A Midtown construction company accused of creating a bogus business to avoid union wages and union benefit payments has to cough up $76 million to the workers it cheated.
In a decision with potentially far-reaching consequences for city developers, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Colleen McMahon found that Navillus Tile fraudulently invented an alter-ego company to try and get around collectively bargained agreements it had with several major city construction unions.
The company also had one of its legitimate offshoot businesses act as a Navillus stand-in on a job it wanted to do non-union, the ruling found.
The collusion also involved real estate giant Related, one of the city’s most prolific developers.
It knowingly engaged with one of the alter-ego companies on its Upper East Side luxury development on 92nd St., Judge McMahon’s ruling said.
In her scathing, 95-page ruling delivered late Thursday after a three-year court battle, McMahon said that Navillus’ founder, Donal O’Sullivan had “perjured himself” more than once and noted that another company principal was “obviously lying” in some testimony.
Her feelings were clear in the $76 million award — a massive hit for Navillus Tile.
The financial pain has to be carried by Navillus, which was the main generator of the alter-ego scam, but developer Related – which is currently doing the city’s Hudson Yards project — also played a role, the attorney noted.
The lengths certain people will go through to save a boatload of money in the name of progress or hyper-development, depending who you ask.
This lawsuit was filed 3 years ago when it was discovered that $35 million dollars never made it to the checks of their hard working employees. Navillus, a masonry company that usually gets 4 to 5 star ratings, shit on their workers and fucked them over despite the efficiency that gave them accolades. Related Properties, who run some of the biggest commercial and residential buildings in Manhattan and tonier parts of the outer boroughs, saw nothing at all wrong with partaking with Navillus in laundering the workers hard earned pay through 2 bogus firms with bland and downright stupid names so they can employ and underpay desperate immigrant workers and thought they were shrewd enough to fool them and their union lawyers. Really, Time Square Construction?
And for what cause. Instead of paying them the 35 million they earn and nefariously stealing it, now they are out an extra 41 million and who knows how much more to their counselors trying to defend their stupid grand theft scheme. It’s amazing that these fiends have this much money and reputation to burn.
But they and the city, especially the DOB, doesn’t care because the city has to keep improving. Every little crack on the sidewalk is prime real estate ready for taking and laying mortar, steel and glass up to the skies. Tower building is arguably the only manufacturing the city has done in the past decade and a half. Governor Andy didn’t give them those skyscraper welfare tax abatements just for his developer donor overlords to do nothing.
The sick thing about this criminal conspiracy is the fact that apparently no one from Navillus or Related will go to damn jail and serve 5 to 10 years, which I presume would be the same amount of time that some poor schmuck or recidivist would get if they tried to hold up a bodega or deny people their collective bargaining rights and steal their wages and funnel it through bogus shell companies. I guess because they have contributed so much and continue to add to the hyper-development of the city that these two corporations are too big to fail also. For they are involved in the construction of the massive Hudson Yards mini-metropolis and other city affordable housing mixed-use tower projects and government buildings.
It’s a terrible predicament with the over-saturation of development suffocating the city, but at least the people building it will get paid in full. It be a lot better if these executives would see a bit of divine justice and get indicted, imprisoned and clad in orange jumpsuits along the way. And maybe the old ball and chain for these greedhead executive assholes to approximate the toll the body takes building their behemoths.
Mayor de “Faustio”, still on his city hall reality tour, had his massive crack team of aides arranged a trip on the upscale High Line Park in Chelsea. The stroll was accompanied by students from the P.S. 33 Chelsea Prep School, some of his commissioners and his nemesii gaggle of reporters.
The nice unseasonably humid day was marred as Mayor Big Slow arrived 20 minutes late and seemed grossly unprepared about the aspects of the upscale gentrifying park and the fact that he has never visited it once in his term. (Well, hehasbeen busy) The students were very knowledgeable about the lush greenery around them, enough to impress the mayor and were very observant and inquisitive about the press accompanying him and how he was trying to ignore them. He responded to the kids that they “followed him around”. Silly press doing their jobs to inform the public about accountability from elected officials and authority figures.
But it’s where he went later to his alma mater at New York University to meet with an old roommate of his that he dropped this Freudian slip grenade to a student reporter as he was exiting the building.
As Mr. de Blasio left the university, a student reporter named Sam Raskin, tried to ask a question about affordable housing. “We’re not doing that right now,” the mayor said as he made his way out the building
Emphasis fucking mine.
“We’re not doing that right now”. Ok, now this quote is isolated and out of context. And there is no video, as of yet, to see the expression on his face or body language delivering these lines. It definitely is though, his usual response when he refuses to answer questions that doesn’t, to him, involve what he policy is discussing, as when he bolted from a press conference in front of a billionaire row tower in Midtown. But now as witnessed by journalists during his recent electioneering stroll as he refused to answer any questions pertaining to policy and his plans and policies when/if he gets re-elected, it has devolved into full blown venomous contempt at anyone that asks a question, no matter how soft, like when he was asked about the sumac the student pointed out, but certainly those that are pertinent to the constituency.
“We’re not doing that right now”. This dismissive and insulting response may just damned himself and his mayoralty despite it being an attempt to insultingly blow off a budding journalist. And might have put any credibility regarding his affordable housing plan into the crapper. Where it belongs. For the majority of these mixed income buildings, even the measly 20% that thousands of the poorest citizens of the 5 boroughs are not affordable at all. The area median incomes continue to rise because of overvalued real estate speculation, more luxury towers keep rising and even the market rate apts. in these new buildings are having an effect on the actual rents and the qualifications for yearly salaries to apply for them. A recent crop of new buildings in Brooklyn and Long Island City measly affordable apartments start at around the 800-1000 range while the majority of the units go for the insane and fabricated market rates of $2,000 for a studio, $2,500 for a one bedroom, and $3,000 for a two bedroom.
The real crazy part of de Faustio’s 10 year plan for 200,000 affordable apartments, in congruence with probably more than a half a million luxury apartments, is that the plan was already in fruition back in 2012 (and even that plan was horrible and detrimental). So even though he implemented his policy just last year, some of the buildings and the actual policy were already being used, so technically, Bill hasn’t produced much. Except make this affordable housing scheme even worse, by licking the boots of his predatory developer donors and listening to the technocratic stratagems of their public relations firms and his deputy mayor Alicia Glen.
Another take from the Times piece should make anyone pause at this man’s disgusting obliviousness, which possibly the kids there did too. At 26th street on the High Line, there is this big window overlooking the street and acts as a cinemascope for the view east, which consists of the project housing across 10th avenue just across the street from the upscale leisure and arts scenes and tower utopia that have engulfed the stretch:
The entourage stopped at an area of benches set out over 26th Street and looked through a frame at a public housing development across the street.
“It is just a big open viewing station; that’s all it does?” Mr. de Blasio asked.
“It was meant to showcase a lot of what people don’t see in the neighborhood,” Robert Hammond, the co-founder and executive director of the Friends of the High Line, told him.
“Very cool,” the mayor said.
Very. Cool. If he can only get a view of the utter lack of coolness of similar projects in other places, as those buildings roofs continue to leak, mold continues to fester, and rats and roaches continue to invade and spread disease. This is what’s going on now, as it’s been for nearly a half century, with the real affordable housing in the city he governs.
Student journalist Sam Raskin may have finally got the correct answer from this mayor about the affordable housing stagnation going on, albeit inadvertently. And de Faustio may have exposed himself as the stupid fucking idiot he is just because he couldn’t answer a simple question. Especially something he deceptively bragged about not long ago too.
