There is no city plan to deal with the prospect of indefinite school closings during outbreak

NY Post

Mayor de Blasio admitted that the city doesn’t have an immediate backup plan if he closes the city’s public schools amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

“A variety of contingencies are being set up. They are far from perfect,” de Blasio said on CNN Sunday morning after a growing number of teachers, local elected officials and parents called for the closure.

“The difference between a functioning school system for over 1 million kids versus creating alternative centers for feeding or for the kids of health care workers, that kind of thing, if we got to that point we would improvise anything and everything,” de Blasio said.

“But it will not be by any means as good by definition as what we do every day when we have a functioning school system. But those contingencies are being built as we speak,” he said.

The plans are not complete even though de Blasio began to hold tabletop exercises with emergency management officials in January.
As of Sunday morning, the mayor wasn’t ready to make the call to shut down the school system.

“My blunt fear is if the schools shut down they will be done for the year, done for the school year maybe even for the calendar year. So I’m very reticent to shut down schools,” de Blasio said.

Crowds are still gathering at bars despite rise of COVID-19 cases

Eater

After a Saturday night with many restaurants and bars filled with people, more government officials are calling for a shutdown of public spaces to help curb the spread of COVID-19 — including closing restaurants and bars.

On Sunday afternoon, City Council speaker Corey Johnson joined in on the cacophony of voices calling for a shutdown of “non-essential” businesses, including restaurants and bars, though he added that delivery services should stay open.

Brad Ladner, the city councilman for Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, and Comptroller Scott Stringer, “out of an abundance of caution,” called for closures earlier in the weekend. And Councilman Mark Levine, who chairs the Council Committee on Health, said that many venues were violating the new state order requiring businesses to reduce capacity in half. He too called for a shutdown, under the hashtag #shutdownNYC, pointing to the health of staff, who have no choice but to show up.

Meanwhile, on Saturday night in nearby Hoboken, Mayor Ravinder Bhalla banned all restaurants from having dine-in customers and closed bars without food all together, also implementing a 10 p.m. curfew for residents. The development came about after a person who got into a bar fight in Hoboken waited more than 30 minutes for an ambulance due to a strained health system, Bhalla wrote in a press release.

“This is not OK. This is not a drill. This is dangerous,” Levine tweeted.

All schools will be closed in Nassau County tommorow

 

  NY Post

 All private and public schools in Nassau County are closing for two weeks because of the coronavirus, officials said Sunday.

The shutdown starts Monday.

Nassau County Executive Lauren Curran made the announcement, saying she had discussed the matter with Gov. Cuomo and that that state was trying to address the issue of health-care employees with school-age children being able to continue to work while schools are shut, Newsday reported.

Your move Mayor de Blasio and Richard Carranza

How President Donald Trump handled the burgeoning global Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic

NBC News


Luciana Borio once worked on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, but she left last year after a purge of the global health unit.

So when she realized how bad the coronavirus outbreak was likely to get — and saw that the Trump administration was not taking the necessary steps to contain it — all she could do was take her case to the public.

“Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” was the headline of her Jan. 28 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, in which she called for widespread testing and beefing up hospital preparedness. “The Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread at an alarming rate,” she warned in a subsequent op-ed a few days later.

Trump saw the situation much differently. While he blocked some Chinese nationals from entering the country in late January, his public message was simple: This is no big deal.

“We only have five people. Hopefully, everything's going to be great,” he said on Jan. 30. A few days later, he said, “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

But in fact, the Trump administration hadn’t shut down the coronavirus. The testing that Borio and other experts called for never took place, even as Trump continued to downplay the risks and make a series of false statements that experts say muddied public understanding.

As the virus continues to spread across the United States, the nation is reeling, with schools closed, sporting and cultural events shut down, and an economy in danger of lapsing into recession. As many as 50 Americans have died.

An examination of how the Trump administration responded to the coronavirus outbreak that was first documented in December reveals a story of missed opportunities, mismanagement and a president who resisted the advice of experts urging a more aggressive response. All the while, Trump made a series of upbeat claims, some of which were flatly false, including that the number of cases was declining in the U.S. and that “anybody who needs a test gets a test.”

On Friday, Trump moved to take steps that experts said should have been done weeks ago, declaring a national emergency and launching a new, broader testing program.

Apparently, we just might have made these steps on day one when it was first reported if the President didn't decimate his National Security team.

In 2018, Trump fired his homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, whose portfolio included global pandemics. The next month, national security adviser John Bolton disbanded the NSC’s global health unit. Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, the top official in charge of a pandemic response, also left his job. 
So did Borio, whose title was director for medical and biodefense preparedness.

None of them was replaced. That meant Trump had no top advisers in the White House with expertise in global pandemics.

“You organize your NSC around the threats you care about,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the U.S. government’s response to international disasters under the Obama administration.
Pandemics were deemed a lower priority for the Trump national security team, Konyndyk and other public health experts said.

I am going to get a lot of ribbing about this from a lot of devoted Crap readers, but right now it's better and definitively safer to have #TDS than the Wuhan Coronavirus.

Auto dealer puts Forest Hills tower development on hold

 

Queens Chronicle
 
The Department of Buildings issued three violations and a full stop-work order at 105-02 Queens Blvd. in Forest Hills, the site of a former Key Food, following a field inspection in late January.

Inspectors found the construction fence had been erected without a DOB permit, that it wasn’t properly installed and that the site wasn’t properly safeguarded, an agency spokesman told the Chronicle.

“The stop-work order is new to me since I don’t see any work going on there,” said Michael Cohen of Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz’s (D-Forest Hills) office.

He said the office heard the developer, Slate Property Group, hasn’t proceeded with any construction because it is looking to obtain the parking lot of a car dealership next to the former Key Food site.

