Dragon boat race experience was crappy

"Hi Crappy,

I attended the races in Flushing Meadow and want to report the crappie conditions I witnessed on Sunday.

First of all the north end area of the lake is getting a much needed makeover and large sections are fenced off where trees are being planted and roads resurfaced. Many people had problems including me trying to figure out how to get to lake area where the races were. There were no signs set up to direct people thus people had to walk down a path only to find they could not get thru. I ran into two DEC officers and wanted to complain to them but they were having the same problem and said, "don't complain to us, call Parks Dept."

When I finally got to the lake I saw that our Park's Dept. did nothing to spruce up the viewing area which was on both sides of the boathouse. People lined up along the shore got to view a lake full of algae, a 10' long board, a sunken barrel a dead turtle and along the shore a rotting pigeon.

There was also an inadequate amount of litter baskets and people were just leaving trash on the ground. There were many corporate sponsors that gave away free stuff for the kids and that added to the trash.

I attended the races last year and saw the same conditions and even wrote to the Park's Dept but I guess they think it's not a problem.

One would think that for a big event like this the Park's Dept. would at least try and spruce up the area ,no I saw the same conditions I see in my bike rides around the park. This really is a tale of two parks. The area by the Unisphere, the theater, the museum and the tennis stadium gets all the attention. Hopefully the upgrades by the lake area will keep coming." - Rich

Happy Monday from Forest Hills!

From Forest Hills:

let’s take a look at the Austin St. Underpass Walkway, which after months of complaints had the graffiti finally removed only for it to reappear along with garbage and human excrement (CRAP), plus out of control weeds on a public sidewalk right along with garbage dumping. Photos don’t lie about the FILTH OF FOREST HILLS.

Bowne Park is a disaster

Hello Crapunzel,

It’s been awhile since I’ve felt the need to contact you. Recently in the blog you’ve mentioned North Flushing, sidewalks and street digging, and since I am a resident of the Bowne Park area of NF I figured you might have an interest in this.

The Department of Parks and Councilman Paul Vallone in their infinite wisdom have determined that Bowne Park should be ignored. We have made several requests for more trash cans on the 159th street side of the park, by the playground, where ice cream vendors ply their trade and parents allow their issue to drop litter, to no avail. Attached are photos of their solution, black plastic bags hung over fences.

We’ve also complained to Vallone about the pond. For OVER TWO weeks the fountains have been shut off leading to an algae bloom that is not only unhealthy for the fish and turtles in the pond but to the olfactory senses of the local residents. See attached photos.

Repeated calls to Vallone’s office have not alleviated this problem. Contacting the Parks department at the Overlook is a total waste of time, they do not care about one of their park “Jewels”.

Also, take a gander of the bocce court that the department added a couple of years ago for about $500,000...no one uses it.

Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,

Philipe the pissed

Katz finally working on Jamaica cleanup

Photo from Cleanup Jamaica Queens

From AM-NY:

A new pilot program aimed at cleaning up Jamaica’s streets will also benefit formerly homeless people looking to build job skills.

Borough President Melinda Katz unveiled the “Jamaica Together: A Neighborhood Cleaning Effort” program on Tuesday, announcing a six-month partnership with the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE) as well as other community stakeholders.

The initiative will lean on ACE-paid workers to clean up and beautify a section of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, between Tuskegee Airmen Way and 109th Avenue, according to Kat’s office. ACE, a non-profit organization, works with recovering homeless people in the city by providing support services and helping them build key skills that will enable them to obtain and maintain a job.

“Jamaica is one of our borough’s core neighborhoods and it is critically important that we do all we can to make it a fantastic place to live, work and visit,” Katz said. “This program is just one part of our overall effort to revitalize Jamaica and maximize its potential as a residential and commercial hub.”

Each weekday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., a two-person crew will go out along Guy R. Brewer Boulevard to clean the sidewalks and tree pits and remove unauthorized graffiti. The workers will be overseen by a supervisor from ACE, per Katz’s office.

Woodside CSX tracks are a mess

From CBS 2:

“Here, where it’s a private company and private property, it’s impossible for the city to even get in there,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer told Duddridge.

Neighbors are now adding rodents to their list of complaints, saying the animals are running rampant.

“We don’t now want the rats and mice and whatever seeping into our homes and apartments,” said Corrao.

The New York City Department of Sanitation says its cleaning unit inspected the area last month. It says CSX has been notified and has seven to 10 days to either clean up or sanitation crews will at the company’s expense.