He knows what it is, and that’s why he is stonewalling. 2 recent stories detail how his current plan is not helping the working poor at all, and how the overvalued rental market rate is exacerbating the costs of living here for the majority of tax-paying residents whose salaries can’t keep up when the rent is due compared with the wealthier citizens, who can actually afford to live in these alleged affordable housing buildings and have a better chance winning the lottery for the apartments they would qualify for, and still have a robust savings account.
Good job Mr. Raskin and the kids at P.S. 33, you all did more to expose this fauxgressive neoliberal jerk than what the dailies and the prosecutors have tried to do since his elected office transgressions began 3 years ago.
In Flushing, a charter bus going twice the speed limit ran through a steady red light and collided into a Q20 metro bus, resulting in the death of the charter bus driver, a Q20 passenger and a pedestrian on the sidewalk. The driver was found to have been kicked out of the MTA over prior DUI offenses and the charter service of multiple road violations and a lawsuit over an injured customer.
Also in Flushing, a motorcycle rider lost control, hit a teenage girl then killed himself as he crashed into a concrete barrier.
In Jamaica, a man shot and killed his wife, who just gave birth to his son a few weeks ago, after an argument. He was found and arrested later in Cambria Heights with a box of bullets
In Kew Gardens, a couple was found by cops possessing nearly 200 pounds of fentanyl and heroin ready for distribution at a garage at their apartment building.
Somewhere in the Dirty Southeast, a female correction officer was blinded and raped by other C.O.’s when she fell asleep in a car after a barbeque party.
At P.S. 174 in Rego Park, a man was recording a school teacher using a restroom on his cellphone through a window.
At the Parker Towers building in Forest Hills, a Legionairre’s Disease outbreak killed one and sickened another person over 2 months as tenants were notified recently in a memo released just a few days ago.
In Long Island City, an off-duty cop driving to a strip club at 3 a.m. committed and illegal u-turn, nearly hitting a man on a bicycle then pointed his state appointed gun at him and shoved him to the ground
In East Elmhurst, a woman sitting in a car with her new boyfriend, was stalked and abducted by her cab driver ex-husband who she put a order of protection on.
In Jackson Heights, an 89-year-old man was knocked to the ground and had his keys stolen by two young men pussies.
Manhattan
In Chinatown, a jewelry store was robbed of $600,000 of merchandise by 2 men in a holdup just a half hour before noon.
In the Upper East Side, two teenagers stiffed a cab driver of 8 bucks for a ride home, then held him up at gunpoint and robbed his cellphone as one of the kids sucker-punched him.
At the City Hall station Downtown, a man sans pants but wearing a camo shirt (and resembling Ben Stiller) was flashing random women on the R train platform.
Also Downtown at the Supreme Court house, two court clerks demanded bribes for the distribution of files demanded by litigants.
In the Financial District, a 16-year-old boy drinking beer on the street was stabbed by a man who wanted him to share it with him.
Also in the Financial District, a construction worker fell 27 floors off a luxury housing building under development and died, resulting from a faulty security hook and a shaky platform. The site had a stop work order placed on it just a day before. And the contractor underpays and mistreats it’s workers
On the same day in the new neighborhood metropolis Hudson Yards, 2 workers fell off a forklift cage that collapsed hanging 3 stories above the ground, killing one. The man who died was concerned of safety violations at the development site and warned his family about it.
In the Flatiron District, a homeless man stabbed another homeless man as he was digging in a garbage bin.
On the E train arriving at the 7th Avenue station in Midtown, a man spat twice on and punched a woman during an argument over personal space on the seats.
In Central Park in the Upper East Side, a man held a knife at a woman and robbed and sexually assaulted her at 9:15 p.m.
Also in Central Park in Harlem, a man who offered a woman a walk home at night assaulted, raped and robbed her purse when he directed her inside the park. The rapist was a mutual friend of the victim.
Also in Harlem at 7 a.m. two men at a deli that were trying to rob it was confronted by the store clerk who tried to stop them. They came back 2 hours later and approached the clerk at the counter and one of them tried to slash him with a knife, leading the clerk to defend himself with his own knife and proceeded to stab his attacker multiple times, leading the man to run away. The culprit, who habitually stole from the store, died from the wounds and the deli clerk is charged with murder.
At the Marriot Marquis hotel in Times Square, demonstrators were pummeled with sucker punches and blunt objects by people and foreign secret service men attending a committee led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey after one yelled that the asshole dictator speaking there was a terrorist and the invading foreign leader goaded his audience to not let the protestors ruin his night.
American former YPG volunteer protests during Turkish dictator speech: "You're a terrorist, get out of my country". pic.twitter.com/lHwTBn1426
This is the second attack on a sovereign nation’s people, being the U.S.A. Ban this motherfucking dictator from this country forever.
In Hell’s Kitchen, a man confronted a woman on the street, handed her a rose and a letter threatening her life.
In Kips Bay, an SUV hit a man riding a citibike as he was about to put it in the dock.
Bronx
At the Metropolitan High School in Foxhurst, a teenage boy stabbed his classmate in the chest at 2:40 p.m. over a girl they knew.
In Fordham Heights, 20 men that was formerly a dance crew were arrested over myriad crimes involving gang violence, the standout being a stabbing of a 17 year old over 2 bucks. There was a time when gang members who swore off violence became dance crews.
On the Bruckner Expressway in Soundview, a man who was arrested on drug charges on the elevated road attempted to flee while in handcuffs from the cops, jumped over the ledge and landed on the avenue.
Staten Island
In three neighborhoods in a span of an hour at the break of dawn, a man driving in an SUV sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl by a bus stop and attempted to rape 3 other women. but they all resisted as they defended themselves and made him drive off. He was arrested later identified by bite marks left by the teenager.
Brooklyn
In Boerum Hill, blocks away from a venue where Mayor de Faustio celebrated his horrendously low voter turnout primary victory and Barclays Center, a man fired 8 shots killing another man who was already stabbed in the chest in front of a corner combination Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins at 8 p.m.
In Kensington, a one year old boy died when his father left him in a steamy bathroom with hot water running from the shower because he wanted to go back to sleep.
By the Neptune Ave. station in Coney Island, a 13 year old stupid fucking idiot boy decided to lean on the side of the F Train and surf it, only to wind up hitting a sign, crushing his genitals and falling onto the track roadbed.
In Greenpoint, after wifi kiosks were implemented on the block, it has become a scene for scoring and doing drugs, vagrancy and loitering.
In Williamsburg, a man was clobbered in the head with a baseball bat from behind following an argument with others.
In Windsor Terrace, a man who robbed a package from a stoop found that it contained first issue comic books, but got arrested when he tried to sell them.
At the Union Street station in Park Slope, a man was killed by an approaching R train.
In Red Hook, a man was arrested for starving and burning two dogs he had in his apartment.
In Crown Heights, two nooses were found hanging on different blocks in the span of a week.
Also in Crown Heights, the owner of the Summerhill bar and sandwich shop decided to fix and plaster the bullet laden wall 3 weeks after meeting and blowing off the community. A sudden show of consciousness, guilt or remorse, or more likely coaxed from recent incidents involving gunfire that may have rendered her notorious sight less “cheeky” and “kitschy”?
“Cheeky historic wall”
Current reality
That shouldn’t be hard to figure out at all. Welcome back to Brooklyn, Becca.
A neighborhood family is outraged at police after they released a prowler who climbed down their fire escape in the dead of night, smashed hanging lights in their backyard and tried to creep into two apartments on the ground floor.