Jimmy Berg, owner of Sunrise Chevrolet across the street, told the Chronicle Wednesday there have been discussions to incorporate the used car lot into the project. Berg rents the property from General Motors.

“At this point there hasn’t been an agreement that General Motors has been able to negotiate to their satisfaction to make that deal happen,” he said.

How close is a deal to happening?

“At this point, not that close,” Berg said, adding that it’s been a couple of months since Slate and General Motors talked.

“We want a quality project there and if we can be part of a quality project that is good for the community and continues to give us visibility from Queens Boulevard and doesn’t encroach on our ability to do business then we’re all for it,” Berg said.

Key Food closed in the spring of 2018 after standing at the corner of Queens and Yellowstone boulevards for decades.

Anyone remember Slate Property. Bet y'all do. There the ones who tried to flip the Rivington House for a huge profit with assistance from de Blasio's officials which led to their removal from modernizing the Bedford Armory building. And they also tried to turn a dirty toxic empty lot into a pop up beach in Ridgewood.

Oh see that sign all the way in the back. That's what Slate wants.

Queens BP Temp Sharon Lee disapproves Flushing Creek development permitted by CB7

 

City Limits

 The interim borough president of Queens recommended against approval of a development plan for the Flushing waterfront in an advisory opinion Friday.

Sharon Lee acknowledged the potential of the proposed Special Flushing Waterfront District to fulfill long-held dreams of revitalizing the area—the unrealized goal of at least five earlier planning efforts.

“Downtown Flushing, however, is not immune to the consequences of transformative large-scale new development that inadvertently leaves many behind,” Lee wrote in her recommendation. “The people living closely to the SFWD will bear the brunt of the noise, dust, traffic and other construction-related inconveniences as the proposed project is built, with little chance to afford or secure some of the new housing that would be built in the new modern waterfront development.”

To make the project acceptable, Lee specified, developers must commit to paying prevailing wages, hiring union labor and building more affordable housing, and that the school system must find a place for new school seats in downtown Flushing. 

I don't know how much of an effect an interim office holder can have on a political machine based decision but here's a thought, write in Sharon's name on the ballot for Queens BP. 

A percentage of babies born in the city wind up homeless in Cuomo's and de Blasio's New York

NY Daily News

One out of a hundred New York City newborns last year went “home” from the hospital to a homeless shelter, a heartbreaking new analysis by the Coalition for the Homeless revealed.

The group’s annual report, to be released Wednesday, lays blame for that and scores of other sobering statistics squarely at the feet of the two most powerful men in New York — Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio.

“New York City’s homelessness crisis will not improve until Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio treat homelessness like the urgent humanitarian crisis it is and acknowledge that it is fueled by the massive lack of affordable housing," said Giselle Routhier, the coalition’s policy director.

Aside from infants, the hardest hit by the homelessness crisis in recent years are the elderly, blacks and Hispanics, according to the report.

De Blasio has made the problem worse through a policy that “exacerbates" a housing market divided between the rich and poor and that creates too many high-rent units and not enough that are affordable, the report says.

The coalition also blamed Cuomo for implementing “damaging cost-shifting practices" that lowered the amount of money the state put toward addressing homelessness, putting further financial stress on the city.

“Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo seem content with minimalist, symbolic and too-often harmful actions made under the pretense of attempting to manage the problem, rather than taking the substantive steps needed to solve it," the report states.

Early voting for Borough President election will proceed during coronavirus scare

 

 THE CITY

Queens residents will be able to cast their votes early beginning Saturday to decide who will become the next borough president.

With anxieties about the coronavirus pandemic high, the city Board of Elections and several candidates for borough president are encouraging people to vote ahead of the March 24 special election to lessen the opportunity for large crowds at polling locations.

“This is an opportunity for Queens residents to avoid the highest turnout on the final day of voting,” said Councilmember Costa Constantinides, who is among the half-dozen candidates vying for the seat vacated by Melinda Katz, now the borough’s district attorney.

Candidates said they’re rolling with the race’s current changing landscape, and at least three of the six are pressing pause on get out the vote efforts in the field.

Constantinides announced Thursday his campaign was halting handing out fliers at subway stations and knocking on doors to speak to voters.

“Our organizers and volunteers go door-to-door or to mass transit hubs everyday, and we do not want to put the health of them or anyone else at risk at this time,” said Patrick Jordan, Constantinides’ campaign manager.

Former City Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley’s campaign also announced on Thursday it would suspend in-person canvassing.

“Our campaign is halting canvassing because of the coronavirus pandemic to protect the safety and health of all,” Crowley said. “We are following all guidelines from public health officials during this fast moving crisis.”

Councilmember Donovan Richards’ spokesperson also said they would halt canvassing.

Retired NYPD sergeant Anthony Miranda said he harbored concerns that his campaign volunteers might be endangering their health. They have reported fewer people were opening their doors.

“It’s presenting a lot of challenges right now to the known methods of collecting signatures,” Miranda said. “We are in a scary place right now in terms of just community health.”

City orders school officials to obfuscate any display of coronavirus symptons of faculty and students

 

THE CITY

Two days before closing a New York City public school building where a student tested positive for the coronavirus, Department of Education officials sent out an internal memo advising staff not to report anyone with potential symptoms to the city Department of Health, THE CITY has learned.

The memo from schools headquarters to staff systemwide went out Tuesday morning, days after Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed that three public school teachers who’d been in a coronavirus hot zone had to be tested. At the same time, his health commissioner issued an order mandating that educators, first responders and city health care workers deemed at risk must be tested.

The memo lists a number of precautions to stem the spread of the virus, but explicitly makes clear the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene —  the command center for tracking the virus in New York City — should not be contacted.

