Good luck with that

From the Daily News:

A Queens professor hopes his students can help solve a riddle this summer that has confounded the borough's tourism experts for decades.

James Giordano will challenge his marketing class at LaGuardia Community College to devise plans to convince tourists who visit New York City to spend at least one day of their stay in Queens.

Giordano will forward the ideas to the Queens Economic Development Corp., which is slated to kick off its "75 Days of Summer" campaign today with help from Giordano's students.

Students will also visit area hotels and hot spots, hoping to convince them to offer discounts that could attract even more tourists.

Organizers are betting the students will offer fresh perspectives on pitching the borough to visitors through social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Stoddart said the borough will also re-launch the Queens Tourism Council, a collective of cultural groups and sites that fell inactive in recent years.

It's an effort to capitalize on droves of tourists who fly into Queens airports and stay at local hotels but spend most of their time and money in Manhattan.

Queens is where people live, not a place for outsiders to come to gawk. It's about time the city understood that and provided for the taxpayers instead of focusing on tourists all the time.

Eric vs. Eric?

From the Daily News:

A powerful Democrat says Weiner's behavior "could make it easy for everyone" to chop his Queens-Brooklyn district.

"The guy was already not likable, and now he's in the middle of a sex scandal," the source said. "If you have no [political] friends to begin with, it becomes very easy to eliminate your district."

"With [possibly] having to eliminate a district from the city ... this could be a self-sacrifice," a top legislative aide echoed.

"There are areas in the district that can be split up to support other members like [Gary] Ackerman or [Joseph] Crowley, who have clean records and good names," he added.

Clean records and good names? I suppose everything's relative.

The Daily News also has another take:

Politicians in Brooklyn and Queens have been buzzing this week over the prospect of an open congressional seat if Weiner resigns – or the possibility that he could be vulnerable to primary challenge if he decides to run again.

Among pols whose names were being discussed as possible contenders were Queens Councilman Mark Weprin, Queens Assemblyman Rory Lancman and former Queens Councilwoman Melinda Katz.

None of the above were willing to openly admit they have their eyes on the seat.

But what if they don't eliminate the district? From the NY Times:

Some New York Democrats have approached former Councilman Eric N. Gioia of Queens about running for Mr. Weiner’s seat, according to two people briefed on the conversations. Mr. Gioia, these people said, is open to the possibility. He declined to comment.

And from Politicker:

On Monday, just before Mr. Weiner’s tearful, 27-minute long press conference in midtown, Mr. Ulrich stepped outside of his Ozone Park office to discuss the possibility.

Mr. Ulrich said he had been fielding questions “from both sides of the aisle” about the possibility of challenging for the seat, which would pit Mr. Weiner against something like a right-leaning version of his former self.

Main Street is top 10 busiest station

From the NY Times:

The Main Street station on the No. 7 line, in Flushing, Queens, made a rare appearance last year in the coveted New York City Subway Top 10: the 10 most heavily trafficked stations in the underground, according to ridership data released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

More than 18.6 million passengers streamed through the station’s turnstiles in 2010, in a uptick of nearly 2 percent from 2009. That was enough to bump last year’s No. 10 station, the Fulton Street complex in Lower Manhattan, down a notch to No. 11.

And we're planning to put hundreds of thousands more people along the line?

Brooklyn's hospitals struggle to survive

From Crains:

The chief executives of three ailing Brooklyn hospitals are finalizing a de facto merger proposal that they expect to submit to state officials as early as this week. Their plan, which calls for a “northern Brooklyn health care alliance,” could include a major restructuring, closure or repurposing of at least one of the hospitals.

Interfaith Medical Center, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center and Brooklyn Hospital Center say the aim of the suggested alliance is to strengthen their bottom lines and to command higher reimbursement under federal and state Medicaid reforms.

The first two hospitals have carried large losses and crippling liabilities for years. The third, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2007, faces a major debt payment next year.

Five of Brooklyn's 10 private hospitals have financial problems. Long Island College Hospital would be No. 6—its most recent financial statement showed a $39 million loss in 2009—had it not been merged with a state institution, SUNY Downstate Medical Center's University Hospital of Brooklyn. The $62 million deal was brokered during the Paterson administration and finalized last month.

The financial instability of Brooklyn's hospitals has attracted the attention of state Department of Health officials, who have been meeting with facility executives in the past few months.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse

From the NY Times:

Their marriage has become the subject of intense speculation and scrutiny amid an embarrassing online sex scandal.

Now, Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The pregnancy, which the couple has disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

And a picture of his naked package was also revealed today.

Fido theft to become a felony

From the Daily News:

State lawmakers want to make it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison to steal a family dog or cat.

"Pets are family members, and we want to make sure they are protected like anybody else," said state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Nassau), who sponsored the measure.

Marcellino said the bill - which easily passed in the Senate Wednesday - is a response to a spate of dognappings on Long Island.

The family pets, he said, are sometimes taken by the operators of dogfighting rings to be used as "bait" in the training of fighting dogs.

It's currently a misdemeanor to steal family pets.

