All-Star Game advertises crumbling World's Fair

"So it's bad enough that the City of New York gave the Mets owners property worth $200 million for the paltry sum of $1. Now the Mets are incorporating World's Fair icons into their merchandising efforts to promote the 2013 MLB All Star Game being played at Citifield in mid-July. What really irks me about this is the New York State Pavilion is in a deteriorated condition that needs immediate remediation. With all the money that they'll be making, don't you think it would be appropriate to "step up to the plate" and repair the icon before it's too late? It can be a jewel in the Queens crown if done right. But then again...this is Queens!" - Alan

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The first ever Jamaica Cleanup Protest

The first Jamaica clean-up protest took place on Saturday, June 29th. Although small, it was a very vocal and very angry crowd about the garbage problem, the people who cause it and most importantly our elected leaders who have failed miserably with this issue and let the community really go to hell. Not one elected official turned up to march at the protest or even show their face, which was covered by NY1, the Queens Chronicle and the Queens Press.

Three candidates running for office did make appearances. Sondra Peeden, running for Councilman Leroy Comrie’s seat, Jon Torodash, running for City Council in Kew Gardens and Everly Brown, running for Queens Borough President. Both Torodash and Brown marched the entire way from 171st/109th Avenue through South Jamaica via 108th and Guy Brewer to Jamaica Avenue and ending at 89th Avenue/168th Place. Torodash, who is not even from Jamaica came to show his support, but no where to be found where Councilman Leroy Comrie (his district 27 is one of the worst), Assemblymember Vivian Cook (I still think she has been dead for several years), Ruben Wills, William Scarborough or the grand dame of incompetence, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.

So let me take you on a most interesting tour of just what we saw on this march.

Before I even get to the beginning of the march at 171st St/109th Ave, I encounter these wonderful sights:

I step out my building and walk a few feet down 170th St near the empty lot at the corner of 170th St/90th Ave and encounter the classic low ghetto garbage, chicken bones galore, with a side dish of rice. Our little dog, Teddy, would have had a field day if he was with me.



Then at 170th & Liberty the “plastered all over the place signs” on telephone poles, fences and trees greets me about carpet cleaning and I am totally shocked by this sign……………………………low class ghetto and low class third world immigrants clean their carpets.



Next the big Jamaica epidemic (and no I do not mean diabetes). I am talking about cars without license plates and/or registration stickers which is a huge problem in Jamaica as you will soon see by the photos. This one was at 170th St/Liberty Ave.


Then another one, with a South Carolina license plate and no registration sticker taking up space at 171st St/104th Ave.


Yet another one at the corner of 171st/104th Avenue. By the way it is illegal to cover a car on city streets. This particular one has no license plates or registration, flat tires and the front is demolished. I reported this to DOS several days ago and it still sits along with another one a few cars down.



Right across from the car above is an empty lot that just several days ago had garbage and several mattresses tossed on the street. I reported it, it got cleaned up and then just a few days later, more garbage. There is even more there, you just cannot see it with all the high weeds (and not the good kind). Keep in mind I am riding my bike and still have not even approached the initial protest spot at 171st/109th Ave.

Another sign. A call to the number revealed a gentlemen of Middle Eastern descent who told me the company is Priceless Realty based in Florida. Do any of you leaders or city officials even look into this kind of shit.



Another car, this time an out of state license, no registration. Again this is illegal. But this is Jamaica and Queens, where really nothing is enforced.


Ah, surprise, another car.

And another.


One more. This one with a California plate but no registration and it looks like it has been sitting here for some time.


And this beauty, which the woman who lives across the street has been complaining not only about this one, but all the others and the auto repair place next to this vehicle, which she stated they place many of these smashed up cars there, but alas her calls lead to no where. Hmmmm, wonder if this would be tolerated in Chelsea or the Upper East Side or Long Island City or Forest Hills or a white community?

And here is the auto repair that is responsible for some of these cars but not all. Hey Comrie, all this fucking shit is in your district. How about lifting a finger on this issue or are you too busy looking in the mirror at the not soon to be Queens Borough President job.