There’s still one more hurdle – the sanitation department can’t clean up the property until a judge grants crews a warrant to enter the grounds.

Concrete company creating a big mess

From the Queens Chronicle:

Ozone Park resident Paul O’Neill has been in the area for decades and has never had a problem with the surrounding businesses — until now.

O’Neill, and others who spoke to the Chronicle, say concrete business Prime Ready Mix has been the source of a number of quality-of-life issues in recent years and it’s only getting worse.

The main complaint from nearby homeowners is the dust and sand that emanates from the business, located at 87-13 Rockaway Blvd.

The Department of Building’s website states one caller said, “There have been numerous amounts of dust and sand all over the place, seeping into homes. This influx of dust causes allergies and many people have gotten sick.”

Those who spoke to the Chronicle said vehicles, barbecue grills and other items have been ruined by the dust.

A man named Sean, who identified himself as the owner of Prime Ready Mix but did not give his last name, said in a telephone interview he’s doing the best he can to keep the area clean.

Dumped on Jamaica lot cleaned up

For months residents had been calling on local leaders to clean the garbage; at James Fobb's property; as always residents were ignored. That was until Monday when my comrade and I exposed the garbage and the political gangsters.

One day later, Nov. 22nd. supporters were calling me, saying that sanitation workers were out in full force. At long last the disastrous garbage-filled, animal infested, garage was cleaned.

It was a task to remove: couch, tv, chairs, boxes, mattresses, pieces of bed rails, several bag of garbage, other items and of course the shitty exposed toilet.

Queens political gangsters should hide their heads in shame. They call themselves political leaders; but they are only monitors. These democ(rats) only monitor the problems. They are incapable of fixing problems.

During the campaign, borough president, Katz said that she will "hit the ground running from day one." Well, the liar has been on her throne for years and black people are still suffering. The other do nothing, Senator Comrie is a disgrace to the black community. All the black leaders have: FOOLED, FAILED & FORGOTTEN black people.

However, my comrade, supporters and I will keep the fire up their asses. We will hold them accountable.

Boranian, you are in charge of constituents services; at Katz's office. You are a paid employee. We do not want favours, just do your damn job. If you do not, you will be in misery. Your boss is the ring leader of the gangsters. For this reason, we will keep on your ass. Don't like it, then LEAVE our community.

Early this morning a cat dropped by for breakfast; not a crumb was available.

A woman was looking on saying, "I am amazed, what a transformation"

Katz, brace yourself for the next cleanup. We will keep you abreast of the stinking situation.

P. Hazel: Social Media Journalist for Justice.

PS: Still wondering how the hell an outsider won the presidency! Get therapy.

No good deed goes unpunished

From PIX11:

Neighbors say the empty lot on the corner of Columbia and Woodhull streets needed the clean up.

"It looked like hell," said Roger who works right next door. "It was rodent infested."

So [Louis] Formisano started cleaning.

Formisano said items in the lot ranged from refrigerators to rodents.

"I caught 13 possums," he said.

Despite the undeniable improvement, a neighbor called the city and reported Formisano for trespassing.

The Department of Housing and Development put a padlock on the gate and told Louis to hit the road and take his things with him.

His things? A riding mower and some Christmas decorations he used to decorate the lot each year.

HPD accused him of cutting a city lock and using the lot as his own backyard, which Formisano denies.

Sanitation finally tackles dumping site in Jamaica

"This morning (April 1) bright and early, a supporter alerted me that a sanitation truck was circling around James Fobb's property. I arrived at the site a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. The sanitation truck was positioning into the garbage strewn garage.

Employees began placing the garbage into the truck. I asked one employee, Mr. S. about finding a solution to this constant problem. He said, "they should put a gate, a fence, something, but I do not make the rules." He went on to say that yesterday they began cleaning, but there was an interruption; there were an abundance of syringes. He said that according to policy some one had to do an analysis. That is the reason they returned today to complete the job.

Some employees continued to pile garbage into the truck. Another employee was in the process of removing a filthy mattress that was leaning against Fobb's house; when suddenly a young man emerged from behind the mattress; another interruption.The man appeared startled. I asked him why he was behind the mattress. He replied, "I was taking a piss".

The pisser.

However, a near-by resident/supporter said, "He is lying, he always sleeps behind that mattress. He was there last night."

A supporter pointing to the pisser's quarters.

A D.O.S supervisor arrived at the seen to assess the situation, but the pisser or sleeper had long gone. So the job was completed.

The supervisor

I initiated a conversation with another employee; who said "the powers should come up with a solution."

