ER alternative popular

From Crains:

In New York City, new urgent-care centers are being built to meet demand after the shuttering of several hospitals. With the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System and Lenox Hill Hospital are opening an urgent-care center next month at 121-A W. 20th St. It will temporarily be located in 3,625 square feet of cellar space currently occupied by Village Care of New York. The urgent-care center will occupy the space from 7 p.m. through 8 a.m., after Village Care ends its daily hours of operation. The two will never be open at the same time.

In November, North Shore-LIJ opened a $4.2 million, 6,675-square-foot urgent-care center on the site of a former St. John's Hospital-Queens clinic in the Rego Park section of Queens. The center has eight exam rooms; diagnostic equipment, including imaging and electrocardiogram devices; and laboratories. It is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, with shorter hours on weekends. The health system says the center should take the stress off its busy Forest Hills Hospital emergency department, where visits have spiked by 40% since the closures of St. Johns and Mary Immaculate hospitals.

NYPD to change policies on sex crimes

From Wall Street Journal:

A committee chosen by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly to study how his department handles sex offenses has made six recommendations aimed at decreasing the number of misclassified complaints and increasing officer sensitivity when dealing with victims.

The committee, called the Sex Crimes Working Group, was convened in April after sex-crime victim advocate groups and rape counselors said they believed many rape and sexual-assault complaints were being classified as lesser crimes or reports weren't being taken at all.

Paul Browne, the NYPD's spokesman, said that over the past nine months the NYPD has conducted an audit of 1,922 sex-crime cases. Of those, police found the charges in 19 cases were misclassified and needed to be corrected, he said.

Mr. Browne said Mr. Kelly has "accepted all of the recommendations and is moving forward in coming weeks with expanded training and the assignment of the additional detectives to Special Victims."

According to a copy of the committee's report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the committee recommended that all sexual-assault complaints be assigned to Special Victims Division (SVD) detectives who are specially trained in sex-crime investigations. Currently, sexual-assault complaints are also handled by patrol officers.

The committee members believe the change will lead to a decrease in the number of sex-crime misclassifications, the recommendations state.

Bimmy's goes bankrupt

From Crains:

The holidays will shower a little less love on Bimmy's, the Long Island City, Queens-based gourmet sandwich maker whose slogan is “Food made with love.” The wholesaler, which sells its sandwiches at airport cafes and in other locations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last week, citing more than 50 creditors.

The 15-year-old business, which also has an outpost on Second Avenue in midtown, listed fewer than $50,000 in assets, along with liabilities totaling more than $500,000. In 2007, the sandwich maker had $10 million in revenue, though the recession has taken its toll. Thanks to a drop in sales at airports, where many of Bimmy's prepared foods are carried, the company has slashed employee headcount and tried to improve productivity over the last two years.

Neither Bimmy's founder, Elliott Fread, nor his attorney, were immediately available for comment.

Maybe it was all the campaign contributions.

They had fun while it lasted

From the Daily News:

Spend-happy Senate Democrats leave their two years in the majority in the same shape they helped leave the state - deep in debt.

The Senate Democratic conference exceeded its $29 million legislative budget by a whopping $7 million, or 24%, Senate sources said.

Salaries for Democratic staffers are now being paid with money left over from unspent money from previous budgets, they concede.

Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) called the excessive payouts "the height of irresponsibility" at a time the state is dealing with one of its worst fiscal crises ever.

"It goes along with the [billions of dollars] in new spending, taxes and fees they agreed to in the budget," Golden said. "The last two years they've spent like drunken sailors."

Senate Republicans, conversely, came in $2 million under the $23 million they had been allocated, sources said.

Senate Democratic officials confirmed the budget numbers, but had no comment.

Insiders say much of the Democratic overspending traces back to the leadership coup that paralyzed the House for a month last year.

After the Republicans claimed to have retaken the chamber, the Democrats wrested control back through a series of costly agreements.

Bayard balcony crap

Miss Heather featured a good one on her blog recently. Fox News couldn't resist picking it up!

Wreath a victim of budget cuts

From the NY Post:

Bah! Humbug!

For as long as anyone can recall, a gigantic wreath adorned the Municipal Building across from City Hall each Christmas season.

Not this year.

Chalk up another victim of the city's severe financial crunch.