DOE gets an F

From the NY Post:

A botched deal with the teachers union has forced the city to slam the brakes on a federal program that has already dished out about $20 million to overhaul 11 failing high schools, The Post has learned.

The failure means much of the money spent in the first year of a three-year program will go to waste as officials scramble to change course.

Most of the funds went to individual schools; the rest to the Department of Education for administration and oversight.

The city needed to hammer out a new evaluation system with the teachers union to secure second-year funding for the initiative, which followed one of four federal school-turnaround models known as "transformation."

But because talks tanked, the city instead applied for funds using a radically different approach officials thought would not require a union sign-off -- a model called "restart."

Collecting on sign fines

From the NY Post:

A slew of zoning violations worth $32.7 million in fines has been doled out to owners since the city started cracking down on illegal signs and billboards by highways five years ago.

But of that total, just $4.7 million worth of summonses have been settled.

That leaves a big chunk of change -- $28 million -- still either in judgement or awaiting adjudication.

And now, officials are tired of waiting for the cash to come in.

"We have reached out to the businesses, used outside collection agencies and searched for seizable assets in an effort to resolve these debts," said Finance Department spokesman Owen Stone.

A single violation can reach $25,000 -- and some signs are slapped with multiple violations.

The city and the billboard industry have been battling for a decade over enforcement of regulations that prohibit billboards within 200 feet of a park or highway.

It's still in litigation.

Mayor and Council fiddling while NYC burns

From the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council, reacting to a spate of recent deaths involving fires in illegally subdivided apartments, announced a program on Tuesday to crack down on the practice.

Calling illegal conversions a “serious danger to New Yorkers,” Mr. Bloomberg said the city would prioritize complaints based on historical risk factors and send teams of workers to the most dangerous apartments within 48 hours.

The risk factors identified by the city include whether a building was constructed before 1938, whether it is located in an area with a history of dangerous fires and whether the property is in foreclosure.

Most housing was built after 1938 (including many buildings with walk-in basements for the express purpose of illegal conversion), many of the fires did not happen in areas with history of fires or high rates of foreclosures. This program will not do dick. This is like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. And they are using the FDNY to gain access to these units...an agency which they are planning to gut.

Subway connection finally open

From NY1:

It took a little more than 20 years from inception, but the new Court Square Subway Station complex in Long Island City is finished, and should make transfers quicker, cheaper and more comfortable.

The elevators and escalators complement the moving sidewalks and allow free transfers among the E, M, G and 7 lines, and the Northeast corner of Jackson Avenue and 23rd Street without having to hit the street.

Some 20,000 riders use the complex each weekday, and many say it's something they've waited years for.

Important hearing about the future of Queens

You know this traffic video that's been displayed here for the past year? Well, Wednesday's the day when members of the public can show up and tell EDC and the roadway regulatory agencies what we think of their plan to construct ramps to enable a development that will draw at least 80,000 new vehicle trips per day to the vicinity of Willets Point -- having such far-reaching effects as to jeopardize travel through the Long Island Expressway / Grand Central Parkway / Kew Gardens interchanges, the latter of which we are presently spending $148,000,000.00 to improve.

Either voice your opinion at this hearing, or don't complain later if they build these ramps to enable development and your quality of life in Queens suffers as a result.

Date/Time: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 4:30PM; news conference outside at 4:00PM
Location: Flushing Library, Kissena Blvd and Main Street
More information here.

Queens residents may be able to shop more easily in the meatpacking district

From the NY Times:

If the third section [of the High Line] is completed, it will end near the terminus of the extended No. 7 subway line, said Robert K. Steel, the deputy mayor for economic development. People could ride the subway from Queens, then walk the High Line through Chelsea to the meatpacking district, said Mr. Steel, who recently became a resident of Chelsea, just a block from the High Line.

So who along the 7 line in Queens is dying to do this? A show of hands, please...

Weiner leaving Forest Hills?

Reader sent in this tip:


Here Mr. Weiner is posing with his "pussys". Take a look at the brown one.

Now take a look at this photo from MLSLI.com. That same cat is in this bedroom photo, which also contains pillows with the initials "H" (Huma) and "A" (Anthony). Together, they spell "HA" which is exactly what a lot of people said yesterday during his press conference.

Try to look past the disturbing naked torso in the foreground and notice the background.

Here is the same room sans photos.

Yep, the pad in Forest Hills is on the block.

Endangered birds banded on the bridge

Agencies don't work together

From the Daily News:

The Buildings, Fire and Housing Preservation departments have different missions that can work at cross purposes in the fight to eliminate deadly chopped-up apartments.

Records show that at times, all three agencies cross paths at the same building, yet somehow the suspected illegal apartments stay in place.

Since April 25, five people have died in two fires inside illegally divided buildings. Mayor Bloomberg ordered an internal review and the City Council plans a hearing next week.

A key issue is how aggressively different agencies combat this problem.

Firefighters who see evidence of illegal apartments while responding to emergencies can issue vacate orders - but only for fire-related violations such as blocked exits.

