South East Queens: Park Leaderless

No new parks leader coming to SE Queens

Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski told Community Board 13 Monday that the agency's budget is too tight to hire a parks administrator for southeast Queens.

She was responding to a concern from Peter Richards, the chair of CB 13's Parks Committee, who brought up the issue at the board's meeting Monday at St. Luke's Church in Rosedale.

"Currently, we don't have the funding for it," Lewandowski said. "In the absence of that, we've done a lot of programming and capital improvements" in southeast Queens, she said, referring to concert series, puppet shows and boating outings.

Lewandowski said the larger parks in Queens, such as Flushing Meadows, Alley Pond and Ft. Totten, have administrators.

Hellenbrecht said 10 of the 38 resumes received so far were disqualified because they came from people who lived outside the city. Living within the city is a condition for the job.

Is a park leader really necessary? I have no idea, but time will only tell. It is wonderful news to hear that a park leader must living in the city. If the money is allocated to something that benefits the community more, then more power to them.

Community Board Rejects Synagogue On Block

Community Board 8 Rejects Synagogue On Block

“Our neighborhood is under siege by institutions. The community is saying we are over-saturated. We know this is a growing religious community where the membership will go beyond 400. What will happen to parking then?” asked Marie DeInnocentiis, at last week’s Community Board 8 meeting.
Over 30 residents, many angered about a lack of parking caused by a fourth synagogue being built within a block of the Hillcrest Jewish Center, signed up to to speak at the meeting.

Finally someone is standing up to the increasing invasion of religious institutions. It is certainly not needed for a neighborhood to have four places on one block or in a 5 block radius for that matter, and as always parking for the residents in the area is more and more of an issue.

Hopefully someone in Flushing/ Community Board 11, will stand up and prevent future conversions of residential housing into "places of worship". I am not singling anyone one religion out, I just believe in general it has been over crowded with religious institutions and this problem is only getting worse. Understandably this rise in places to worship increase with the population and diversity that Queens has to offer.

The Parks Department may take our green spaces but the Buildings Department can take our lives

I was forwarded this email from a concerned Queens neighbor concerning recent events:

The Parks Department may take our green spaces

but the Buildings Department can take our lives.

No, this e-mail is not about parks, although, as usual

we have good and not-so-hot news on that front.

Today is all about buildings.

As you know, once again, despite repeated complaints

from the community, the community association, the community board

and every single local elected representative,

the Buildings Department failed to protect a neighborhood from

a construction crane's falling, crushing several buildings,

this time taking several lives in midtown Manhattan.

This is only the latest in a continuing series of tragedies --

illegal conversions, fires, collapsing buildings, & falling scaffolds and cranes.

According to public figures cited yesterday

by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,

" the number of safety violations at high-rise construction sites

nearly doubled between November 2006 and November 2007."

Yet as the list of disaster continued to grow, no Mayor, regardless of party,

ever exercised executive control over this wayward agency.

Last January, after a similar construction accident in downtown Manhattan, Stringer "called for the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement

or a similar agency to take over construction site safety.

Special Enforcement is an elite unit staffed by police, fire and building inspectors.

The unit is responsible for interagency enforcement of a broad range of quality of life issues, including illegal building uses...[leading Stringer to suggest] that the unit's mandate be expanded to include an independent, interagency approach to construction safety."

To find out more about Scott's proposal, call his office at 212-669-8300.

To find out more about your own Borough President's plans, call him/her.

It is melodramatic but true:

The life you save may be your own.

Carol Schachter Carol Greitzer Carol Rinzler Pat Dolan

Dorms to Be Built In LIC?

Queens Crap:LIC to Become Dorm Town

A developer is looking to build a dormitory and mixed-use building that will bring some 200 CUNY students to Long Island City.

The initial proposal, which called for a 13-story residential building on Fifth St. with 169 apartments, ground-floor retail and 220 grad-student dormitory units, was unanimously rejected by Community Board 2's land use committee in November.

As a CUNY Student myself I am for this project because CUNY in particular lacks dorms. Dorms are first starting to appear at sites such as Queens College (Due out in 2010). From a Community stand point I can understand they there will be critics of this proposal, for the same or similar reasons that Jamaica Estates is against the St. John's dorms. This project benefits Astoria/ Long Island City, Queens and New York City as a whole, it makes more jobs available, student life easier and better education options for prospective out of state students.

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Everyone enjoy your Sunny Sunday and watch all that snow melt (provided you live in or around the Flushing Queens area).