"Given the budget cuts announced in the fall, we could not justify the $3,500 expense," said Mark Daly, a spokesman for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

Officials said that the city used to order live greenery every year and that city workers would spend days assembling into a festive wreath that was 10 feet in diameter and weighed 2,000 pounds.

The cost of the raw materials consumed most of the expense, they said.

City officials might want to check the Web site of Christmas Tree for Me, which was offering 10-foot-diameter wreaths for $1,097, shipping included.

Photo from jenblossom on Flickr

Snowball fight pits Vallones vs. Crowleys

Christmas in Brooklyn

Anyone still need a tree?

1924 photo of waterfront Christmas tree shipment from Ephemeral New York.

And here's another from Shorpy:


New York circa 1895. "Cut Christmas trees at market in front of Barclay Street Station."

Christmas in Connecticut

From the Wall Street Journal:

Hedge fund titan Paul Tudor Jones III spreads a little Christmas cheer around Greenwich, Conn., each year. Well maybe more than just a little.

Off-duty police officers direct traffic around the sprawling light display, allowing drivers to line up eight at a time in front of Jones’ 13,000-square-foot home on a waterfront cul-de-sac. A soundtrack synchronized to the thousands of flashing lights plays over the radio on FM90.5. The full cycle lasts nearly five minutes.

There is no official count of the spectators, but on the night The Journal attended scores of cars lined up along the streets of the quiet neighborhood for a chance to take in a light show put on by one of the richest people in the world. (WSJ was the only media organization allowed to film this year’s over-the-top show). This year’s theme: angels.

Republican elves prepare for Christmas

Gennaro to help church overturn landmarking

From the Daily News:

Members of Grace Episcopal Church launched a campaign to persuade local members of the City Council to overturn the city Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation [of Grace's Memorial Hall] when it comes up for a Council vote next year.

But not a single church member attended the commission's public hearing earlier this year to oppose the plan. The church's Memorial Hall was officially landmarked on Oct. 26.

"We're going to fight the designation," said Grace Episcopal's leader, the Rev. Darryl James. "It siphons off potential funding for ways in which we can really continue to do the work of Jesus Christ."

The congregation's church and cemetery were landmarked in 1967 - and Grace Episcopal has felt the financial pinch of the designations ever since, he said.

When the congregation repaired a bluestone walkway to the church, the Landmarks Commission had to sign off on which materials could be used, he said.

But his congregation never told the commission they opposed the designation - and they didn't attend the February public hearing where four people spoke in favor. The commission also received letters of support from several elected officials.

James admitted the church was properly notified of the hearing and said Grace Episcopal was in the middle of various event preparations and the meeting somehow "just slipped through the cracks."

Now brown splotches, signaling roof damage, have begun to mar the ceiling of Grace's Memorial Hall. James said he doesn't know how his church can afford to fix the almost 100-year-old building's slate roof if the designation isn't reversed.

But he has found a friend in City Council member James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows). The Council can overturn a landmark designation.

"I'm going to be opposing it," Gennaro said. "More attention should be focused on the financial impacts of landmarking on nonprofit institutions."

Only 20 designations have been successfully reversed since the Landmarks Preservation Commission was formed in 1965, said agency spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon. Eight were in Queens.

Not to worry, we can always put up signs that explain what used to be there and act like it's an acceptable alternative. This is Queens, after all.

Illegal alien phone scammers bilked the elderly

From the NY Times:

“Who would expect that someone will call and claim to be your family member?” said Capt. Stefan Komar, the executive officer of the 94th Precinct in Greenpoint, who speaks Polish. “Just the chutzpah of this crime makes it unlikely.”

The 73-year-old woman was not the only victim in the neighborhood. At least four other elderly people gave out money, men and women, losing amounts from $5,000 to $20,000. Each time, the scheme was the same. The only variable was whether the caller introduced himself as a grandson, nephew or some other family member.

“You couldn’t miss him — he had a long fake fur jacket and a hat,” said Joseph Notwicz, a Polish-speaking detective assigned to the case, who made the arrest. According to the police, the suspect, Waldemar Kordecki, 29, turned out to be an illegal immigrant, using a fraudulent green card, Social Security card and credit cards, as well as a fake Maryland driver’s license.

“But he was very cooperative,” Detective Notwicz said. “He even showed us another building where he got the money, so we went inside and I spoke to the Polish lady who was too embarrassed to make a police report earlier.”