Wow, I finally reach my destination for the march, the notorious abandoned playground (owned by Crown Realty owner David Landau of Brooklyn) at 171st St/109th Ave to find garbage all over, high weeds and a pile of something near the fence.

On closer inspection, the pile is broken up concrete and blocks,  dumped I am sure by Pedro the Handyman.

While waiting for my fellow protesters to show, I notice another “For Sale vehicle”, with no license plate and registration. But I am bored waiting for my comrades, so………………………………


I decide to give it the Clean-Up Jamaica Moretti treatment, broken wipers, broken side mirrors, and garbage to top it off. I think the value of the vehicle has dropped down, so if anyone is in the market…………… After my customized job, two police officers come by in a patrol car, I flag them down, tell them about this illegally parked car and the others. They tell me they have some other business to take care of down the street but will send someone to take care of it. It is 9am, by 4pm, it is still there. I call the number on the vehicle, but it is hard to understand the heavy accent, but something about his brother, blah, blah, blah.

My comrades in arms finally show (wow, I am already exhausted). Some interviewing with NY1 (it airs Saturday night) and the Queens Chronicle and meeting some people takes place and then we being the March up 171st St.

We march up 171st, turn on 108th, work our way across Merrick Blvd into the hell hole called South Jamaica, that our elected leaders have totally abandoned all together.

Tomorrow, in Part Two of the March, more abandoned cars, a hell of a lot of garbage, abandoned homes, a crack/prostitution house, and some majorly low, low, low class ghetto people mixed in with the even more low class third world immigrants of the Middle Eastern and Pakistani background.

Tomorrow you will enter the hell hole known as South Jamaica, that even Lucifer himself would not dare enter.

Sneak Peak:

The notorious abandoned home, the crack heads and prostitutes hangout.
Your typical Middle Eastern Deli. Damn, our delis really went downhill when the Koreans sold them to the low class Middle Eastern/Pakistani slobs.

All of this “Vibrant and Diverse” Jamaica brought to you by Leroy Comrie, Helen Marshall, Vivian Cook and Senator Malcolm Smith.

GOOD FUCKING JOB FOLKS! 
Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY 11432
http://cleanupjamaicaqueens.wordpress.com/

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Quinn funds private park with discretionary funds

From Sunnyside Post:

Friends of Sunnyside Gardens Park, the fundraising arm of the membership-based park, received $25,000 through Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Those funds were for items such as “installing playground equipment and other recreational equipment.” Since 2010, Friends of Sunnyside Gardens Park has received $142,600 in city funds, most of it through Quinn. Park membership is not always open to all those who can afford the modest fees, such as with a YMCA or other non-profit. Members have to live in a geographical location to join.

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Austin Shafran's robocall to potential constituents

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Lesson learned

Turns out that despite the advice received in the comments section of my post about Dunkin Donuts using a street tree and pit for advertising, I didn't have to "take care of the problem myself." There's the easy way to do things and the right way to do things. The Parks Department handled the situation, as they were supposed to. Thank you.

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Union plasters strike warnings all over Grand Avenue

Took another stroll along Grand Avenue this weekend and here's what I found:

Signs warning the members of Local 79 that a strike is coming Monday morning.

I don't know why they are taped to telephone poles and parking meters along Grand Avenue.


We have telephones, faxes and e-mail these days, which certainly are better ways to communicate with members.

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Losers, all

From the Daily News:

Unleashing passions that still burn today, the City Council voted in 2008 to allow New York officials to run for three terms in office, rather than just the two terms that voters have repeatedly commanded.

This history has placed 10 incumbents in position to run for third terms this November. They are doing so in clear violation of the public will. Worse, five of the defiant 10 are members who actually voted against allowing officials to seek three terms.

The five members who voted for the extension and are defying the subsequent will of the voters are: Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Jimmy Vacca of the Bronx; Brooklynites Sara Gonzalez and Darlene Mealy, and Inez Dickens of Manhattan.