“At the moment, there is no reason for any school to call DOHMH to report potential or confirmed cases. DOHMH is receiving information from about positive test results strictly from laboratories. We can support our colleagues at DOHMH by keeping their phones clear to speak with laboratories.”

Mid-morning Thursday, more than 24 hours after THE CITY asked about the logic of this approach, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokesperson Stephanie Buhle wrote in an email, “Our guidance is abundantly clear: if you’re sick, stay home. Physicians and public health professionals guide when testing is appropriate.”

An hour earlier, de Blasio announced that two schools co-located in a South Bronx building — the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology and South Bronx Preparatory — were shut down temporarily “due to a student’s self-confirmed positive case of COVID-19,” the designation for the coronavirus illness.

The statement notes that the Department of Education will “completely disinfect the building” and that the Health Department will “trace close contacts of this individual [student] to recommend quarantine and testing if necessary.” The two schools enroll a total of more than 1,300 students in grades six through 12.

Subsequently, schools officials tweeted, “At this time there is no indication that students in these schools need to be tested” but advised them to stay in their homes until further notice. The school building was shut down for 24 hours following a protocol issued last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

City Hall has not yet released any details on the circumstances that led to the student being tested for COVID-19, but during a news conference Thursday afternoon, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza confirmed the protocol advising staff not to notify DOHMH of suspected cases, explaining that the DOE did not want to “inundate” the Health Department.

City schools will remain open as scheduled during State Of Emergency because of the large amount of students who are homeless

Chancellor Cantstandya

NY Post

City schools will remain open indefinitely despite mounting coronavirus fears, Chancellor Richard Carranza told a parent group Thursday.

Carranza said the decision was driven by the roughly 100,000 students either living in temporary housing or shelters who depend on schools to provide meals and other programs — and other vulnerable groups, who lean on the school system as a vital social safety net.

That means many students would have nowhere to go and nothing to eat should public schools lock their doors, Department of Education and City Hall officials have argued.

A participant at the meeting of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee asked Carranza about a petition with about 108,000 signatures demanding a systemwide shutdown.

The schools chief said the DOE would maintain the status quo “until 108,000 epidemiologists” make the same demand.

Carranza reiterated that schools with confirmed coronavirus cases would be addressed on a case by case basis.


Carranza said that the building would reopen after a thorough cleaning.

Homeless people sleeping rough at JFK have no fear of coronavirus

NY Daily News

Social distancing isn’t part of the plan for dozens of homeless people who spend their nights in the terminals of Kennedy Airport amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“Right now, if I sleep on the outside what do you think is going to happen to me? I get the sickness,” said a former taxi driver who has been sleeping in the arrivals area of Terminal 4 for the past few weeks. “There’s a virus going around. But right here, they spray things to protect the passengers.”

The travel hub — the country’s busiest airport for international travel — is still a popular sleeping spot for many New Yorkers who have no other place to go.

Unlike the homeless people who find refuge in the city’s subways or parks, these vagabonds are largely invisible. Many of them blend in with travelers on long layovers on the public side of security gates, mostly undisturbed by police.

“The main appeal of JFK is you can be pretty passed out at your worst state — you can look gross — and it’s normal because there are so many people who are just stuck on long layovers,” said a well-kept man in his 40s who spends half his nights at JFK.

But as the coronavirus crisis turns into a global pandemic, the airport’s unofficial residents are left exposed at a port of entry that until recently served more than 170,000 passengers a day.

A traveler who flew out of JFK on Wednesday night tested positive for the disease, prompting the Port Authority to launch a deep clean of the airport. Earlier this week, Rick Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority, which runs JFK, tested positive for the coronavirus.

On Tuesday night, a day before Trump announced a temporary ban on travelers from Europe, Pasaud was camped out towards the back of a row of benches near the arrivals area of Terminal 4, which serves more than 30 international airlines.

 “Shelters are dangerous, but now what?" asked the well-kept man in his 40s. "People will care about me because of the coronavirus? You didn’t care about my poverty or loneliness because those traits aren’t contagious. You only care about this because you can catch it.”

New York City is in a state of emergency from coronavirus pandemic

NY Daily News

Mayor de Blasio declared a state of emergency, and Gov. Cuomo banned public events of more than 500 people Thursday as the dogged and potentially-deadly coronavirus picked up steam, nearly doubling the number of infected New Yorkers in just a single day.

No bright lights. No Bible studies. No big or jam-packed crowds. That was the effect of the governor’s gathering ban, which goes into effect 5 p.m. Friday, and applies to large houses of worship, arenas and concert halls including Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center and the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

All Broadway theaters went dark Thursday evening.

Venues that draw crowds of less than 500 people — including bars and restaurants — can only be filled to 50% capacity under the ban, Cuomo said.

"We’re going to take very dramatic actions,” Cuomo said.

Exempted are hospitals, schools nursing homes and mass transit, he said.

The new restrictions and the state of emergency were put in place amid a rapid rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city. De Blasio said there were 95 confirmed cases across the five boroughs including an alarming 42 cases in just one day. Of the sobering total, 29 people were in mandatory quarantine, de Blasio said. The mayor predicted the city could have 1,000 cases by next week and said the crisis could last six months or longer.

Under a state of emergency, the mayor can order public spaces to be closed and cleared, restrict vehicle access, initiate curfews and modify labor contracts.

De Blasio said the restrictions will be hard on city businesses.

“We don’t do any of this lightly. This is difficult stuff," de Blasio said. “It’s really going to be kind of a hole in our lives. It’s painful. It’s not something we would ever want to do, but we have to do.”

“There’s one small piece of good news,” the mayor said. “We had the first case of somebody coming out of mandatory quarantine and able to go back to their lives.”

De Blasio said he wants to keep the schools open.

