Queens is burning again: Lithium-ion is more lit than ever

 

AMNY 

Firefighters in Queens battled a two-alarm fire at a pair of commercial buildings early on Sunday morning where more than a dozen drums of highly flammable chemicals had been stored.

FDNY sources said the blaze broke out at about 12:56 a.m. on Aug. 25 inside 133-02 101st Ave. in South Richmond Hill, the location of an auto body shop, a tattoo parlor and a barber shop.

Members of Engine Company 302 and Ladder Company 126 first arrived on the scene to find heavy smoke and fire emanating from the basement. Firefighters worked quickly to break a hole through a floor to enter the basement and fight the flames

 More than 100 firefighters were called to the scene. They deployed four hose lines to knock down the main body of fire. Both buildings were searched for possible victims, but none were found. One firefighter suffered a minor injury and was treated.

 

 QNS

Exploding lithium-ion batteries are suspected to be the cause of a two-alarm fire that tore through a Richmond Hill bike shop Monday, March 13.

The fire broke out at the rear of The Kings Electric Scooter shop at 102-44 Jamaica Ave. just after 2:30 p.m., and firefighters quickly removed one electric scooter that had caught fire.

 The flames spread to a second-story apartment but all occupants had been evacuated, according to the FDNY. The fire went to a second alarm at 2:49 p.m. bringing 108 firefighters and 25 units to the scene.

Between 85 to 100 e-bikes, scooters, and motorcycles were removed from the shop that had signs of fire damage. Firefighters were still trying to remove 20 or more e-bikes and scooters from the cellar.

 A Hazmat unit arrived on the scene and was removing lithium-ion batteries from the vehicles. The fire was brought under control just at 3:29 p.m. and fire marshals will determine the cause of the blaze.

Correction: It was a garage unit around the corner of the shop on 87th avenue that they owned. I left a photo of former FDNY commissioner Laura Kavanagh there since she's responsible for undermining the threat of lithium ion battery cartridges during her 2 year reign of error and DEI influenced malfeasance.

 

 

 

Queens Eagle

 

QNS

The NYC Parks Department recently shared that America’s bird was spotted amid the Pine Grove at Forest Park near Richmond Hill. 

Parks Dept. staff took the opportunity to poke fun at the rare sighting by tweeting “POV: You’re a squirrel in imminent danger” alongside photos of the bird casting a glaring look at the photographer from a branch above.

“Bald eagles can be spotted throughout the city, especially in the winter months,” wrote NYC Parks on X last week. “While they prefer a fish diet, they’ve been known to hunt for small mammals as well.”

 The bald eagle population has made a comeback across the state in recent decades. In 2017, there were over 400 known bald eagle nests across the state, mostly on public land. And while sightings of bald eagles are much more common up north along the Hudson Valley, city sightings of the eagle, with a wingspan that can reach over seven feet, are more possible now

Why do all these new density housing buildings look like this?

Looks like Richmond Hill has got a new neighbor. Another black and gray density housing apartment building. No indication that's this out of scale behemoth on Atlantic Avenue will be "affordable". 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And you have to do a head stand to see their NYC_Buildings permits.

 

 

Lunatic kills one man and wounds 3 other people during broad daylight mass shooting spree while riding a ghost e-bike

AMNY 

Detectives in Queens have a suspect in custody in connection with a shooting spree in Queens and Brooklyn on Saturday morning that left one man dead and three others injured.

Law enforcement sources said a scooter-riding suspect shot the three victims in Richmond Hill, Queens, between 11:25 and 11:40 a.m. on July 8. He was also linked to a fourth shooting in nearby Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, that preceded the Queens portion of the rampage.

The motive for the shootings, four of which occurred in the 102nd Precinct‘s confines, remain unknown at this time, police sources said. 

“It seems that these acts were random,” Assistant Chief Joe Kenny of the NYPD Detectives Bureau said. “The video shows he’s not targeting anybody, he’s not following anybody. As he’s driving on the scooter, he’s randomly shooting at people.”