While in police custody, Mr. Kordecki received a text message from his accomplice asking him to meet in a bar in Jackson Heights, Queens, the police said.

“There were his pictures in the phone so we knew what he looked like,” said Detective Notwicz, who a short time later arrested Piotr Łakatosz, 29, also an illegal Polish immigrant who the police said was making the phone calls.

Another proud first for Queens

From the NY Post:

A Queens pervert has netted the dubious distinction of becoming the first person in New York City to be charged with violating the state’s sex offender e-mail registration law.

Felix Ortiz, 31 was nailed this week for failing to inform authorities of his "internet activities" under the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP) which passed in 2008, authorities said.

Ortiz had pleaded guilty to promoting a sexual performance by a child in 2008 and was serving a 10-year probation sentence.

As a registered sexy offender, he was then required under the e-STOP law to report his Internet activities.

He allegedly lied by telling authorities that he didn’t have any Internet accounts, e-mail addresses or screen names. He’s actually a member of Facebook and MySpace and has e-mail accounts with Gmail and AOL, officials said.

If convicted, Ortiz faces four years in prison.

Armstrong museum expanding

From the Wall Street Journal:

The man known to millions as "Satchmo" is in the news again this week thanks to a pair of announcements by the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens. The Armstrong collection was opened in 1994, and the 107th Street house itself, where the trumpeter lived from 1943 until his death in 1971, was opened to the public in 2003. Up to now, the archive has been housed at Queens College, and has been described as the largest collection devoted to a single jazz musician anywhere in the world.

At a press conference at the Armstrong house last week, the museum's director, Michael Cogswell, announced that ground will be broken in the Spring of 2011 on a new visitor's center to be located on the other side of 107th Street. The building, which will be completed in 2013, will house the entire Armstrong library and include an 80-seat space for musical performances and educational purposes.

Said Mr. Cogswell, "The world is more interested than ever in Louis Armstrong."

The library includes material not only from Armstrong and his wife, Lucille Armstrong, but also from Phoebe Jacobs, who helped found the Armstrong Educational Foundation (the organization that supports the museum) in 1969, and Jack Bradley, an avid jazz researcher and photographer who gathered and took thousands of photos of the Armstrongs through the decades.

Dutch Kills residents resort to traffic cones

From the Queens Gazette:

Frustrated residents in one section of the Dutch Kills community have started reserving parking spaces as a way to keep their vehicles within view.

The neighborhood bordered by 35th Avenue on the north, 37th Avenue on the south, 34th Street on the west and 38th Street on the east is a mix of residential units and commercial interests that have struggled for years to share a limited amount of available parking spaces.

Parking on side streets in the area is subject, four out of five working days each week, to the city’s alternate side parking regulations forcing motorists to clear streets for Department of Sanitation (DOS) street cleaning.

For four days each week, residents are joined by area workers in a cat-and-mouse game to find parking, according to resident Diane Carbone.

“It’s crazy,” Carbone declared. “People come home from work and spend an hour looking for a legal parking space for the next day. What are they supposed to do with their vehicles if they can’t find a spot?”

Residents, fed up with the lack of parking, have started placing traffic cones or trash cans in spaces to save them. “Some people feel it’s the only way they can hope to get a spot in their own neighborhood,” Carbone said.

Officials at the Department of Transportation (DOT) said residents are asking for trouble by saving parking spots.

Officials said using parking cones or trash cans to save parking spaces is illegal in New York City and can lead to a $100 fine.

Yeah, like they ever enforce that. Why do we have alternate side parking for street cleaning anyway? It's not like the street sweepers make the streets look any better. Property owners are already required to maintain street cleanliness in front of their homes.

And here are the proud double-dippers

From the NY Post:

Embattled Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez and 10 other state pols will give new meaning to the words "retired in office" on Jan. 1 -- when they start new terms hours after cashing in fat pensions, The Post has learned.

The 11 double-dipping state lawmakers -- including former state Democratic Chairman Herman Farrell and former Bronx Democratic Chairman José Rivera -- are the latest to take advantage of a mind-boggling loophole that allows some elected officials to collect pension checks while still in office.

The list of lawmakers who filed their "retirement" papers with the state Comptroller's Office by the Dec. 1 deadline includes seven Republicans and four Democrats.

Lopez, 69, can expect to receive an estimated $88,000 pension annually on top of the $92,000 salary he draws as the Assembly's Housing Committee chairman.

