NYC parks dept. put an ampitheater on a sidewalk that has expectedly led to noise complaints

 

NY Post

Their homes are shake, rattle and rolling.

Rockaways residents living near the $3.7 million Beach 94th Street Amphitheater say live music at the venue has made life a living hell since it opened last year.

“We’re in our homes with our doors shut, our AC on and our TV on, and it’s insufferable,” said Joe O’Sullivan, 59, a retired FDNY firefighter who lives less than 300 feet from the amphitheater with his wife, Helena.

The couple captured video of their home’s interior shaking from the thumping of dance music blaring from the Soulful House Brothers festival on July 28.

“It was my medicine cabinet shaking, and all the stuff in it. It was weird. I couldn’t believe,” Helena said. “We’ve had construction done over the years since [Hurricane] Sandy, and we’ve never had that.

“You can only call 311 so many times,” she added.

Since opening in May 2023, there have been at least one hundred music-related 311 calls near the amphitheater, which is run by the Parks Department and can hold at least 300 people, although residents said they have not done any decibel readings of the noise.

The venue has been a popular stage for local musicians such as French-language rockers Les San Culottes and the Rambones, a Ramones tribute band

Locals said just a quarter of the dozens of events held at the amphitheater are “beautiful, outstanding, tear-jerking [performances] . . . that do bring people together.”

“The other 75% keep people away because it’s so loud, you can’t exist in the vicinity of the space and have any conversation,” said Erin Silvers, 45, who lives three houses away.

“My dog goes into hiding for days at a time. It’s like the Fourth of July at all hours of the day. It’ll start at 10 in the morning and go til 10 at night,” she said, noting “it’s much louder this year than it was last year.”

Neighbors cried that the city has ignored the noise they’ve been making — but giving the performers carte blanche with their performances.

“The Parks Department isn’t regulating the performers, they are letting them go wild,” Joe O’Sullivan said.

 When Parks’ Rockaway Administrator Eric Peterson was asked one night by frustrated residents to shut off huge speakers being powered by generators, in violation of the event permit rules, he allegedly told fed-up residents, “‘It’s a dance party, come join the party,'” according to Joe O’Sullivan

“I said, ‘I’ve got it in my living room and I’m not enjoying it and want it to stop,'” the frustrated resident recalled. “He refuses to enforce the laws of the permits, the rules.” 

Who thought it was a good idea to put an amphitheater on the sidewalk??? Also, who is this dickhead Peterson and how did he get his job? But I forget the Mayor Adams kakistocracy is filled with crony dickheads like him.

Goth Barbie Dream House

 

  

This dreary little abode is located in hip Rockaway Beach and it is the most blackest house and pinkest scaffolding I've ever seen. It's also a year behind schedule.

 

 

It seems inspired partly by Spinal Tap's infamous "Smell The Glove" album and partly by The Hart Foundation. It would be cool if Bret had a vacation home here.

 

Rockaway small businesses going away for little housing

 

 NY YIMBY

Permits have been filed for a six-story residential building at 181 Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Park, Queens. Located between Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Ocean Prom, the lot is one block north of the Rockaway Park-Beach 116th Street subway station, serviced by the A and S trains. Tom Lawlor under the 185 Beach 116th Street LLC is listed as the owner behind the applications.

The proposed development will yield 31,108 square feet designated for residential space. The building will have 35 residences, most likely rentals based on the average unit scope of 888 square feet. The steel-based structure will also have a 30-foot-long rear yard.

35 units, 888 square feet? That's putting the little in the "little more housing" slogan from the City of Yes.

Sacrificing life and limb for housing equity

 

 Queens Eagle

Another worker was injured at the construction site of a Rockaway affordable housing development being run by a construction company that lawmakers in January demanded be taken off the project, the Eagle has learned.

Earlier this month, a construction worker contractor Joy Construction was injured while working on building Edgemere Commons, a planned affordable housing development in the Edgemere section of the Rockaway peninsula.

The city’s Department of Building’s later found that the site’s safety coordinator had recently fallen out of compliance with their licensing, which had expired.

In January, several elected officials rallied at the site, calling on Joy Construction to be removed from the project due to a previous history of worksite incidents at other developments and because of a separate worker injury at Edgemere Commons.

On Feb. 8, DOB inspectors were called to the worksite, located at 5119 Beach Channel Drive, to investigate reports of a worker injury, according to the Department of Buildings.

