Think tank's bright idea for Sunnyside

From Crains:

A Manhattan think tank is pushing a plan to end the misery of Penn Station commuters, who are having an especially horrid month, by recasting the West 34th Street hub as just another stop for New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, rather than the terminus for both. Having trains pass through the station instead of stopping and turning around, which results in a daily traffic nightmare, would also open up possibilities beyond alleviating congestion.

Part of the idea, named ReThinkNYC, calls for moving rail yards in Sunnyside, Queens, to the Bronx. That way a major new transit hub could be built on the Queens site, connecting the region’s commuter lines and the subway system for a fraction of the cost of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to build a deck over Sunnyside Yards. With that kind of transit access, a business district could sprout up around the station, taking advantage of a 280-acre blank canvas across the East River from the most expensive office towers in the city.

Monserrate to challenge Ferreras

From NY1:

In the public mind, the enduring image of Hiram Monserrate was him dragging his girlfriend through a vestibule in an episode that led to Monserrate taken away in handcuffs, charged with slashing his girlfriend with a broken glass.

"I have made my mistakes," Monserrate said in 2008.

That could be regarded as an understatement. Though ultimately convicted of a lesser misdemeanor charge, Monserrate later spent almost two years in federal prison after misusing public funds in his City Council days.

But Monserrate has never strayed far from politics.

"My mistakes are now in my past, several years ago. I have moved on," he said.

Indeed, on NY1's Road to City Hall Tuesday, he announced a run for City Council. He's staking his candidacy almost entirely on a single issue: the planned development of Willets Point, which he views as a giveaway.

"It's an atrocity for anyone to think that they can take 40 acres of parkland and hand it over for free to a developer to build and make more profits," Monserrate said.

Lefferts Blvd station still under repair and covered in poop

From Impunity City:

It’s almost the middle of May, about 6 weeks into the 2nd quarter of 2017, and the notorious tardiness renovating the Lefferts Blvd. station continues unabated and sadly unconcerned by the higher administrative brass and even the thousands of commuters who rely on this heavily populated hub. The stairway and the handicap accessible elevator look complete but are still surrounded by machinery, giant orange thimbles and partition fencing obstructing the majority of the sidewalk. And it’s still causing massive bottlenecks of people exiting and entering the station.

But during my last visit, I happened to meet the curators of the year long fecal art exhibition at the turnstiles.

RKO Keith's will be encased in glass and not all that accessible

From Curbed:

Now developer Xinyuan Real Estate will join the ranks of planning sorcery with its proposal for the former RKO Keith’s Theater in Flushing, a long-shuttered building by Thomas Lamb with partial interior landmark status. Xinyuan came in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday morning to present its proposal to rehabilitate and preserve the 1928-built theater’s landmarked grand foyer and ticket lobby within a new glassy 16-floor building with 269 apartments. To the surprise of some, the proposal was approved on the first go-around.

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the firm founded by Pritzker Prize winner I.M. Pei, is the project architect while Ayon Studios have been tapped as the preservation architect.

Architectural drawings on file with Landmarks indicate that Xinyuan plans to use the existing ticket lobby and grand foyer as the entry for the residential building. An additional residential lobby, mail room, and elevator bank will be accessed past the landmarked interiors.

Floorplans included in the presentation also show that the building will have a sophisticated robot parking system, as condo developments these days do. Under the plan, the original theater that could once seat up to 3,000 and was not granted landmark status will be razed.

The interiors, largely neglected for the past 30 years, are worse for wear. Images from inside the building taken at different times after its 1984 landmarking show just how much the structure has fallen towards disrepair, with a partial collapse of the grand foyer’s ceiling and graffiti littered throughout.

As part of the site’s redevelopment, some of the existing plasterwork that depicts an asymmetrical Churrigueresque Spanish townscape will be removed and replaced, with other portions being salvaged and restored off site. Just about everything will require work, be it reconstruction or new paint.

The Municipal Arts Society has weighed in on the restoration, saying it believes “the new construction could be more sympathetic to the historic theater,” but endorsing the rehab nonetheless.

The Historic Districts Council in its written statement expresses concerns about the accessibility of the interior landmark, noting that “public accessibility to an interior landmark is a key characteristic of its designation” and that “people are not permitted into the lobby of a residential building except at the invitation of a resident.”

This proved to be the main point of contention among the LPC’s commissioners as well, at Tuesday’s meeting. While the ticket lobby will be accessible to the public as part of the retail space in the new development, the fate of the grand foyer beyond that has yet to be decided.

That's some pile of trash!

