Andrew Cuomo's Department of Health sends COVID-19 infected elderly people to nursing homes expecting them to die

NY Post

 The first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a controversial state mandate arrived along with some grim accessories — a supply of body bags, The Post has learned.

An executive at the facility — which was previously free of the deadly disease — said the bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced to begin treating two people discharged from hospitals with COVID-19.

“My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the exec told The Post Thursday.

“The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

Within days, three of the bags were filled with the first of 30 residents who would die there after Gov. Cuomo’s Health Department handed down its March 25 directive that bars nursing homes from refusing to admit “medically stable” coronavirus patients, the exec said.

Like clockwork, the nursing home has received five body bags a week — every week — from city officials.

“Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” the health care executive added.

 Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home, where the most vulnerable population to this disease resides?”
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Since March 25, the Queens nursing home has admitted 17 patients from hospitals who tested positive for coronavirus, but in a bitter irony most of them have fared well, the exec said. Those who have died passed away without a test or while awaiting the results from one.

“The rest of the people are dropping like flies — literally like flies — and most of them have been with us for years,” the exec added.

COVID-19 has killed at least 3,540 residents of New York’s nursing homes and adult care facilities as of Wednesday, according to the most recent state Health Department data

Nursing home patients are gravely forgotten as the coronavirus curve "flattens"

Gothamist

On Monday morning, at a private nursing home in Queens, a registered nurse arrived for what she thought would be a job interview. She found more than a dozen prospective applicants, all of them responding to the same urgent, unsolicited text message from the Fairview Rehab & Nursing Home. 

They were whisked through a brief training session and hired on the spot.

The nurse leading the orientation, who’d started at the facility only three days earlier, explained that much of Fairview’s regular staff and management are out sick with COVID-19. There are more than forty residents for every nurse, she said, before asking who in the group could begin a double shift immediately.

The situation inside disturbed even battle-hardened medical professionals. According to multiple healthcare workers who spoke to Gothamist this week, a majority of the 200 residents at Fairview are suffering from acute pressure ulcers — gaping sores on their shoulders or elbows or pelvic bones, indicating they haven’t been turned over in days.

One nurse was so horrified by what she saw she began taking detailed notes of her shifts, which she shared with Gothamist. Her accounts, relayed here, were confirmed by multiple staff members at Fairview. (We’ve agreed to withhold the names of some of the healthcare workers, because they were not authorized to speak to the press.)

“They’re slumped over in bed, just laying there rotting,” said one nurse. Another staff member, reached by phone mid-shift, said she wasn’t sure who was in charge at Fairview anymore. “It’s crazy in here right now,” she said. “Everything you’re hearing is true.”

Left unsupervised, some of the new personnel roamed the five-story building, finding shortages of gloves, hand sanitizer, stethoscopes and, most concerningly, medication. When they can’t locate a certain pill, they’re told to note that a resident refused it, rather than record it as out of stock, according to two of the employees.

Tests for COVID-19 are hard to come by at nursing homes across New York, and while nurses say they were told of at least one positive patient at Fairview, it’s not clear who else may be infected. Many of Fairview’s residents are in need of medical care typically offered at hospitals, employees said.

Some nursing assistants, newly out of school and certified through an emergency federal waiver, are given high-level tasks. One of them is observed inserting a nasal oxygen cannula upside down. The potentially deadly error is caught in time, but not before sending the elderly resident into a gasping fit of hypoxia.

By the end of their first shift, multiple newly-hired workers had quit, citing fear of being named in an inevitable malpractice suit.

“I don't think anyone is going in there and getting better,” said one nurse. “They’re in there getting worse.”

Repeated inquires to Fairview were not returned.

Press Republican 

New York's biggest concentration of COVID-19 deaths has come at state-licensed nursing homes — though the state has so far opted to keep a lid on the identity of the specific facilities.

A total of 860 New Yorkers have died from the virus at nursing homes since the pandemic reached the state five weeks ago, according to new state data.

And while the Cuomo administration in recent days enhanced the amount of data it makes available to the public regarding virus infections, the state Department of Health is so refraining from identifying the specific nursing homes where the contagion has taken lives.

The tally of infections at nursing homes and prisons — both representing places where scores of people live in close quarters — is growing daily, just as the state's overall death toll is also mounting.

Total statewide deaths so far stood at 5,489 Tuesday, April 8, up 731 in one day — the highest number of fatalities since the first death last month.