“We are going to fight tooth and nail to protect our school system for many, many reasons,” de Blasio said. “It where our children are very safe, and our parents have no alternatives. We’re going to do our damndest to keep the schools open.”

The city has also suspended evictions anywhere in city housing unless criminal activity is involved.

The state, meanwhile, will impose restrictions on nursing homes across the state, including banning all visitors, and will mandate that all staff wear masks and be monitored for symptoms.

The elderly are particularly susceptible to the coronavirus.

Cuomo said nursing home facilities can make exceptions for those visiting a family member who is critically ill or facing death, though they, too, must wear protective gear.

I might sound persnickety but when Cuomo declared a state of emergency for New York State, isn't de Blasio's announcement redundant?

Mayor de Blasio stupidly breaks CDC protocol by wrongly advising woman about coronavirus

NY Post

Mayor Bill de Blasio directly contradicted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on Wednesday when he gave a woman who’d recently returned from coronavirus-ridden Italy bad advice on when to self-isolate.

Hizzoner dished out the dubious tip while fielding a call at a 311 center in Lower Manhattan, as reporters looked on.

“No symptoms of any kind?” de Blasio asked the unidentified caller, who had recently come back from a trip to Europe’s hardest-hit nation but not shown any signs of sickness. “If you experience any symptoms at any moment, at that time adjust your approach.

“The important thing is to really be sensitive that if anything changes at all stay home immediately.”
The CDC, however, advises that anyone returning stateside from Italy self-isolate for two weeks — regardless of whether they’re symptomatic.

“Stay home for 14 days from the time you left Italy and practice social distancing,” the agency writes on its website.

City Hall admitted de Blasio was wrong and said it had reached out to the caller to give her the right information, following an inquiry from The Post.

“The mayor misspoke,” spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said. “If you return from Italy you should self-quarantine regardless of symptoms. We have made contact with the caller and clarified and the mayor will be issuing a clarification, as well.”

Governor Cuomo exploits coronavirus outbreak to expand his gubernatorial powers and he starts by debuting prisoner Purell

 

NY Post

 Gov. Cuomo scored a dramatic expansion of his emergency powers that left even top Democrats wary thanks to provisions tucked inside of a hastily drafted $40 million spending bill to fight the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The legislation expanded Cuomo’s powers to declare an emergency and even suspend laws state or local laws in their entirety, with little oversight from lawmakers.

“What it does do is give the governor very extensive, and almost unlimited, affirmative legislative power to not only waive existing laws and provisions of existing laws,” said longtime Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan), “but it also empowers him to essentially issue new legislation.”

“I’ve never seen any governor or health commissioner ask for this kind of expansion of power,” added the Assembly health committee chairman, who was first elected 1970.
Gottfried’s counterpart in the upper chamber, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-The Bronx), also voted no.

“I cannot vote in good conscience to give the governor what are in essence, dictatorial powers when he and the health commissioner already have sufficient power to deal with coronavirus,” said Assemblyman Phil Steck (D-Schenectady), ahead of his nay vote Monday night.
However, those concerns did not stop the Assembly and state Senate from overwhelmingly passing the legislation, which sets an April 2021 expiration date for Cuomo’s new authority.

NY Post

New York’s jailbirds are helping to combat the coronavirus.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday unveiled what he called the state’s weapon against despicable price-gougers taking advantage of coronavirus fears — a new hand sanitizer produced by New York prison inmates.

Cuomo said the “superior product” is not only cheaper than brands made by greedy commercial businesses but will be readily available to New York governments, the MTA, schools and even the prisons where it’s being made.

“It’s much cheaper for us to make it ourselves than to buy it on the open market,” said Cuomo, adding that a gallon jug of the state-produced product costs $6 to make.
It has a “floral bouquet,” the governor added.

Corcraft, the state Corrections Department’s manufacturing service fueled by inmate workers, is manufacturing the sanitizer, Cuomo said.

What a fortunate development. Too bad herr governor pissed away all those subsidies for a shitty movie studio the state wound up selling for a buck when that could have went to a company that manufactures hand sanitizer that would have created jobs that paid $15 an hour. 

Curtis Sliwa throws his beret and onions in the race for Mayor

NY Post

 He’s throwing his red beret in the ring.

Guardian Angels founder and WABC talk-radio shock jock Curtis Sliwa plans to run for mayor in 2021, he told The Post.

“I am the only candidate with the onions to take back the city,” Sliwa, 65, told The Post. “I have the street cred. I have bled in the streets. I’ve given seven lives. I have two left. I’ll use them for the City of New York.”

Sliwa re-registered from a Reform Party member to Republican last month and would run on the GOP line, though he is yet to officially file paperwork to run.

A lifelong city resident who fires quips and zingers in his Brooklynese accent, Sliwa launched the crime-fighting Guardian Angels’ group 40 years ago to patrol the subways and the streets in the days when Gotham was overrun by crime.

He says he now worries the dark days are coming back because of soft-on crime Democratic policies, citing in particular the state’s new bail-reform law, which the NYPD claims is responsible for this year’s spike in crimes.

“It took us a long time to crawl out of the belly of the beast of the 1970s through 1990s. Bill de Blasio and the Democrats are bringing us back in,” said Sliwa.

Sliwa’s platform includes ditching the mayor’s security detail and put more cops in uniform to fight crime. He’d also restore “pro-active” foot patrols and encourage more voluntary patrols like the Guardian Angels to work with the NYPD.

He also wants to keep open and refurbish Rikers Island and thwart plans to open jails in the boroughs, as well as opening more psychiatric facilities to aid mentally ill homeless people — calling it an “absolute sin” to leave them in the streets.

Governor Cuomo declares state of emergency for coronavirus, case found in Far Rockaway

NY Daily News

Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency Saturday as the New Rochelle coronavirus virus cluster continued to expand, with 23 new cases bringing Westchester County’s infected population to 57 people — the most in New York state.