From PIX11:

A spokesperson with the Department of Sanitation said the agency "sent an officer to the location who was granted access to the neighbor’s property at 184-07 to take additional photos. It appears 184-09 is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Health for the following reasons: it could be rodent infestation, it is private property which DSNY cannot enter, there is a structure on the property, and the trash and debris is not visible from the street. A DSNY inspector will return tomorrow to assess if any Sanitation action can be taken."

A Health Department spokesperson said they "take rodent complaints seriously. We are sending an inspector to the site and we will coordinate with the Department of Sanitation on next steps.”

DOE parking placards ripe for abuse

From CBS 2:

Mayor Bill de Blasio was under fire Monday evening for a new gift to school employees.

As CBS Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, there has been a dramatic increase in free parking permits. Kramer also reported there were numerous abuses before the new permits even hit the streets.

“Historically, anyone with a (parking) placard in their car abuses that placard,” said former city Traffic Commissioner Sam Schwartz, better known as “Gridlock Sam.”

And CBS2 found numerous abuses even before de Blasio has doled out numerous new parking placards.

A Chevrolet with a Department of Education placard that expired three years ago in 2014 parked in a no zone for Health Department vehicles.

Other cars with DOE permits were seen parked in a no standing zone, and others still were seen just parked on the school sidewalk.

None of the drivers got parking tickets.

The USCIS agents weren't even "turned away"

Wow, this is getting better and better. Of course, most of the news media is only going to go with the scared immigrant children angle when the only one doing the scaring is the de Blasio administration and his supporting pols.

DHS issued the following statement today on @USCIS activities in New York City. pic.twitter.com/oL8VkW7x1m

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 15, 2017

Federal agents showing up at a school didn't cause panic. The mayor did.

Thank you to NY1, who has had the most honest reporting of all.

It's an embarrassing time to be a New Yorker.

Fearmongering mayor caught in big lie

This weekend, I read some news stories where Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina proudly claimed that one of their schools turned away an ICE agent that showed up "looking for a fourth grader". To me, the story sounded a bit strange and I could tell from the press use of the word "allegedly" that they weren't exactly buying it either, so I decided to give it a bit more time before posting about it. When outlandish claims are made by pols, the truth tends to come out sooner than later.

First, some background: Big Bird made a grand announcement earlier this year that from now on, ICE agents that show up at schools would be turned away. When questioned as to how often this has happened, he admitted it never did. So naturally, he thought this incident would be great fodder for him to use to show that he had tremendous foresight in enacting this new policy.

However, NY1 burst his bubble last night by publishing the truth:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) said two officials went to a Queens elementary school Thursday to confirm facts about a fourth grader's enrollment.

The agency — which is part of the Department of Homeland Security but not directly affiliated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — said the verification was for what they call an "immigration benefit request."

USCIS said the student, who attends P.S. 58 in Maspeth, was not the subject of the request, and the officials did not ask to see or speak with the child.

USCIS said school visits are not routine, but they are not unusual.

USCIS is the branch of Homeland Security that processes immigration and naturalization applications. If school visits are "not unusual", then this school, located in District 24, one of the most immigrant rich areas of the city, certainly has been visited by them before to verify enrollment. And if they were in fact turned away, then the city may have made it a bit harder for someone to obtain citizenship.

ICE, on the other hand, is the agency charged with enforcement of immigration law. They are not one and the same, and BDB is well aware of this, but the opportunity to appeal to his deluded base by fearmongering was just too good to pass up.

The moral of the story is: Just because the mayor says something happened doesn't make it the truth.

Rosedale flooding is out of control

From PIX11:

For almost 20 years, every time it rains really hard, the street in front of Angela Dennis's home turns into a lake of rainwater, eight inches at its deepest, spilling over onto the sidewalks on 148th Avenue, just off of Francis Lewis Boulevard.

The flooding damages cars, sidewalks and on weekdays the X 63 bus can't get through.

Seniors in the neighborhood have a particularly tough time.

Self-described community activist Carl Patterson is so frustrated with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and their community affairs coordinator Karen Ellis.

"They sawed a cut in the middle, but they didn't' come back to finish the job," Patterson said. "It's been three years. This is a quality of life issue."

Neighbors say the city started the make repairs and then abandoned the project and abandoned these folks who say they just don't want a swimming pool in front of their homes.

Are ticket quotas a thing of the past?

From the Daily News:

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill vowed to discipline any supervisor who puts quantity before quality when it comes to summonses, it was revealed Friday.

“This department does not and will not use quotas for enforcement activity,” O’Neill said in a message distributed to every command citywide on April 28. “Supervisory personnel who use quotas or encourage or reward numbers for the sake of numbers may be subject to department discipline.”