The man, who police said lived on the block, jolted the residents of the Driggs Avenue building near Newel Street awake Tuesday at around 3 a.m. with loud metal clanging after ripping down speaker and lighting wires on the side of the building, Michelle Garcia, 30, said.
When residents called 911 and police found him cowering in the bushes behind the enclosed fence of the building next door, responding officers brought the man a ladder so he could climb out to the sidewalk, talked to him and looked at his identification, and then let him go, the building’s co-owner Rad Smolinski, 36, said.
Police arrived at the scene moments later and the two watched from the front window as they questioned someone with a flashlight, still cowering in the bushes behind the fence of the building next door.
The officer explained to her that the man said he was a drunk neighbor who lived down the block and decided to jump from roof to roof down Driggs Avenue. He was trying to get down to go home, when he stumbled down their fire escape and through their backyard, she said.
Garcia’s mother-in-law, who spoke with DNAinfo New York but declined to be named, said she continued watching from her window as another police car came with a ladder, letting the man, in his 30s with dark hair, climb out from the bushes, over the fence and onto the sidewalk.
He talked to officer for several more minutes, showed what looked like an ID and then walked down the block, she said.
A police spokesman confirmed the residents’ accounts saying that, “an individual was attempting to gain access into his apartment. Officers identified him and determined that no crime was committed.”
The guy was walking the streets drunk, which is vagrancy and climbed a building, which is unlawful trespassing. So scaling roofs of buildings has been decriminalized too? Is this intruder a fucking aspiring marvel comic superhero? And this creep is actually their neighbor and he was not even identified by the police nor was his name printed in the article. Why is this guy’s name or even race not revealed? Is he being protected?
And are suspicions of the NYPD lessening the severity of reported crimes and manipulating stats have merit? Yes, and now they are blatantly and flagrantly doing it and it might be actual policy. And there is precedence for this abominable lack of law enforcement. This is very, very strange and discouraging for the residents and visitors of Greenpoint and the entire city.
Swarming wasps stung several Kew Gardens residents after city workers cut down a tree housing their nest — with city officials telling concerned locals they won’t remove the ornery insects because they are “an important part of nature.”
The tree, on Kew Gardens Road near 82nd Road near P.S. 99, was removed by the Parks Department on Sept. 7 “due to poor health,” after a resident asked the agency to inspect it, the department said.
The nest was left in the stump, with someone placing a traffic cone there with a sign reading, “Danger Bees Ahead.”
The insects, which experts said are yellow jackets, have become aggressive and started attacking passersby, residents said.
Several other people also got stung recently, including at least three local parents with kids at P.S. 99, according to a post on a local Facebook page.
“They are definitely swarming this morning and lots of people are walking to and from school,” one mother wrote in a post Thursday morning.
The NYPD referred DNAinfo New York to a city website titled “Bees or Wasps Complaint,” which noted that the city “does not accept requests to eliminate bees or wasps from residential, commercial, or public property.”
Meghan Lalor, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, confirmed that regulation and noted that “these creatures are an important part of nature, so the City will not destroy them.”
If the insect nest or hive is causing you to have major concerns, you can get a tree work permit to hire a bee/insect re-locator to move the nest or hive,” Lalor said in an email. “The City will not be responsible for any costs associated with this work.”
So add aggressive stinging wasps to the list of urban wildlife New Yorkers promoted by the deranged heads of the parks department. Apparently, an ugly ass stump also has to be preserved so as not to impede with the ecosystem the city has created which includes street plazas and obstructing giant potted flower plants and trees spread across the boroughs. And you cannot overlook all the shiny towers to provide the shade that the trees, like this late one, use to provide for the citizenry.
Never mind that if these wild insects sting a child, an elderly person or someone with a bee allergy of course, that it could cause serious injury or in the latter two, a fatality. But if such things bug you, it’s got to come out of your wallet again. In order to be safe from these little winged urban creatures, you have to be taxed twice. Wonder what would be the cost if a violent nest got loose in all those fancy new parks by the east river spanning Brooklyn-Queens and by the bridges? Betcha they would be taken care of promptly and swiftly.
Well, at least parks and rec did the righteous, responsible good thing and placed an orange cone and cardboard sharpie marked sign (how homeless person inspired) to warn pedestrians. And remember that killer wasps are now a vibrant part of the growing diversity of this vibrant and diverse city.
What’s next in the urban animal qualifying list is greatly and distressingly anticipated. It is just perplexing that the cockroach or the enormous rats was not considered to be on those posters this year. Although it would be more fitting if they were promoted as mascots for NYCHA buildings. Get on it, Shoya!
And when it comes to civil services being dispensed for little things effecting the environment, the tale of two cities continues unabated. Not long ago, there were 2 similar incidents regarding swarms of bees at Rockerfeller Center and (Disney Presents) Times Square
You will never guess what happened. Did the city leave them there because of their new found habitat, respecting the bees importance of nature? No, they were removed immediately by pro handlers. The one in Times Square was removed in a half-hour.
But in a regular town like Kew Gardens, so far east from the city, has to deal with the pissed off drones who lost their habitat (sounds like they were gentreefied). It’s near analogous to consider that the city is handling the bee problem there the same as it’s dealing with the homeless population in the borough it’s in.
I guess one’s densely tourist populated area is an environmental and health threat is another area’s nature preserve.
At a theater in Boerum Hill, Mayor Big Slow Bill de Blasio celebrated his primary victory over candidate Sal Albanese, beating him with 59% of the votes of a pathetic and apathetic 14% of the electorate in the 5 boroughs. A meager 400,000 registered democrats in a city of 3.2 million of them.
The mayor, who lucked out of a widespread wide-tentacled corruption investigation involving favored legislation for moneyed donors, running an illegal campaign fund in a government office and siphoning money to upstate democrat senate campaigns and is running on a hollow slogan as bad as his former boss Hillary Clinton’s “I’m with her” with “this is your city” and nothing else.
This farce of an election and it’s utter disinterest in it is the result of the constituency quitting. If there is even a constituency anymore, since it seems that the majority of citizens in the past 5 to 10 years are mostly transients and might not even be registered to vote or even to a party. And also because of a local news media that has been willfully absent as the Democrat Machine has seen some de Faustio endorsed candidates and established politicians involved in shady behavior and machinations of their own. There is recently elected Carlina Rivera of the East Village, who is living in section 8 housing with her husband who ran 3 coffee shops that failed, is a partner in a current one, owns an luxury apartment in Soho, and his father is a wealthy high powered lawyer in a white shoe law firm and was recently exposed in photos, deleted by his wife on her social media account of him cruising on a yacht. There’s recently elected Francisco Moya, who to qualify for the Jackson Heights council seat, lived with his parents in the area but owns a luxe apt. in Long Island City and is profiting financially from both residences. There’s Councilman Paul Vallone who used children to elicit signatures for petitions and encouraged forgery in them. Finally there is Elizabeth Crowley, cousin of alpha dog hack Congressman Joe Crowley, who is just plain stupid.
Despite the despairingly apathetic showing at the poll sites, the low turnout was still exacerbated by reports of polling sites being switched and technical malfunctions with the machines. It’s enough to believe that the people who are responsible for the electoral process want to make an American custom and divine right of the citizens born or naturalized in this nation like voting for the people to represent them want to make it meaningless.
Now he is taking this weak ass victory as momentum for his Republican opponent Nicole Millotakis and maligning her for her support to Donald Trump. Which is hysterical because Bill would have been sitting his indicted fat ass on a bench in the Southern District courthouse with his taxpayer paid lawyers from Kramer Levin if Figurehead Trump didn’t do him a solid by firing Preet Bharara.