Acting Police Commissioner Edward Caban said the suspect, a 25-year-old man with one prior arrest on his rap sheet, was apprehended at about 1 p.m. in nearby Jamaica, Queens, at the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue.

The suspect had been picked up by officers assigned to the 103rd Precinct, who recognized the man from security video obtained quickly from the shooting scenes and transmitted to every police officer in the city through a “critical message,” Caban noted.

The commissioner said that the shooter rode an illegal scooter, and the weapon allegedly used in the spree, a 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine, was found stored within the illegal ride.

At each shooting scene, police officials noted, the NYPD recovered 9 mm shell casings, as well as video footage and/or witness descriptions of the same scooter-riding suspect. 

Sure looks like this bastard was looking to kill a lot more people while rolling on pedestrian heavy Jamaica Avenue. Anybody want to say defund the police now?

East and South Queens redistricting maps leading to wider schisms

Queens Chronicle 

 Update

The Districting Commission voted to send the revised proposal to the City Council Thursday by a vote of 13-1, with one absence. 

ORIGINAL STORY

As the city’s meticulous reapportionment process draws on, the Districting Commission is set to vote on a revised proposal for City Council district lines today, Oct. 6.

Thursday’s meeting comes just two weeks after the commission voted 8-7 against its own proposal. The body spent three hours last Thursday night and four and a half hours last Friday tweaking the map, taking into account 286 items of public testimony that had come in after the rejection two weeks ago.

Among the most significant changes to the Queens lines to come from last week’s discussions is the return of part of Fresh Meadows to District 24. Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Hillcrest) had taken issue with the previous draft in large part because, in moving that portion of the neighborhood to District 23, members of the area’s Orthodox Jewish community would be separated from the rest of the enclave. Should the commission approve that draft, District 24’s eastern boundary would be 188th Street, as it is now.

Asked for comment on the proposal, Gennaro said, “This community and I, as its representative, made our objections to the first two proposals loud and clear. Last Friday, the Districting Commission did the right thing by completely reuniting the Orthodox Jewish community within the 24th District.”

Later, he added, “We look forward to this plan being passed by both the commission and the City Council.”

THE CITY 

In the hours following the five-alarm Richmond Hill fire in June that ravaged a row of houses, killed three family members, and left more than 40 people homeless, Annetta Seecharran felt abandoned in her efforts to scramble for resources and support for the victims. 

Not one elected official showed up that day, Seecharran told THE CITY.

“I called and I called and I called,” Seecharran, who heads the Indo-Caribbean and South Asian community development organization Chhaya in Queens, told THE CITY. “And there was no response.”

Mayor Eric Adams visited family members the next day and said “the whole city is mourning.” Apart from that, however, Seecharran recalled this week how disheartening it was for her and other community members to have to fight for attention in the aftermath of that tragedy in City Council District 28, represented by Speaker Adrienne Adams. 

Seecharran, along with other locals and activists from Southeast Queens’ majority Indo-Caribbean and South Asian neighborhoods, gathered outside a Sikh temple in Richmond Hill on Tuesday with the fire in mind. 

Their goal: to call attention to the way electorally divided communities like theirs have been historically “underserved by the government” — and how the NYC Districting Commission’s draft map for new City Council districts, released in mid-July, would perpetuate that problem. As THE CITY previously reported, these redistricting efforts are part of a mandatory process to reflect population changes in light of the 2020 census and ahead of off-cycle elections in what will be newly drawn districts next year. Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the maps must not deny or dilute the voting power of racial and language minorities.

“Ultimately this is about power,” Seecharran told the crowd. “Our power has been limited because we have been divided.”  

But elected officials in other nearby neighborhoods have expressed a similar interest in keeping their predominantly Black communities from being divided between different districts. And they’re not alone: Across the city, various groups are pushing for map changes that would enhance their voting power in what can seem like a zero-sum game. All are racing to have their desires registered before the commission votes on a final map on Sept. 22. 