Some residents said that they are fed-up of the fiasco. They believe that the garage was deliberately left filthy to embarrass the black community. One echoed, why they did not clean this disaster before Easter.

After, listening to angry residents and understandably so; I left the scene to prepare to go to work.

Boranian, these episodes have gone on for too long. Fobb could be dead, who knows. The last we heard, he was in a facility. That information came from your former colleague, Mr. Lamura; he retired about two years ago.

Boranian, please fine a way to install a fence, and bring this issue to a close. If there are legal deterrents, then please provide funds to CleanupJamaica. We do not care about being legally correct."


P.Hazel: Social Media Journalist for Justice.

Kim & Koo want filthy Flushing LIRR station cleaned

From the Queens Chronicle:

“This is one of the worst Long Island Rail Road stations,” Koo said. “Our station doesn’t match the quality of life we deserve.”

The grassy area below the station, as anyone who’s been to the depot knows, is littered with trash.

“So, I’m asking the MTA representative here to relay my message to the MTA: Keep the station clean! Maintain it!” the councilman said, looking at Baptitse. “Look at the trash here! It’s a disgrace to our community!”

Koo, who added that when he rides the train, other passengers complain to him about the station’s issues, clarified that his anger was not directed at the project manager personally.

“I know you’re just the messenger. I am not blaming it on you but please relay my concern,” the councilman said. “I have been talking about this since I came into office.”

After the press conference, Koo directed heated words at the station’s manager, too.

“This is a great disgrace to our community, that we have such a lousy station here,” Koo told the Queens Chronicle, adding that he would follow up with MTA. “I want to put them on notice that we want this station cleaned.”

Speaking to reporters after the photo op, Kim also expressed concern about the trash at the station, but voiced confidence that it will be fixed in the future.

“Flushing produces the most jobs than any neighborhood in the city of New York,” Kim said. “Once we upgrade the entire station, I’m confident that all of this stuff will go away.”

Still, he added, reaching out to the MTA to make sure that the station’s trash is cleaned up will be the “next move.”

“And then, we have to follow up with education and outreach and making sure people maintain it and making sure we have enough MTA workers to maintain it,” Kim added.

Introducing CleaNYC

From NY1:

The city has launched a new initiative centered around being cleaner and greener.

Part of a new campaign called CleaNYC, the $4.2 million project includes an increased effort in removing graffiti from public and private buildings spanning 40 million square feet of space each year.

The Sanitation Department is sending seven teams every Saturday to clean an extra 100 miles of road along highway shoulders and ramps.

The city is also expanding Sunday trash pickup by 40 percent to accommodate heavy traffic neighborhoods.

More Jamaica issues to add to the pile

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Yeah, we just got the Queens International Night Market on Saturdays thru October and we have some development happening and in the works, so the future for Jamaica is 50-50 maybe, but the present is one big heap of garbage shit.

Coming back from a bike ride in nice, clean, civilized Long Beach, I encountered all this shit from the LIRR Sutphin Station and it AIN'T PRETTY.

Major Mark Park is in disgraceful condition

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Such a small park, but such a big mess thanks to our low-class ghetto/third world folks who destroy anything nice in this community, one of the reasons the revitalization of Jamaica will fail (story to follow later on that subject).

So Melinda Katz and crew, want to include this on your Jamaica initiative brochure and highlight this park for your “tourists” to get a taste of a third world park.

Looks like a nice park right?

Public pools have a bunch of health violations

From NBC:

Soaring temperatures and oppressive humidity sent New Yorkers in droves to the nearest swimming pool this week, but with the flood of water-seekers, some may wonder how city pools measure up in terms of safety and sanitation.

The I-Team reviewed records of pool inspections and violations for all New York City Parks and Recreation Pools for 2013 and 2014. The investigation showed dozens of public health violations are issued each year for problems like lack of supervisory staff, overcrowding and, in some cases, failure to operate filtration and disinfection equipment continuously.

For example, the Astoria Pool in Queens had 10 violations in recent years. Five of the violations were considered "critical," including failing to provide a valid pool operator certificate, having inadequate water test kits and improperly operating the flow meter.

One violation involving chlorine levels during use of the pool was listed as a public health hazard.

Petition to clean up Charles Park

From the Queens Chronicle:

Having Charles Park Beach so close to her house was a major selling point when Debra Ann DiMeglio moved to Howard Beach in January.

But all wasn’t as it seemed. She quickly became disappointed to see how many people were throwing their garbage on the beach and its surrounding park — a longtime problem in the area, according to residents.