The 12-term assemblyman, who is reportedly battling a cancer relapse, has also been dogged by criminal probes into the Brooklyn charity empire he founded.

Meanwhile, Farrell, 78, is eligible for a pension worth a projected $108,000 over his $113,500 salary as Assembly Ways & Means chairman -- by far the largest haul of the 11 who took advantage of the loophole.

To claim the plush benefit an official need only "retire" Dec. 31 and show up after the confetti falls New Year's Day to get sworn-in anew. The Legislature closed the loophole in 1995, but politicians elected to office before that date can still collect.

Immigrants with criminal records being told to leave

From the Daily News:

Immigrants with criminal records who are desperate to stay in the U.S. are flooding courts across the city with pleas to have old convictions tossed, the Daily News has learned.

A revved-up effort by the feds to rid the country of ex-cons is sowing fear that a decades-old petty theft or drug-dealing case could mean a one-way ticket out of New York.

Noncitizens are bombarding judges with requests to have convictions vacated on the grounds they were never told that pleading guilty to a minor crime could lead to deportation.

Among those who have filed petitions is Carlos Sanchez, who was 17 in 1991 when he punched a man in the face and stole his parka during a fight a few blocks from his Sunnyside, Queens, home.

The following year, he pleaded guilty to attempted assault and robbery and spent 18 months in an upstate prison.

After getting out of prison, Sanchez, now 37, stayed out of trouble for 17 years - holding jobs as a welder and construction worker. He's married and has a 3-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.

In May, the Department of Homeland Security notified him that it was seeking to send him back to Spain, which he left with his parents as a youth.

NYPD arrests guy for photographing nostalgia train

From pixiq:

The editor of a popular railfan magazine was detained, handcuffed, frisked and cited by New York City police officers for photographing trains four months ago – but the incident is just coming to light now.

Apparently, Railfan & Railroad Magazine editor Steve Barry was acting under the advice of lawyers by waiting this long to publish an account of the incident, which took place on August 21.

An account of the incident will be published in the January issue of the magazine, but the editorial was posted Thursday on Subchat.

On August 21, 2010, your editor, along with contributor Mike Burkhart, went into New York City to photograph the Transit Museum’s historic train, which was making a run to the Rockaways. After shooting for most of the day, we were waiting for the return trip at the Broad Channel station when we were approached by two (and eventually, five) officers of the New York Police Department. They insisted that photography was not allowed. After asking for i.d., I gave a verbal legal i.d. (full name and hometown) and repeatedly asked for a supervisor. I soon found myself in handcuffs.

The two men were cited under 1050.9.C of the New York City Rules of Conduct, which only forbids the use of tripods, lights and reflectors when photographing or videotaping trains, which apparently they were not using.

Photography, filming or video recording in any facility or conveyance is permitted except that ancillary equipment such as lights, reflectors or tripods may not be used. Members of the press holding valid identification issued by the New York City Police Department are hereby authorized to use necessary ancillary equipment. All photographic activity must be conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Part.

They contacted the New York Civil Liberties Union, which got the citations dropped.

They were also cited for not producing proper identification, which they were really not obligated to do since they were not breaking a law in the first place.

Photo from Second Avenue Sagas

We need more people like him

From the NY Times:

“George, you’ve always wanted this house,” said Mrs. Seguine, who by then was in her 90s and close to death. “Now you can have it. But you must promise me that you will save it.”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

Mr. Burke, now 80, promptly bought the house for $150,000 and spent the next five years restoring the premises to their former glory, largely with his own hands. Thanks to his efforts, the mansion looks much as it did when the Seguines roamed these generously proportioned, high-ceilinged rooms, and offers a vivid portrait of how people lived in an era characterized by both graciousness and a crowd of servants.

Mr. Burke presides over the mansion like a lord of the manor. But although he is part of a large extended family, he never married and has no children. From early on he worried about what would become of the house when he was not around to care for it.

And so in 1989 he transferred the house and its property to the Historic House Trust of New York City, which is operated in tandem with the city Parks Department. Under the terms of the arrangement, Mr. Burke can live in the house until his death, at which time the trust will take over the property. Because the building is a city landmark and listed on the state and federal registers of historic places, Mr. Burke is confident that what he calls “the last of the island’s great old plantation houses” will enjoy a long and happy life.