For example, a related battle is playing out in Brooklyn, as the draft map creates a new majority Asian council district in Brooklyn while splitting up what’s been a majority Latino district covering Sunset Park and Red Hook for the past three decades.

If nine of the 15 districiting commissioners agree on a map, it will then be released to the public and voted on by the City Council. If the draft does not get voted through, the commission would continue revising the map until passing one, though commission spokesperson Eddie Borges told THE CITY “that’s not even a prospect.”  

While eight of the 15 commissioners were appointed by the Council, five were selected by Speaker Adams, leader of the 44-member Democratic caucus. Minority Leader Joe Borelli, one of its seven Republicans, picked the other three, who potentially could join with the mayor’s members to pass a map.

In a letter addressed to the commission’s chairman and obtained by THE CITY, several elected officials in majority Black districts in southeast Queens outlined concerns about numerous ways that the draft map would divide and dilute voting power across their districts. Those officials include Majority Whip Selvena Brooks-Powers of District 31, which currently covers the eastern Rockaways, Laurelton, Rosedale, Brookville and parts of Springfield Gardens, and Councilmember Nantasha Williams of District 27, which currently covers Cambria Heights, Hollis, Jamaica, St. Albans, Queens Village, and Springfield Gardens. 

Among their concerns:

• The removal of downtown Jamaica from District 27, and the inclusion of  parts of Springfield Gardens, which cuts across “the middle of different ethnic communities and neighborhoods,” according to the letter writers;
• The removal of Rochdale Village from District 28, which is home to a minority-owned Mitchell-Lama cooperative: a 20-building complex housing 25,000 working-class residents, most of whom are Black;
• The removal of parts of Springfield Gardens that are mostly Black from District 31, which would “misalign the community’s collective voice,” according to the letter-signers. The district would gain parts of the Rockaway peninsula that have a white plurality and of South Ozone Park that have an Asian plurality, according to an analysis by THE CITY.

Some community members shared similar concerns in a virtual town hall convened by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards on Wednesday night. Community Board 12 Chairperson Rev. Carlene O. Thorbs, for one, was firm that Rochdale should stay whole and intact.

“It doesn’t even make any sense that anybody even entertains that. The historical value in our area needs to stay the same,” Thorbs said. “We are still the largest voting bloc — we can’t even ignore that.”

 

Man who held up cellphone store that led to detective's death by his fellow cops gets 33 years in prison

NY Daily News 

The man who sparked a friendly-fire NYPD shooting that killed a Queens detective pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday as part of a deal with prosecutors that will likely put him away for 33 years.

Standing sheepishly in a rumpled dark grey suit in a courtroom fielded with detectives uniformed officers, Christopher Ransom, 30, quietly admitted to causing the Feb 12, 2019, death of Detective Brian Simonsen.

He’s expected to serve 33 years in prison when he is sentenced next month: 20 for aggravated manslaughter and 13 for robbery, prosecutors said.

The expected sentence is part of a plea arrangement between Queens prosecutors and Ransom’s attorneys at the Legal Aid Society.

“The defendant set in motion a terrible chain of events that began with a robbery and ended in a spray of bullets when Ransom pointed what appeared to be a deadly firearm toward police officers,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “(He) was repeatedly told to lower his weapon, but did not do so. The heartbreaking result was the loss of Detective Simonsen’s life and Sergeant Matthew Gorman being shot in the leg.”

Katz said she hopes the conviction brings Simonsen’s family “a measure of closure.”

Simonsen’s widow Leanne was in the courtroom for the plea. She did not speak to reporters.

“The acts of Christopher Ransom caused the death of Detective Brian Simonsen,” Paul DiGiacomo, the president of the Detectives Endowment Association said outside court. “We lost a dedicated, hero detective. It’s something we all will have to live with for the rest of our lives.”

