Overhaul for World's Fair Marina

From the Queens Chronicle:

Plans are in place for the World’s Fair Marina to receive a $32 million makeover, including a complete reconstruction of one of its piers.

The improvements to the marina, located on Flushing Bay in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, will focus on the deteriorating Pier 1. The pier, which is closed to the public, will be demolished and completely rebuilt under the plan.

Officials from the Parks Department told Community Board 3 at its Nov. 15 meeting the pier is “in pretty bad shape” and “in need of reconstruction.”

The Parks Department was in front of the community board looking to secure a letter of support before it puts its plan in front of the city’s Public Design Commission. Due to the snow that fell that day, the board did not have the required number of members present at the meeting to vote.

The construction budget of $32 million includes funding from City Hall as well as federal dollars designated for Hurricane Sandy repairs. The World’s Fair Marina was battered during the 2012 hurricane and suffered considerable damage.

DeBlasio has illegal fence installed at Gracie Mansion

From the NY Post:

Mayor de Blasio failed to secure the proper permits to build his “privacy fence” around Gracie Mansion — and the Parks Department is now scrambling to file the paperwork after the fact, City Hall officials admitted Friday.

On Thursday, The Post exclusively reported that the mayor ordered the construction of a roughly 10-foot-tall fence inside an existing 6-foot brick wall to keep the public’s prying eyes out of his yard.

Officials couldn’t say whether any employees of the Parks Department, which handled the construction for the mayor, would be disciplined for building the barrier without first obtaining the alteration permits they needed.

City property owners are routinely levied hefty fines for such infractions.

Plans for the eyesore fence should have gone before the city’s Design Commission for review — but never did, a City Hall source also admitted. The job was finished in November.

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.

Still fighting for Civic Virtue

From the Daily News:

The controversial Triumph of Civic Virtue statue may be long gone from Queens Boulevard but some local activists are still fighting to find how and why it was moved.

They filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the city for details of the plans to move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

But the Department of Citywide Administrative Services has yet to respond, prompting the group to appeal to state officials.

“There are a lot of issues going on with this statue,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led the campaign to keep the statue in Queens. “Residents were annoyed enough that we were losing such a great work of art but then there was this whole secrecy and these strange channels through the Design Commission.”

The city Design Commission signed off on the plan to move the statue during a little-known public hearing in November.

Torodash and others complained they had no prior notice about the hearing.

Civic Virtue vote was pretty shady

For some reason, Parks doesn't want headstones at burial ground

From the Daily News:

THE CITY has dropped plans to place four headstones at a 19th-century Flushing cemetery that was long forgotten and became a park - angering advocates fighting to respect its buried dead.

The Parks Department scaled back its visions for the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground - formerly known as Martin's Field - to a single obelisk inscribed with the four names, officials said.

Critics insist the grassy plot at 46th Ave. and 164th St. will lack the appearance of a cemetery without headstones, which were eliminated after the city built a playground on the site in 1936.

They say the obelisk will not go far enough to dignify the spot where hundreds of African-Americans, Native Americans and poor whites were interred between 1840 and 1898.

"We have this ancestral need to correct history," said Robbie Garrison, who co-chairs a conservancy dedicated to honoring the site. "It's notorious to just cover up black dead people and keep going."

During a meeting between civic leaders and the city last week, department officials said they are excluding the headstones out of fear that they will be rejected by a city commission that reviews public projects, sources said.

What an absolute crock of shit. We all know city agencies work hand-in-hand.

Vote on Marty's $64M potato chip put on hold

From the NY Post:

The city’s Design Commission today opted to hold off a key vote for Coney Island’s $64 million amphitheater project after irate opponents gave commissioners an earful over the controversial plan.

The taxpayer-funded, 8,000-seat amphitheater plan for Asser Levy Park is a pet project of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and also includes the relocation of the park’s playground.

Many opponents expected the commission to sign off on the new playground design today and the amphitheater design at a later date. But after hearing testimony from opponents, commissioners opted to table the vote until they could review both parts of the plan simultaneously. This, because, the amphitheater can’t be built unless the playground is relocated.

"I feel we should see the whole thing together," Commission President Jim Stuckey told opponents, who started cheering. He tabled the vote until at least next month.

Commissioners also raised legal issues about whether they should vote on the project when it has yet to complete its mandated environmental assessment.