Trapped in their own home

From CBS 2:  

An elderly couple in Bushwick, Brooklyn claims they are trapped in their own home thanks to a construction project on the stairway out of their multi-family home. 

Robert Foster, 91, is a World War II veteran and said he and his 87-year-old wife both use walkers but have a hard time navigating the 22-inch wide staircase from their Putnam Avenue home to the sidewalk. 

Their neighbor’s improvement project included putting up a fence, which split the original stairwell in two. The neighbor extended her own staircase but the couple’s staircase was left less than two feet wide, which violates code. 

By law, staircases must be at least 36 inches wide. The couple’s daughter said she is concerned the current staircase is a safety hazard.

Garbage trucks vomit all over Flushing

Should sanitation give itself a fine for spewing this Vomit out the truck every week !! Bowne st. between Cherry and 45th ave. This started about a year ago and for some Odd reason they love to spew it in front of my home and I'm sick of it!!!!" - Anonymous

Huge Whitestone lot to be remediated & developed

From the Times Ledger:

A group of investors is well on its way to taking ownership of one of the largest vacant waterfront properties in Queens, which could soon be home to 52 single-family Whitestone homes, but state inspectors were back at the site last Thursday to check for evidence of any contaminated soil dumped there.

A group of investors involved with Barone Management, a firm that has both construction and development arms and is based in Whitestone, have paid a deposit on the 13-acre property, at 151-45 6th Road, and will likely take full possession of the property within 60 days, according to Scott Barone, whose family owns the firm.

“In a perfect world, development will begin in the middle of next year,” he said.

The property also includes 8 acres of water rights and will feature a publicly accessible waterfront park, as is required by city regulations.

It was originally zoned for manufacturing until about 2005, when a development firm called Bayrock Group bought the site and sought to rezone it for residential use.

The city modified the zoning to specifically allow for the development of 52 single-family homes, according to area lawmakers, but Bayrock went bust and the property descended into foreclosure.

Barone said the development will be a boon for the area, setting a precedent on converting old manufacturing sites into residential tracts in character with the rest of the sleepy neighborhood.

Suffolk land deal to affect Queens

From the Times Ledger:

A land deal approved by the Suffolk County Legislature expanding a railyard on Long Island will bring terrible repercussions for the people of Queens, elected officials, civic groups and residents of the borough said.

More than 230 acres of public land in Yaphank, L.I., was sold to the operators of the Brookhaven Rail Terminal last Thursday immediately after Glendale and Middle Village residents pleaded their case to Suffolk officials.

Residents and elected officials said the expansion of the terminal would greatly increase the number of garbage trains passing through the Fresh Pond Rail Terminal in Glendale, increasing train traffic and hurting clean air quality.

“The expansion of this rail terminal will prove chaotic and will be a health hazard to the residents of Glendale,” said Anthony Pedalino, who lives near the rail lines in Glendale and deals with the noise and odor on a nightly basis. “The people deserve a little protection. Trains sit there spewing out fumes an hour at a time. This is so inhumane, it’s revolting.”

The $20 million deal gives the land to Brookhaven Terminal Operations, which said in a statement it has worked with the community before and will participate in an advisory board.

But that is not good enough for the people of Queens, who believe Suffolk County has not taken the borough’s well-being into consideration.

Long Island is surrounded by water, so why not barge their trash out?

Conversion of Rockaway firehouse in limbo

From the Daily News:

Grand plans to transform a shuttered Rockaway firehouse into a cultural and environmental center have been stymied by bureaucratic red tape, according to the group selected by the city to purchase the site.

The Rockaway Waterfront Alliance beat out other groups in 2009 for the right to purchase the decommissioned Engine Co. 265 Ladder 121 firehouse at Beach 59th St.

It seemed like a sweet deal. The purchase price for the 7,200-square-foot building was $1.
But the nonprofit group said they never expected the approvals and paperwork needed to seal the deal would move at such a glacial pace.

“We thought we would go through ULURP and be on our way,” said Jeanne DuPont, executive director of the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, referring to the Uniform Land Use Review Process.

DuPont said the group laid out about $200,000 for architectural drawings, site surveys, construction documents and environmental reviews.


They are hoping to be reimbursed with promised grants.

“The grants won’t be released until we own the building,” she said. “We’re building debt and going into dangerous waters.”