Ransom and his accomplice, Jagger Freeman, 27, were allegedly holding up a T-Mobile store on 120th St. near Atlantic Ave. in Richmond Hill with a fake gun when cops investigating a spree of cell phone store robberies surrounded the location.

 

Caption the current mayor

Queens is still burning: Again on Jamaica Avenue

 QNS

More than 100 FDNY personnel extinguished an early morning blaze that broke out Tuesday, July 13, on Jamaica Avenue in a Richmond Hill storefront.

The fire broke out just after 1 a.m. at Maria’s Nail and Beauty Supply at 102-19 Jamaica Ave. beneath the J/Z subway line, according to the FDNY.

The blaze was classified as a two-alarm fire, bringing 25 units and more than 100 firefighters and EMS personnel. It was a tight squeeze for Richmond Hill’s Ladder 143 and Ladder 127 from Hillside Avenue. The fire was placed under control just after 2 a.m. and four firefighters suffered minor injuries. They were removed to area hospitals for treatment, according to the FDNY.

 Several families from second-floor apartments were displaced by the fire. This stretch of Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill is no stranger to devastating fires. Just five months ago, a five-alarm fire broke out at the Dollar Store at 109-25 Jamaica Ave. and destroyed six buildings.

 

Back to the gold house

 

Impunity City 

Little Guyana gets a destination street sign

 

Nice maskless cluster going on there de Blasio, considering that other communities couldn't have memorial day parades because of continuing pandemic guidelines. Talk about not being seen. 

 

 

 Update: Looks like PIX is also engaging in shadowbanning me. They took down the original upload and put up a new one and wiped out all my comments.

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs

Update from Greenpoint

Violators be also will subject fine 

 

pro•cure prō-kyoo͝r′, prə-

►

• intransitive verb
  To get by special effort; obtain or acquire.
• intransitive verb
  To bring about; effect.
• intransitive verb
  To obtain (a sexual partner) for another.

Queens is burning: In Richmond Hill and on Jamaica Ave. again

 

QNS

A five-alarm inferno burned a Richmond Hill dollar store to a crisp on Sunday.

No injuries were immediately reported during the blaze that broke out at about 7:27 a.m. on Feb. 14 inside the Dollar Jackpot store, located within a one-story structure at 107-12 Jamaica Ave. in Richmond Hill.

The flames quickly spread throughout the structure and grew into a five-alarm fire within about an hour. Nearly 200 firefighters from 44 units were called to the scene.

Using three hose lines from tower ladders, among other techniques, the blaze was brought under control at about 9:54 a.m. Sunday.

 It was the second major fire along Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill since December, when dozens of people were displaced by a six-alarm inferno that broke out two blocks away, at 109-25 Jamaica Ave.

Ridgewood EMS is coming to town

 

Queens Chronicle

The Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps recently announced that its plan for 2021 involves extending community-based volunteer EMS services to Woodhaven, Richmond Hill and Kew Gardens.

In December, the RVAC submitted a formal application of area expansion with the New York City Regional Emergency Medical Services Council to provide services into those communities.

A few years ago, the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Corps lost its right to operate due to administrative troubles, according to Kevin Mahoney, RVAC board vice-chairman. Eager to resume coverage, the board of the defunct South Queens volunteer group reached out to the RVAC to partner and get back up and running under the Ridgewood banner.

“It’s easy for us to put in an expansion as opposed for them to start over as a new ambulance service,” said Mahoney.

Mahoney said the group is hoping to get the expansion on the agenda in a February NYC REMSCO meeting, when the body would vote on it. If approved, the application would then head over to the state.

The move comes after a series of successful mergers for the ambulance corps.

In 2019, RVAC, which serves parts of Brooklyn as well as Queens, incorporated the Glendale VAC and Middle Village VAC. According to a press release the group sent out, the mergers have allowed it to centralize its clinical services and operational efficiency. The three entities now serve together as one unified EMS service.

The mergers have reinvigorated the RVAC’s volunteerism and allowed a stronger response to the pandemic, it said.