So the efforts and non-efforts to keep an entrenched system of passive endemic corruption and to maintain big club of elected hacks at the expense of the public and actually the environment because of the Gentrification Industrial Complex, de Blasio has a good chance, unless he fucks up royally in the next month and a half, of returning to his undeserved position to continue running the city into the ground. But not for this city, but a lame, banal and inequitable version of it. He will, as he is currently, be the Impunity Mayor of Impunity City.
Your city.
Meanwhile, in other happenings in other locales…
At the City Polytechnic High School in Downtown Brooklyn, a student was caught smuggling a .25 caliber gun at the metal detectors.
Also in Downtown Brooklyn at the Nevins St. station, a man was slashed in the face with a box cutter from a man he fought with previously who wanted to sell him a card swipe.
In Bed-Stuy, 2 men in an SUV that was pursued by plainclothes cops over for a shooting sped off and rammed into a police cruiser, injuring 2 cops.
Also in Bed-Stuy, 2 apartment buildings, one abandoned, went on fire an hour apart from each other.
Again in Bed-Stuy, a man was shot at 4 times in a drive-by in front of the Sumner Houses at 6:25 p.m.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a man was shot in the back in a drive-by at the Louis Armstrong Houses.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a fire that destroyed a home was discovered to be inhabited by a group of men who looted the place after the owner died.
In Borough Park at the start of the 5 Boro Bike Tour, a drunk driver plowed into a group of bikers waiting at the light, dragging a woman cyclist as he kept going.
In Flatbush, a man murdered his wife in their apartment after a domestic dispute about him not able to work.
Donk donk. In Greenwood, a professional actor was caught breaking into a woman’s home and found with a reporter’s I.D. and NYPD press pass.
On the express tracks by the 18th street station in Flatbush, a man walking on the tracks was killed when the Q train arrived.
On the Kosciuszko St. station platform in Bushwick, a commuter another stupid fucking idiot who was sitting on the ledge and dangling his legs injured himself when the train arrived.
In Clinton Hill, a policewoman in the internal affairs dept. had her unlocked car robbed of her gun, appointed radio and phone, pepper spray, baton and bulletproof vest.
In East Flatbush at 5 p.m., a livery cab driver furious over a double parked van making a delivery, attacked one of the movers with a baseball bat and broke his skull.
Also in East Flatbush, 2 men sitting in a parked car got busted possessing 26 bags of crack and scales.
Again in East Flatbush, a cyclist got hit by a car as he was riding fast and crossing against the light.
At a school in Williamsburg, a man punched a NYPD safety agent in the face who refused to let him access the building.
Also in Williamsburg, a man walked into a liquor store, pulled out a gun and robbed the register of $1,500
Also in Crown Heights, a man walking out of a corner deli was shot multiple times at 4:20 a.m. and died when he went back inside to hide. (Look out Summerhill, seriously)
Again in Crown Heights, a landlord who changed the locks of a family he evicted did not notice a pitbull in a crate that was without food or water.
In Brownsville, a father was slashed and his gang member son was stabbed 5 times on the street by 6 men from a rival gang at 2 p.m.
Again in Brownsville at the Marcus Garvey Houses, a man walked up to two men in front and shot both of them.
In the Navy Yard, a man walked into a service bathroom and was ambushed and choked by a man hiding inside who then took his keys and stole his car.
At P.S. 200K in Bath Beach, a school staffer took a 5-year-old student’s head and shoved it into his lap and got a boner.
Queens
In South Ozone Park at 10:50 a.m., a man parking his car in front of his house was held up and shot in the foot as he tried to run from a man who ripped the gold chains from his neck while he was bleeding on the ground.
At the 67th avenue station in Forest Hills, a man yelled mistaken bigoted slurs at a mother and her daughter, then spat on the daughter and beat her to the ground and assaulted her mother when she tried to defend her.
In Corona, a 5 year old boy died when he climbed out a window in the bathroom he was locked in from the outside at an apartment that was still being constructed.
In Ridgewood at 1:30 a.m., a man leaving a house party was confronted by two men and found dead on the sidewalk from a head injury after one of them punched him.
In Astoria, a masked man shot another man in the arm in front of the Ravenswood Houses.
Manhattan
At a criminal courthouse in Downtown, an inmate slashed an correction officer in the face with a razor hidden in a pen cap. The representative of the C.O. union declared that inmate violence and attacks are not being reported or prevented under de Faustio and the reduction of punishment is making the environment worse, but what does he know besides what the people he represents tell him?
In Inwood, a drug dispute on the street led to a dealer getting shot twice and paralyzed.
In NoMad, a woman riding a citibike got her leg smashed up when a dump truck cut her off making a right turn while she was making one.
In East Harlem, a high school student was shot in the chest and killed in front of his apartment building.
Also in East Harlem, a woman was slashed in her apartment by her roommate. The victim’s name is reportedly Tasmanian Devil.
On the 6 train in the Upper East Side, a woman hit a 70-year-old woman with her elbow who sat down next to her and then slapped the elderly commuter twice when the victim moved to another seat to get away from her and tried to defend herself.
At the Park Place Station platform in Downtown, a homeless man molested a woman as he grinded her from behind.
In Hell’s Kitchen, a cab driver being vexed by his passengers was assaulted and had his keys stolen and thrown in the street by the daughter of a nationally renown activist and a cabe political talk show host, aided by her friends.
In the Upper East Side, a woman was killed as she slipped exiting out of a cab by 2 other cabs that ran over her and kept driving.
Also in the Upper East Side, a homeless woman stepping onto the street was killed as she was hit by a cab that kept going.
In Harlem, a man stabbed his wife to death then committed suicide from jumping out of his 8th floor apt. window.
Also in Harlem, a man attacked, threw against the wall and sexually molested a woman walking to her building.
In Washington Square Park, a homeless man got stabbed during a fight over a dice game at 8 p.m.
In Chelsea, a woman had her T.V. robbed by a homeless man that she invited and left alone in her home to take a shower; a man punched another man in a diner on 23rd and 9th avenue and a man unreasonably punched a window of a restaurant.
In Little Italy as the San Gennaro festival was getting prepared, a vendor was attacked and stabbed by a man who he found laying down on the sidewalk at 7:45 p.m.
In Kips Bay, an 80-year-old man was accosted with a racial slur and shoved to a floor by a woman because of where he was sitting, which was in the front where the seating is prioritized for the elderly.
In Washington Heights, a trio of heroin/fentanyl drug dealers were busted in their apartment.
2 muggers, a man and a woman, have been involved in a series of thefts in the subway in the Downtown, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side areas.
Bronx
In Soundview, a woman was held at gunpoint then sexually assaulted in her apartment by a man who climbed a fire escape and climbed through her kitchen window.
In Edenwald, a man was shot and killed in his apartment by cops, one who emptied an entire cartridge, when he refused to drop a knife and a gun which turned out to be a toy.
In Morissania, a man was shot in the head and killed at 10:45 p.m. after leaving a corner grocery store and arguing with 3 men inside who then followed him
In Fordham, a man crossing the street under scrutiny of the Vision Zero program was killed by a box truck at 7:10 a.m.
In Foxhurst, a livery cab driver was held up at gunpoint at 6:00 a.m. by 2 passengers he picked up in Jackson Heights who robbed his keys, phone and wallet.
In Woodstock, a homeless man broke into the apartment of a mother and her baby daughter, stabbed the mother and forced both of them onto the fire escape to throw them off until a Samaritan bashed a lamp on his head to stop him.
In Eastchester, a landlord shot a tenant in the chest over a rent dispute and fled the scene.
In Fordham Manor, an 18 year old man got shot in the leg.