Cuomo announced the number of people testing positive statewide has now reached 76, climbing steadily over the last few days. There were also new cases in the Rockaways and in Saratoga County, he said, and a pair of Rockland County positive tests were also linked to the same New Rochelle lawyer who was one of the first two reported cases of the virus.

“We have a situation in New Rochelle,” the governor said at his daily update on the virus. "You’re seeing those numbers in New Rochelle expand as you have seen in other clusters. One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes 10, then 12. And then 12 people go out and touch 200, and 400, and 800.

City induced bike (spite) lanes continue to frustrate Sunnyside and Woodside residents, business owners and emergency services

Queens Streets For All from Eric Strang on Vimeo.

Sunnyside Post

A long-time Sunnyside Gardens resident has produced a video calling on the Department of Transportation to remove the protected bicycle lanes from Skillman and 43rd Avenues and return the corridors back to the way they were prior to their overhaul in 2018.
 
Dorothy Morehead, a local realtor and member of Community Board 2, said that she made the video to highlight the effect the 2018 street redesign has had on Sunnyside residents and business owners.
She argues that the redesign has hurt local businesses, made the area less safe, increased traffic congestion, and made it difficult for fire trucks and emergency vehicles to traverse the two avenues–putting people at risk.
 
She is calling on the DOT to come back to the community and reevaluate the plan. She wants the avenues to go back to the way they were before the protected bike lanes were installed. She said that the previous bike lane was safe and effective.

“The impact on this community and the impact on the businesses just can’t go unchallenged,” Morehead, who has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, said in an interview. “These redesigns are mainly for the bikers and it is not fair to the rest of the community.”
Morehead hired a filmmaker and spent $4,000 on the video. Work began on the project last fall and was completed this week.
 
The film includes interviews with members of Queens Streets for All, a group comprised of nearly a dozen Skillman Avenue business owners and residents who remain opposed to the 2018 redesign. It also includes footage taken from a drone, which Morehead uses to support her arguments.
 
The video takes issue with many components of the redesign—such as Skillman Avenue being reduced from two lanes to one between 49th Street and 54th Street. It also discusses the narrowing of the two travel lanes elsewhere, with the people interviewed saying it has led to congestion—particularly when vehicles double park.
 
The video even questions whether the redesign has led to increased safety at all.

The redesign has been controversial from the get go—pitting bicycle safety advocates against many business owners and long-time residents. The final plan was rejected by Community Board 2 on June 7, 2018, and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, former Congressman Joseph Crowley and 
Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer opposed it.
 
Van Bramer, however, later changed his mind and advocated for it.
 
Mayor de Blasio, however, ultimately made the decision and the redesign went into effect in August 2018.

This video she produced also makes the other video made by some bike zealot look bad. Because in the latter video, they do a bunch of before and afters that show absolutely no traffic and how the lousy redesign shows cars parked further into the street that look more obstructive than vehicles double parked in the original bike lane.

And she and the others are right, a lot of bike commuters are selfish jerks. I coined a portmanteau for the mentality of these bike zealots and lobbies like Transportation Alternatives calling for more of these lanes and their vehement intolerance for car owners, "biketitlement"

The worst little hostel in Kew Gardens

Forest Hills Post

A quiet Kew Gardens home was illegally converted into a dormitory-style, transient hotel with as many as four bunk beds to a room over the summer — and the law-breaking homeowner was slapped with more than $100,000 in violations.

The two-family home, located at 121-08 84th Ave., was converted to a six-family home with three units on the first floor and three more in the attic level, according to Department of Buildings (DOB) summons.

The homeowner, Edward J. Erhard IV, was issued with 12 summonses and fined $108,500 for the violations. At a hearing in late January, a judge upheld the charges — which include illegal conversion of occupancy and illegal construction without permits — and ordered Erhard to pay the large sum.

Complaints of the illegal hotel operation date back to July 2018 with neighbors stating as many as 16 to 18 people were staying at the two-family house, according to DOB records.
Rooms within the house, which sits on a residential tree-lined block, were advertised on Facebook, according to the complaints.

When an inspector was finally able to enter the building on July 11, 2019 with the help of law enforcement, he found several long-term and transient renters sharing rooms within the house — with as many as three people to a room, according to hearing testimony.

The inspector met two women who were paying $40 a night for a one-night stay — one was sharing a room with a long-term tenant, while the other was staying on the living room couch.

The A in Schneps AM New York stands for amorous

 

George the Atheist told me this is reminiscent of the back pages of the old Queens Tribune

City implements coronavirus preparation for all departments

QNS


With more New Yorkers testing positive for coronavirus, the city has updated its preparedness efforts to keep COVID-19 at bay.

“With the best public health system in the world, New York City is ready and prepared to face the coronavirus head on,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. “We will continue to take every step necessary to keep New Yorker’s safe.”

The New York City Police Department has been stock piling masks, gloves and disinfectants at commands, but has not distributed them to patrols. Chief of Department Terrence Monahan said at a 

City Council hearing that they do not believe it is necessary to give it to street cops as yet as “there is no need for police to wear masks and cause a panic.”

Their procedures for dealing with those suspected of suffering from a coronavirus is to “remain outside of the location and allow EMS And firefighters with protective gear to remove the person if needed.” Officers are also requested to wash hands or use sanitizer “as they would during a flu epidemic.”

Chief Monahan added that several officers have returned from overseas assignments and five are currently under self isolation.