South Queens COVID rates rise again

 

Queens Chronicle

 

As the city’s seven-day Covid positivity jumped from 6.92 percent on Monday to 9.25 by Wednesday, South Queens has remained near the top of the city’s infection rate.

Three neighborhoods in the area have surpassed the rest of the borough in Covid positivity. Richmond Hill/South Ozone Park’s 11419 ZIP code had climbed to the third-highest rate of Covid in the entire city at 15.71 percent. Three surrounding ZIP codes 11420, 11416 and 11417, encompassing Ozone Park and South Ozone Park, had also ascended to be the next-highest rates in all of the borough — all with rates hovering near or above 15 percent.

After that area, Flushing and Murray Hill had the highest rate in Queens at 13.9 percent positive.

The South Queens area has continuously contained some of the highest Covid rates, ever since they started to tick up across the city in the month of October.

City data showed by the end of October that the Ozone Park-Richmond Hill area had exceedingly low rates of testing, contributing to the problem. Five neighboring ZIP codes in South Queens were among the 10 areas with the lowest rates of Covid testing in the whole city. The efforts of Councilwoman Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica) to set up more sites in the area had met bureaucratic resistance.

Finally in mid-November, the city opened a testing site at the Lefferts Library at 103-34 Lefferts Blvd. The site is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with molecular and antigen testing available, although the Health + Hospitals website says that rapid testing may be limited.

 

Jamaica Avenue's million dollar pit of despair and graffiti

 

 Impunity City 

 On the day after the six-alarm fire that destroyed the homes above storefronts in Richmond Hill and taking pics of the charred windows on the buildings, strolling about 8 blocks east by Lefferts Blvd. there exists this unsightly gated wall protruding on the sidewalk next to a barber shop and a ministry. I call it a gated wall because it’s secured with a lock and chain.

 Unfortunately the wall itself wasn’t as resilient. As evident by this unsightly and hazardous profusion. Which is easily accessible to passerby, especially children.

 

Queens Is Burning

Impunity City

NY Daily News

A massive fire tore through six Queens homes early Thursday, displacing 36 residents and injuring three firefighters battling the blaze, officials said.

The flames erupted inside a closed beauty salon on Jamaica Ave. near 110th St. in Richmond Hill around 1 a.m., the FDNY said.

 

The fire quickly climbed up the two-story building into an attic space, then spread to adjoining buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homeless man beaten to death and left on the porch of an abandoned Richmond Hill house

NY Daily News

Police investigating the sad death of a homeless man found on the front porch of a condemned Queens house have slapped trespass charges on three people they found inside the run-down abode.

Officers responding to a call Sunday morning found Pawandeep Singh, 27, dead in front of the house, an ugly and bloody gash across his head. The city medical examiner is still trying to determine an exact cause of death.

Inside the house were Jay Daownanan, 25, Vijendar Brijmohan, 22, and a 17-year-old girl, all believed to be homeless. All three were charged with trespassing.Investigators currently don’t believe they’re involved with Singh’s death, police sources said.

Police spotted blood on a rear window of the house on Lefferts Blvd. by 95th Ave. in South Richmond Hill.

Daownanan, who had a cut on his arm, has no previous arrest record. Brijmohan has previous arrests for resisting arrest, petty larceny and unauthorized use of vehicle.

A fire ripped ripped through the building in 2016, and the city then issued a full vacate order because officials feared it suffered structural damages.

Neighbors Monday said the house had been empty for at least 10 years and that high school students routinely hang out there to drink or deal drugs.

 “A lot of people complain to police," said Gurdeep Singh, 52. "A lot of times police come, look around and leave. A lot of drugs going on. Girls, boys, 10 o’clock at night, in the morning, people coming from school.

Still racing in the street

NY Post

Around 2 a.m. on a recent Sunday at a gas station in Queens, heavy-duty auto engines rev conspicuously. Clutches of twentysomething guys — and a few young women — group around customized, low-to-the ground Hondas, Mustangs and BMWs. They pass joints, talk about horsepower, and issue challenges to race.