The five hypocrites who voted against allowing members to run three times but are doing so now are: Dan Garodnick, Melissa Mark-Viverito and Rosie Mendez of Manhattan; Vincent Gentile of Brooklyn, and Annabel Palma from the Bronx.

Once, they told their constituents that the city was best served by injecting fresh blood after eight years. Now, breaking their bond, they serve only political ambition.

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Term limits and temper come back to bite Quinn in the ass

From the NY Times:

In the Bayside section of Queens, a volunteer had barely begun her sales pitch for Christine C. Quinn’s mayoral campaign when the middle-aged man who answered the door cut her off. “She was the one responsible, in the City Council, for giving Bloomberg a third term,” he barked. “I hold that against her.”

The volunteer calmly countered that it was New Yorkers, not Ms. Quinn, who “voted the mayor back in.”

In Astoria, Queens, a woman in her 30s told another Quinn volunteer that the candidate’s sometimes brash personality had rubbed her the wrong way.

The volunteer gamely explained that Ms. Quinn’s flashes of temper “come from a place of love and passion.”

For all its financial might and political firepower, Ms. Quinn’s once high-flying bid for mayor has suddenly plummeted back to earth, shedding its coveted front-runner status and foreclosing the possibility of a painless path to City Hall. So with two months left in an increasingly unpredictable Democratic primary, she is dispatching a volunteer army unlike any in the race to every corner of New York City, determined not just to promote her campaign, but also to systematically ferret out and rebut voters’ reservations and resentments toward her.

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Developer malfeasance causes restaurant to close

From WPIX:

Nom Wah Tea Parlor — a famous tea parlor in Chinatown — has been closed down for the past two weeks.

The owners say it’s because of a disagreement between them and the owner of another building.

Guess who’s in the middle of this one?

There was a time when a hand shake was all you needed to seal a deal. Yes, but today it’s wise to have a lawyer draw up a legal document so there is no room for misinterpretation.

This is what Wilson Tang was thinking. And unfortunately, that is why is restaurant is closed.

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Mr. Noguchi, meet Mr. Crap

From Brownstoner Queens, we find out that the finishing touches are being put on this 3-family baby across the street from the Noguchi Museum.

The post says that Gerald Caliendo is the architect, but someone else is taking credit for it.

It's Frank Lloyd Crap! Welcome back!

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Paul Vallone: Animal Advocate and Environmentalist?

From NYCLASS:

How we decided which candidates to endorse:

NYCLASS staff and volunteers interviewed more than 60 candidates. All candidates were selected based on their support of animal protection issues such as:

Banning horse drawn carriages and/or replacing them with vintage electric cars
Reforming NYC Animal Care & Control (the city's shelter system)
Building animal shelters in the Bronx and Queens (which currently have none)
Banning puppy mills
Requiring all pet stores to install fire sprinklers
Protecting a senior citizens' right to have a companion animal

Peter Vallone, Sr. wanted to expand the area in which horse carriages could operate.
But I'm sure his son is not a chip off the old block, even though he can't stop mentioning how proud he is of his pop's record of service. And his brother wants to ban pit bulls but I'm sure Paul thinks that's a terrible idea as well.

Glad to hear Paul is against puppy mills. I wonder which shelter he got that Bichon Frisé from...

As for environmentalism, Paul's CB7 record includes voting yes on a variance for a hotel in the middle of a river, not showing up to vote on the USTA expansion (which includes a power plant), and being part of a lobbying firm that represented a toxic soil dumping developer. Rumor has it that his buddies are eyeing the old Whitestone CYO site for development as well, where the community wants a park.

Kind of perplexing why NYCLASS would pick Vallone considering all this. Oh.....wait! I forgot something from the NYCLASS website:


We also considered each candidates' leadership potential and winability.

Ah, in other words, if you were endorsed by County, NYCLASS will say that you're an animal advocate and an environmentalist. Even when you aren't.

Yet another fake advocacy group.