At the site, it was determined a worker fell off a ladder after a harness they were wearing caught on a handrail.

The worker sustained minor injuries and complained of back pain, and was transported by an ambulance to a local hospital. DOB further determined that all required safeguards were in place, and they found no unsafe conditions at the scene at the time of their inspection.

However, while on site for the injury, DOB found that the site safety coordinator’s license had expired about a week prior and that the coordinator had not properly renewed their license.

A Stop Work Order was put in place by the Department of Buildings. The order was eventually lifted four days later when Joy brought in a new site safety coordinator for the job.

“I hate to say I told you so,” said Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, who rallied against the contractor in January. “Unfortunately, I am disappointed by the news of this injured worker and the discovery of an expired site safety license, which prompted a Stop Work Order, but I am not surprised.

“Joy Construction has a troubled and well-documented history of criminal lawsuits, hazardous workplace conditions, and fatal worker injuries,” he added. “At a recent rally, my elected colleagues and I urged the city to remove Joy Construction from the Edgemere Commons project and out of the Rockaways entirely. I wish the injured worker a full and speedy recovery and will continue to demand accountability and fight for workers’ rights, dignity, and safety.”

Construction on Edgemere Commons began in May 2022. The project is a $100 million affordable and supportive housing development, which will bring 2,000 affordable homes, retail, community space, medical facilities and outdoor public space on the site formerly occupied by Peninsula Hospital.

The first phase of the project, directly adjacent to the construction site in question, was constructed using union workers rather than Joy, a private contractor.

In January, four local elected officials for the Rockaways and Southeast Queens rallied with union members to call for Joy’s removal from the project over the contractor’s recent history of workplace incidents, including an injury at Edgemere Commons in December that resulted in a $10,000 fine after the contractor failed to report the incident.

Lawmakers also raised concerns over an incident at a Joy Construction site that left a worker dead at the site of a Bronx project a year earlier. ]

“We are demanding that Joy come off of this project,” City Coucilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers said in January. “Joy has an unfortunate track record that has seen many deaths on construction projects where they have not taken enough care and concern for the worker. That is unacceptable.” 

Not so fast, let's hear some virtue signalling banalties from the Queens Borough Redundancy that won't lead to any fundamental changes for worker safety at the site...

 Queens Borough President Donovan Richards was not present at the rally, but said at the time that if issues persist, then a new contractor should be considered.

“Queens has been, is and forever will be a union borough — a borough where we uplift, protect and support the working people who make up our organized labor movement,” Richards said. “Safe, plentiful and prosperous union participation in the first phase of Edgemere Commons’ development via Arker Companies reflected that fact, and as we embark on the second phase of the project with Joy Construction, it is my belief that our brothers and sisters in labor should be treated the same way by the contracting company tasked with the job.”

“Should those common sense standards not be met as construction continues, then a new contracting company must be brought in to complete the project,” he added. 

 

Cross Bay Bridge is free at last

 

 Queens Eagle

Queens residents will no longer need to pay the toll on the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge in Southeast Queens, a major win for locals in the area who often use the bridge to commute and have long complained about the toll’s cost.

Beginning in 2024, residents of Queens who use E-Zpass will get a 100 percent rebate when crossing the bridge, which connects the Rockaway peninsula to Broad Channel and mainland Queens.

The funding comes through a 2018 program called the Outer Borough Transportation Account – which provided additional resources for outer borough transportation improvements – and was heavily pushed by local officials.

“Promises made, promises kept,” said Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato, who has been trying to get the toll changed for locals since she was elected. “After years of hard work and perseverance, my constituents from Lindenwood, Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach and Ozone Park will no longer be penalized. Through the legislation I passed with Senator Addabbo, Queens residents who utilize the New York E-Zpass program and register for the program will get full access to their entire borough, especially the Rockaway Peninsula.”

Crossing the bridge, which gets drivers and pedestrians across Jamaica Bay, is a necessity for some Rockaway locals who need it to get to work in other parts of Queens, Long Island or other parts of the city via the Belt Parkway.

“Finally, the MTA and the governor have listened and are implementing the removal of a barrier to secure economic opportunities for everyone in Queens,” Pheffer Amato said.

Pheffer Amato says that there is a long history of fighting against the toll, one she is happy to bring across the finish line.

“This was always an issue in the community, this unjustified toll,” she said over the phone to the Eagle. “Someone who works at a public school paid an extra over $25 a week to get to their jobs in Queens, through Queens, less than five miles from their home. That to me was the most inequitable part of the toll bridge.”

