Former Belt Parkway toxic dump mountain is now a state park

Curbed New York

After 70 years of promises, Brooklyn’s newest waterfront park is finally open for visitors.

The first section of Shirley Chisholm State Park recently made its official debut on a site that was previously known as the 110-acre Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill. Situated on the northern coast of Jamaica Bay in East New York, near Starrett City, this vibrant new green space has opened up the shoreline here for the first time in generations.

The words “charming” and “fun” don’t often come to mind when walking around New York City’s polluted landfills. Yet somehow, a walk through this new park is just that—a surprisingly enjoyable ramble through a delightfully varied landscape of wildflower meadows, native grasslands, hidden beaches, and bustling fishing piers. Butterflies and songbirds fill the air, while cooling breezes waft in from Jamaica Bay.

Though it has only been open for a week, the park is already a hit with the neighborhood. During its first weekend, the parking lot was filled to capacity and every two-wheeler was checked out of its Bike Library, which is run by Recycle-A-Bicycle. Parents pushed baby strollers along meandering gravel hiking trails, while fishermen lined the piers along Jamaica Bay, happily pulling in dozens of porgies.

The second section of this park, at the adjoining Fountain Avenue Landfill, won’t be complete until 2021, but for a community that has been cut off from the waterfront for decades, any access to the water is no small thing. “I’ve been waiting for this for 20 or 30 years,” said one fisherman, as he cast out into the waters of Jamaica Bay. “I moved here in 1986, and they were working on it then, piece by piece, off and on, over the years.”

Friend of family burns down their house after they ask him to leave

 NY Post

 A man who was taken in by a Queens family when he needed a place to stay returned the kindness with unspeakable horror — setting the home ablaze in a gasoline-fueled inferno that not only killed him but also two of his host’s family members, including a 6-year-old girl, police sources and family said Thursday.

David Abreu Nuñez, 27, went off the rails inside the Moreno family’s two-story Elmhurst home on 93rd Street Wednesday afternoon, sparking the top-floor blaze after he was asked to pack up and go.

“We were helping someone and they were asked to leave because we found out certain things about that person and he just lost it,” said homeowner Raul Moreno, referring to Nuñez. “And this is the price we pay for helping somebody.”

Moreno said that Nuñez was a friend of a family member and had been staying at the home since Monday.

“He had no place to go. He was kicked out of his room or his apartment or something like that,” Moreno said. “He had no place to go, so we were like, ‘Stay here for a couple of days, we’ll help you find a place.’”

Moreno added: “Then we found out his past and we just asked him to leave because we had kids in the house.”

Nuñez had “mental issues,” Moreno said, claiming, “He would fabricate a lot of lies … things just didn’t add up. It made us very suspicious.”

“We just asked him to leave in a nice manner. We didn’t force anybody. I just asked him, ‘It’s time for you to leave’ and he just lost it.”

After the blaze, the FDNY found a five-gallon gas can on the floor where the fire started, sources said.

The two-alarm fire left Nuñez, Emma Dominguez, 6, and her 76-year-old grandfather, Claudio Rodriguez, dead, police sources said.

Emma’s mom, 35-year-old Elizabeth Rodriguez, and Emma’s 10-month-old brother, Liam Dominguez-Rodrigo, were critically injured, the sources said.

Campaign worker's mother fraudulently voted in D.A. primary

NY Daily News

Like any good son, when Working Families Party campaign worker Rafael Shimunov found out that his mother couldn’t vote in the recent primary for the Queens district attorney, he took to Twitter to complain about voter fraud.

Shimunov, whose mother, Margarita Shimunova, is a registered nurse and immigrant from Uzbekistan, voted for insurgent candidate Tiffany Cabán by paper ballot because the Board of Elections had her registered as a Republican.

“She’s never voted GOP in her life,” he tweeted in response to an ongoing social media conversation about claims the election was rigged. He went on to describe his mother’s health issues and her struggle immigrating from the former Soviet Union as a refugee.

“It’s not right, I heard they’re going to throw my vote away,” she said.