However, late Tuesday, New York City officials said it counted 806 fatalities alone in the city's five boroughs over the previous 24 hours, portending another alarming increase in deaths when the statewide data is updated Wednesday.

Though state officials imposed bans on visits to nursing home patients to curb the spread, patient deaths have now been recorded at nearly 300 facilities across the state. State Health Department officials say they are not revealing the locations of the homes because to do so could violate patient privacy rights.

This might be the tally of all those buried at Hart Island recently, which I believe also includes the under tallied homeless population

NYC nursing homes also lack adequate medical supplies to prevent COVID-19 contagion

THE CITY

Nursing homes have emerged as a second major front in New York’s battle to stem the coronavirus crisis — with their residents accounting for 15% of COVID-19 deaths in the state, the state Department of Health revealed Sunday.

Like staffers at many city hospitals, nursing home industry officials say they’re suffering from shortages of protective equipment and testing kits — even as they’re caring for a population with the highest risk of succumbing to the virus.

“I’m not getting the equipment I need to properly protect my staff and to properly protect my patients — and that is my absolute biggest concern,” said Scott LaRue, CEO of ArchCare, a network of five nursing homes with 1,700 beds in the city and upstate that’s affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York.

LaRue, who confirmed residents in his network have tested positive for COVID-19, said he spent Sunday delivering thousands of items of protective equipment to his facilities — but that it was barely enough for one day.

He said his workers don’t have enough surgical gowns and face shields to keep them safe when caring for symptomatic patients.

“We’ve been buying rain ponchos and beautician gowns off of Amazon,” said LaRue.

HUD apartment building's LLC landlord is putting elderly tenants at risk of contracting coronavirus

AM New York

Some residents of Astoria’s Bridgeview II Co Apartments were left without hot water and heat for more than 55 hours over the weekend, one tenant’s son told QNS.

Although the hot water went back on for a few hours on Monday, March 16, it is off again as of Tuesday morning, according to Dannelly Rodriguez, a student at CUNY Law and a community activist who’s mother lives in the building. He said the heat never went back on.

“On Saturday at like 8:30 a.m., there was no hot water or heat, and the day before there was brown water,” Rodriguez said. “This is especially problematic because a lot of the tenants are elders who are most susceptible to COVID-19, so I felt like something needed to be done immediately.”

Rodriguez’s mother, who he says has serious health conditions and receives Section 8, is one of those tenants. When he went to visit her on the eighth floor, he realized the issue and that a number of other people in the building also didn’t have hot water and heat. He then started encouraging neighbors to file complaints with management and call 311.

Bridgeview II Apartments, located at 26-45 9th Street, is a low income, HUD apartment building with 110 units. It is currently managed by Axion Management LLC, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) website.

Rodriguez, a former tenant of the building, said this is not an “isolated incident.” He recalls filing a lawsuit a few years prior in order to have the building fix his mother’s leaking roof.

“They have had these kinds of incidents in the past, including boiler, heat, mold issues, broken appliances and windows issues,” Rodriguez said. “The building has a host of violations. The culture of this building is that they’re actively negligent and fail to make repairs for the people who live there. Having this boiler issue now is a manifestation of everything that’s happened throughout the years.”

An HPD spokesperson told QNS that inspectors assessed the building on Monday, and found the hot water and heat were “adequate.” They said heat was at 68 degrees (the high yesterday was 45 degrees) and the hot water was 120 degrees, OSHA’s recommended temperature for domestic hot water.

Rodriguez said the hot water was working after complaints were filed, but the heat still wasn’t working as of Monday — for several apartment units, not just his mother’s apartment.
HPD said they will work directly with tenants who need hot water and heat.

Over the weekend, Rodriguez took to Twitter to document what was going on — knowing that he’d get more responses that way.

My mother’s who has serious health issues & many other tenants at 26-45 9th St. Astoria Queens are without hot water for 24 hrs due to the negligence of Wavecrest Management. How is this acceptable in the 21st century & amidst this Corona virus pandemic? @NYCHousing @HealthNYGov

— Dannelly Rodriguez (@DR0DRIGUEZ) March 15, 2020

No city for old people

 
City Limits 

Florina, 62, and her husband, who is 63, haven’t paid rent on their rent-regulated Bronx apartment in months.

The husband has not been able to work in 16 years and is blind. Florina does sporadic cleaning work to bring in extra income but is otherwise retired. Neither receives any kind of disability or Social Security benefit, due to their immigration status.

In January of 2019, Florina received a notice saying that her rent would go up by 30 percent, an amount the family couldn’t pay.