Housing inspectors responding to tenant complaints about bad conditions can cite landlords for operating illegal apartments, but their only weapon is a paltry fine that property owners often ignore.

Fire and Housing often turn to the agency with the most flexibility in shutting down illegal apartments — the Buildings Department.

But records show that building inspectors often fail to take action against illegal apartments red-flagged by Fire or Housing inspectors.

Jamaica Avenue in the spotlight

Click photo for story.

Weepy Weiner sorry he got caught with his pants down

Parking conundrum in Flushing

From the Queens Courier:

Pushing a cart with homemade plywood signs, Flushing resident Carmen Mosca recently staged a rally to protest what she claimed to be unfair wrong-way tickets at Beech Street and Syringa Street.

Beech and Syringa are both one-way streets, and they intersect in a rounded, continuous curve with no clear sign as to where one ends and the other begins.

People of the neighborhood have been repeatedly receiving tickets for parking their cars facing the wrong direction, while traffic signs have either been misleading or non-existent, said Mosca.

Pedestrians and motorists were eager to sign her petition to remedy this problem, and she collected 96 signatures a week before her protest.

A no-parking sign previously designated the exact intersection, but it was incorrect, she noted. She recounted one incident where two cars parked right next to each other, facing opposite directions, have both received wrong way tickets.

Recent construction had knocked down the sign completely, and now, there is no point of reference at all.

City Hall repairs quite costly

From DNA Info:

A 2009 [City Hall] renovation plan called for repairs to the roof and new safety systems, including a sprinkler system and improvements to the fire alarm. To increase electrical capacity, the city planned to excavate a new sub-cellar to house new equipment.

They also decided to fix the ceiling in the City Council Chamber.

The estimated cost of the project: $65 million.

As the work got underway, problems mounted. Workers installing sprinklers in the "bullpen," where the mayor and close staffers work, discovered "alarming" water damage to the roof tresses that required steel reinforcement.

The new discoveries and others sent costs soaring to a whopping $119 million — nearly twice the original budget.

Whitestone small businesses plagued by lack of parking

From the Times Ledger:

A once-booming 14th Avenue commercial corridor in Whitestone has lost at least three businesses in the past month due to a dearth of parking, two remaining store owners say.

So the businessmen — Bobby Orzo, owner of Malba Market, and Rocco DiNardo, owner of DiNardo’s Restaurant and Pizzeria — have gone to City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) for relief.

The street’s scant parking spaces are occupied most days from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. by the vehicles of commuting workers who drop their cars off in the free spots there each morning before taking the bus from Queens to the Bronx for work, the shopkeepers say.

“That car is here 12 hours a day, this one is here 12 hours. They’re all here 12 hours,” Orzo said, pointing out vehicles in the dozen or so nearby parking spaces, none of which have meters or restricted hours. “This is our crisis here. This block is a white elephant. It’s dying because all these spots are taken all day by these drivers. A real estate guy I was talking to said no one will move into those stores because everyone knows there’s no parking.”

The pair of small businessmen hope that by getting the city to install signs that limit the length of time people can park or meters at the dozen or so spots will help revive their revenue streams.

Not the city's fault there's blackouts?

From NY1:

Grocery stores and gas stations could soon be shelling out sacks of cash on electrical upgrades.

The Daily News reports state legislators are mulling over a bill requested by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that would require stores to be blackout ready.

It could cost store owners up to $20,000 to rewire buildings to make them able to quickly switch to alternative power sources.

They would not be required to install backup generators.

The city says the legislation would ensure residents have food and fuel in an emergency, and that stores would benefit because they could continue making money.

The bill affects grocery stores with 60 or more employees or 20,000 square feet of space and gas stations with 25,000 gallons of fuel capacity.

The legislation is based on task force findings after the city's 2003 blackout.

Sure thing, why upgrade the power grid? Make the small business schmucks pay for it!

Alley Creek to be less crappy

From the Times Ledger:

A newly completed sewer facility in Bayside will keep the water in northeast Queens cleaner and its streets dryer.

Last week, the commissioner of the city Department of Environmental Protection announced the completion of the Alley Creek Combined Sewer Overflow Facility, which will reduce the amount of pollutants discharged into Alley Creek and Little Neck Bay.

“The completion of the Alley Creek CSO Facility is a major step forward in our efforts to improve harbor water quality, especially in northeast Queens,” DEP Commissioner Cas Holloway wrote in a statement.

The city’s waste and stormwater systems are integrated with one another, and when heavy rains push the system beyond capacity, it has to discharge the mix, which can be detrimental to the flora and fauna that populate the waterways.

When the two concrete barrels of the new retention facility overflow during large storm events, the adjacent storage tanks have the capacity to store up to 5 million gallons. According to the DEP, this decreases the overall volume of combined overflows discharged into Alley Creek by about 54 percent each year.

The DEP also rehabilitated the Old Douglaston Pump Station, which now has the capacity to pump more than 80 million gallons of wastewater a day from the Alley Creek CSO to the Tallman Island Wastewater Treatment Plant for treatment and disinfection.