Avella calls for Silver's resignation

From Capital Tonight:

As a member of the Senate, Tony Avella does not get a say in who leads the Assembly. But he does have an opinion on who should not lead the chamber. He’s calling for Sheldon Silver to step down from his post as Speaker of the Assembly in the wake of the Assemblyman Vito Lopez scandal.

A flooding fix for Broad Channel?

From the Daily News:

Broad Channel residents, facing the annual barrage of autumn storms and floods, say the city is dragging its feet on a plan to repair vulnerable streets.

Residents of W. 12th Rd., where floodwaters have totaled cars and turned streets into canals, said they are still waiting the start of a $24 million project to elevate the roadway.

... it’s been two years since Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and others pledged funds to pay for the project, which will elevate the level of W. 11th, 12th and 13th roads by several inches.

Queens Transportation Commissioner Maura McCarthy is scheduled to attend a Broad Channel Civic Association meeting on Sept. 27 and unveil finalized plans for the project.

Under the so-called shared-streets concept, sidewalks and roads will be level. But homeowners will have to allow construction on their property.

Broad Channel is surrounded by Jamaica Bay, giving many residents breathtaking waterfront views. But the water has also proven a formidable enemy for property owners, who have seen streets sink several inches over the years. The end of W. 12th Rd. has essentially collapsed into the bay.

Idling MTA vehicles costing us plenty

From AM-NY:

MTA employees waste about $800,000 each year by illegally leaving their work vehicles idling while on the job, according to a report released Wednesday.

Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North workers driving highway vehicles kept them running while they were parked for a combined total of more than 20,000 hours each month, the MTA's Inspector General found.

In one incident, investigators found that two trucks in Forest Hills had idled for a combined 25 hours over one weekend.

New York drivers are prohibited from leaving their cars unnecessarily running for more than five minutes.

Defective artificial turf not replaced for 6 years

How many people have gotten hurt? How many settlements has the City paid out?

City rewarding bad behavior?

From the Daily News:

Advocates are pushing the city to sever ties with a developer whose top executive was busted for bribing city officials — and are demanding new rules for how the city does business with companies under investigation.

Great American Construction has already agreed to withdraw from one affordable housing project, Greenpoint Hospital in Brooklyn, after executive William Clarke was indicted in June, city officials told the Daily News. But the firm has four other active projects with the city in Brooklyn and the Bronx — three already under construction, one on the drawing board. 

Communities for Responsible and Equitable Housing, a coalition of housing groups, is calling for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to blacklist the developer, removing it from current projects. And they want a new policy to be enacted so that firms facing criminal charges can’t do business with the city.

Day care fraud charged

From NY1:

The owners of several day care centers in Queens are accused of defrauding the Department of Education out of more than $35,000.

A report released by the Special Commissioner of Investigation found that the owners registered at least 12 children who did not attend their programs and submitted false attendance forms and invoices to receive payment.

Commissioner Richard Condon is recommending that the DOE stop doing business with Nareesa and Saied Mohammed.

They own Nareesa's Day Care and The Beanstalk Day Care in Richmond Hill.

The findings were referred to the Queens District Attorney.

Stop work order as revenge?

From Brownstoner's Astoria Renovation blog:

We had been warned by the seller, the former tenants and the other neighbors that the owner of the one house we share a party wall with was… difficult.

We tried to start things on the right foot with with all the neighbors, giving them an apologetic letter outlining the scope and schedule of the work and giving our and the contractor’s phone numbers for any problems. A few weeks into the work, we approached the afore-mentioned neighbor because we needed to dig a foot into her property to waterproof the walls of the extension, at a point where there was only an old cement patio.

She refused us access (even though legally we could have forced the issue). Well, we explained, we would need to come onto her property to apply the brick facing to the extension later in the project. She still refused.

Our neighbor would rather stare at an unfinished cement block wall than allow us onto her property to give a nice brick facing.

Then she suggested that if our contractor gave her a good price on some work she wanted done, she would let him have access. Well, the price — current Queens above-board building prices — was not what she — old Astorian mindset — was prepared to pay.