She said that it took work to figure out the budgeting and the economics, which ultimately led to the usage of the Outer Borough Transportation Account to pick up the tab.

Pheffer Amato’s legislative colleague State Senator Joseph Addabbo called the toll “unfair.”

“This reversal is a monumental victory and an effort that elected officials and residents have been striving to accomplish for decades,” he said. “This achievement will rebate residents for the only intra-borough toll in the city, assist the economic growth and enjoyment of the Rockaway peninsula.”

 

Developer gave Eric Ulrich a discount on a lux apartment hoping he would condemn a supportive housing building for the homeless across the street

 

 

THE CITY 

On the evening of Aug. 10, 2021, Eric Adams joined a rooftop party in Brooklyn where a crowd of real estate industry figures awaited him, each of them bearing gifts. It was a month after Adams’ victory in his hard-fought race to become the Democratic mayoral nominee and he was busily harvesting donations from those eager to show support for the man overwhelmingly favored to become the next mayor of the City of New York.

That morning, a breakfast fundraiser at a Manhattan law firm active in land use issues netted the candidate $38,750 in contributions. He picked up $20,250 more at a later event with healthcare executives and doctors. Another soiree, at a hotel in the Rockaways, yielded $25,925 for his campaign coffers. 

But his biggest haul of the day came on the Brooklyn rooftop. The host was a successful developer and investor in commercial and residential projects around the city named Mark Caller. The party was held atop Caller’s office building on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood where his firm, The Marcal Group, is headquartered. 

Once all donations from the gala had been collected, Adams’ campaign was $47,050 to the better. Almost a third of that money, $15,400, came from members of Caller’s family, with the rest from his friends and business associates, records obtained by THE CITY via a freedom of information request show. 

Even in a campaign that ultimately took in nearly $9 million in private donations, it was the kind of political generosity that stood out. 

Now, the previously undisclosed fundraiser stands out for a much different reason. 

In coming days Caller is expecting to be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on charges that he provided a luxury apartment at below-market rent to Eric Ulrich, a former City Council member and Adams appointee, in exchange for official favors. 

Ulrich, a Republican ex-Council member from Queens who bucked his party in 2021 to support Adams’ mayoral bid, is also expected to be charged. After Adams took office, he was appointed a senior advisor to the mayor.  A few months later, Adams named him city buildings commissioner.  The post put Ulrich, who held no management experience other than handling his Council staff, in charge of a sprawling agency of some 1,700 employees, one that is crucial to the city’s construction industry and notoriously prone to corruption.

The job didn’t last long. In November, five months after his appointment, Ulrich was forced to resign after it was revealed that the DA had seized his cell phone during an investigation into a mob-tied gambling ring. 

It’s unclear what favors Ulrich is alleged to have provided for Caller. The developer has been involved in significant construction projects that needed city approvals. Since 2020, Caller has built at least four new projects in the Rockaways, part of Ulrich’s former Council district. Just two weeks before he hosted the Adams fundraiser, Caller won a zoning change approval from the city planning commission to add a gym to a new condominium project he built on Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Park. That’s the complex where Ulrich lived in a fifth floor apartment near the ocean with two bedrooms and two baths. Units there currently range from $700,000 to $1.4 million; listed rents go from $3,000 to $4,100.

Campaign records show Caller was an early supporter of Adams’ mayoral bid. In December 2019, nearly a year before Adams officially announced his candidacy, Caller and his wife, Rivka Spitzer, made donations of $1,000 apiece to Adams’ campaign. After Adams became an official candidate, the campaign returned $600 of Caller’s own donation. That’s because, due to his quest for city land use assistance for his Rockaway condo project, he is considered someone doing business with the city and limited to donations of $400 to candidates for citywide office. His wife’s donation was unaffected.

THE CITY

One of the more disturbing allegations involved Ulrich’s effort in 2022 to shut down a hotel housing the homeless because it enraged Caller, the real estate developer. Prosecutors say he made this corrupt effort to aid Caller at the same time he was negotiating to obtain a discount apartment across the street from the hotel from Caller.

At one point in March 2022, while he was a senior advisor to Adams, Caller let Ulrich know he wanted to shut down a hotel at 158 Beach 116th Street that was housing homeless adults because it happened to be across the street from and adjacent to two of his upscale rental buildings.

In a WhatsApp exchange captured by prosecutors, Caller wrote to Ulrich, “There has to be a way to put 158 B116th out of business. It’s an absolute disgrace.”