Staten Island
In Port Richmond, a man stabbed his mother at their home after they went shopping.
In New Springville, a man was busted for possessing an arsenal of guns, rifles and ammunition while on probation for a prior similar violation.
In New Dorp, 2 men robbed a Duane Reade of 3K worth of over-the-counter medicine.
Also in New Dorp, a married couple robbed the taxpayers of $750,000 for claiming that their home got destroyed during Hurricane Sandy when they abandoned it months before the storm.
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. And these can rarely be distinctly defined.”
“Let us become servants in order to be leaders.”
Prince Mishkin, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“I don’t care, my friend”
Bill de Blasio, Mayor Of New York City
Mayor De Blasio has been quite the character since his somewhat celebrated yet constituent sparsely voted electoral victory almost 4 years ago. Especially since his declaration and promise of his mission to end the proverbial “tale of two cities”. Well, since that inaugural portent, the landscape of the boroughs has become virtually alien as is the residential citizenry. The cost of living has become next to impossible for all the long suffering natives thanks to growth of tower pestilence, nurtured in the guise and ruse of implementing affordable housing. The infrastructure and transit services have reached their breaking points from population overcrowding and street reshaping. And the local government offices are more entrenched with corruption and glad-handing.
This was not supposed to be this way considering the ideological bent of our once seemingly caring mayor, who ran on a campaign of encompassing equity and progressive policies to benefit and to provide security for all.
Today, alas, the remnants of these promises from the current mayor have been nothing but utter lies and have manifested into great spoils for his donors, his gilded base, and himself.
There has been a lot of invective towards De Blasio for the way he betrayed the constituents and citizens of the city he runs. Names like The Dope From Park Slope, De Bozo, De Bigassio, De Sastero, The Mayor Of Simpleton, and of course this site’s repeated referrals Mayor Big Slow and De Faustio, the latter in my biased opinion probably the best and most apt of his character (and lack of) being that he sold his soul to the proverbial devil(s) for his lofty position and current standing as a dominant unopposed favorite to be re-elected.
But there is also another one, and it cannot be more well deserved for a person who is walking around like he owns the joint and behaving with unabashed arrogance and thoughtlessness and displaying an imperial hubris.
Considering his progressive ideology, it brings to mind that poor unfortunate soul in Fyodor Dotoyevsky’s classic and confounding novel, The Idiot, Prince Mishkin, an epileptic man of an exalted position who possessed a compassionate soul and inherent concern for the less fortunate. A Christ figure who eventually suffered when he thought he could influence his avaricious peers to change their ways after they took advantage of his charity and naivete. Well, in Bill’s case, his similar kowtowing to his peers, advisors and betters (city council, public relations, real estate and bankers) has reduced him to a shell of a man with a powerful position.
Mayor Bill de Balsio has become The Stupid Fucking Idiot.
There is one small difference, Mayor De Blasio has enthusiastically accepted his fate and has become even more powerful despite being as vulnerable and weak as Prince Mishkin, who wound up suffering from his affliction. Only because of a legion of real estate overlords, maggot marketers and promoters and a recalcitrant and weakened press. But mostly emboldened by a ton of fucking luck by having his corruption cases dismissed when Figurehead Trump fired Southern District Attorney Preet Bharara as the case was about to head for trial and the gruesome McDonnell decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which officially legalized buying influence and dispensing political and legislative favors in government.
Vitriolic, yes (clickbaiting, obviously). But how can there be other ways to describe this shell of a person without vulgarly simplifying it? Especially with the behavior he has exhibited in this year since being fortunately cleared of charges of pay to play governing and running a shadow government in City Hall.
Consider the promise he made in the two cities tale. The plight of the working poor and middle classes (the latter which he has yet to acknowledge) have got worse. All the while his advisors and donors have devoured all the spoils of the city, and his staffers have gotten massive raises for the same positions they hold or for promotions of dubious stature. Also, his and his staffers lawyers have benefited sweetly from representing them in their criminal trials as well as representing the developers that they lobbied to get sweet zoning permits for.
Under this one city he promised, scumlords of all stripes have took advantage of the cities utter lack of enforcement and continued oversight of the criminal shenanigans and tactics, from environmentally hazardous gut renovations, tenant intimidation by hiring goons to harass them, letting newcoming tenants use airbnb with strangers coming and going every week.
His affordable housing is joke and also fraudulent and parts of it were already implemented in his proposed 10 year plan, some buildings were already being planned and built since 2012, so basically he has turned getting equitable housing for working poor people into a 14 year plan. The amount of affordable apts. allotted from every tower built with market rate apts. is miniscule. The lottery also benefits more for newcomers to the neighborhood where they are built instead of people that have been here longer and would like a change of scenery or to move to safer location.
Of course his answer to the needs of people struggling to make rent as the majority of them have seen wages remain stagnant, is to build more shelters or transfer former cluster buildings into full-time shelters. 90 of them. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real affordable housing plan. Putting people into shelters, because with lousy wages you can’t pay rent, and the costs of housing singles and families cost about $3,000*, which is actually the speculative/fabricated market rate for dwellings in the hot and determined to be hot towns. It’s a income disparity, economic inequity win/win.
*Update: It is actually $5,000.-ed.
If you break it down, the affordable housing plan that purports to build and maintain 200,000 apts. relies on the building of around 500,000 market rate apts. and also luxury studios and one bedrooms worth around 1 to 2 million. Idiotic.
Property taxes also went up but mostly in poorer neighborhoods. A big inequity issue arose when it was found that wealthier enclaves, including the mayor’s beloved Park Slope home paid less taxes despite the homes higher worth for being in market rich areas, this inequity also spilled over to apartment buildings, as landlords in poorer neighborhoods have bigger tax burdens than in luxury tower dominant hip areas.
And there is all those people who he felt comfortable around with, once and still, and office machinations that he feigns ignorance of or was allegedly too stupid to notice.
Like those criminal donors at the beginning of his campaign run and the first years of holding office, two festering boils Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Riechberg, who with their donations/bribes were able to run roughshod and use the NYPD for their own personal escort service and get their properties violations overlooked by the Department of Buildings. More favors and oversights were doled when Jona contributed mightily for de Blasio’s pathetic and failed attempt to steer state senate elections to Democrat candidates.
There was also the Rivington House medical care center plunder with the deed flip arranged by his deputy mayor Anthony Shorris. Resulting in a near 100 million dollar profit for the predatory equity seller.
And just recently, a lobbying firm was able to steer donations worth over $60,000 to the Blaz through a convenient loophole.
And of course there is the Campaign For One New York, a slush fund raising 501 (c) (4) that was established to get his pre-K and affordable/luxury housing programs started. Around a couple of million of dollars were donated to this false charity by the usual suspects from real estate, LLC’s and public relations and promotional groups. He topped off the ending of this fund by reading a creepy book to children in a pre-K class about a kleptomaniac raccoon called the Secret Pizza Party, whose fable was not so coincidentally similar to the mayor’s illicit fundraising effort.
So obsessed with his pre-k and slush fund raising mission, he overlooked the security of newborns in the Hasidic community who continue the practice of metizitzah b’peh which entails the mohel putting his mouth on the infants penis to suck the blood out, all because of his debt to that community that supported his primary, which subsequently led to report of babies contracting herpes from the disgusting custom. And the children of his public schools and NYCHA buildings in potential danger of consuming water containing Flint level lead contamination.
There is also his handling of the prisons which he left in the road tripping and shiftless hands of the recently resigned Joe Ponte and his other tax payer funded car traveling underlings. While security at Rikers deteriorates and violent crime and gang activity escalates.