Another massive project headed to Flushing - someday

From the Times Ledger:

River Park Place, a five-tower, mixed-use development project, has long been planned for the Flushing River waterfront, but Community Board 7 Vice Chairman Chuck Apelian has never heard of the project.

The plan by Manhattan’s LEV Development would bring more than 1 million square feet of residential and commercial space to 39-08 Janet Place, the neglected vacant area between Assi Plaza and Sky View Parc, according to LEV President and Chief Executive Officer Eddie Shapiro.

“It was going to be towers.” Shapiro said. “We’re still involved with it. It’s going to be 1 million square feet, but right now we can’t get financing for it .... we won’t be getting financing for it in the near future.”

The plan, as laid out on LEV’s website, is for 450 condominiums as well as hotel, office and retail space on the lot, also identified as 131-35 Roosevelt Ave.

But there are no current permits for construction at the site, and one that would have allowed for construction of a residential building there expired in March, according to city records.

Chuck Apelian, vice president of CB 7, said he had never heard mention of the project until last week and it had never come before the board in any form.

“It’s not a variance or a rezoning application. Every piece of land has the opportunity to build — that’s what as-of-right is — but it has not come before us,” he said.

But he added that the project, which he called “huge,” may face significant hurdles because the water table is high in that area right next to the Flushing River, meaning parking would most likely have to be built above ground there.

City and state don't compare notes

From the Times Ledger:

A Glendale business never got a license to open a restaurant, city officials said, but that did not stop it from getting a liquor license from the state.

Villagio Pizza, at 79-76 Cooper Ave., is listed as a factory, according to the city Department of Buildings, and does not have a certificate of occupancy to serve food.

The issue was brought up at a Community Board 5 meeting earlier this month, when Chairman Vincent Arcuri said Buildings had contacted the community board to alert it that the business was operating illegally.

But Arcuri said the State Liquor Authority should have caught the mistake, since it issued the illegal eatery a license to serve beer and wine May 9 that is valid until Jan. 31.

The liquor license on file on the authority’s website lists an address that does not even exist in Buildings’ database.

The authority did not respond to questions about the license by press time.

But a document from Buildings about the address of the owners, 79-04 Cooper Ave., which is attached to the restaurant, shows that a stop-work order was issued on the property.

New mall opens at Flushing Caldor site

From the Times Ledger:

A stunning new Asian mall has opened at the long-vacant Caldor site at the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in downtown Flushing.

New World Mall, at 136-30 Roosevelt Ave., is a four-floor emporium replete with the 45,000-square-foot J Mart Chinese grocery store, a 150-table Cantonese restaurant, a massive basement food court and dozens of Asian stores.

The 167,000-square-foot space, which is centered around a bank of new escalators, is decadently decorated with chandeliers, soaring ceilings and a dazzling array of shopping and eating options.

The top-floor restaurant’s tables were almost all filled with diners eager to try its dim sum even on a weekday morning last week, and the food court was bustling with hungry patrons.

“It’s a brand-new, mixed-use shopping mall,” Sharon Shi, a broker for Perfect Group Realty, which represents the project, said in September. “The majority of people are Chinese, so the purpose is to pick up a Chinese supermarket, but of course there will be American food, too.”

Of course.

Halloran's snow job

From the NY Times:

...on Friday, a report by the city’s Department of Investigation said that investigators, after interviewing more than 150 witnesses and reviewing video from surveillance cameras and from angry residents, had found no evidence of an organized slowdown. In fact, the report found, Mr. Halloran had no evidence for his accusation, and his account of conversations with two workers differed sharply from what the workers told investigators.

“In toto,” the report said, “Mr. Halloran’s information about city employee statements contributed no actual evidence about a possible slowdown.”

The report did find fault with elements of the city’s response to the Dec. 26 snowstorm, which left 20 inches of snow in Central Park and paralyzed the city for days. A half-dozen trucks, among hundreds reviewed, were inexplicably idle, or moving through snowbound streets with their plows raised for no apparent reason. Some workers remained with stuck vehicles for as long as 12 hours, investigators found. About 44 percent of the snow chains on trucks broke during the cleanup.

And a few workers were photographed buying beer or coffee when they were supposed to be cleaning the streets. The investigators said those workers were doing so only while stuck with broken-down equipment, and not as part of a labor slowdown, but the workers caught drinking now face disciplinary charges.

The city also made choices that might have slowed the cleanup. A decision to stop salting roads as the snowfall warnings increased was controversial within the Sanitation Department. And because the city elected not to declare a snow emergency, many drivers became stuck in roadways, and their cars impeded the cleanup.

From the Daily News:

City Councilman Dan Halloran of Queens faces a contempt of court charge for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury investigation of his claim that the city's sanitation workers engaged in an organized slowdown during the post-Christmas blizzard of 2010.

Actually, he deserves the contempt of all New Yorkers, particularly New York's Strongest.

This guy is unfit for office.