 In response, Ulrich promised Caller to set up a “task force” of inspectors from the FDNY and the buildings department, writing, “They might be able to vacate the f...g thing. It’ll take months to get it reopened.”

Prosecutors described a conversation Ulrich had with a state Assemblymember described as Jane Doe #1. At the time, Stacy Pheffer Amato was the Assembly member representing the Rockaways. 

Ulrich is alleged to have requested that the Assembly member demand an FDNY/DOB inspection of the hotel, and instructed the Assembly member “to make sure FDNY and DOB issue a full vacate order so the occupants can be moved by the New York City Department of Homeless Services into alternative housing.”

Prosecutors say that shortly after several violations were issued at that address, but none involved a vacate order. Pheffer Amato did not respond to THE CITY’s questions Wednesday about this exchange.

While Ulrich was targeting the homeless shelter, he was simultaneously discussing with Caller obtaining an apartment at a discount rate in a building across the street from the hotel, an upscale address at 133 Beach 116th Street, prosecutors say.

Caller then offered Ulrich an apartment for $2,000 a month, the lowest monthly rental in the building, and said Ulrich could apply the rental toward a down payment on the unit at a reduced rate. He also threw in the furniture and offered to void the closing costs.

Ulrich moved into the apartment about a week before he was named buildings commissioner. Just before the appointment was made public, he called Caller to advise that their communications would no longer be direct.

“We have to be smart,” he said. “I have to be a little more careful because I can’t be conflicted. If you have to communicate with me about something directly, about something concerning a property you own, maybe it’s better if it comes from the councilwoman or the elected officials, so that we’re working on it at their requests.”

 

Endangered plovers nests has led to beach apartheid

 

The Edgemere Community Civic Association (ECCA) gathered with elected officials on the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk at Beach 38th Street on July 6 to voice their frustrations over the neighborhood’s lack of beach access for the last 26 years.

Since 1996, the one-mile stretch of beach between Beach 38th and 59th Street has been a designated nesting area for endangered shorebirds, including piping plovers, terns and oystercatchers. Because of the nesting area, which is designated and managed by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation under guidelines from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Edgemere residents are unable to access the beach and have to head west of the peninsula in order to do so.

“This is a harsh and cruel injustice to those who live and work in this community,” said ECCA President Sonia Moise, who has lived in the Rockaways for 45 years. “It has been too many years that we have been the forgotten community. Edgemere always gets dumped on. No one thinks about the Edgemere community and what our needs are.”

Mayor Adams MIA as South Queens floods

What I woke up to outside my house. Reminds me of when I woke up on Sandy. pic.twitter.com/HAM5cQNk7E

— Jonathan Lazo (@JonathanLazoNY) December 23, 2022

  

QNS

Major flooding from Thursday night’s storm has taken over the coast in the southern Queens neighborhoods of Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways.

Residents are being asked to move to higher ground for their own safety, according the NYC Emergency Management. 

 "There is major tidal flooding in Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways, please move to higher ground,” NYC Emergency Management tweeted out this morning. “Also remember, all it takes is 6 inches of standing water to move a car, never walk or drive through flood waters.”

The National Weather Service in New York has issued a Special Weather Statement for New York City for rapidly falling temperatures, gusty winds and falling wind chills. They also warned about standing water becoming black ice late this afternoon in the early evening hours. Travel is not recommended.

Early this morning, the city said that the ZIP codes affected by Friday’s storm will be 11224,11235, 11414, 11691,11692, 11693, 11694 and 11697. 

AMNY

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration handled the city’s response to flooding in coastal areas of Queens like Broad Channel and the Rockaways while reporters wondered where he was Friday.

The mayor was absent from a Friday afternoon briefing that City Hall officials provided about the storm. According to First Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo, Hizzoner was outside of the five boroughs, but in contact with the administration as they coordinated the response.

Grillo, who serves acting mayor when her boss is out of town, said Adams decided to take two days off and “get some rest.” She confirmed the mayor is outside of the five boroughs, but wouldn’t disclose where when pressed by reporters several times.

“I certainly do know where he is,” Grillo said. “But let me just say this to you: he might as well be here because we’ve been speaking to each other constantly throughout the day, and speaking with all of us to keep updated on what’s going on and to actually direct us to do this. But the mayor decided to take two days off and get some rest and instead of course he’s dealing with this, but just not here.”