O’Neill said he will also bring the hammer down on supervisors who “punish members who fail to meet a quota, or who threaten to retaliate against any member who reports the use of quotas.”

“Using quotas demonstrates a lack of understanding of today’s NYPD, and my expectations of you as leaders,” he added, encouraging cops to report any allegations of quota demands to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. “We are interested in quality, not quantity.”

The NYPD has always maintained that quotas are not used while enforcing the law — although police whistleblowers have testified otherwise for years, claiming cops were ordered to write a specific number of tickets a month — and were punished when they didn’t hand out enough.

Flood barrier need questioned

From NY1:

Beautiful views off Breezy Point in the Rockaways could change; Connecting Queens all the way to Sandy Hook, New Jersey could be a barrier to shelter the city from flooding.

"This would save lives," said Bob Yaro of Storm Surge Working Group. "It will save tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars over its life in avoided flooding and disruption of the economy in the region."

Yaro's group calls not just for a barrier in the outer harbor, but also tying Queens to the Bronx near the Throgs Neck Bridge.

The group notes that New York lags behind London, the Netherlands, and even Russia.

"We're kind of standing down on the beach with our pants down around our ankles," Yaro said. "This is not how we want to protect this great city from these dangers."

And in a sign of its influence, a conference on the "urgent need for a regional barrier" is co-sponsored by the Port Authority.

But building a barrier isn't easy. The whole harbor system could cost $25 billion.

A rendering, seen in the video above, shows laying a highway on top to help pay, if it's given a permit.

Complicating matters further, Breezy Point is a private, gated community, whose residents aren't seen as exactly eager for interstate traffic to come through.

The group pushing the barrier says it's just an idea. Others question whether the barrier is needed at all.

Contractors abandon Centreville sewer project

Joanne Cutitto

From the Queens Chronicle:

Workers at the Albert Road sewer project in the Centreville section of Ozone Park have not been spotted on site for close to a month, because they’ve been pulled for another job elsewhere.

While some area residents joked they’re enjoying the peace and quiet, they’re also fuming because the neighborhood has been left a mess by the workers there.

“People now have to live with the mess for a longer term than they should have to,” said Ozone Park Civic Association Howie Kamph. “It’s not fair to the residents.”

A Chronicle reporter on Monday saw streets ripped up and uneven, water mains exposed to the elements, and cones — which looked to be covering a pothole — left in the middle of the street.

“It looks like a third-world country,” said resident Joanne Cutitto. “It’s like there’s no pride in their workmanship.”

The Department of Design and Construction did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story — including if they’re chasing down the contractor, Maspeth Supply, to finish the taxpayer-funded work in the time laid out in the contract.

A person answering the phones at Maspeth Supply — which, according to city records, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in city contracts for water main and sewer work — said to send an email to the company’s owner, which was not responded to by press time.

Steinway Mansion gets new windows and a gut reno

From George the Atheist:

Joe Crowley keeps his campaign money in the family

From the NY Post:

Rep. Joseph Crowley, who serves as Queens Democratic leader, is ­using campaign funds to rent office space in a family-owned property outside his district, rec­ords show.

Crowley has paid at least $69,700 since 2007 to ­Killean Enterprises LLC, which is controlled by his brother, lobbyist John “Sean” Crowley.

As chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Joseph Crowley is the fourth-highest ranking member of his party in the House.

“This, without a doubt, raises red flags about conflicts of interest,” said John Kaehny, chairman of the NYC Transparency Working Group.

“As an important public official, you want to be above suspicion, not raising suspicion.”

The campaign office in Elmhurst is about 10 blocks outside Crowley’s congressional district.

But as party boss, he already has space at Queens Democratic headquarters in Forest Hills three miles from the Elmhurst office.

“It’s not physically in his district — that would be a key point,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center. “What he uses it for — it’s as old as politics — it’s called a slush fund. And what do you know? It goes to a family-connected entity.”

The Elmhurst address is also home to Crowley & Kaufman, the law firm of Crowley’s campaign treasurer, Scott Kaufman, an attorney who since 2006 has raked in at least $550,000 in fees via appointments from Queens Surrogate’s Court.

Joe ran away from reporters asking questions about this.

Elizabeth Crowley admits she's got a strong opponent

Yesterday, Liz Crowley sent out a fundraising solicitation in which she admitted that she is going to have a tough time getting re-elected to a third term (which would bring her total time in the council to 13 years!):

I suppose this is why she recently introduced a useless bill - as the sole sponsor - to require that a separate Inspector General oversee the DHS & HRA.