Then suddenly we got a visit from a DOB inspector because of a complaint. Our work was causing “cracks in a party wall.” Complaints are anonymous, but there is only one party wall — on the side with this neighbor. Most people, if they had cracking, would contact the owners or the builders, show them the problem, and demand to know how they were going to make it right. We have never heard anything from the neighbor directly, and no one has seen the claimed cracks.

Albany pols have all their bases covered

From the Daily News:

New York’s ethics watchdog is struggling for credibility after closed-door missteps gave the impression that the panel shied from investigating Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s role in the Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal.

While the panel insists it got a bum rap, two points are indisputable:

First, there’s no way for New Yorkers to judge the actions of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics because the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo cloaked its operations in excessive secrecy.

Second, lawmakers placed overly strict limits on how the commission does business — down to regulating the number of days the panel has to react after receiving a formal complaint.

The Legislature demanded these handcuffs — which protect accused lawmakers while weakening the panel — as the price of finally submitting to outside scrutiny.

From the Daily News:

Using taxpayer money to settle sexual misconduct cases against state lawmakers — like in the case of Assemblyman Vito Lopez — is controversial, but perfectly legal.

The practice was upheld judicially in 2008 after a taxpayer filed suit in State Supreme Court to challenge a $500,000 settlement. The state had dished out taxpayer funds to a legislative staffer who in 2004 accused Michael Boxley, then counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, of rape.

In dismissing the case, which sought to have Silver and Boxley reimburse the state, the court found there was “no allegation that Silver … caused the wrongful expenditure, misappropriation, misapplication or any other illegal or unconstitutional disbursement of state funds.” The Appellate Division upheld the State Supreme Court’s dismissal.

The settlement in the Boxley case was actually hammered out as part of a legal proceeding by former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The court found that even if Spitzer had erred in judgment by agreeing to the $500,000 payout, that was an issue for voters to decide, not the courts.

Next in line?

From the Daily News:

The protege is ready for the torch to be passed to him.

City Councilman James Sanders Jr.’s primary victory last week over scandal-torn state Sen. Shirley Huntley unofficially kicked off the race for his Council seat several months earlier than expected.

Sanders (D-Laurelton) will have to vacate his Council post before he can be sworn in to the state Senate, triggering in a special election in early 2013.

Donovan Richards, Sanders’ chief of staff, has been gearing up for the race even before Sanders bested the incumbent of Senate District 10.

Liu's supporters dwindling and acting strange

From the NY Post:

John Liu’s support appears to be wearing thin.

A paltry gathering of six supporters held a press conference yesterday to denounce a federal investigation against the city comptroller and possible mayoral contender as an anti-Asian attack.

They promptly compared the Feds' investigation of Liu to the Holocaust and Watergate.

Editorial posted on DOB's wall

Did a disgruntled homeowner or architect post this comment at DOB HQ? Only The Shadow knows...

White lines painted on Northern Blvd

Hi Crappy,

I saw white lane lines on Northern Blvd today!! I think they might have been there yesterday but a Verizon “project” at Douglaston Pkway. and Northern backed up eastbound traffic rather badly yesterday. So the DOT actually did what they said they were going to do. Just hope they don’t decide it’s a good place to paint a bike lane……..thanks for highlighting this issue!

- Ms. Tsouris
9/14/12

Nice shot!

From the NY Post:

A humpback whale made a splash at Rockaway Beach Sunday, swimming close to the shore while chasing a school of fish.

Photographer Phil Ng took this shot of the whale diving as he passed by on a tour boat.

Dealers using streets as private parking lot

Everyone except Bloomberg thinks streets are filthy

From the Daily News:

New York has been named the dirtiest out of 35 American metropolitan areas by the out-of-towners who read Travel + Leisure magazine.

Tourists cited New York’s garbage-piled sidewalks and funky odors to shove Gotham to the top of the trash heap in the poll, which is part of the magazine’s annual America’s Favorite Cities survey.

The magazine polled 50,000 people online, but the tourists were the harshest.

You’d think New Yorkers would be quick to defend the capital of the world — but the nose knows; city residents ranked our rankness as the second-worst in the nation, behind, obviously, Baltimore.

Of course, Mayor Bloomberg covered the stench of defeat in a floral spray of spin.

“Sounds like the people in this survey haven't been here in a long while,” said mayoral spokeswoman Julie Wood.

The city’s 50 million tourists last year, she added, “saw for themselves that the city is cleaner than ever.”