Most every weekend, racers meet up — as The Post has previously reported, the areas with the most 311 complaints are Richmond Hill’s 124th Street, Frances Lewis Boulevard in northern Queens and Leo Fracassi Way in The Bronx — to race illegally, at speeds of up to 160 mph.

“This is the thing I’m passionate about,” said one racer, alongside his Acura Integra, its hood removed to reveal a spotless engine. “I’m not letting anyone get in the way of my passion.”

At the gas station — colloquially known as “E-85” for the racing fuel it sells — word spreads that two contenders are ready to go. Suddenly, cars skitter onto the street, spewing exhaust as they head for Nassau Expressway. Leading the way is Jimmy, a 22-year-old from Jamaica, Queens, behind the wheel of a 225-horsepower 1994 Honda Civic with the gas tank re-situated in the trunk to enhance fuel flow.

Out on the highway, all cars brake to a stop, blocking traffic.

At the front of the pack, Jimmy spins his front tires (a procedure known as a “burn out”) to improve traction. His opponent, also in a Honda, does the same. Standing between the two cars, a man forcefully drops his arm in a simulation of a starting flag.

The opponents scorch down a quarter-mile of blacktop, getting up to 120 mph and leaving behind smells of burnt rubber and spent E-85. The race lasts less than 30 seconds, then the expressway traffic is allowed to resume its normal flow.

Back at E-85, Jimmy accepts a fist bump in celebration of his win. Although he sometimes races for money — as much as $600 per run — this one “was for competition,” he said.

A regular participant told The Post that racing has led to crashes on the Belt and Southern State parkways.

In January, at a hot street-racing spot along Review Avenue in Long Island City, a racer nicknamed Mello smashed into a street pole at high speed. Paramedics pronounced him dead on the scene. 

Spookily, the spot, in the shadow of the Kosciuszko Bridge, is known as “Cemetery” for the Calvary graveyard that lies alongside it.

“Racing has gone on there for at least 30 years,” said NYPD Capt. Michael Gibbs, of the 108th Precinct, which counts the avenue in its turf. He actually grew up in the neighborhood. “Maybe, when I was a kid, I allegedly went there and watched [racing],” he admitted. “I never thought I would be on the enforcement end.”

But not long after he became captain of the 108th in January, Gibbs prioritized putting a stop to the racing. His most recent action was to order the ­deployment of speed bumps along ­Review Avenue.
Hearing about the speed bumps, one racer at E-85 shrugged it off and mysteriously said, “We have ways to work around [that].”

de Blasio's D.O.T.'s and D.E.P.'s primitively cheap remedies for potholes and damaged catch basins

 

 Impunity City


New York is not only famous for being the biggest city in the world (by default, reputation and hype) but it’s also infamous for it’s potholes which manifest from time to time and also notorious for the tardiness to repair them. But decades riding (and at few occasions driving) in this big city of dreams, I don’t think I have ever seen the creative and quarter-assed way Mayor de Blasio’s Department of Transportation has displayed to remediate or even fix these blights on the roads and pavement. Especially with the usage of traffic cones.

 

 But the de Blasio’s D.O.T.’s shiftlessness is not limited to the lame efforts and solutions to warn citizens of road hazards, it also applies his Department of Environmental Protection for our dilapidated water catch basins. Especially the ones in the perpetually ignored neighborhoods in Southeast Queens.

 

Entire Liberty Avenue bank solely used for money withdrawal

Impunity City

Richmond Hill, Queens, N.Y.

 What the hell is up with this bank? For some peculiar reason, NYCB decided to end human interaction customer and teller service at this Liberty Ave. branch back in April and has only made this bank available for ATM service. But only for withdrawals and not deposits. It’s like one of those crappy looking machines you see by bodegas or barstaurants except it’s an entire commercial storefront version of it.