“It’s just terrible what’s going on there,” DiMeglio said. “It doesn’t give a good face to the community.”

Now, she and her sister are on a mission to get the National Parks Service to improve the maintenance of the federal parkland — and their cries are backed by close to 250 people who so far have signed onto a petition in want of a cleaner park.

“The whole park needs to be cleaned up. This should not be,” DiMeglio said.

In an online petition at Change.org, DiMeglio and her sister Sheri say Charles Park, located at 9600 165 Ave., “was once a beautiful park, where residents would enjoy their visits and the beautiful view.”

They couldn’t say the same for today.

“The beaches are horrendous,” DiMeglio said. “When I walk around I’m seeing all the debris and dirt and people barbecuing. There’s barbecue charcoal everywhere.”

She’s not alone in that assessment.

“The park looks like a junkyard,” Steven Sirgiovanni said. “I wouldn’t want to have a kid or a dog going in there.”

Why can't we do this here?

From NBC:

There's a new effort to clean the bushes and branches that have overgrown outside several abandoned homes in East Orange. The program not only makes the neighborhood look nicer, but also gives unemployment residents a chance to work. Brian Thompson reports.

Documenting filth in Brooklyn

From WPIX:

When it comes to litter, Alexandra Larger says she understands how candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and empty soda cans end up on the street, but seeing chicken bones and rubber gloves littering the blocks near her home in Bed-Stuy just never made sense.

So now she’s started documenting the sightings on her blog “Streets of Brooklyn.”

“I can’t recall ever seeing anyone eating a fried chicken thigh in the middle of the street – can you? And as far as the rubber glove situation … I don’t even want to know,” Larger writes on her blog.

Larger says she never notices garbage like this popping up in wealthier neighborhoods around the borough. So she decided to start snapping pictures of the unusual sightings and posting them online.

The subway is a filthy place

From AM-NY:

The subway system is nothing if not a dirty, smelly place. But it doesn't have to be so bad if the MTA stuck to its cleaning schedules, according to an audit from city Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The audit shows that tracks in seven stations -- just 3% of the 276 underground stops -- met New York City Transit's cleaning schedule, once every three weeks. More than half the stations got between four and eight visits from an 11-person cleaning crew a year, according to the audit of cleaning records between July 2013 and June 2014.

"The tracks have become appalling garbage dumps," Stringer said at a news conference outside of the F train stop at East Broadway. "The MTA has failed to clean them according to their own standards."

The MTA uses two vacuum trains to suck up litter on the tracks, with a $23 million contract out for three more. But the vacuum trains in use now can't get all the trash, because they run on a low setting to prevent damage to the tracks, according to the audit.

In looking at 33 station tracks before and after a vacuum train cleaning, there were pieces of garbage that stayed on the track bed. Meanwhile, equipment failures sidelined the vacuum trains for 188 days over the year studied, the audit found.

Schumer wants FDA to crack down on dirty warehouses

From AMNY:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should beef up inspections after the agency uncovered gross violations in a rat-infested Brooklyn food warehouse, Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday.

The warehouse, New Yung Wah Trading Company in Williamsburg, had rodent nests, carcasses, feces and urine, as well as birds flying throughout the facility, defecating on food products, during an October inspection, according to a Dec. 9 warning letter from the FDA. Last year, the FDA sent 90 warning letters to food facilities around the country, according to Schumer. He called for the FDA to treat any facility that got a warning letter as "high risk" and increase inspections; a database for retail food vendors to check on suppliers' violations; and hike penalties.

Ants are a godsend

From WPIX:

Some of New York City’s tiniest inhabitants are trash-eating, rat-fighting machines, according to a new study.

Researchers from North Carolina State University found that colonies of ants living in the city’s streets and parks eat thousands of pounds of trash — which is keeping populations of rats and other pests at bay in the process.

The researchers said that the ants that live in the medians of the city’s thoroughfares are particularly helpful. Along Broadway alone, researchers said, ants ate about 2,100 pounds of junk food — the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs — in less than one year.

“This isn’t just a silly fact,” said Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, the author of the study. “This highlights a very real service that these arthropods provide. They effectively dispose of our trash for us.”

The researchers reportedly came to their conclusion after putting specific amounts of junk food in the street medians and city park in 2012 and 2013. Some samples were put in cages that only ants could access, while others were put in the open so other animals could eat them. Researchers left the food out for 24 hours and then came back to see how much the ants had taken.

It was discovered that the ants in the medians took the most junk food, eating two to three times what park ants consumed. The ants also ate enough of the food to keep other animals away.