Haul-a-Mattress

Why dispose of mattresses properly when you can just toss them on an LIRR bridge for someone else to garbage pick? Any doubt these are full of critters?

Brooklyn wall collapse injures firefighter

From Eyewitness News:

A partial wall collapse injured a firefighter in the Prospect Heights section early Saturday morning.

A brick hit that firefighter in the face.

The collapse followed a four alarm fire in the seven-story building under construction on Washington Avenue.

The fire broke out around 4:00 a.m. in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn.

The building was vacant, but officials say three people suffered smoke inhalation as the fire and smoke spread to surrounding structures.

Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, which took about three hours to bring under control.

They are also concerned about the stability of the building and whether the rest of it may collapse.

Department of Building inspectors remained on the scene.

First year graduates return to Queens College

From the NY Times:

The nine college classmates adjusted their gowns and mortarboards and marched proudly out to the commencement ceremony on the quad of Queens College campus on Thursday morning.

“It’s like walking on the moon,” said Haskel Case, one of the classmates. “So much has changed.”

Mr. Case, 90, and the other eight classmates, were not graduating this day. They already did so, 70 years ago on this same spot as members of the the first graduating class from Queens College: the Class of ’41.

And now, none younger than 90, they were invited back to be honored during the college’s commencement.

They were among the college’s first 400 students when it opened in 1937. Of the handful still alive, nine showed up on Thursday. Most drove from nearby suburbs or flew in from other parts of the country.

One could understand Mr. Case’s disorientation. The campus he knew consisted of a modest horseshoe of six Spanish-style buildings surrounded by a sprawl of fields. Now there are more 40 buildings on campus, many of them modern constructions with so-called smart capabilities and wireless technology.

There were 197 students graduating Queens College in 1941, compared with the roughly 5,000 that earned degrees this year, of about 19,000 students currently enrolled in the college.

Meeks and King to block VA development

From the Queens Chronicle:

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Jamaica) and Rep. Peter King (R-Nassau) have introduced a bill that would prohibit the planned private development of the St. Albans Veteran’s Administration site.

The St. Albans project has been a source of controversy for years, with the VA believing that replacing the existing facilities with a new nursing home, rehabilitation domiciliary and expanded outpatient facilities is the way to go, despite consistent opposition from many veterans. A private developer would build the facilities in exchange for a long-term lease on part of the site where it would put up housing and stores open to the general public.

Many vets, however, are against any lease to a private entity and instead want a full-service hospital there, so servicemen and women in Queens and Nassau counties don’t have to travel to Brooklyn and Manhattan for care.

Meeks said if the bill passes, the government will not be able to override it and it will effectively kill the project. When asked where the money would come from to repair the VA site and for the full service hospital, Meeks noted that the facility was about 15th in line to receive federal funding for repairs. The enhanced use lease process just bumped it up in line.

Was Weiner trying to message stripper?

From the NY Post:

"I'm just collateral damage," Gennette Cordova, 21, lamented in explaining how her world was turned upside-down when she wound up on the receiving end of a lewd, underwear-clad crotch shot sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter account.

Cordova thinks the package-hugging picture -- which Weiner "can't say with certitude" isn't his -- was meant for somebody else and landed in her Twitter account by mistake.

Cordova is one of 198 people, many of them young, beautiful women, whom Weiner follows on Twitter.

Until recently, the congressman also followed stripper and porn actress Ginger Lee, 28, who openly gushes about her "Mr. Sexy Congressman" on social-network sites.

"Her name is Ginger -- it makes sense he might have mixed us up," Cordova said, noting that two of the first three letters of their names are the same.

Weiner has admitted he sent Lee at least one private Twitter message, but has declined to reveal the content and claims they've never met.

Does MTA have the wrong priorities?

From Fox 5:

Peeling paint, cracking walls -- but brand-new electronic signs? Why is the MTA putting up expensive signs at subway stations without fixing the ceilings they're hanging from?

Fox 5's Barbara Nevins Taylor investigated the issue.

Metal thieves vandalize World's Fair commemoration

I guess the price of scrap metal is too much to pass up these days.

Flushing street on fire!

MYFOXNY.COM - An underground fire burned on a street in Flushing, Queens, Friday afternoon, but there were conflicting accounts of the cause.

The FDNY said the blaze came from a ruptured gas line, but Con Edison called it a "manhole fire." Flames could be seen shooting out of a manhole at the intersection of 75th Avenue and Main Street.

Fire, Con Ed, and National Grid crews were on the scene.

Authorities evacuated one building as a precaution, the FDNY said.

No one was hurt as of 4:30 p.m.

Friday photo caption opportunity

This one is almost too easy.

Photo from NY Magazine, which really ripped him a new one.

Men in Black filming in Richmond Hill

Hi QC,

[Thursday] morning there was quite a traffic jam in Richmond Hill!

Men in Black 3 is being filmed in RH from June 01 to June 03.

So what if traffic is screwed up, no one can park on Jamaica ave. Between 110th street and Lefferts and some side streets, cars are towed and peoples sleep is disturbed. At least we are getting some new stores in the neighborhood.