At this point, I'd rather trust the Dilluvios than NYCLASS. They took down their Vallone signs.

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Soccer stadium coming to Queens-Nassau border?

From CBS New York:

The Islanders are moving to Brooklyn, but will Long Island soon gain a professional soccer team?

The New York Cosmos have big plans for a soccer stadium on the Queens/Nassau County border.

But as CBS 2’s Carolyn Gusoff reported Wednesday, not everyone’s a fan of the idea.

In the shadow of Belmont racetrack, sits a specific parking lot. However, soon, weeds could be replaced with stadium grass, and parking stalls with sidelines.

The Cosmos, a world famous franchise that was reborn recently following three decades of dormancy, has proposed a 25,000-seat privately funded soccer stadium for the site. Proponents say it’s just what Long Island needs to generate jobs and tax revenue.

“The whole idea of taking a weed-infested parking lot and replacing that with a state-of-the-art $400 million stadium, I think, just makes all the sense in the world,” said state Sen. Jack Martins (R-7th District)

The local soccer club president welcomed community fields.

But not everyone in Belmont’s backyard is cheering. Critics are going door to door gathering signatures against the stadium.

“Selling hot dogs just does not translate into sustainable economic development for any community,” Elmont community activist Aubrey Phillips said.

“We know crime will come up and we also know that traffic will be a nuisance, and we don’t want our property values to go down any further,” added Milagros Vicentre of the North Valley Stream Neighborhood Association.

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At least he didn't take it to a drive-thru

From the NY Post:

This guy’s taking the lunch break to new heights.

A grinning La Guardia Airport worker took a lunchtime joyride in a terminal stair car — even though such vehicles aren’t allowed on city streets.

The driver, a regular at a pizza joint near the airport, was spotted cruising in the Southwest Airlines vehicle on 19th Avenue at Hazen Street in Queens at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

But as much as the joker enjoyed his unusual wheels, he’d better leave them on the runway next time.

“It is not legal to drive on a public street,” a DMV spokeswoman said.

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Huge Rego Park apartment building sold again

From Crains:

Teaneck, N.J.-based Treetop Development, which three years ago began snapping up residential buildings across the Hudson River in northern Manhattan, has now jumped across a second river, the East.

The developer has acquired Saxon Hall, a 16-story rental apartment building located at 62-60 99th Street in Rego Park, Queens, for $85.25 million.

The purchase is Treetop's first in the borough. It's all part of a strategy to acquire "rental properties in emerging and undervalued New York City neighborhoods," according to a press release.

"Some of the strengths Queens has over Manhattan and Brooklyn is that tenants can get a significantly cheaper apartment, oftentimes a larger apartment, in a nicer building," said Adam Mermelstein, general partner at Treetop. "There's strong value in Queens."

Saxon Hall currently has 417 apartments ranging in size from studios to three-bedrooms and penthouse units, all of which have balconies.

It was last sold in 2008 for $74M.

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Someone is suing to get Fat Boy back

From the Daily News:

A Queens-based filmmaker has sued the city over its hastily-enacted plan to pluck a deteriorating statue off Queens Blvd. and move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Robert LoScalzo claims the city has refused to turn over emails and other communications involving the removal of the Triumph of Civic Virtue from its longtime perch outside Queens Borough Hall.

“There are still too many unanswered questions,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led a campaign to keep the statue in Queens and is working with LoScalzo on the legal action. “How was a heavy construction project like this done in quick secrecy?”

Plans to move the statue were unveiled during a little-known Design Commission meeting in November, when most civic leaders and lawmakers were focused on recovery efforts after Superstorm Sandy.

One month later, the statue was moved to Green-Wood.

Cemetery officials said all of the conservation work on the statue has been completed and it is awaiting a new granite base.

Great, now you can bring it back to where it belongs.

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Illegal stickers have ties to mafia and fake charity

From WyckoffHeights.org:

Residents of Ridgewood and Bushwick likely have noticed the multitude of new “Cash for Cars" stickers that have appeared on signs and telephone poles throughout the neighborhood in recent weeks. These ads promise “300 & up" but provide no information about the entity behind them, just a phone number - 347-246-1637.