The couple are one of a few dozen residents of a building in the Bronx who are now on a rent strike. 

The couple, along with their children and grandchildren, with whom they live, are protesting a Major Capital Improvement – a rent hike on regulated units intended to fund building-wide repairs that they said raises their rent beyond what they can pay. The hike was approved prior to last summer’s rent reforms, which curtailed the practice. They are also protesting deteriorating conditions in their home.

In response, their landlord took the couple to court in an attempt to evict the family. Their hearing has been postponed until March, thanks to the intervention of a lawyer. But Florina and her husband still fear they will be evicted, along with their working age children and young grandchild.

Florina is fortunate, she says, that she lives with children – her son, 39, works at a bakery and her daughter, 30, is a home-health aide. While their combined income does not pay for the increased rent on their apartment, being partially supported by a younger generation is not something all elder New Yorkers have.

Many elder New Yorkers without such family ties and with little retirement savings end up displaced, segregated to an adult home, or worse, shuffled into the city’s homeless shelter system when they become ill.

“Sadly a lot of older, disabled people believe ‘they can’t throw me out into the street’,” says Justin La Mort, a housing lawyer with the group Mobilization for Justice who works with elders. “The bad news is, in fact, they can. It’s just a matter of time.”

The city uses a patchwork of social services and subsidies to keep elders aging in place, but they can be difficult to qualify for and their funds are limited. For those without savings or income from work, federal programs—SSI, SSDI or social security—can come too late and, when they do arrive, may not meet the high cost of rent in New York City. The result is a permanent sense of precarity among the city’s most vulnerable, sometimes culminating in homelessness or displacement.

A lack of retirement savings compounds the problem. According to the commissioner of the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, half of New Yorkers 55 and older have no money in traditional retirement accounts. 40 percent of New Yorkers between 50 and 64 have less than $10,000 saved in such accounts. Nationally, 29 percent of adults above 55 have neither a pension nor retirement savings, according to the Government Accountability Office.

This lack of assets can have material effects when older adults face hardships: a recent study from the non-profit Robin Hood looked at material hardship, spurred by housing insecurity, job loss or illness. The study found that 53 percent of New Yorkers experienced such hardship for at least one year in the survey’s four year timespan.

According to the same report, 23 percent of respondents experienced poor health between 2012-2018. The study also found housing subsidies and rent regulations had reduced the poverty rate by 5 percent.

Elders who become disabled suddenly can find themselves in a grey area where social services can’t help them. Awaiting disability benefits, for which they may be rejected, they could find themselves in arrears and face evicted for unpaid rent. Still others who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) may be surprised to learn that their income is less than what they owe in rent but too much to qualify for a city or state subsidies to prevent homelessness. 

As City Limits has reported, the percentage of older adults in New York City’s shelter population is increasing. There is no way to determine how many elders become homeless each day through eviction, as eviction data made public by the city does not include age as a data point. While the number of adults in city shelters who are age 65 and above increased 300 percent between 2004 and 2017, older adults who are evicted don’t always enter shelter. And seniors don’t have to be formally evicted to be displaced by the threat of eviction; if they move out ahead of being uprooted by a marshal, or take a buyout, the result can be the same. Few elders are fortunate enough to find more affordable housing in the city, and some are forced to relocate to other states.

Evictions have been decreasing overall across New York City, thanks to a raft of pro-tenant legislation that closed loopholes for regulated apartments and provide access to counsel. Evictions executed by city marshals decreased 25 percent between January 2019 and January 2020. But for tenants who can no longer gain any income from work because they are elderly or disabled, eviction or displacement are more difficult to put off.

92-year-old woman murdered in front of her house in South Richmond Hill

NY Daily News

 A 92-year-old woman died after someone apparently strangled her outside her Queens home, police sources said Wednesday.

At first, police believed Maria Fuertes suffered a fatal fall on 127th St. near 103rd Road early Monday after being bumped in South Richmond Hill.

Investigators now, however, believe she was the victim of a homicide, and that someone strangled her on the street until she slumped to the ground.

A neighbor found her, and ran to alert her son, who was hanging out at a nearby deli.

“A guy came into the store and said, ‘I found your mother on the street,’” Ray Fuertes, her heartbroken son, told the Daily News Wednesday night.

 “I got into the ambulance with her. she was still conscious but she couldn’t talk. She had a gash on her head and some bruising near her chest,” the 52-year-old said.

He ran back into the family’s house to grab his phone, thinking his mother would pull through, and planned to meet her at the hospital, he said. But she took a turn for the worse.