The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has instituted an early detection system for COVID-19 to lower the threshold for testing and deployed disease detectives to investigate cases and contact. DOHMH is also distributing palm cards with hand washing tips, plus FAQs, fact sheets (in 15 languages) and educational materials for the public. The Department is also launching a $6.5. million subway, digital and multi-media campaign to encourage hygiene and seeking help if you feel symptomatic, and they activated Incident Command System to laser focus agency resources on response.

de Blasio rigging building permits to favor a EDC board member and reliable donor

 NY Daily News

A preservation group is accusing Mayor de Blasio of political patronage after one of his donors was allowed to build a controversial new hotel near Manhattan’s Union Square — and now the city is pushing to limit other new hotels from sprouting up nearby.

The city’s new proposal would require hotel builders to get a special permit for new projects in the area roughly between 14th and 9th Sts. and Third Ave. and University Place.

That initiative comes four years after David Lichtenstein, a donor to de Blasio’s political causes, secured the go-ahead from the city to tear down five historic buildings so he could erect the boutique Moxy Hotel on E. 11th St., within the bounds of the newly proposed restricted zone.

“It’s telling that this proposal is only moving forward after the mayor’s campaign donor and political ally David Lichtenstein got to build his Moxy Hotel,” said Andrew Berman, head of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

“If enacted, the plan will only protect Lichtenstein’s hotel from competition and allow tech office developers to swoop in and raze the remaining low-rise historic buildings in the area and develop those sites.”

The 286-room “millennial-focused” Moxy Hotel, part of the Marriott International chain, opened in September and boasts several upscale restaurants and bars. Each of the hotel’s 13 floors pays tribute to a different era in East Village history, creating a “vertical timeline.” Rates start at $179 per night.

About 100 protesters gathered outside the future site of the hotel in 2016 to decry the loss of the townhouses.

De Blasio appointed Lichtenstein to the city’s Economic Development Corporation’s board in 2015.

A Lichtenstein company, A&J Contracting, gave $50,000 to de Blasio allies in 2016 — one of several contributions that drew the attention of federal and state investigators.

“We make decisions based on the merits and all of these claims are ridiculous,” de Blasio spokeswoman Jane Meyer said of Berman’s accusations of patronage. “This hotel was built under existing zoning and didn’t require any special approval.”

What makes this especially interesting is that de Blasio felt all of sudden that there needed restrictions to prevent hotel over-development when it concerned one of his biggest donors, while hotels keep popping up like dandelions in Queens, which usually wind up as homeless shelters when they can't attract visitors to this city. With this favorable proposal benefiting Lichtenstein; just in case when the MOXY starts losing customers, it could easily be transformed into the biggest homeless hotel in the East Village. Then Lichy can also profit from this infinite homeless crisis. Hell it already looks like one:

 

And just to refresh everyone's memory, David Lichenstein is the person who compared Amazon bailing out of the L.I.C. HQ2 land grab to the terrorist attack on this nation on 9/11/01.

Here's the EDC's "affordable" housing plan for Sunnyside Yard

Gothamist

The city has unveiled a massive plan to deck over Sunnyside Yard to make space for 12,000 affordable apartments in Queens.

A sweeping master plan for the project details a new development—which would take decades to complete—would include 100 percent affordable apartments across 140 acres of land. Some 115 acres of the land would be created by "decking over" the top of the regional rail yard.

The city sees Sunnyside Yard development as a "once-in-a-century opportunity" to bring thousands of new apartments to Queens, which currently gains 4,000 new residents every year, with hundreds of thousands of immigrants landing in Queens in the past several decades, according to the executive summary.

"If the borough is to remain an inclusive home to New Yorkers of all backgrounds, then it is imperative to plan for its future growth," according to the plan.

Of the 12,000 apartments, half would be for very low-income families, about 30 to 50 percent of the area median income (currently $29,000 to $48,000 annual salary for a family of three.) The units would be rent-stabilized.

The other 6,000 would be for moderate-income households through a "21st century version" of the Mitchell-Lama housing program, allowing for home ownership.

By decking over about 80 percent of the rail yard, allowing for rail operations to continue below, the project is seen as way of "creating" new land for housing, schools, libraries, and connecting neighborhoods currently separated by the yard. About 780 trains run through Sunnyside Yard everyday.

"We're running out of land in New York City, and it is harder and harder to find places for real affordable housing," the head of the EDC, James Patchett, told the Wall Street Journal. The total cost of decking, streetscape changes, and structures for utilities and below-deck train operations would be about $14.4 billion, according to the newspaper.

Working poor and the shrinking middle class have to wait 10 years for an affordable place to live? 

Good riddance oligarch. Bloomberg quits presidential race, endorses Biden

NY Post

Mike Bloomberg suspended his presidential campaign a day after his dismal showing on Super Tuesday – and will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden whose campaign surged to win nine states.

The billionaire former New York City mayor spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his failed campaign.

“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it.
 
After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,” Bloomberg said in a statement released Wednesday.

He said he has always used “data to inform decisions.”

News media gentrification narratives advising homeowners to sell are vile deceptions

New York Gentrification Watch

Last year, I wrote a long piece entitled, Top 10 Talking Points–and Lies– of Pro-Gentrification Propaganda, in which I tried exposing and debunking common talking points often used by pro-gentrification apologists. No sooner did I post it when The New York Daily News trotted out #2 on the list in the op-ed, “Who the ‘gentrification tax’ hurts: Beware unintended consequences”.
When you read it, you’ll notice that it’s chock full of economics jargon and academic blah blah blah. Do not be fooled. It talks a good game, but cut through all the verbiage, and the meat of the piece will be found right here:

But here’s a memo to Republican Joe Borelli and Democrat Brad Lander: Taxing new homebuyers who pay high prices in resurgent neighborhoods will not actually hit the newcomers; it will actually hurt long-time, lower-income homeowners who have the chance to sell, realize a profit and retire gracefully [italics mine].

