Ok, Queens. Can we top this one?

From CBS 2:

One look at the abandoned house in Riverdale and you know exactly why the neighbors are so upset. The shingles have fallen off. You can see holes in the roof. A tree is actually growing out of the house. And garbage and machinery is strewn all over the yard.

Public records show the house was purchased in 2006 for more than $3 million. The property is owned by a real estate company called 620 Blackstone, LLC, run by Josh Neustein.

Neustein owns several rental properties in the area and lives only a few miles away from this home, also in the fancy Riverdale section of the Bronx.

A woman inside the home told Leitner she was at the wrong address, but neighbors and public records confirmed the residence owned by Neustein.

He was named to the city’s worst landlord list in 2012 by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, with 753 open hazardous violations on five buildings.

What's with the zoning here?

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Who builds a house like this?

Now here's a real architectural abortion: 32-15 60th Street, Woodside. Permits were filed in 2006 to build a 2-family house, but things went awry and those permits were revoked in 2007. The house has sat basically abandoned with a stop work order since 2010 and had a complaint filed in 2011 that it was open and unguarded with people (squatters?) entering and exiting. Lord knows if they ever resolved the little electrical problem they had. And what's with that open foundation? The house looks like it's on stilts.

This was previously a driveway/side yard.

The same owner apparently owns the house next door which currently has a yet-to-be-answered complaint of illegal conversion. The previous owner was tagged in 2006 for the same violation.

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An unacceptable situation

From Clean Up Jamaica Queens:

While riding my bike Sunday morning, I encountered several garbage strewn places (many illegal dumping and most of the spots have been reported numerous times).

Take a good look at our community:

1. Our Post Office (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) at the corner of 164th St & 89th Ave.



2. Post Office Parking Lot at 164th St & 89th Ave. This has been piling up since last week and I wondered how long it would stay like that.



3. Lot next to 170-18 Liberty St, or as I like to call that block, “Ghetto Row”.



4. What appears to be an empty house at 103-24 171st St.



5. The next two photos are a house at 104-11 171st St that I have reported several times.





6. The next three photos are an empty half built building next to Mike’s Towing at 115-45 Merrick Blvd right across the street from the Northeastern Conference of Seventh Day Adventists Administration Building and a few blocks from the beautiful Roy Wilkins Park. It is obvious this has been an illegal dumping ground for a long time and obvious nothing has been done about this.








7. And here again is the notorious empty James Fobb house at 107-58 108th Ave, which has been reported for two years now.






8. The bus stop at Merrick Blvd & 108th Ave, a major spot for dropping off household garbage.



9. Over flowing garbage cans at SE corner of Jamaica Ave & 170th St. A constant problem.



10. The SW corner of Jamaica Ave & 170th St.



Now does anyone reading this think that this is totally acceptable? Would any of this be acceptable in a majority white area? So why is this acceptable in a community of people of color? Is it that people of color do not deserve to live in a nice area, is that it, but white people are.

Again this is a combination of some of the majorly low class ghetto people we have in our community, a major lack of enforcement by DOS, poor leadership from our top officials down to our community boards and upstanding citizens of our community either ignoring this, thinking this is the norm or not doing something as small as reporting these places to 311 and calling your local officials.

Yesterday, I was at a screening of the film: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes put together by Art, Food & Soul and presented at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. Afterwards I talked to several of the people in attendance, many young and open-minded artists in our community who want a better Jamaica and they talked about the conditions of our community and what it looks like and they were not happy about it at all.

And this is why the perception of Jamaica is the way it is. The perception is REALITY!

So why is NOTHING being done about this? Why I am constantly reporting on these conditions, many that are the same areas over and over again?


Joe Moretti
Jamaica, NY 11432

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