However, BOE records reveal an awkward family secret: Margarita Shimunova is indeed a registered Republican and therefore wasn’t eligible to vote in the June 25 Democratic primary.

Shimunova confirmed to the Daily News Friday that it was, in fact, her signature and date of birth on the BOE form showing she registered to the party of Lincoln in 2008.

But she denied being a Republican and said that she voted for Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders.

Records show that the mom voted in six elections since she registered, mostly general elections in which she could vote for either party. But documents show she also voted in the 2016 Republican primary during which Donald Trump carried his home state with 59% of the vote.

Well, that was a stupid thing to do, son. 

Queens D.A. recount comes at a price for Katz and Caban

THE CITY

With the recount process set to begin Tuesday in the tense Tiffany Cabán-Melinda Katz Democratic primary battle for Queens district attorney, both campaigns are tallying more than just votes.

Insurgent candidate Cabán, with about $35,000 left to spend, is invoking the electoral stalemate in fundraising pitches. Recent emails ask supporters for contributions to ensure a fair recount against a “party machine that has ruled local politics and suppressed democracy for decades.”

Meanwhile, Queens Democratic Party stalwart and Borough President Katz has about $332,000 on hand. But that’s offset by nearly $360,000 in outstanding bills, the bulk of which she owes to consulting firm Red Horse Strategies, records show.

Katz attorneys Michael Reich and Frank Bolz are volunteering their services, said Matthew Rey, a campaign spokesperson. He added that the campaign is now “just starting to raise money” for the recount and general election.

Prominent election attorney Jerry Goldfeder and Renée Paradis, Bernie Sanders’ former voter protection director, are on Cabán’s payroll.

Katz, who initially appeared to have lost the crowded June 25 primary race to Cabán by 1,199 votes, pulled ahead by a mere 16 last week after a count of paper ballots.

The thin margin triggered a full recount of some 91,000 votes, which is expected to take at least a week — and every day will cost the campaigns. Both candidates have already spent upwards of $450,000 each in the past month, campaign disclosure forms filed last week show.

Sarah Steiner, an election lawyer and a former chair of the New York City Bar election law committee, noted there are “almost never recounts this big.”

“Recounts are usually in a single district,” Steiner said. “Usually, they’re in the smaller races. By sheer scale of larger races, usually the gaps between voters exceed the half of one percent in a recount.”

Just before the recount begins, attorneys for Cabán and Katz are scheduled to appear in state Supreme Court. Judge Jeremy Weinstein is expected to rule on whether 114 affidavit ballots with missing information should be validated and counted.

Despite recent accusations by the Katz campaign that Cabán’s team was cherrypicking affidavits favorable to her and effectively suppressing votes, both sides agree that every valid ballot should be counted.

“More than 100 affidavit ballots from registered and eligible Democrats were wrongly invalidated by the [city Board of Elections] — and we will be in court Tuesday morning to make sure these voters are not disenfranchised,” said Monica Klein, a Cabán spokesperson.

Reminds me of a Warren Zevon song. Send lawyers, votes and money

Governor Cuomo gifting Belmont Park developers with a train station

NY Post


A controversial plan to bring a new $1.2 billion arena and entertainment venue to state-owned Belmont Park will now include a $105 million full-service stop on the Long Island Railroad, Gov. Cuomo announced Monday.

The station serving Belmont, NY, is a huge score for the New York Islanders arena project and will be situated between the Queens Village and Bellerose stations on the LIRR’s Main Line, just east of the Cross Island Parkway.

A press release put out by the governor’s office claimed it will the cost the arena developers – a partnership that includes the owners of both the Islanders and New York Mets — $97 million of the estimated $105 million price-tag.

However, state officials later clarified that the developers are only paying $30 million up front with the remaining $67 million to be covered by a no-interest, multi-decade state loan. The state will pick up the remaining $8 million.

The news didn’t sit well with project opponents.

“Obviously the State of New York wants to play hide the puck, and pretend that arena developers are paying for a massive transportation project instead of the taxpayers and commuters, and they buried that actual fact in the fine print. That is a disrespect, and cardinal breach of public trust,”said Tammie S. Williams of the Belmont Park Community Coalition.