There is also his moronic and indifferent concept of transparency. By refusing to release his emails in full, doing government business on personal servers including his farm team of staffers and aides. Redacting everything on every message. His administrations persistent refusals to respond to FOIL requests ranging from police brutality, lead levels in water, official meetings with unelected and unappointed people of interest to the actual qualifications for affordable housing apartments.
Lobbyists, for a brief time the agents of the city, has raked in close to 200 million dollars in the last 2 years. The most to De Blasio’s pal and protest placard holding James Capalino who was the top earning lobbyist in the past 2 years making 26 million representing the overlords of real estate, which has resulted in the shutting down of hospitals and the pillaging of waterfront properties for luxury glass behemoth towers. His other fave firm Berlin/Rosen, the latter of which had unfettered access to City Hall during city planning meetings, also made millions in the short time of de Blasio’s term and has expanded to other major cities.
And to confirm and compound his aggrandizing fucking stupidity, he has the most staffers working for him than any mayor in city history. 300 people are working for Mr. Bill at 6 figure salaries. How many little brains does it take to shape policy and run government efficiently? Or is this more like a neoliberal cult. Or maybe an imitation of a WeWork building. (A “startup” by the way, is another large contributor to his campaigns and CONY, and has offices in every part of town below 59th street.)
But the probably the most offensive and egregious thing he has done, was his hosting of a street renaming in the honor of Daily News Legendary Reporter Jimmy Breslin. When he mentioned that Breslin focused more on everyday people than the famous and the powerful, there was an underlying sneer to that statement considering his position and his total contempt for the local press. Especially what he thought Jimmy meant to hold leaders accountable to the citizenry. He really couldn’t help stressing that Jimmy did his best reporting on everyday people, as if Jimmy was soft and less diligent on the elected and appointed officials abusing their positions to enrich and empower themselves. De Blasio obviously was referring to the junket there at the renaming when he stated the/his problems with the media today was focusing on the boldface names instead of the regular folk. But when 3 men producing a documentary for Jimmy there tried to oblige the blaz and try to interview the guy putting up the street sign, a DOT staffer obstructed them because they weren’t approved (By whom? the worker or the mayor?)
His contempt for the press and his idiotic demands to stay on topic is as if he was the executive producer for the news team questioning him.
There are just infinitely more reasons how stupid this man is and how unqualified he is for this elected position. His recent blog post on his rejected donor list is not even a revelation being that it was factually untrue but more like it was expected of him. The guy steadfastly doubles back and passes the buck whenever any incompetence or intransigence is laid upon him, for which he is truly responsible and arrogantly in his 4 years refuses to acknowledge and accept.
Bill de Blasio has to primaried out. He is clearly too stupid to work in government (but apparently quite adept at raising money by any means necessary, which shows in abundance by his prior job as campaign manager for Manifest Hillary’s senate campaign). He also cannot be trusted. Ever. His plans for the poorest residents in this city requires years to decades for it to manifest as he basically admitted in the last debate. That is not enough time. And it apparently also has to come after his donor’s demands for more riverfront luxury buildings, high end flophouse hotels and that equally stupid idiotic BQX trolley everybody in those districts don’t want.
Let’s get this bum out of office before he does anymore damage and ruins more lives with his cowardice, beggary and willful ignorance.
Because this city doesn’t need a stupid fucking idiot running it who will always conveniently don’t know or didn’t read about things like impropriety in his cabinet and in the unscrupulous decisions and choices he will surely make in the future.
This post is dedicated to Jimmy Breslin, and Fyodor Dyotoevsky
A few days ago while stroking my ego checking my blog referrals, I clicked on a page of a commentary section of a favored link and noticed some disturbing activity. The comment window suddenly started printing dashes and wouldn’t stop. This dashing also appeared in the address bar when I tried to go on other pages, and my computer starting beeping uncontrollably. A history deletion and cache clearing of the browser and hard drive stopped it for a bit.
As I restarted my computer, the incessant beeping continued and then I had to restart it with the startup disk. Fortunately I was able to save everything and since most of what I wrote is on good old reliable paper this wasn’t much of a loss, but I did lose all my browser bookmarks which is a big detriment to what I was about to unleash on this blogosphere in the next few days.
The hacker, I assume managed to infect the link which I provide to the blog I frequently visit for the proprietor of said blog told me that it wasn’t hacked.
This is a first for me and this digital publication that I actually managed to piss off a person to the point that this globule thought it necessary to damage property and oppress information and written speech. Of a digital publication that averages barely 10 readers a day. Although it does cause me worry, I feel slightly flattered. Now I know what narcissistic idiots feel when they call people the childish term “haters”, although I do not necessarily want to revel in this affront to my personal life.
This digital publication is part hobby, part info and mostly opinion and righteous vitriol. I welcome whatever fans or fanenemies that this blog makes in the present and future. Just show some class and don’t fuck with the merchandise. If you can’t stand the commentary or the reporting, the comment window is right there—>>>>>>>. You are just wasting mine and yours time but mostly yours.
In Melrose, 5 charter buses show up everyday so tourists can wander around mindlessly and pointlessly by a police precinct that was featured in the movie Fort Apache, The Bronx according to the blog Welcome 2 the Bronx.
The 1980 movie was a fictional dramatization of the poverty, crime, blight, city government neglect and police and political corruption that engulfed the neighborhood in the 70’s and 80’s. This tour, unfortunately is real as described with venomous contempt by the narrator.
These gawking rubes as well as the ghoulish assholes organizing and producing these tours have no class or sense of decency. As with the lady with the bullet wall in Crown Heights and that monstrous Bronx is Burning mockery art exhibit and decadent party at a Chetrit development , it’s another case of a warped collective of people morbidly capitalizing on the Bad Old Days. This morbid curiosity tour resembles the scene in Treme when a tour bus arrived at a street funeral procession involving the Indian second line marchers.
Is this why the city and the NYPD is keeping crime at bay and the two decade dip in major crimes. Is this the result and the meaning behind the effort of arresting the gangs and the recidivist individual offenders and keeping stats low and providing security for the citizens or just for these wandering half-wits who do not pay taxes to live here but get to frolic around these areas of notoriety and film adaptations so they can put them in their horrendous and boring social networking photo album platforms?
It’s getting rigoddamndiculous out here. This tour for a marginal hit movie may be just the tipping point, but it won’t be long when a tour for “Do the right thing” comes around and stops by the spot where Radio Raheem got choked to death by a cop. Knowing these fiends, plans might be made for a stop by the newsstand where Eric Garner got choked to death. Really, why not, and judging by the clientele in that video, they don’t have the conscience to give a shit about the communities they are invading.
Meanwhile…in other towns and locations…
In Highbridge, a man murdered his girlfriend by shoving rosary beads down her throat thinking she was possessed by Satan, then ran naked out on the street.
Also in Highbridge, 3 teenage boys attacked and robbed a food delivery man of his cash as he was walking down the stairs leaving the building.
In Mount Hope, a man slashed a father and his son with a box cutter after he almost ran them over on the street and argued about as if he was right.
At the Bronx Hall Of Justice by the Grand Concourse, an inmate under processing attacked guards with a metal pole and bit them as they tried to restrain him.
At the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in Soundview, a man was caught raping a female patient with a brain injury.
In Forrest Houses, a man just released from jail from a false conviction and involved in a class action suit with other people against a rogue cop, was found dead in a stairwell with a shot to the chest.
In Morrisania, an 100-year-old man shot himself with his unlicensed gun in his apartment.