Grillo was surrounded by a cadre of administration officials including Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives – and future first deputy mayor – Sheena Wright, city Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and several others.

Iscol said his agency has been fanned out across the city, along with personnel from other city agencies, throughout the day responding to the damage wrought by the winter storm. The flooding, he said, was caused by a three-foot storm surge exacerbated by the new moon and windy conditions.

“This is a difficult weather event,” Iscol said. “We needed to prepare not only for rain, but also a tidal flooding that was made worse by the new moon in addition to large amounts of wind offshore that was piling water into New York Harbor in addition to Jamaica Bay, adding about three foot above mean tide flood surge.”

Whale washed up in Arverne

Rockaway hipster hideaway gone away

 

 

This looks like a nice place for a family to rent in Rockaway Beach, but prospective tenants might want to have the entire place and backyard powerwashed before they move in. For this previously was one of the Rockaway Hideaway lodgings that were being rented out for a ludicrous fee of $600 per guest during the pandemic.

 

Wonder if the outhouse shower is still there too? Blech. 

I guess they had trouble getting suckers after all those shootings and killings on the peninsula this year. 

Update:

Looks like the outhouse shower is included. These people must have been raised in a barn.

Arverne by the sea blues

 

The Wave

Vandalism, car break-ins, and theft. This has become the norm in Arverne By The Sea over the last couple months with multiple incidents making residents question the area’s safety. The concerns have led some at “The Dunes” section of ABTS looking to hire a private security firm. 

“Over the course of two months, acts of blatant, senseless vandalism [have] increased dramatically,” Qin Chen, the president of The Dunes HOA at ABTS, told The Wave. “We had numerous reports that a group of young teens would go through the community yelling, and destroying property. We have over a dozen homeowners who’ve reported cases of vandalism and property damage, which includes rocks being thrown through windows, car windows being stepped on, and random acts of destruction.”

In addition, some residents of ABTS have reported their packages missing, suspecting they are being stolen off their porches. 

To address these security concerns, the Board met with Captain Chris Dipreta, Lt. Ramos Polanco, and Officer Victor Boamah of the 100th Precinct on July 21, according to The Dunes Newsletter.

As a result of the meeting, the precinct “agreed to provide The Dunes with ‘directed’ patrols throughout the week” in hopes of discouraging crime in the area. The officers also urged ABTS residents to “report every incident by either calling 911 or ‘texting’ 911 instead of calling the precinct directly” and purchasing their own security cameras in the hopes of the video footage serving the precinct in future investigations. 

Chen and other members of the HOA are looking into finding private security as well.

Rockaway zombie courthouse coming back as a wework imitation

 

THE CITY

A long-shuttered former courthouse in Queens that the city sold for just $50,000 nearly a decade ago to build a medical facility can now be used for commercial and office space instead.

The board of the city’s Economic Development Corporation voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a change to the deed with the former Rockaway Courthouse, which has now been closed for 60 years.

The move allows the owner, Uri Kaufman of The Harmony Group, to lease the space to commercial tenants — a request he made for years. 

The city approved the transfer of the courthouse building to Kaufman in 2013, and he officially purchased it in 2015 for $50,000, according to an EDC spokesperson. The low price was meant to allow for major renovation of the 1931 building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Construction and asbestos abatement was completed by 2020. Overall, Kaufman has spent around $11 million in repairs, he told THE CITY.

Kaufman said the courthouse was “one of the toughest buildings we ever did,” noting it originally had only one exit — so they had to construct an additional wing out the back for fire safety.

City Council approves Edgemere overdevelopment

City Limits
 

 The City Council voted Thursday to rezone a 166-acre swath of Edgemere, approving a plan first proposed by the de Blasio administration that could add more than 1,200 new housing units and improve resiliency in a Queens neighborhood at severe risk of flooding.

The land use plan, part of a broader initiative known as Resilient Edgemere, encompasses the area bound by Beach 35th Street and Beach 50th Street and will change zoning rules to increase density in some areas, limit development in others and raise the shoreline along Jamaica Bay. Resilient Edgemere also includes efforts to develop housing on city-owned parcels, elevate homes, improve parks and infrastructure and designate 16 acres as open space to be used for coastal protection.

The Council specifically approved five applications submitted by the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (HPD) to amend the zoning and allow for new development with mandatory inclusionary housing (MIH) affordability rules, which force developers to cap rents on a portion of their units for low- and middle-income New Yorkers. Around 530 new units will be affordable under MIH, according to HPD, and 35 percent of those affordable units will be up for sale, not rent. The plan would further a Community Land Trust on up to eight acres of city-owned land.