EMTs rushed Fuertes to Jamaica Hospital but she could not be saved.

“The nurse said her heart stopped three times. And then they couldn’t revive her,” he said. “I never expected anything like this.”

Ray Fuertes said his mother has fallen a few times, and he couldn’t even conceive of someone hurting her.

“Homicide. I really find that hard to believe. Why would anybody do this to her. This is ridiculously crazy," he told The News. “I never thought I’d face anything like this. I can barely talk about it.”

The incident was captured on grainy surveillance video at 12:01 a.m. Monday, police sources said.

The bad days are here again.

Update:

The suspect was caught and he's 21 and homeless. He attacked her while she was collecting bottles and tried to rape her according to police and news reports.

101-year old man swindled out of home

From the Forum:

A Queens man who took advantage of his friendship with a 101-year-old neighbor is facing up to 15 years in prison for tricking the centenarian into signing over the deed to his home.

Authorities say Ricardo Bentham, 58, of 118th Avenue, has been charged with grand larceny and other crimes for allegedly conning a neighborhood friend into transferring the deed of his long-time home into the defendant’s name in October of 2017.

According to the criminal complaint, the defendant submitted a quitclaim deed to be filed with the city on October 5, 2017. The document stated that 101 year-old Woodrow Washington was transferring ownership of his 143rd Street home which has a value in excess of $50,000 to the defendant for a sale price of $0. The victim realized something was wrong when he received a letter from the Department of Finance stating that the deed to his home had been transferred to Bentham. An inquiry was conducted and revealed the document that was filed bears the signature of the Mr. Washington along with a notary stamp and signature of a notary.

Mr. Washington stated that the signature on the form is his, however, he is adamant that he never signed any documents in front of a notary.

Mr. Theodore White, the 93-year-old notary, acknowledged knowing Bentham and would often sign documents for him because he trusted him. The document bearing his signature was missing the notary seal, which White always added to a document.

Mr. Washington identified the defendant as a neighborhood friend who offered to help him collect rent from tenants. He recalled signing documents that the defendant brought to his residence and that some were blank.

Foreclosure floods elderly woman's home

From WPIX:

In front of her home on Poplar Street, the gutter had a deep and wide sheet of ice. It extends to the house next door, which has sat empty since 2014, according to Lama's family and their neighbors.

Cascading down the far wall of the house next door are 15-foot long, 3-inch thick icicles. All of the ice on a cold Friday gives a strong indication of what went wrong here.

"Water from the bathroom pipe broke," said Joseph Lama, 72, Fanny Lama's son. "It leaked down into the basement."

He then showed PIX11 News what the result of possibly five days of water leakage looks like. He opened up the cellar door of the foreclosed home next door to show that the crawl space underneath was filed with close to three feet of water.

"Was licensed" contractor scammed old lady

From PIX11:

Joseph Battaglia claimed to be a licensed home improvement contractor when Virginia James hired him to renovate her small bathroom and replace a number of doors in her Queens home.

But a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs says “Battaglia and Sons Contracting license was revoked in 2013.” His new company, JAB Home Improvement, is also “not licensed” and is “under investigation,” says the Consumer Affairs Department.

We recently confronted Battaglia about a court judgment he lost to Virginia James for $4854.00 for failing to complete the bathroom renovations and not delivering the replacement doors.

“How come you haven’t paid the judgment?” I asked Battaglia. He claimed to be unaware the court case had taken place six months ago and that he lost by default when he failed to show up.

“You take advantage of the elderly. My mother was 80-years-old”, said Eileen James. It was Eileen’s mother who sued Battaglia. Tragically, she died just one week after filing suit, and Eileen continued the court fight on her mother’s behalf. “He made commitments to me that he was going to refund the money and fix what needed to be fixed. And of course, months went on. He never did anything”, said Eileen.

Elderly woman dies after mugging

From WPIX:

An 80-year-old woman who was mugged last weekend in Queens has died from her injuries — but not before identifying her attacker, police say.

Police say Celica Londono of 76th Street, Queens, was walking with her 92-year-old sister-in-law around 4:40 p.m. on 76th Street near 35th Avenue when a man identified as 32-year-old Jordan Vecchio cut her purse straps and shoved her to the ground.

Londono suffered injuries to her abdomen, arm and face. Her sister-in-law was not injured, police say.

EMS transported Londono to Elmhurst General Hospital where she died from her injuries on Wednesday.

