...a city health department report released yesterday detail[s] just how dangerous binge drinking can be for New Yorkers — particularly when it comes to sex. 
Last time we ventured out across the Prospect Expressway, things were not going so well. Both neighboring buildings, 319 and 327 had suffered collateral damage during earlier excavation attempts. Currently their foundation hole has been back filled and a large scaffolding shed has been installed over the sidewalk. It looks like remedial repairs are being attempted on the cracked and sagging front facade of 319-321. However, Stop Work Order Violations are taped to both the front door of 319 and to the construction fence of 325.
This reads like something out of Bizarro world:
For me surfing has always been about the hunt. In these days of surf camps, online weather forecasts and on-location wave cams, it’s easy to miss the thrill of the chase. We are wave tourists, chaperoned to the best breaks in town, waves to suit all levels, minibus available, free wax. “The A train is a rite of passage for any New York surfer,” they told me at Mollusk Surf Shop on Metropolitan Avenue.
Letter to the Editor;
Millions of immigrants from Ecuador and throughout Latin America have headed to the United States in the last few decades in search of the storied American dream. But for many, the dream will be realized only when they return home to the houses they build with money earned in the United States.
Claiming to be at home plate with the Mayor's program for a green and sustainable NY, the Mets and their contractor, along with key Parks officials, have turned a blind eye to the need to protect and preserve valuable parkland shade trees. A 13 tree oak-grove along Shea Road along with numerous other large canopy trees across the new Citi Field site have been left unprotected from the construction frenzy and whims of the contractor and his heavy machinery - with much indifference by Parks Forestry officials and the Commissioner. 
The result has been the mutilation and removal of volumes of tree sustaining roots and the compaction and disruption of the root occupied soil ecosystem of this island landscape. The observed wooden protection barriers detract from the real zone requiring protection - the once extensive tree root zone. All is for increasing parking space across an unpermeable and unsustainable parking lot. 
And why are the trees not afforded protection under the city's Best Management Practices for a green and sustainable City of New York? No funds for that, but funds for planting 550 new trees. The continued deforestation, tree mutilation and indifference toward trees across parkland undergoing construction in this urban forest remains, business-as-usual.
Sorry to have to drop this bomb on you (pun intended), but our wonderful Mayor is trying to pull a BIG fast one on us.
Effective Thursday, January 1st, 2009, Caffé on the Green will cease operations and will not reopen at this location. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City of Department of Parks, has decided to prematurely terminate our license agreement unjustifiably and without cause.
While New York and Chicago saw an uptick in slayings last year, other cities including Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Los Angeles had fewer violent deaths in '08 than '07.
From the NY Times - In Queens: A Melting Pot, and a Closed Book:
Dear Editor:
The Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club is putting out an SOS (Save Our Station) call for your help. We have been demonstrating amateur radio to the visiting public for over 35 years as an independent exhibit at the Hall of Science Children's Museum. The museum is undergoing a major renovation project and wants us out for good. We have started a petition that we would like you to sign and circulate in order to preserve a great ham radio asset by showing officials at the museum that you value what we do. We have logged over 10,000 contacts from our station and even if you are not in our log your help will let us continue to talk up amateur radio and create the next generation of ham radio operators.
New residential construction in the city continued to plummet in November as developers grappled with tight credit markets and dwindling sales. 
Behind the wheel of his car was a teenage boy, I am assuming it was Weprin's son. He could have parked the car. He could have at least moved up a bit so as not to block the parking lot entrance, but he just sat there. I observed him there for at least 10 minutes. He was right behind the Citi Bank. My husband went into Citi Bank to do some banking and he said he did not see David Weprin in there. Maybe it was his wife in the bank? Anyway, it seems that Councilman Weprin was nowhere to be seen, so it must be concluded that he lets his family members drive the car with the council plates.
If you want to hear what the "new" Hunters Point sounds like, listen to the audio. Two women were interviewed and they sound like clones of each other. And here I thought Queens was all about diversity...
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a rocket alarm went off during his visit to an Israeli town Sunday causing him to take cover in an emergency operations center until an all-clear was sounded.
A Willets Point tenant business leader said he does not anticipate the city will move out any of the businesses in the industrial business community until at least 2011.
Rock Hackshaw on a recent term limits poll:
As we resolve to meet the opportunities and challenges of a new year, we renew our resolution to learn from past failures and commit to the improvement of our neighborhoods, cities and State. Many of you have set goals for the coming year and we, as community advocates and leaders, will join you in ensuring that we succeed in getting what we have always fought for-a better quality of life and solutions to our community's problems. 