Resilient Edgemere establishes two special coastal risk districts, which HPD defines as “currently at exceptional risk from flooding and may face greater risk in the future.”

Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, who represents Edgemere and other neighborhoods in the eastern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula, said the changes will allow for more affordable homes in the waterfront neighborhood, while shoring up the region against rising sea levels and storm-related flooding.

“Edgemere will benefit from vital affordable homeownership opportunities, infrastructure investments and protection from a changing climate,” Brooks-Powers said. “Rockaway has seen a surge of new development in recent years, but that development has not been accompanied by a commensurate investment in local infrastructure.”

Brooks-Powers inherited the project from her predecessor, Donovan Richards, who was elected Queens borough president in 2020 and told City Limits he was pleased that the Council voted to approve the rezoning after seven years of planning and community engagement. Richards recommended the plan in his advisory role in March but urged the city to foster affordable home ownership opportunities in response to community demands.

“There is tremendous promise in the Resilient Edgemere Community Plan,” Richards said, adding that he would focus on ensuring that developers and the city adhere to local hiring and MWBE commitments.

Under the changes, which now await Mayor Eric Adams’ signature, most of the area north of Beach Channel Drive would be zoned for one- and two-family homes, while the stretch between Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Edgemere Avenue would allow for taller, mixed-used buildings. City-owned vacant land next to the Edgemere Houses would be converted to open space, as would much of the land abutting the Jamaica Bay.

In a statement following the vote, Adams hailed the plan as “an important step forward for residents of Edgemere, the Rockaways, and the entire city.”

Rockaway boardwalk stained with graffiti

 

 CBS New York

 Vandals went wild with spray paint over the weekend on a large section of the Rockaway boardwalk, and that had residents demanding an immediate cleanup.

On Wednesday, city crews were out in force with power washers, and as CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff reported, they're promising a swift response to graffiti on the newly built boardwalk.

Far Rockaway resident Michael Blomquist sees the Rockaway boardwalk as his escape to natural beauty, but on Saturday he came upon gasp-worthy ugliness.

"I've never seen that much graffiti in one place, and this is such an important place for us, for the community," Blomquist said.

He and others took to social media to share a community outcry -- to not let what happened stand as the new normal on a five-mile boardwalk just rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy.

Graffiti tags, at least 100 of them, with profanity, were sprayed across the entire width of the concrete boardwalk, from Beach 54th Street to 55th Street.

"Someone else will say, 'That's a good idea,' and every block will be marked up like that," Far Rockaway resident Methun Singh said. "They hurt the whole family, the neighborhood, everybody who lives here."

"I don't know what they were thinking. Some people just don't like to see things looking nice," resident Helen Jackson added.

City officials say this was a job for a special detail, and on Wednesday morning sent in the big guns -- its borough-wide graffiti removal squad.

"This was a whole block of the boardwalk with spray paint, so it's that much more visible, that much more obnoxious, and that much more problematic and troublesome," NYC Parks administrator Eric Peterson said.

The quick and complete cleanup sends the message that graffiti will not be tolerated.

"If you know your work is going to be erased immediately, hopefully you'll be less inclined to do the graffiti and damage the park,"  Peterson said.

Two young adults drown in Rockaway Beach where resiliency construction is still going on

 

AMNY

The city’s Parks Department is again urging beachgoers not to swim in closed and unguarded areas of Rockaway Beach after two people fatally drowned there on Friday.

The victims died in separate incidents that occurred at about 6 p.m. on June 17, according to police.

Law enforcement sources said the first victim, a 16-year-old girl, was pulled out of the water off the intersection of Beach 108th Street and Shore Front Parkway.

Simultaneously, police reported first responders got the second victim, a man in his late teens or early 20s, who drowned in the waters off Beach 98th Street — ten blocks to the east of the first fatal drowning.

Both victims were rushed to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, where they died, police sources said.

The two victims were among five people pulled out of the waters off Rockaway Beach on Friday, according to WABC-TV. The other three distressed victims survived.

 The fatal drownings occurred at a time when the Parks Department deals with a lifeguard shortage that forced the agency to cut its indoor swim programs this summer.

Two boys drowned in Jamaica Bay

 

 NY Daily News

Two Queens boys celebrating the start of summer died Friday after they fell into Jamaica Bay and never resurfaced, police said.