Why carbon monoxide detectors are necessary

From CBS Local:

A couple in their 80s and another man and woman were killed in a carbon monoxide incident in Floral Park, Queens Friday afternoon.

The incident began at around 3:15 p.m. in a single family home at 260th Street near 86th Avenue, according to EMS, 1010 WINS’ Derricke Dennis reported.

Jerry Hugel, 83, was found dead in a garage, and Marie Hugel, 80, was found dead in the lower floor adjacent to a garage, sources said. They were found dead by their son, an NYPD sergeant, who called 911, sources said.

Walter Vonthadden, 76, was found dead in the upstairs living room, and Gloria Greco, 70, was found dead upstairs near a staircase, sources said.

One of the two victims in their 70s lived in the house as a tenant, while the other was a visitor, police said.

Police said a Buick was found running in the garage, CBS2’s Matt Kozar reported.

Who needs infrastructure upgrades?

From the Daily News:

An elderly woman was hospitalized after a busted water main sent thousands of gallons of water pouring into the street and flooding homes in Queens early Saturday, officials and residents said.

The flooding impacted 100 homes, according to fire officials, and cracked off slabs of sidewalk on 23rd St. near 24th Dr. in Astoria.

Emergency responders brought the woman to Elmhurst Hospital as a precaution after her home filled with about three feet of water, neighbors and fire officials said

Zach Borst, 29, was coming up around 4 a.m. when he saw the brown water gushing out of a hole in the sidewalk where Con Edison had been working early this week.

"It was like a geyser. It was literally just rushing out, thousands of gallons of water," he said. "It was chaos. A total deluge."

Residents say the busted main let loose a torrent for about two hours until the water was shut off around 6:30 a.m.

Flushing NYPD officer is a nice guy

From CBS New York:

An NYPD officer came to the rescue Friday after an elderly woman had her car towed.

The car was parked outside the New York Hospital Queens Breast Cancer Center in Flushing, when it was towed away. The officer was called to drive the woman to the tow pound to get her car.

But when police got there, the woman only had checks, and the pound only took cash or credit.

So the officer, Brian Kinkaid, went to an ATM and took out $185 of his own money to help her out.

Big winner at Resorts World gets mugged

From the Daily News:

A cunning yet patient crook robbed an 88-year-old Queens man of his casino winnings after following him all the way from the betting house to his home — a journey that took 90 minutes and covered more than 10 miles.

Prosecutors say Gregory Hillman, 57, started trailing his mark right after he spotted the octogenarian counting $1,000 in prize money at the Resorts World Casino in South Ozone Park on Halloween night.

Video surveillance captured Hillman following the victim into and out of a casino bathroom, out of the betting parlor and onto a shuttle bus, authorities said.

Hillman trailed behind the victim as he boarded an E train at the Jamaica station and stepped off at the Roosevelt Ave./74th St. stop in Jackson Heights, authorities said. When the elderly man walked into a supermarket after leaving the subway station, Hillman was captured on surveillance video walking in and out right behind him.

Hillman remained behind the victim when he boarded a Q47 bus and rode it to East Elmhurst. It was only after the man got off the bus and neared his residence that Hillman finally pounced.

Elevators out of service for months at Howard Beach complex

From WPIX:

What goes up must come down. Unless it’s an elevator at the Dorchester complex in Howard Beach. In that case, the elevator may be going nowhere.

I had to go back out there earlier this month. And I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

There are two buildings. Over the winter they had problems in the Dorchester Two. The elevator was out. Senior citizens, including a World War II vet, were forced to use the stairs if they could.

And I ran into two very unpleasant people. A VP of the co-op board and a foul-mouthed secretary in the management office who actually called the NYPD on me. Even though we were invited in by owners, she claimed we had no righto be there.

Imagine that.

Anyway, we helped expedite the long-delayed elevator repairs.

But now the same situation arose in the other building, the Dorchester One. I’m told that secretary no longer works at the complex. But the problem was still severe. Five months without a functioning elevator!

Irish traveler issues refund to scammed victim

"The articles in the Post and News scared him so he called her and got a messenger to bring a certified check to her house. We checked it out and it's real. He purchased the check in a TD Bank branch in Elmhurst.

It's obviously very lucrative over here for him so he doesn't want to be hassled. Capt. Manson (104th Pct) tracking him down too...

The Post did a good job, again the reporter saw it on QC... good job Crappie!" - Robert Holden

Why, thank you. :)

Another scam: Green Dot Moneypak

From The Forum:

Police are urging the public to beware one of the latest scams that is growing in Queens, and throughout the city.

