Rest in peace bubala

  

Crains New York

Rumors about the future of a Jewish funeral home in Queens have been laid to rest.

Parkside Memorial Chapel at 98-60 Queens Blvd. in Rego Park will become a 51-unit residential project spanning about 72,000 square feet, according to plans that owner David Matatov filed Tuesday with the city Department of Buildings.

The mixed-use development would stand 7 stories tall and include commercial and community space, along with 15 parking spots. JFA is the architect of record.

A firm linked to RB Realty Capital purchased the building from Parkside Memorial Chapels in July for slightly less than $11 million, property records show. The developer filed an application Wednesday to demolish the 2-story building, but the application has not been approved yet, and the demolition permit has not been issued, according to the DOB.

Parkside has multiple other locations in the city, including at 1700 Coney Island Ave. in Midwood, Brooklyn, and at 114-03 Queens Blvd. in Forest Hills, Queens, according to its website.

Representatives for RB Realty did not respond to a request for comment.

City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz told the Queens Chronicle in February that the project planned to replace the funeral home would be an affordable-housing development for senior citizens. Her office did not respond to a request for comment on whether that is still in the works.

Why are these people so shy? Don't they want to help the housing insecure and retired senior citizens?

Nurses and funeral home directors are pissed about the bureaucratic bullshit affecting their jobs from the state and city

 

NY Post

 New York State nurses and other hospital workers are being exposed to “dangerous working conditions” amid the coronavirus pandemic because of “critical shortages” of personal protective gear, and they want “urgent action” from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to provide them with the equipment they need.

 That’s the message in a blistering April 11 letter sent by the New York State Nurses Association’s director to Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, obtained by The Post.

The letter contradicts comments made by Melissa de Rosa, secretary to Gov. Cuomo, at a press briefing last week, in which she said that hospitals were receiving stockpiled PPE equipment and that no health care facilities in the state would have to resort to “crisis conservation.”

That means the reusing of masks, hospital gowns and other equipment meant to guard against the spread of COVID-19.

“At this point most hospitals and nursing homes in the New York City metropolitan area, which is the national epicenter of the pandemic, continue to operate under ‘crisis conservation’ standards because they do not have enough PPE to distribute to our desperate staff,” wrote Patricia Kane, the executive director of the Nurses Association, the union which represents 42,000 frontline nurses in the state.

NY Post

Frazzled funeral home directors are complaining about the invasion of the municipal body snatchers.
At least two Queens funeral directors say the city’s red tape is making their grim backlog of bodies even worse, as remains are sent to Randall’s Island for storage with little or no notice — and retrieving them has become nearly impossible.

Omar Rodriguez was scheduled to pick up two bodies last week from Elmhurst Hospital, only to find out the night before they’d been packed into two mobile morgues and taken to Randall’s Island.
But once there, workers on the island told him the bodies needed to go back to the hospital before they could be released, he said.

“I spoke to everybody and their mothers about how to get the bodies but no one had an answer,” he told The Post. “I was going back-and-forth. I told them I’m here, release the bodies to me. Eight hours later they were released on Randall’s Island.”

Thousands more cops defy Bratton order to be nice

From CBS New York:

Thousands of NYPD officers turned their backs Sunday as they watched Mayor Bill de Blasio eulogize an officer shot dead with his partner, repeating a stinging display of scorn for the mayor despite entreaties from the police commissioner not to do so.

The show of disrespect came outside the Brooklyn funeral home where Officer Wenjian Liu was remembered as an incarnation of the American dream: a man who had immigrated at age 12 and devoted himself to helping others in his adopted country. The gesture, among officers watching the mayor’s speech on a screen, added to tensions between the mayor and rank-and-file police even as he sought to quiet them.

Really, the only speaker worth listening to is Officer Liu's wife.

Time for a new flag

"Take a look at the flag in front of Gleason's Funeral Home on 150th St. in Whitestone, NY…

I personally called them yesterday and asked them to replace it. It would be disrespectful if a veteran was being waked with this tattered symbol of our nation flying outside. They assured me that it would be changed immediately…Well, that was yesterday. If they aren't going to replace it, they could at least have the decency to take this monstrosity down!" - Bob