The two victims, who are both 13, were on an outcropping of rocks near Broad Channel at about 11:40 a.m. when they fell into the water.

Panicked onlookers called 911. NYPD divers recovered one of the two just before 1 p.m. and rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, where he died.

The second teen was found under the waves about 40 minutes later. He was rushed to Jamaica Hospital in extremely critical condition but he could not be saved, officials said.

Their names were not immediately released.

The two boys, accompanied by a group of friends, made their way to the bay in celebration of the first day of summer break, a shaken uncle of one of the teens said outside the hospital Friday evening.

“Yesterday was the last day of school and they were just trying to have a good time, messing around like kids do,” said Michael Rachel. “They were out on the rocks but when the tide comes in you couldn’t see them. They’re gone.”

Rockaway property owner can't evict crazy deadbeat tenant

 

 NY Daily News

A Queens woman does her damage from a third-floor apartment with an ocean view: Water left running for days, flooding the building. Smoke pouring from beneath her front door. Hoarding old junk in the hallway, from bicycles to shopping carts. Taking a sledgehammer to her kitchen cabinets.

But her exasperated Rockaways landlord and unnerved neighbors can’t get help from anywhere. Not from the cops. Not from the Fire Department. And not from a Housing Court crippled by the pandemic.

 I’m trying to evict her because she’s a nuisance and the courts are supposedly open for business,” said building owner Martin Hanan, who is out roughly $40,000 in lost rent. “But apparently they’re not, because they really don’t care. They don’t want to hear a word ... Honestly, I gave up on calling the city.”

Hanan compiled a staggering six-page litany of Annamarie Hosang’s behavior, from allegedly tossing a fire extinguisher at the building superintendent to once blasting music from her apartment for 20 straight hours.

A Daily News review of Housing Court documents detailed the woman’s alleged activities, with multiple reports of flooding the Beach 113th St. building, ringing her neighbor’s doorbells and even threatening one of her neighbors with a pipe.

When the NYPD and FDNY arrived on multiple occasions, they dealt with the situation and moved on, the landlord said, adding his tenants declined to bring charges against the woman over fear of reprisals.

Hanan is still awaiting a long-delayed hearing for her eviction, a process that began in Queens Housing Court in September 2020. Things became even more complicated after Hosang twice applied — in October 2021 and this past February — for a COVID relief program that assures her a home during the pandemic.

Hanan says Hosang has paid no rent for her $1,725-a-month residence since April 2021 and that he can’t even lease out the apartment downstairs because the cascading water from above collapsed its ceiling. The stench of mildew from her water-soaked apartment seeps through the building.

Two longtime residents of the nine-unit building shared their own tales, with both asking for anonymity rather than risk incurring their neighbor’s wrath. One of the pair, referring to Hosang only as “the squatter,” recited a list of unnerving incidents — including one where she chased his wife with a shovel.

CBS catches up with illegal airbnbs in houses at Arvene on the Sea

 CBS New York

 A controversy over property rentals is heating up in a beachfront community in The Rockaways.

Some homeowners are being accused of taking advantage of a city program to cash in on a major tax break, CBS2's Lisa Rozner reported Wednesday.

It's prime waterfront property: several homeowner communities made up of around 1,500 homes known as "Arverne by the Sea" in the Rockaway peninsula were built in the early 2000s as part of an urban renewal project.

The city designated it an "urban development action area project," which means homeowners would get a huge break on their taxes.

"We were also first-time homebuyers, so that was helpful," homeowner Adam Linet said. "Our tax rates are probably around 25 percent of what they would normally be."

It was a great deal, which is why the Department of Housing Preservation and Development required every homeowner make it their primary residence.

"One of the same zip codes that has among the deepest pockets of poverty in the entire city of New York. So, this was a real opportunity for folks who had been stuck in generational poverty," Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson said.

In February, a Department of Investigation report uncovered at least 15 homeowners violating the primary residence requirement, receiving in total more than $1 million in tax exemptions. Seventy properties had tax bills mailed outside of the development and one couple even turned its home into a fully licensed bed and breakfast.

Three months after the findings, Inn Your Element is available on reservation web sites. CBS2 also found on Airbnb entire homes available for $350 a night, another for $288, so residents believe there are many more homeowners violating the policy.

"I don't feel safe when so many people are coming in and out of a house," one woman said. "There are addresses that have been turned into three rental units rather than two."

