reported the trucks to the police numerous times and written several letters about the trucks, but the problem has persisted for over a year.

“It’s very infuriating,” Weprin said. “It is an issue and it annoys the heck out of me.”

A source from the 107th said the precinct receives complaints and has “issued summonses and taken initiatives,” but the trucking company pays the tickets because “it’s easier for them to pay the tickets than pay for storage.”

While the 18-wheelers and auto-transport trucks can be towed, the precinct said that it is difficult to store the trucks. The city only has a few tow trucks capable of towing such large vehicles.

When will Johnny drop the charade?

From the Daily News:

After taking fire for stretching the truth in his 2009 campaign, City Controller John Liu is again claiming that he toiled in a sweatshop beside his mother as a young child in Queens.

“After working in a sweatshop, John Liu — a son of immigrants — used education to get ahead,” Liu boasts in a campaign flyer distributed by his mayoral campaign this week.

The Daily News investigated the sweatshop claim four years ago, when Liu was campaigning for controller, and found his hard-knock child labor tale to be an extreme exaggeration.

Liu had come to the United States from Taiwan as a young boy but largely lived a middle-class life in Queens. His parents bought a large home in Bayside five years after arriving in the country and his banker father, who was studying for an MBA, went on to become president of a bank.

In a 2009 interview with The News, Liu’s mother debunked her son’s wild campaign story.

Jamy Liu said she worked on a knitting machine at home to help pay household bills, and that she sometimes asked her young son to help spin balls of yarn or thread. She would pay him 25 cents for each spool as part of his allowance.

Parks responds to yesterday's posting

"On a hunch, I walked past the site featured yesterday and found a Parks forestry officer directing an employee on how to fix the scaffold around the trees.

Unfortunately, the damage has already been done.

The scaffold openings have been widened, and in some areas, the side of the scaffold has been opened up.

It remains to be seen if the trees will survive the abuse.

I am wondering if a fine was levied, but will probably never find out.

Why does Parks respond after the fact instead of before the project gets underway?" - Anonymous

Liu rejects Central Park Conservancy contract as unfair to rest of City

From A Walk in the Park:

June 19, 2013

Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

My office has returned the ten-year, $90 million Central Park Conservancy contract submitted by the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and is currently reviewing an additional $60 million capital contract with the Conservancy.

I write to ask you to reflect on the wide disparities that exist among parks in the five boroughs. For example, St. Nicholas Park, located just a few blocks north of Central Park in Harlem, recently received a score of 77 out of a possible 100 points from New Yorkers for Parks because of trip hazards, litter, and out-of-service drinking fountains.

The Parks Department can and should amend both Conservancy contracts so that they help provide more equity among parks. These modifications should also take into account the exceptionally strong financial condition of the Conservancy.

We recommend that the following changes be made:

· Eliminate or reduce the Conservancy’s revenue-sharing agreement. Currently 50 percent of the estimated approximately $12 million Central Park net concession and special event revenue is distributed to the Conservancy. In contrast, very few if any other City parks have such a beneficial arrangement.

· Reallocate capital funds toward higher-needs parks. If we are serious about equitably distributing scarce resources, we need to reallocate a portion of the City’s capital contributions for Central Park to parks with higher needs that are over-reliant on discretionary funds.

· Increase financial transparency. The Conservancy’s 2011-2012 tax filings show revenues of $47 million. Other public sources indicate that the Conservancy has a workforce of approximately 300 employees, ranging from seasonal grounds technicians paid $18,228 to the President and CEO, who received total compensation of $456,319. Like the Parks Department and every other City agency, the Conservancy should publish spending and payroll data on Checkbook NYC, the City’s financial transparency website. Mandatory federal tax filings do not provide adequate transparency.

· Encourage expanded support of area parks. The Conservancy should work with the Parks Department to identify struggling parks throughout the five boroughs that would benefit from the Conservancy’s operational and development expertise. Such a collaboration could help mitigate some of the widespread concerns that public-private partnerships favor only a handful of elite parks.

According to its most recent tax return, the Conservancy has more than $215 million in assets. This staggering number does not take into account the recently announced $100 million private donation.

The City should ensure that parks across the five boroughs—and not just Central Park—are being funded adequately and equitably. When the City is unable to provide funding for basic maintenance and much-needed capital projects, one must question whether it is appropriate to provide our wealthiest park with $150 million of new resources.

Let’s work together to maintain Central Park and provide equity among all of our parks.

Sincerely,


John C. Liu

Walls for Rockaway

From CBS New York:

Reinforcements are going up along a stretch of the Rockaways that was decimated by superstorm Sandy.