In Longwood, a man broke into a house at 6 a.m. and creeped into a woman’s bedroom as she was lying there and stabbed her 5 times then stole her wall.
In Yonkers, a bust of Christoper Columbus in a park was decapitated off it’s base. Loosely encouraged by council speaker Melissa Mark Viverito’s ridiculous removal demand for the big one of the genocidal explorer on 59th street and inspired by an early classic Simpsons episode.
Manhattan
In the East Village, two men kicked a 62 year old woman from behind and stole her purse.
In the Upper East Side, a woman who worked as an corporate recruiter committed suicide when she jumped off the top of her townhouse across the street from Gracie Mansion at 10:30 a.m.
Also on the Upper East Side, a man duped a 95 year old woman who claimed he was her nephew and rip her off for 2 grand.
In Times Square, a naked man was wandering by the TKTS area and then was tackled by police.
In Bryant Park, where there are elaborate free lawn movie viewings, a fancy upscale restaurant and a palatial tent catering hall with chandelier lighting, a man claiming to be a vampire beheaded two pigeons he caught and was drinking the blood from them like they were glasses of sherry.
In Midtown, a homeless woman gave birth to a baby that died in her arms at 8 a.m.
Also in Midtown, a man running a red light and from police in pursuit was pulled over by a motorcycle cop and had a gun drawn to his face.
At the Columbus Circle Station, a lunatic man was arrested after he pulled a knife out on the downtown rerouted express C train, robbed a man sitting next to him of 7 bucks and a phone, then tried to rob a 62-year-old man who resisted and kicked his ass even though the culprit stabbed him 3 times.
Also at Columbus Circle, a tourist was randomly stabbed in the back with a knife by a homeless man. (Suspect is hatless, repeat, hatless)
At the 57th street station in Midtown West, a train conductor was headbutted by a passenger when he tried to wake him up.
In Union Square, a man riding his bike on 14h street was hit by a police car speeding towards him in the wrong lane as they were on their way to remove a “suspicious package”. No word on what the package contained.
In Chelsea, a man sneaked into and burglarized a church and stole 2 laptops, a monitor, camera and $1,100 in cash just before noon. The same suspect looted a synogogue 2 months before 10 blocks north.
In Yorkville, four businesses were broken into and burglarized in one week by 3 men that stole over $1,500 cash, two registers and a workers personal belongings.
In the Lower East Side, a woman with a blue plastic bag robbed a nail salon of a customer’s purse and $1,100.
Also on the Lower East Side, 2 apartments rented by single women were invaded and burglarized in consecutive days.
Again on the Lower East Side, a man threw a padlock in the face of a man waiting for a bus. A man and woman were mugged by two women who sprayed the man with pepper spray and knocked the woman on the ground and stole her purse. And a man attacked a woman from behind, knocked her to the ground and stole her purse.
In Soho, a food vendor was hit with a hammer by another food vendor and attacked by two others over turf.
In Inwood, a 78-year-old woman was robbed of 10 grand by two women wearing shields around their necks impersonating cops.
In Washington Heights, a woman crossing the street got hit by a car trying to maneuver around her then drove off.
In the Upper West Side, a man running from the cops tried to escape them by running into a subway tunnel at the 96th street station, subsequently delaying morning rush hour service on the 1,2,3.
At the Brookfield Palace Mall in Battery Park City, a man walked into a high end clothing store and snatched 2 suede jackets worth over $11,000 and fled. 2 jackets. $11,000. A “Palace Mall”.
Also in Battery Park, a 70-year-old man jumped into the Hudson River and refused to rescued.
A woman at a nightclub in the Financial District had her purse robbed containing her watch, cellphone, sunglasses and wallet worth a combined $2,300. A short walk from that crime, a woman had her citibike stolen when she left it loose when she got a slice of pizza.
In Tribeca, as a man sitting in a park area got up to throw something in the trashcan, he returned to the bench seconds later to find his laptop, earbuds, designer glasses and his thermos stolen. Never leave your shit, people.
Also in Tribeca, a restaurant fire engulfed the apartments above them in flames.
In Soho, a man who parked his Mercedes Benz overnight on West Houston St. discovered his window broken the next morning and his laptop and radar detector (??) stolen. Never, ever leave your shit, people.
The NYPD arrested a man wanted for a string of bank robberies located on Broadway.
Queens
In Rego Park, during a heroin/fentanyl bust in an apartment building, 8 cops got sick and hospitalized from the fumes of the drugs after arresting a man covered in white powder. The culprit is being reported as mentally ill, even though he tried to poison the cops on the scene by sheeting himself with a toxic substance.
Also in Rego Park, 2 tenants got ill when it was found that a rash of Legionarre’s Disease spread in the apartment complex.
At a recently built market rate luxury tower in Long Island City, a man and a woman were arrested when found to be operating a designer drug manufacturing and selling ring in their apartment. These two hipster idiots should have used a better logo and the craftiness of Walter White/Heisenberg
At the Woodhaven Blvd station on the J train in Woodhaven at 2:30 p.m., an 85-year-old man was assaulted by a deranged racist commuter after the victim accidentally dropped his cane on his attacker’s leg at an earlier stop.
In Middle Village, a 4-year-old boy was walking alone in Juniper Valley Park when a daycare center operator took him there and lost him
In Forest Hills, a man held up a bank and robbed it of just $474, the same bank was robbed a month earlier by another man. The suspect is wanted in another bank robbery in Jamaica.
At the Astoria Park pool in Astoria, a barefoot man going for a swim decided to stash his 9mm gun in a locker.
Also in Astoria, a statue of Columbus got stenciled with graffiti declaring it a symbol of genocide.
In Ozone Park, a man was detained from his house when he was caught trying to join a terrorist organization through the internets.
Also in Ozone Park, a woman coming home from Resorts World casino got attacked from behind and landed face first on the road by a man who robbed her purse.
Again in Ozone Park, a man attempted to break into a house on Centerville St.
In Ridgewood, a man was found savagely beaten bloody with head swelling on the street at 1:30 a.m.
In Woodside, a man broke into 2 adjacent apartments and robbed one of merchandise and cash.
At the 67th avenue station in Forest Hills, a man dug his hands into an elderly man’s pocket and stole his wallet.
In Sunnyside, a landlord that has received recent notoriety by decorating his lobby with pictures of Naz
In Jamaica, a mother pushed her baby in a stroller down the stairs while fighting with her boyfriend.
At the Willets Point station in Flushing, a man killed himself by electrocution as he touched the third rail.
A man was spotted wearing a necklace with a small Nazi emblem on the Queensboro Plaza platform in Astoria.
By the Belt Parkway in Howard Beach, a man was hit by a drunk driver at 3:00 a.m.
Brooklyn
In Bed-Stuy, a man crossing the street got his entire leg stuck when a sinkhole materialized on the asphalt as he took a step. All those wearing skinny jeans proceed with caution and watch your step.
Also in Bed-Stuy, a woman broke into lockers in a YMCA and made purchases with the credit cards that she stole.
Again in Bed-Stuy, a gunman fired at 2 men and 2 boys on the street, killing one with a shot to his head.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a man was found dead on a roof of a beauty salon.
And again in Bed-Stuy on the A train running between Nostrand and Franklin, a man got into a fight with another man who slashed him in the face.
In East New York, a man standing on a street corner had his foot run over by a car that sped off, then got shot twice in the leg by the driver when he returned to the spot after to argue with the man he hit.
Also in East New York, a barrage of gunfire went off at 2:30 p.m. on the street hitting a teenage boy with 13 shots and a 45 year old woman that resulted from a previous gang brawl involving the bullet-ridden victim.