Don’t cry for Scarsdale, where the end of SALT deduction is hitting hard. But save some sympathy for the long-time, often minority homeowners of Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, who, if the gentrification tax becomes law, will see sale prices on their homes drop, and their retirement plans upended [italics mine].

To summarize, author Howard Husock is arguing that the Gentrification Tax–now being mulled over in Albany to close a tax loophole–is a bad thing because it’ll prevent minorities from making the most profit out of their houses. On the surface, this sounds like sound economic theory. In reality, it’s nothing more than a variation of the pro-gentrification talking point I mentioned in Top 10 Talking Points–and Lies– of Pro-Gentrification Propaganda–“gentrification is paying off for minorities”, which is the idea that contrary to complaints that gentrification is hurting minorities, it’s benefiting them in ways they can’t even imagine.
 
For example, proponents will often paint a bright, rosy picture portraying disenfranchised blacks–through benefit of gentrification–walking away into the sunset flush with cash. This image in turn will be used to argue that putting policies in check to help minimize the negative effects of gentrification on minorities is preventing them from reaping massive financial rewards. In the case of this New York Daily News article, Howard Husock uses this argument to make the case that the proposed Gentrification Tax will destroy the retirement plans of low income minority home owners by devaluing their property values.
 
What’s wrong with the gentrification is paying off for minorities talking point, you ask? Well, first and foremost, it’s the cheapest and most intellectually insulting type of pandering, one that the kids these days call “concern trolling.” Concern trolling is the act of arguing in favor of or against something under the false pretense that you’re doing it out of concern. In terms of this “gentrification benefits minorities” canard, the person who says this is pretending that he’s oh, so worried about minorities missing out on all the potential money they could make from selling their houses, when the reality is that he’s just pandering to this demographic out of his own self interest.
 
You can plainly see that this is what’s happening in the Daily News article. In expressing concern for minority home owners, look at the specific neighborhoods that author Husock singled out. He is oh, so worried about the home owners of Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill but curiously enough, not the home owners of East New York, Flatbush or East Flatbush. Why? Because Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are highly coveted neighborhoods that gentrifiers, developers, oligarchs and speculators are practically pre-cumming in their jockey shorts over while other neighborhoods have yet to targeted for gentrification. So naturally, his concern is selective. After all, why care about minority homeowners in, say, Flatlands and Canarsie cashing out? They’re not sitting on valuable property highly sought after by real estate predators.
 
Aside from cheap pandering, there is another problem with this gentrification is paying off for minorities talking point. It’s one of those trite statements that conveniently ignores inconvenient truths. One of them that it loves to ignore is how the goals of the demographic currently owning homes in areas most in danger of gentrifying are completely different from the goals of the Yuppie douche bag who sees every stupid little thing in life–including the air we breathe–as a source of monetization.

East New York homeowners experiencing persistent harassment by vulture real estate investors and speculation

THE CITY

When Mercedes Sandoz fell behind on mortgage payments, a lawyer she didn’t know called her personal phone offering to help — by buying her East New York home for cash.

The mother of five also got daily fliers and knocks on her door from lawyers and investors. That’s because she was on a public list as being at risk of foreclosure.

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 33 years, and in the last few years, I’ve felt like it’s a takeover,” said Sandoz, who bought her home in 2000 after years of renting in the area.

Now, she’s joined an effort to protect homeowners from harassment from real estate speculators by designating the neighborhood as Brooklyn’s only “cease-and-desist” zone — an area declared off-limits under state law.

Cease-and-desist protections would allow homeowners to opt into a list restricting would-be house flippers from contacting them — and hit violators with fines, criminal charges or loss of real estate licenses.

Local residents say the designation is badly needed in East New York: A 2018 Center for New York City Neighborhoods report that found investors were flipping more homes at higher rates and for higher profit margins in East New York than anywhere else in Brooklyn.

After a push by residents working with the Coalition for Community Advancement and state Sen. Julia Salazar’s office, the New York Department of State scheduled a public hearing on the cease-and-desist bid for March 5 at 5 p.m. at 127 Pennsylvania Ave.

 The hearing marks a key step toward whether state officials find the “evidence of intense and repeated solicitations” needed to declare a cease-and-desist zone.

The Department of State gained the authority to grant neighborhoods cease-and-desist protections in 1989, but currently has only three designated zones in the city — all in suburban-style, largely white and Asian middle-class areas.

Two cover a swath of northeast Queens, including College Point, Whitestone, Bay Terrace and surrounding areas. The third covers the Country Club neighborhood in The Bronx.

Alexa Sloan with the Coalition for Community Advancement, a band of residents, businesses and houses of worship advocating for East New York and Cypress Hills, said locals have been collecting evidence of solicitation for more than two years. They’ve amassed 540 surveys detailing their experiences.

One of the residents who has been organizing for cease-and-desist protections, Linda Ford, installed a camera outside her house because of frequent visits from would-be buyers offering cash.

“I keep the door locked, and I don’t answer,” said Ford, who inherited her home from her mother and has lived there for more than 50 years. “Sometimes the notes they leave are handwritten, like they’re from a friend.”

After offering sums of cash for far less than properties are worth, many of those investors quickly resell the houses for far higher sums. Rampant flipping can put real estate prices out of reach for local buyers while bumping up existing homeowners’ tax bills.

Kosciuszko Bridge is not prepared for a terror attack and it's design was stolen according to lawsuit.

NY Post

A botched job of terror-proofing the new Kosciuszko Bridge has left its cables vulnerable to attack — and bumbling contractors even posted information online that all but provides a blueprint for would-be bombers, a blockbuster suit alleges.