Seeking more information I recently called that number. A woman answered - "Cash for cars!" - and offered $200 and a tax receipt for $500 in exchange for my (fictitious) 20-year-old sedan. Asked if the tax receipt meant they were a non-profit, she replied that they worked with several non-profit organizations and that the money raised went “to the troops and the kids." Pressed for more information she said the tax receipt would be from the “Foundation of Dreams."

An internet search for the Foundation of Dreams turned up no such organization registered in New York State. Some websites suggested that a North Carolina-based Foundation of Dreams was associated with an address in Queens, but I found nothing definitive.

A search for the Cash for Cars telephone number turns up dozens of similar ads online, many in local newspapers’ classifieds. Most are as vague as the recent stickers but a few refer to a “Troops Relief Fund".

State records show that a Troops Relief Fund Inc was registered in 2008 by John Lomonaco of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The not-for-profit’s 2009 IRS filing (available on Guidestar.org) states “This organions [SIC] mission is to help the US Armed Forces by soliciting donation [SIC] and distributing these assets to organization [SIC] that help the US Armed Forces."

IRS filings from 2009 to 2012 show revenue of almost $150,000, with most of that spent on salaries, rent, utilities, advertising, and other expenses. Just $2,900 (or 2%) was spent on “donations" by the organization (the nature of these donations is not explained).

Further research finds that the organization’s secretary - an Ozone Park resident - is also secretary for Bless the Kids Fund Inc, a Hewlett NY not-for-profit which in 2009 reported revenue of $549,491 from “car sales" with 7% of that going to charity.

According to IRS filings the vice president of Bless the Kids Fund is a Mark Lomonaco, whose Facebook page features a photo of a Troops Relief Fund tow truck and a post from November 2012 promoting Foundation of Dreams, Bless the Kids and Troops Relief Fund, and with the same phone number as the recent sticker ads.

Mark Lomonaco turns out to be a former associate of Carmine Agnello (one-time Gambino Family soldier and John Gotti son-in-law). In 2000 Agnello, Lomonaco and five others were arrested and charged as the result of an investigation into organized crime in the scrap metal industry, during which an undercover police-run scrap yard in Queens was firebombed.

A 2001 press release by the Department of Justice stated that Lomonaco and the other defendants plead guilty to racketeering, extortion, arson, income tax fraud, and obliteration of vehicle identification numbers.

This is the best blog post I have read in a long time. GO GET 'EM!

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FMCP mosaics won't be repaired this time

From the Queens Chronicle:

The mosaic tile discs encircling Flushing Meadows Corona Park’s Dinkins Circle are falling to bits — and in some cases they may not return.

The Parks Department has cordoned off the tile disks, which commemorate the park’s two World’s Fairs, to keep pedestrians from continuing to trample on them.

“Some areas that cannot be repaired will be replaced with hex block pavers,” said a Parks Department spokesman. “Cars are not allowed into David Dinkins Circle to prevent further damage to the mosaics.”

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Tenants of foreclosed buildings want fixes

From the Queens Courier:

Hany Taha is afraid that his ceiling will collapse on him.

He has lived in the same apartment for 26 years, but now the ceiling is sinking. Although he has complained about it for seven months, nothing has happened.

Taha is a resident of one of six low-income apartment buildings in Ridgewood owned by Ridgewood Realty of L.I. The structures have accumulated a total of nearly 550 violations, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

At a rally on June 19 outside Manhattan’s bankruptcy court, residents and officials demanded to meet with the company that owns the mortgages — an investment firm called Stabilis Capital Management — to discuss finding a “new, responsible owner.”

About thirty families rent at the buildings in question, which have six units each. The rent ranges from $900 to $1,050 a month. Tenants make payments to a court-appointed receiver.

Residents want to continue living in the buildings, but fear that Stabilis will sell them to a group that wants to build luxury apartments.