Frequently referred to as the “green dot money scam,” the crime often involves con artists, who claim to be from companies like Con Edison, making phone calls to residents and threatening people with service disruptions if they do not send funds immediately via a “Green Dot MoneyPak.”

The scam is not only limited to utility companies, police stressed: The unsolicited calls could be from anyone demanding money.

Last week, NYPD Inspector James Klein penned a letter to owners of businesses where the green dot cards are sold, asking for their cooperation in combating the crime that he noted often targets elderly and immigrant communities.

“This scam has netted criminals thousands and thousands of dollars, negatively impacting those who can least afford it,” Klein wrote.

In the letter, the officer asked owners to display a flyer in their store – particularly near the green dot cards – about the scam.

Vallone seeks to ensure delivery of ethnic meals

From the Daily News:

From fresh kimchi to gefilte fish, immigrant seniors across Queens participating in the city’s Meals-on-Wheels program have seen their enthnically diverse menu options replaced with whitewashed entrees like Salisbury steak and spinach.

Now, new Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) wants to adjust the Department for the Aging system in place that has allowed nonprofits like Catholic Charities to serve seniors who aren’t necessarily in the group’s constituency.

“For someone in an ethnic community that asks for a particular kind of meal, the senior center that can provide that meal is not allowed to give it to them,” said Vallone at a Queens Interagency Council on Aging conference.

Since a 2008 shift under Mayor Bloomberg, the nonprofits that make and deliver food for the program have been faced with serving a growing pool of clients — making it less likely that Queens seniors get the ethnic meals they desire.

Vallone, a former elder law attorney and chairman of the Council’s subcommittee on senior centers, plans to hold a hearing to examine improvements to the program, which provides 17,795 New Yorkers with free daily meals.

A survey released in September found that 92% of the meals served alligned with the seniors’ cultural backgrounds.

But advocates say the 2008 reorganization of the program forces seniors into larger districts that don’t always reflect the rapidly shifting ethnic makeup of the borough.

Why not just give them vouchers for McDonald's since that's where they're hanging out anyway?

Law proposed to forcibly clean sidewalks

From the Epoch Times:

New York City Councilman David Greenfield is proposing the city clear sidewalks when property owners don’t and then charge them $250 or more.

“Current law does not provide enough motivation for many property owners to do the right thing,” said Greenfield in press release.

He wants to amend existing law and have the city do the work. That, “would actually result in ice-free sidewalks and additional revenue,” said Greenfield.

Greenfield is proposing to use temporary snow laborers to do the work. The city already has a database of such workers to call when needed.

“Existing law doesn’t get to the heart of the problem,” said Greenfield’s communications director, Conor Greene.

When property owners don’t clear their walks the city can fine them, but if they still don’t clear the sidewalk, it will remain icy.

But what about city-owned property?

From the Daily News:

An elderly woman took a tumble on Monday at the intersection of 74th St. and 57th Ave. in Maspeth, thrown for a loop as she tried to make her way to the supermarket.

She was left bloodied and bruised by the incident, said Robert Holden of the Juniper Park Civic Association.

Sanitation Department spokesman Vito Turso said he wasn’t sure which agency was responsible for the 74th St. sidewalk that claimed the woman on Monday.

“Resources are allocated on a priority basis with tens of thousands of crosswalks and thousands of bus stops and hydrants coming first before little used sidewalks adjoining a highway,” Turso said.

Transportation officials pledged to inspect the location on Tuesday.

Latest scam targets elderly Asians

From the Queens Courier:

A 50-year-old con artist has admitted to duping three Queens women out of nearly $5,000 through a phony “blessing” scam, officials said.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said Fengluan Qin confessed Thursday to using an ancient con game to take jewelry and large sums of cash from three unsuspecting Flushing women, between 52 and 72 years old.

Qin convinced the victims to place their cash and valuables into a bag for a “blessing ritual” that would cure their families of sickness and bad luck, before swapping the bags and stealing the goods, Brown said.

Victims of the hoax have lost $1.3 million within the last year to different crews moving throughout the city, according to Inspector Brian Maguire, commanding officer of the 109th Precinct.

Out of about 50 cases citywide, more than $500,000 has been pilfered from victims in the 109th precinct alone, Maguire said.

According to Brown, the scam that targets mostly elderly immigrant women is prevalent in Asian communities nationwide.

The district attorney’s office said Qin, a Chinese national with an expired visa, was believed to be living in Flushing, though she did not provide an address to authorities.