Meanwhile, preventable “aggressive corrosion” of the shielding that’s supposed to protect the span’s 112 cables could cause them to break on their own — or send the metal-and-concrete armor tumbling onto the heavily trafficked overpass connecting Brooklyn and Queens, the court papers claim.
“These failings create a severe and imminent threat to public safety, the implications of which cannot be overstated,” according to the suit.

The alarming claims are part of a suit brought by Maryland-based armor manufacturing company Hardwire LLC alleging theft of trade secrets by its former vice president and program manager of bridge security, Irvin “Skip” Ebaugh IV.

The FBI has an active and ongoing criminal investigation into the alleged rip-off and Ebaugh’s work on the Kosciuszko or “K Bridge,” according to the suit Hardwire filed last month in Baltimore federal court.
 
The suit seeks more than $39.6 million in damages from Ebaugh and his company, Infrastructure Armor LLC, for allegedly using Hardwire’s technology to underbid the firm and win a contract for the Kosciuszko job — without having the expertise to properly manufacture and install the cable shields.
 
“As a result, Ebaugh and IA’s armor work at the K Bridge is critically flawed and creates a severe and imminent danger to the public and those that use and work on the bridge spans,” the suit charges.

Update: Skippy returned to do a little "upgrading".

NY Post

The contractor accused of botching the installation of protective shields around the new Kosciuszko Bridge’s cables was spotted installing a metal strap around one of the anti-terror devices on Monday.
 
Photos shot by The Post show Irvin “Skip” Ebaugh IV and another worker standing on an elevating work platform as they cinch down one of three straps on a shield whose sections don’t appear flush along their length.
 
The apparent repair effort came hours after The Post exclusively revealed Ebaugh faces a $39.6 million suit for allegedly stealing trade secrets from a former employer that he underbid to get the cable-armor job.

NYC EDC holding a public hearing for the BQXvirus in Bushwick

Psychiatrist sues city for blackballing her for reporting discrepencies in prisoner releases from Rikers Island for it's shutdown

NY Post

A former psychiatrist for the city’s hospital system claims she suffered retaliation for complaining that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s push to close Rikers Island “politicized” the mental-health evaluations of inmates.

In a $3 million whistleblower suit, Dr. Melissa Kaye says she was slapped with bogus disciplinary charges and demoted for warning “that inmates were potentially being released from jail in an expedited fashion and [in] circumvention of the procedures and law.”

Kaye, former medical director of the Bronx Forensic Psychiatry Court Clinic, alleges officials with the Health and Hospitals Corporation committed “ethical violations” and “malfeasance” in connection with exams used to determine if defendants are competent to stand trial. Those found incompetent are committed to the state Office of Mental Health for care.

Under de Blasio, “these examinations have become politicized . . . in an effort to get inmates off Rikers Island more quickly,” her Manhattan federal suit charges.

First positive case of coronavirus in Manhattan

NY Times

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday confirmed New York State’s first case of the coronavirus, saying that a woman contracted the virus while traveling in Iran and is now in New York City isolated in her home.

“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New York,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement.

The woman, who is in her late 30s, is in Manhattan, according to state officials. It was not immediately clear when she returned from Iran.

Her test was confirmed Sunday in the Wadsworth Lab in Albany, N.Y. It will now be reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

More than 70 people in the United States have been confirmed through laboratory testing to have the new coronavirus. Many had been passengers on a cruise ship ravaged by the virus or had been infected in China and then returned to the United States.

 But there have also been several confirmed cases of person-to-person spread in the United States. And researchers say that in Washington State the virus may have been spreading for weeks, largely undetected, and that hundreds of people may have possibly been infected. One person in Washington has died after falling ill with the new coronavirus.

Amazon takes over K-Mart/Toys 'R' Us former spaces at the Renter Plaza Mall

QNS

Just over a year after Amazon scuttled its plans to build a massive HQ2 campus in Long Island City, and create 25,000 jobs, the e-commerce giant has signed a new lease for space in Middle Village.

Amazon is taking roughly 300,000 square feet of space in Rentar Plaza, located at 66-26 Metropolitan Ave., according to the loan database TreppWire.

“I am thrilled to hear that Amazon has signed a lease at Rentar Plaza, which is in desperate need of revitalization,” Councilman Robert Holden said. “I actually suggested this location to Amazon two years ago. My hope is that this brings hundreds more jobs and renewed commercial activity to the area, which will be extremely valuable to our community for years to come.”

The Real Deal reports that Amazon will be taking over the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 109,000-square-foot space, plus the remaining 190,000 square feet of vacant space on the property.

QNS reached out to Amazon and is awaiting its response. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s lease was set to expire in July, and the Amazon lease brings Rentar Plaza to full occupancy, the Real Deal reports.

The city of New York is the property’s largest tenant with more than 500,000 square feet of space occupied by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

Amazon is also in talks for a giant distribution center in Maspeth at the old Cascades 

Containerboard factory on Grand Avenue. That property was recently acquired by a California-based company called LBA Realty for $72 million and the deal involves a partnership with RXR to build a four-story warehouse that would be ideal for the “last mile” of logistics for the e-commerce company.

Ridgewood's late Happy Days store gives way to 7-story apartment building.

 QNS


In January, the new owner of 17-11 Hancock St. — formerly Happy Days children’s clothing store — filed permits to build a seven-story residential building on the property.
 
The property was sold along with adjoining plots at 56-40/56-42 Myrtle Ave., near the M and L subway lines, for $9.3 million in November.
 
The proposed 70-foot-tall development will yield 60 units and 47,756 square feet — 39,673 of which is designated for residential space. The plans call for a 30-foot-long yard in the back of the building.
 
The owner on file, Leo Kaufman, listed the application under the Hancock Residence LLC. Over the past five years, Kaufman has developed two other small-scale apartment complexes nearby at 18 Stanhope St. and 79 Stanhope St. on the other side of the Bushwick border.