“We are trying to resolve it, but we don’t own the buildings. We don’t have control over them,” a representative from Stabilis said. “We are prevented from taking action because of the bankruptcy that was taken by the owner.”

Residents’ complaints include no heat in the winter, leaks from ceilings, rat infestations, mold and cracked walls. The front doors to some of the buildings are missing knobs, and a number of locks are broken.

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Flushing & Whitestone parking hogs

"As street parking is becoming increasingly difficult in this part of the neighborhood some tenants don't have any regard for their neighbor’s needs, they bring boats, trucks, schools buses and also big RV's to be stored permanently on the streets in front (or not) of their houses taking valuable parking space from their respective neighbors.

Others park cars for years and although is not against the law there should be an ordinance that help remove from the streets vehicles that have been there for more than an specified amount of time, also, not to allow vehicles bigger than a certain size to be stored not only preventing neighbors from parking but preventing the view, sunlight and breeze to reach certain dwelling units besides being eyesores.


In front of 21-17 147th Street in Whitestone there's what appears to be a huge covered RV permanently parked taking some two or three parking spaces.


Near the corner of Union Street and 26th Avenue in Flushing in front of the Mitchell Gardens #1 coop building 142-15 26th Avenue there's another RV type of truck color brown with license plates FCR-3579 that has been parked there for months now. It’s near the water hydrant in front of the playground

In front of 146-16 25th Rd in Flushing there's a black BMW parked on the street for years, I’ve been walking this block at least once a week for a long time now and this car has always been there in the same position, you can see the marks of time on the car’s body and tires. License plates AXM-9464.

In front of 144-13 26th Avenue in Flushing there’s a very long limousine belonging to Royal Way Limousine Inc with license plates T621443C that barely moves from this place, the owner could park blocking his/her own driveway in order to save someone else some space.

All these vehicles are taking someone else's parking space, most people in these parts need the street parking space because most tenants in the neighborhood rent and don't have the right to use the driveway since landlords store their property in the garage of the house they rent to other people." - anonymous

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Quinn not being as bitchy as last year

From The Politicker:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has long been accused of using the Council’s budget as a tool to punish those who cross her and keep members in line. But, as member item allocations have come under increased scrutiny in light of the mayor’s race, Ms. Quinn appears to have changed course.

Sources familiar with the camps of three of Ms. Quinn’s most vocal critics in recent months told Politicker Tuesday that their member allocations–which fund local community non-profits, including senior centers and after-school programs–will either remain steady or tick up slightly, according to preliminary numbers shared with their offices this week.


Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who has repeatedly accused Ms. Quinn of slashing his funding back in 2011 after he vocally opposed her plan to re-name the Queensboro Bridge after former Mayor Ed Koch, said he was informed in a meeting with Council staff on Sunday that his funding would remain about the same as last year–marking the first time in three years, he said, that his total has not been cut.

Another frequent critic, City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, who appeared on a CNN broadcast in March criticizing Ms. Quinn’s decision to slash her funding because of a mis-timed press release, as well as in a New York Times story on the subject, also appears to have been spared.

It was the same for Bronx Councilman Fernando Cabrera, who said Tuesday he was told his allocation would be the same as the last two years–despite his public threats to bypass Ms. Quinn and force two bills to vote.

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Worker falls into basement of demo project

From NY1:

Fire crews on Thursday responded to a construction site in Queens after a worker fell into the basement of a home that's being demolished.

It happened around 8:30 a.m. at a property located at 181-14 Kildare Road in Jamaica Estates.

Officials say the worker, who is said to be in his 30's, suffered a head injury during the fall.

He was transported to Queens Hospital Center.

The Department of Buildings ordered the work stopped until the fall can be investigated.

Here's what it used to look like:



What's coming?

"ONE FAMILY DWELLING. THE THREE FIXTURE BATHROOM LOCATED IN THE CELLAR SHALL BE USED SOLELY IN CONNECTION WITH THE DWELLING UNIT ABOVE."

Uh huh.

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