And look how low cab fare is these days.

I like the MIB movies, really. However this is very disrupting to many. And I heard nothing of it until I saw it today.

Thanks.

-Joe

P.S. The bus does not stop here...

Weiner in meltdown mode

From the NY Post:

He won't call the cops on his supposed hacker -- but Anthony Weiner's office called police on a reporter yesterday.

CBS/Channel 2 said its reporter Marcia Kramer went to his Washington office hoping for an interview. It said she was ignored until press secretary David Arnold finally showed up.

Then, the station said, Kramer told Arnold, "All I want is for him [Weiner] to say something to his constituents, the people who have to vote for him."

Arnold replied, "I don't think you can say he hasn't said anything to his constituents. He spoke for nine hours yesterday."

Kramer answered, "But not to anyone in New York."

After she left the office, the station said, his staffers called Capitol Police.

The officers found Kramer and asked her for identification.

One cop told her she could be arrested if she went into Weiner's office and didn't leave if told to.

"If you go to an office and are asked to leave, you can be placed under arrest," Officer Michael Miller said, according to the station.

Kramer noted that she hadn't refused to leave.

New hope for Rockaway mall?

From the Daily News:

A new lease for a supermarket and a renovation project are renewing hope that the deteriorated Far Rockaway Shopping Center can make a comeback.

The operators of the Associated supermarket have worked out a deal with property owner Rita Stark to stay at the location for another 15 years and give the store a much-needed facelift.

George Arzt, a spokesman for Stark, said he expects the revamped food market to serve as an anchor that will attract other retailers to the shopping center, which has sat mostly vacant for years.

"We're in discussions with about half-a-dozen other potential tenants," Arzt said. "We're talking to drug stores, fitness centers and local restaurants. What we are doing now is trying to get an appropriate mix for this particular center."

Stark and her consultants spent years unsuccessfully trying to lure a big box store to the site, Arzt said.

Local officials are cautiously optimistic. Stark has a vast portfolio of property in Queens and is known for her mercurial temperament. She has often resisted development, allowing decades-old buildings to sit vacant even in resurgent areas such as Jamaica.

Hospital generator generating a lot of noise

From BushwickBK:

Wyckoff Heights Medical Center is causing its neighbors some pain.

The hospital parked a generator and a cooling unit on Stockholm Street last month in order to power its ailing air-conditioning system.

But nearby residents complain that the generator’s constant rattling is keeping them up at night and that its diesel fumes are causing respiratory problems.

"It’s like being in a wind tunnel or a really noisy factory floor where all the machines are roaring all at once," said Deborah Brown, a community board member, whose studio is a block away. "It is constant, ambient noise, not episodic bursts."

St. Nicholas Avenue resident Hilda Shen even filmed the generator in action and called 311 several times — which led the city to issue the hospital two violations for noise and air pollution.

And the city found further problems — the hospital was operating the generator without a permit, which earned them another violation and an Environmental Control Board hearing on June 15.

Shen is demanding that the hospital move the generator or shut it down completely.

"The noise of these machines has been enormous, and affected the sleep and health of the neighborhood," said Shen. "The machines run all the time, and the noise is inescapable."

Ignoring tax cheats

From the NY Post:

The city's list of tax breaks for homeowners targets the aged, the disabled, military veterans and members of the clergy.

But add a new category: the greedy.

The city, which admitted it doesn't check whether the requests for property-tax exemptions are legit, has awarded at least 45 homeowners four or more tax breaks on claims that the recipient is a cleric and veteran who is disabled and elderly, a Post review found.

And they get a fifth break, under the School Tax Relief Program (STAR), by claiming the property is their primary residence -- all without any proof they're eligible.

A Bronx homeowner, Holman Young, who claimed five tax exemptions, is not disabled or a clergyman, according to his own sister, Geraldine Maheira, who lives with him at 1692 Weeks Ave.

Maheira, who answered the door at Young's home recently, said her brother -- who was traveling out of the country -- is an Army vet.

The gravy train is conducted by the Department of Finance, which has admitted it grants the annual tax breaks on an honor system and does not ask for any documents before giving the handouts.

In fiscal year 2010, the city shelled out $300 million worth of exemptions to roughly 789,600 homeowners.

TLC cracks down on street hails

From the NY Post:

A band of outlaw livery-car firms has racked up a slew of illegal street hails, even amid a city crackdown.

The 10 firms, among the 461 registered with the city, account for 10 percent of all illegal-hail tickets written by Taxi and Limousine Commission agents from April to May, records show.

So far, city officials have written 5,420 summonses in their sting operation, in which they pose as passengers to see whether livery cars respond to street hails.

Leading the worst-offenders list is Bangla Car & Limo Service, which has been hit with 105 summonses. More than half were issued in the last 10 weeks, records show.

Taxi brass say that illegal hails encourage price gouging. The practice also drops the value of yellow-cab medallions.

Who wouldn't want to raise a family here?

Gorgeous Linden Place in Flushing.