Ponte out at DOC

From NBC:

Joseph Ponte will resign Friday, a day after Democratic City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito broke with Mayor de Blasio in calling for Ponte to step down. De Blasio has defended Ponte amid the latest allegations.

Staffers were drafting Ponte's resignation speech Thursday evening, the sources said.

Ponte, whose career in corrections has spanned more than four decades, was appointed commissioner in April 2014. The Marine Corps veteran previously led the Maine Department of Corrections, where he instituted substantial reforms. It was to Maine that the city's Department of Investigation, which investigates city agencies, officers or employees for potential corruption, alleged Ponte drove a city-owned vehicle in violation of guidelines.

Construction company owner charged with manslaughter

From CBS:

The owner of a Brooklyn construction company has been charged with manslaughter following a wall collapse that left one worker dead and two others seriously injured.

Michael Weiss, 47, of Williamsburg, owns RSBY NY Builders Inc. and Park Ave Builders Inc., both in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

He faces 14 counts, including second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

The charges stem from a Sept. 3, 2015 incident at a construction site on Myrtle Avenue in Bed-Stuy.

Workers were replacing a single-story building with a five-story one, when Weiss ordered them to excavate an area that was not approved by the Department of Buildings, Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzale alleged Wednesday.

An adjacent wall eventually collapsed, crushing 18-year-old Fernando Vanegaz to death and seriously hurting two other workers.

Owners of illegally subdivided homes face steep fines, liens

 (Photo by Carly Miller/BKLYNER)

From Bklyner:

Today, City Council unanimously passed a bill to enforce fines on landlords that illegally subdivide homes to create “modern tenement housing”, an issue that has led to severe overcrowding and deaths in southern Brooklyn.

The bill, Intro 1218 proposed by City Councilmember Vincent Gentile, targets landlords of homes classified as “aggravated illegal conversions,” slapping a $15,000 violation per unit beyond the certificate of occupancy. If unpaid, the fine would be subject to a lien sale on the property.

The legislation also expands the authority of the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) and the New York City Environmental Control Board (ECB) to inspect properties and impose penalties.

Gentile, representing Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, and Bensonhurst, was joined today by Council Members Barry S. Grodenchik and Jumaane Williams, representatives from Boro President Eric Adams' office, and dozens of civic groups and housing advocates who spent years rallying around this issue. The bill was supported by 23 City Council members, said Gentile on a sunny Wednesday at the steps of City Hall. A few hours later, the bill passed with a 49-0 vote.

“These strong restrictions and penalties will force egregious property owners to comply with New York City’s building code,” said Gentile. “Substandard housing is not affordable housing.”

Almost 200 parking spaces to be removed from Queens Blvd

From DNA Info:

The city’s plan to redesign a 1.3-mile portion of Queens Boulevard in Rego Park and Forest Hills includes the addition of bike lanes and stop-controlled slip lanes, while eliminating 198 parking spaces, according to a proposal presented to the Community Board 6 Transportation Committee earlier this month.

The section of Queens Boulevard between Eliot Avenue and Yellowstone Boulevard includes some of the busiest and most crash-prone intersections in the neighborhood, including at 63rd Drive.

The proposed redesign, which will also include fixes such as adding extra space for pedestrians and installing gravel curb extensions to shorten crossing distances at several intersection, seeks to make the thoroughfare safer for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists alike, the Department of Transportation said.

Going after AirBnBers is tough

From Crains:

In the three months since the state's anti-Airbnb bill went into effect, the city has issued fines on 139 listings. That leaves a mere 24,000 more to investigate.

Earlier this week the city announced two women forked over $1,000 each, one for renting out her pad in Trump Tower, the other, her place in a co-op building on the Lower East Side. They were the first hosts to pay up under the new state law banning advertising for home rentals of less than 30 days. But a staggering amount of New York listings remain on the Airbnb site.

The number of potentially illegal Airbnb listings was 23,639 as of April, according to data from the company, though a portion of those ads could be for a stay in a single-family home or another type of dwelling exempt from the legislation. But based on current rates, it would take the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement 43 years to run down those potential violations.

Rather than go after every one, City Hall's goal likely is to fine enough hosts to discourage the illegal listings and have the numbers come down on their own. Thus far officials have focused on owners of multiunit building who essentially run illegal hotels by renting out multiple apartments for short stays. The mayor plans to add inspectors going forward.

At least for now, hosts with only one listing have a slimmer chance of being caught, and according to Airbnb's site, 96% of hosts fall into this category. Since they stand to earn $750 a week on average, paying off the fine might not prove to be much of a deterrent.