Mr. Sternfeld’s photographs of the famed Lemon Ice King of Corona celebrate Queens tradition, while his pictures of an onion-domed laundromat in Jamaica or a factory converted into a Hindi temple in Elmhurst masterfully capture the cultural fusions that are modern Queens. 
State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D−Astoria) is calling on the federal government to stop asking overseas voters to give their race on application forms for absentee ballots.
POLITICIANS MUST BE "BLOCKED" FROM SUCCUMBING TO TEMPTATION
The production worthy of attention, as usual, has been taking place behind the curtains. That would be Bloomberg's attempt to use Caroline Kennedy to advance his own campaign to win reelection in 2009.
Hello Crapper,
As the Bloomberg administration scrambles to cut spending, it is ordering city agencies like the police, parks and health departments to give up nearly 700 city-owned cars, a cherished perk for their workers.
Developers in Queens say a proposed downzoning of 34 blocks on the major thoroughfares Northern and Astoria boulevards in the Corona neighborhood will force them to cut back on the size of their projects if they cannot begin construction before the proposal would take effect.
Any driver who challenges a parking ticket — in person, in writing or online — is offered a substantial, guaranteed reduction for most fines, under a program the city quietly introduced in 2005.
Pet Python Causes Concern in Queens Apartment
Steve Roth’s Vornado Realty Trust has filed an application with the city to rezone the site of the 90-year-old Hotel Pennsylvania, clearing hurdles for the real estate firm to demolish the hotel and build an office tower of up to 2.85 million square feet in its place.
Lost City has featured a Dead Diner on 37th Avenue in Woodside that is pretty creepy-looking. Anyone have any recollection of it from when it functioned as an eatery?
Closing down firehouses while showering developers with money, outsourcing pre-K enrollment to an inept company, creating a crisis for many parents, illegally imprisoning Democrats protesting the Republican Convention...the list of Bloomberg BS goes on. And for some reason we are seeing Democrats glom their lips on Bloomberg's posterior, almost fighting eachother to get in the wettest kiss.
Fresh Meadows resident Judy Grossi, whose daughter dated Monserrate for nearly five years while he was a Marine, called the councilman a “teddy bear.”
City Councilman John Liu (D−Flushing) is hoping that an emergency sewer fix will stem the constant flooding in neighborhoods along the Whitestone Expressway, where plans for a broader storm drain project have been thwarted by a lack of funding.
Forgotten New York visits a Little Neck street lined with an interesting collection of street trees. Click photo for story.
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey announced in November that it would complete the final environmental impact statement for the Cross Harbor Freight Transportation Project, a controversial proposal intended to take commercial trucks off Manhattan’s Hudson River crossings via a rail tunnel between Jersey City and a proposed train-truck transfer station in Maspeth.
More than a dozen College Point residents who have been homeless for nearly seven months took a big step toward returning home on Christmas Eve, but tensions were running high at Queens Civil Court in Jamaica.
A big sign on the other side of this house reads “Please Excuse My Appearance! I Am A Candidate For Historical Preservation.” A candidate? How is there even a question?? When this is gone - when ANY of these buildings are gone - they are gone forever. They’re not coming back. You can always build another fifty-story glass-curtain high-rise, or a box-shaped three-story condo. But when the Willet Farmhouse finally collapses, that’s it. It’s a ghost.
Cool story for the new year:
DOI Sees Record Number Of Arrests In 2008
While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly trumpeted crime declining in the city for the 18th year in row and they expected this year’s murder rate to come in at the second lowest in the city’s history, many neighborhoods in parts of south Queens did not see the same reductions.
If Michael Bloomberg is so interested in trimming the city's budget, allow us to kindly suggest one way to save the city $250,008.00 in 2009: Fire Kevin Sheekey immediately. The pit bull deputy mayor, who championed Bloomberg's non-bid for the White House and then counseled his boss against running for a third term (advice his boss ignored, of course), is now on the hot seat for his aggressive efforts to get Caroline Kennedy named as Hillary Clinton's successor in the Senate. 
Cash-strapped transit officials have come up with more possibilities in the event there is no bailout of the MTA, including requiring bus patrons to pay more for using coins and a 26 percent fare hike on the Long Island Rail Road.
She was voted the winner of the 2007 Queens Crap overdevelopment award. Then she got bumped by Johnny Liu in 2008. But the Queen of Queens Crap has pulled off a big comeback victory in 2009. Councilwoman Melinda Katz, Chair of the City Council's Land Use Committee, has been coronated once again and is already back to work. Click here for a sneak peak of her royal highness on the throne!