New candidate on deck

From the Daily News:

The scramble to fill the seat of former Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer has taken another turn, with her longtime aide [Joann Shapiro] announcing she will not run for the post.

That clears the deck for Phillip Goldfeder, an aide to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer. Goldfeder is being touted as the Queens Democratic Party's pick to replace Pheffer, who recently stepped down from her legislative post to become the Queens County Clerk.

The district includes parts of Ozone Park, Howard Beach and the Rockaways.

Shapiro said she made the decision not to run after having discussions with her family.

Goldfeder, a Far Rockaway native, has worked for both Republicans and Democrats, including a stint on Mayor Bloomberg's 2005 campaign and City Councilman Simcha Felder's unsuccessful campaign for state Senate.

Going after parking scofflaws? Try developers, too.

From the Daily News:

When deadbeats refuse to pay their parking tickets, towing and booting aren't enough, city officials say.

Now they're going after vehicle registrations.

"When you don't pay, we're going to come after you as hard as we possibly can," said Finance Commissioner David Frankel. "We've started looking at every way that we have to collect money from people who are putting the screws to the people who do pay."

The city sent warning letters in March to 13,000 motorists who had racked up five or more unpaid parking tickets over any 12-month period in the last eight years.

The deadbeats - who collectively owed the city $17 million for 130,000 tickets - were told they'd lose their registrations if they refuse to pay up.

That could mean facing misdemeanor charges that carry hefty fines or jail time if they're caught driving without a registration.

Some scofflaws promptly paid up, pouring a quick infusion of $1.6 million into the cash-strapped city's coffers to pay off 15,000 tickets.

Those who didn't respond within 30 days were turned over to the state's Department of Motor Vehicles for registration suspension.

I don't have a problem with this. However, why the crackdown on motorists and not on developers? How many of them have tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid fines? Stop issuing permits to them and pull the ones that have already been issued. Watch how quickly they would pay off their fines. That would rake in a hell of a lot more revenue than 15,000 parking tickets.

Trying to unionize Target

From the NY Times:

In the world of big-box discounters, Target enjoys a reputation as a model corporate citizen that sells the latest in cheap chic. That’s a sharp contrast to the image of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, which labor unions have pilloried for years, accusing it of providing skimpy wages and benefits and skirting various labor laws.

Some 5,000 workers at 27 Target stores in the New York area are being urged to join a union.

But the arrows are about to come flying at Target’s famous bull’s-eye logo. The nation’s largest union for retail workers has embarked on its first broad campaign to unionize Target workers.

The union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is trying to organize 5,000 workers at 27 Target stores in the New York City area. A majority of workers at the Target store in Valley Stream, N.Y., have already signed cards supporting unionization, and a government-supervised election there on June 17 will be the first time in more than two decades that Target workers will vote on whether to join a union.

The union decided to focus on Target after employees in Valley Stream, on Long Island, asked for help in unionizing. Echoing longstanding complaints by some Wal-Mart workers, the store’s employees complained that many of them earned too little to support a family or afford health insurance, forcing some to rely on food stamps and Medicaid for their children.

That's interesting. No one protested when Target came to town. But Wal-Mart is a different story? Hmmm...

Ackerman pushes Ponzi protection bill

From the Daily News:

If Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz are going to retain control of the Mets, and their family's fortune, their best hope may be legislation introduced last week by a New York congressman.

Rep. Gary Ackerman's bill would bar bankruptcy trustees such as Irving Picard, the Madoff trustee who filed a $1 billion lawsuit against the Mets owners in December, from suing investors victimized by a Ponzi scheme unless the trustee could prove they participated in the scam.

Under the Ponzi Scheme Investor Protection Act of 2011 sponsored by Ackerman (D-NY), the only investors who would face "clawback" litigation would be investors whom the trustee can legally establish were complicit in a Ponzi scheme or negligent investment professionals. Trustees are currently permitted to sue Ponzi scheme victims even if they did not have involvement or knowledge of the fraud - and the Mets' owners say they did not.

If Ackerman's bill passes, it would be applied retroactively, which means Picard would have to drop the suit against the Mets' owners or prove that Wilpon and Katz were complicit in Madoff's $64 billion scam.

The measure was sent to the House Financial Services Committee. Ackerman said it will be an uphill battle to win congressional approval for the bill.

"Whether rich people make money or lose money, they get no sympathy from the public," Ackerman said.

Window guards, elevators not being inspected

From Metro:

After a 2-year-old girl fell out of a fifth-floor window that her mother said did not have mandatory safety bars, an audit by City Comptroller John Liu alleges that the city is too often lax when it comes to checking that bars are installed.

According to city law, landlords must install window guards if a child 10 years old or younger lives in the building.

The Department of Health fielded 37,148 window guard violations from 2007 to 2009. They then directed the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to follow up. Yet, after looking at a sample — 632 — of those violations, Liu found that HPD closed nearly half of them, 288, without ever verifying with the tenant that bars were indeed installed. An HPD spokesman said inspectors did indeed return to check — they just weren’t always allowed in by tenants.