"We have trash issues. We have quality-of-life issues with noise complaints," Linet added.

Finance records show one man who is a real estate investor according to LinkedIn owns at least three properties and also has an address at a luxury high-rise rental building in Manhattan.

Emails and calls to him and other alleged absentee homeowners were not returned.

CBS New York also caught up with yours truly who did a story and synopsis about this continuing scandal on Impunity City back in March. Looks like Mayor Adams and his HPD Dept are not going to do anything about this. Bunch of lily-livered scalliwags.

Rage against the Rockaway Beach restoration

 

Impunity City 

From what it looked like on the first 90 degree day of the spring on the week before the “official start of summer” this Memorial Day weekend, the possible was achieved. For the fences that were supposed to deter people from going on the shore that were there for their safety were torn apart and beach combers made do with what little space on the sand there was.

The beachcomber rebellion was most glaringly apparent by B 91 street where the temporary summer shut down of the beach began. Two large stop signs were pried off and fencing was cut off to prevent access to the citizenry for their safety.

 Heading down the ramp towards the perilously eroded shore was a sight to behold as people made do and set up their places with what little sandy real estate they can find under the omnipresent cranes and some plows left behind for the continuing reconstruction of the shore to save the peninsula from being submerged.

MTA undermines and represses community and commuter's concerns at town hall meeting

The Wave 

In a setting more akin to a Cold War Soviet show-trial than a NYC Town Hall meeting, MTA officials at Feb. 6’s transit meeting in the YMCA spent time patting themselves on the back discussing their accomplishments and future plans before moving on to pre-screened questions from the audience.

A group of five transit officials sat at a table at the front of the room and began the meeting with a series of stats and charts to show how the MTA has improved service over the year before opening up to a Q&A session. Many in the audience, however, felt the bureaucrats ignored the real questions and censored the voices of those in the room – a fact which led to at least one person to call out “I thought this was America!” during the proceedings. 

 “Tonight was a sham,” said an exasperated John Cori.  Cori, a Community Board 14 executive board member who made the aforementioned “America” statement, spoke to The Wave following the meeting.

“It was censorship, it violated our constitutional rights to freedom of speech by censoring our questions. I put two in, and they both were not read. I was one of the first ten people to put questions in, and the woman went through them, picked and chose what she wanted to give, and gave them the cream-puff questions.”  

“The meeting was mind-numbing because of the way MTA chose to filter the questions, but not surprising” added local transportation advocate Rick Horan. “They like to control the conversation and so the value of this… is a little dubious.”    

 Among the hard-hitting questions that MTA rep Lucille Songhai pitched to the panel were whammies like “can everyone talk about how they got here this evening,” and even then the bureaucrats on the board failed to appease. “We came here on the A-Train of course!” was the answer many gave, an answer which left several in the audience wondering if the blatant pandering had any truth to it. 

 “I will gladly escort you to the station!” an incredulous Glenn DiResto replied from the rear of the room, echoing the doubts of many as to the “everyman” persona the officials were trying to portray for themselves. Like so many other comments of the evening, however, this too was ignored by those on the panel, and Songhai teed up yet another softball for the board.

“You talked a little bit about what you’re doing for people with disabilities beyond elevators. I was hoping that you could talk about one particular aspect that you feel most proud about,” and “who cleans up racist graffiti” were among the other thrillers the MTA decided to regale the crowd with during the Q&A session. And even when they did touch upon questions locals were interested in – questions regarding the possibility of a revitalization of the H-train from Mott Ave. to Beach 116th or the truncation of the Q22, among others, – the officials again failed to deliver.

The H-train, it seems, is nothing more than a pipe dream, as the officials stated that the inclusion of the H-train would create further reliability issues on the A-line because the new train would displace other cars in the terminal. As for the Q22, panelists said that the ridership numbers west of 116th were very low, but officials did say that they were still listening to community input and would take that input into account before rolling out any final changes.

The lack of any solid, productive answers led to more than a few outbursts from the crowd, and local Democratic District Leader Lew Simon at one point – tired of being ignored – made his way to the front of the room and tossed a letter from a local student on the panelist table, urging them to read it and see how their proposals would impact the people of the peninsula.

“This is a petition from an 8-year-old child who rides the Q53 every day,” Simon shouted, reminding the agency reps that their decision was impacting the way local children would get to school. 

 Admin note: A commenter alerted me this post was 2 years old. My fault for not checking it date since I put it up in a rush.