The storm barrier of more than 7,500 bags filled with 20,000 tons of sand will stretch from Beach 55th Street to Beach 149th Street when the dune construction project begins next month.

At the end of Beach 133rd Street in the Belle Harbor section of Far Rockaway, a four-foot concrete wall is already being built.

Jet age architecture soon to be lost

From the Wall Street Journal:

Advocates for the now-vacant Worldport terminal at Kennedy Airport hope their preservation efforts will gain momentum with the bittersweet designation of the former Pan Am building as one of America's 11 most-endangered historic places.

The annual list, compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and slated for release Wednesday, selects architectural and cultural heritage sites in danger of destruction or damage. The flying-saucer shaped Worldport, long-slated for demolition to make room for more operating space at the airport, was cited for its symbolic jet-age architecture.

Constructed in 1960 by Pan American World Airways, the building was known for its large elliptical roof canopy, measuring 450 by 350 feet, which allowed aircraft to taxi under it, providing protective covering for passengers between the plane and the terminal. It was famously featured as a backdrop for the Beatles as they departed on a Pan Am Boeing BA -1.76% 707 after their 1964 U.S. tour, and epitomized the glamour of jet travel in movies such as "Come Fly With Me" and the 1962 "That Touch of Mink," starring Cary Grant and Doris Day.

Delta Air Lines DAL -1.48% assumed the building and other Pan Am assets when the carrier collapsed in 1991. Renamed Terminal 3, it was in use until May 23, when Delta opened the adjacent $1.4 billion Terminal 4 the next day.

When a lifetime ban isn't for a lifetime

From the NY Post:

A Queens couple pleaded guilty today for building and selling residential property, in violation of a lifetime ban they agreed to 14 years ago.

Thomas Huang, 59 and his wife Alice, 60, will pay $4.8 million to the state Attorney General's Office by Sept. 18 in exchange for avoiding up to four years in prison for their involvement in building the Broadway Towers in Elmhurst.

Despite the 1999 agreement to a lifetime condo and co-op ban, prosecutors today said the couple would have been OK to develop and sell condos and co-ops units, if they had reapplied for that right to the state AG’s office. ??????

The lifetime ban was the settlement of a state AG’s lawsuit, which had accused the couple of failing to use rental money they collected on important maintenance in buildings they owned.

SCA = School Construction Arboricide

The old St. Aloysius school on Seneca Avenue in Ridgewood has been purchased by the School Construction Authority, which has plans to demolish the building and replace it with a new elementary school (across the street from PS305, which is also brand new but already full and which is a few blocks away from PS290, also under construction).
Anyway, the company hired by SCA that erected the scaffold around the building has damaged every one of the surrounding street trees.
These are relatively young trees, planted only a few years ago, and we're already going to lose them because a tree protection plan was not implemented as required.
Do agencies in this administration actually communicate with each other?
So Bloomie's planting one million new trees? How about protecting the ones already here?
There's gotta be a better way than this.
But this is Queens, so no one cares. Not the community board, not the council member, not the school construction authority, not the parks department.
And look at all the municipal contracts the offending scaffolding company has!

No one can seem to shut illegal site down

From the Queens Courier:

Neighbors on one Glendale block say the nearby garage is a chronic nuisance.

“These people are lawless all day, every day,” said one woman who wished to remain anonymous.

The garage, nestled on a quiet block in Glendale, sees dozens of cars every day. Neighbors complain the owners’ cars stay parked on the sidewalks and down the street for days, inconveniencing residents.

However, owners Elsie Serrano and Oscar Ortega claimed they are running a completely legal operation.

“I have receipts for everything I have done here,” Serrano said.

The shop’s license to sell cars is up to date, and both Serrano and Ortega are licensed to run their business.

However, neighbors allege they do not sell vehicles, but illegally repair them.

Ortega said his store brings cars to a nearby Getty station for service and if the station is too busy, he will do an oil change or fix brakes himself. He added that the store also legally washes cars. However, neighbors said they have seen workers do larger-scale repairs.

“They’re fixing collision and mechanical problems,” said Danny, a resident who withheld his last name. “You can smell chemicals along our block. These are people that have no morals, no respect.”

The owners frequently have their large family visit the site, and several neighbors said they blast music and intimidate residents at all hours of the day.

The 104th Precinct has paid many visits to the site, handing out numerous tickets and summonses. Neighbors said police officers have told workers to shut down the operation, though the 104th did not return calls for comment.

The Fire Department has allegedly shut the site down four times, but the shop continues to reopen. The woman said she has not seen any police or fire presence at the site since April.