From the Daily News:

Nearly three years after a 5-year-old died trying to escape a stalled housing project elevator, whistleblowing city inspectors say they're being told to fake reports and take safety shortcuts.

The city Housing Authority vowed to get on top of elevator safety after Jacob Neuman fell 10 stories to his death in August 2008 trying to squeeze out of a stuck lift at a Brooklyn project.

Years later, six inspectors have come forward to say the system remains unsafe because bosses pressure them to close inspections without doing a thorough job.

They say supervisors are obsessed with meeting a daily quota of six inspections a man, often ordering them to move to the next job without shutting dangerous elevators and waiting for a mechanic, as NYCHA rules dictate.

One veteran inspector who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation said he was under constant pressure not to pull the plug on unsafe elevators.

"I told them somebody's wife could be riding on that elevator, somebody's kid," he said. "They didn't want to hear it."

Are we in for a long, hot summer?

From the Daily News:

A recent spate of murders in the city combined with a shrinking police force has some officials and residents fearing bloody months ahead.

And the summer hasn't even started yet.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has warned for some time that the reduction in the number of officers - from 41,000 in 2001 to 35,400 this year - would eventually have an impact on crime.

That warning stands a good chance of coming true beginning in July, when a Police Academy class typically hits the street, according to City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens). Budget cuts forced the postponement of the class.

"We're not going to have new police officers the rest of the year," said Vallone, who heads the City Council's Public Safety Committee. "Right now, it's clear to the population we do not have the beat cops and bike cops we used to have. And if it's clear to the population, it's clear to the bad guys, as well."

Anthony won't discuss his wiener

From CBS:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) refused to answer reporters' questions Tuesday as to whether or not a photo of a man's underwear tweeted from his Twitter account was his. Weiner called the incident a "distraction" and said he wouldn't talk about it any more.

They're shoveling more than just dirt

From Gotham Gazette:

On the Monday before Earth Day 2011, at a well publicized press event, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other high-ranking city officials broke ground on a market-rate housing development in south Williamsburg. New luxury rentals in Williamsburg are hardly news these days, but this one is unprecedented. Its developer received funding from the country's first city-funded brownfield program, brought to you by PlaNYC 2030.

Back in 2007, PlaNYC 2030 estimated that there were more than 7,000 acres of brownfields, or vacant or underutilized sites that are likely contaminated with toxic chemicals (such as old gas stations, factories and dry cleaners) across the city's five boroughs. Not only are these sites eyesores, but because developers are reluctant to take them on, they hamstring neighborhood revitalization.

Until now, the city has relied on federal and state funding for brownfield development. But PlaNYC called for the city to establish its own brownfield program, and it set a goal of redeveloping all 7,000 acres by 2030. According to the PlaNYC 2030 update, released last month, the city will distribute $10 million over the next few years to help developers pay for brownfield redevelopment, especially in low-income areas.

However, as brownfield programs in other parts of the country come to fruition, some question how much they actually serve low-income communities in the long-term. An independent study conducted in 2010, for instance, found widespread gentrification and displacement in conjunction with brownfield projects across six of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's ten regions. Will the city be able to build a better brownfield program?

Sadik-Kahn changes mind about Brooklyn traffic islands

From CBS:

The Borough Park traffic islands that CBS 2 first told you about six months ago, the ones that caused such chaos, are apparently going to be removed, Marcia Kramer reports exclusively.

When CBS 2 first aired this story last November you saw Ladder 114 having trouble rushing to a fire in Borough Park. It ran smack dab into cement traffic islands installed by the DOT.

A back-up caused by the traffic island forced an ambulance to pull into oncoming traffic to swerve around the barricade and the problems of ambulances trying to reach the Maimonides Hospital emergency room down the block continue to this very day.

But apparently not for very much longer.

In a rare change of heart, Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan has, sources say, agreed to remove the offending barricades. The move will head off a threatened suit by Assemblyman Hikind, who had gathered petitions from more than 1,000 constituents.

Eminent domain for its intended purpose?

From Sunnyside Post:

Jimmy Van Bramer has not given up on his plan to purchase a piece of Woodside land and convert it into a neighborhood park.

The city Parks Department, at the request of Van Bramer, has been trying to buy the property from its owner Vinny Oppedisano for the past year without success. The property, known as the Woodside Triangle, is located at the intersection of 59th and 60th streets and 34th Ave., and had been used as a de facto park by nearby residents for decades. However, Oppedisano cleared the site last year for construction purposes.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the city’s Parks Department had finally abandoned negotiating with him as the parties couldn’t agree on a price.

However, on Thursday, Van Bramer said he plans to bring the Parks Department and Oppedisano to the bargaining table one last time to see if something can be hammered out. “If it doesn’t come together, we will pursue all options.”

In a February interview, Van Bramer said that his office has had some preliminary discussions about getting the property via eminent domain and it is something he will continue to look into.

Taking property from a developer for public use is no longer considered to be a legitimate use of eminent domain. But taking property from a private entity to give to a developer - now we're talking. Good luck with this effort.