In East Flatbush, a car nearly hitting two women on the street escalated into a brawl between the driver’s girlfriend and the pedestrians and then gunfire erupted hitting the driver in the head.
In Flatlands, a bank was robbed of $100,000 as a technician working on the ATM machine was threatened.
In Fort Greene, a bike rider was critically injured when a car hit him and drove off. The driver then abandoned it.
In Bushwick, a drunk driver jumped a curb, sped on a crowded sidewalk and hit 4 people, injuring 6.
Also in Bushwick, a fire gutted a church that served the communities less fortunate people with food pantries and clothing donations.
Again In Bushwick, a motorcycle rider killed himself when he collided with a bread truck making a turn.
In Mill Basin, a dead body with a cracked skull wrapped in blue tarp, duct tape and attached to a cinder block was found floating in the bay.
In Crown Heights, a man driving with a suspended license pulled a gun out on a woman in a car in front of him and threatened to shoot her. A man waiting for a bus at 2 a.m. was ambushed and beaten down by 2 men.
Also in Crown Heights, blocks from the J’Overt festival, 4 people got shot on the street with one fatality.
And again in Crown Heights during the West Indian Parade, two people were stabbed at different spots 10 minutes apart from each other.
In Borough Park, two people died as their house went on fire after leaving a BBQ grill still lit.
Staten Island
In Nunley Court, a man barricaded himself and the woman he assaulted in his home, leading to a standoff with police.
In Eltingville, a man brazenly shoplifted 27 steaks and roasts from a supermarket.
In Tottenville, an elderly man backed up his car into a laundromat, injuring 6 people.
A major rehab effort failed to fix the roof of a building at a Brooklyn housing development, but NYCHA still signed off on the job as complete — just one of many failures noted in a city audit to be released Monday.
So when it rained this past Nov. 30, about 5 inches of water pooled on the roof of Building Five at the Lafayette Houses in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The pooling, which remained two days later, can cause leaks, and it’s just the type of problem the rehab of all roofs in the Brooklyn development was supposed to address.
City Controller Scott Stringer’s audit describes a pattern of ineptitude in NYCHA’s struggle to repair its aging buildings. Of NYCHA’s 320 developments, 270 are more than 30 years old and 114 were built before 1967. Lafayette, for example, opened in 1962, the year John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Lafayette was part of a $300 million, three-year effort by Mayor de Blasio to fix roofs throughout public housing. NYCHA paid Universal Construction Resources $10.9 million to rehab roofs on all seven Lafayette buildings.
After the November rainstorm, Stringer’s auditors randomly checked Building Five and found the pooled water. Two days later they found it was still there, contrary to industry standards that require water to drain completely within 48 hours.
Stringer’s team also found minor ponding on the roofs of several other NYCHA developments that had been certified as repaired, including the Sumner Houses in Brooklyn, King Towers in Manhattan and South Beach Houses in Staten Island.
Lafayette was part of a $300 million, three-year effort by Mayor de Blasio to fix roofs throughout public housing. NYCHA paid Universal Construction Resources $10.9 million to rehab roofs on all seven Lafayette buildings.
NYCHA could provide no proof that it had actually inspected the work on Building Five roof two years after the repair was completed, even though the warranty required semiannual inspections.
And because NYCHA didn’t identify the problem within the one-year warranty, the taxpayers are on the hook for the lousy repair job.
This is only the start of the nearly half century long neglect of NYCHA housing, the real affordable housing program. And true to their nature when it comes to actually handling the effects of it, they botch another job they are entrusted with.
This recent oversight and criminally incompetent offense comes just months after a one billion dollars and 10 year renovation budget to repair all of the buildings leaky roofs. But after this recent revelation which came out 10 months later after the fact, the residents of these dilapidated buildings and decrepit, neglected apartments probably will look at this allocation with collective apprehension. Mostly it will entail buying extra pots and pans. Hey, maybe they will be dispensed as new amenities to go along with the free Wifi as part of the encompassing new budget.
With this exhibition of gross indifference the spread of more mold and other infrastructure damage from shorting light fixtures to ceiling collapses and wall damage leading to new egress for rodents and roaches of unusual size. It’s going to take another 300 million to fix the damages caused by the roof that they dismissively thought was sound.
How can something of such expenditure and magnitude, especially coming from an administration that is so (but mostly feigns) concern for the less fortunate and from an government organization that is indebted and responsible for the tenancy. Well, look no further than a decision by NYCHA commissioner and technocrat Shoya Olatoye leveled on the Department of Investigation. Ms. Olatoye decided to kill funding for city’s independent inspector general in charge of regulating the housing authority just to save a comparably measly 200 grand. The timing of this decision is equally awful and suspicious.
Last month, Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye notified DOI Commissioner Mark Peters she would not grant his request for an extra $199,000, bringing the NYCHA IG’s total budget from $3.3 million to $3.5 million.
In an April 13 letter to Olatoye obtained by the News, Peters notes that last year his office uncovered $6.5 million in fraud, opened 270 investigations and developed 53 criminal cases involving NYCHA staff and tenants.
The inspector general has also issued three critical reports about NYCHA mismanagement, including a stunning revelation that a caretaker falsely claimed smoke detectors were functioning shortly before a fire engulfed an apartment and killed two children.
This may be why this leaky roof report is so late.
Housing Authority spokeswoman Zodet Negron made clear the agency’s historic money crunch was the rationale for the decision. “NYCHA is facing crippling budget cuts ahead that will have a direct impact on the quality of life of our residents, Negron said.
So, the way to save and reallocated funding is to fire the guy responsible for pointing out the profligate waste and corruption in the system.
The answer to such opaqueness and obfuscation being employed and encouraged in the NYCHA higher echelons is to take matters in your own hands. Without resorting to threats to city workers like what happened recently. But even that is, of course unsurprisingly, a tall order. Take the trials and tribulations of reporter Louis Flores who runs the local borough blog Progress Queens, he has been chronicling for few years on the amount of lead in the water service of lines of NYCHA buildings via FOIL requests and discovered a disturbing increase in the toxicity and lead levels over the last four years which included the over threshold amount of 15 parts per billion, which was the amount found in the drinking water of the city of Flint, Michigan.
Mr. Flores found 13 housing projects that exceeded the safe amount from 10 to 100 times.
Metro Plaza North, Spanish Harlem, Manhattan : 1,249 ppb
Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Crown Heights, Brooklyn : 947 ppb
Berry Houses, Staten Island : 675 ppb
Forest Hills Co-Op, Forest Hills, Queens : 541 ppb
Vladeck II Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 99 ppb
White Houses, Spanish Harlem, Manhattan: 89 ppb
Ravenswood Houses, Astoria, Queens : 88 ppb
Vladeck Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 53 ppb
Haber Houses, Coney Island, Brooklyn : 39 ppb
Drew-Hamilton Houses, Harlem, Manhattan : 37 ppb
Woodside Houses, Woodside, Queens : 32 ppb
Queensbridge South Houses, Long Island City, Queens : 17 ppb
Vladeck Houses, Lower East Side, Manhattan : 17 ppb
Mr. Flores also found in his request of many buildings below the lead contamination amount but still above 5 ppb, which according to reports from the Flint scandal, is still toxic enough to be a health hazard.
This even got the attention of Attorney General Preet Bharara, as it got included in his investigation on de Blasio’s multifaceted and multi-pronged pay to play shadow government administration.
Alas, A.G. Bharara got sacked by Figurehead Trump on the advice of his shyster advisers which put the end of the case of the Teflon mayor away for good. And now the Department of Environmental Protection has watered down (absolutely pun intended) the most recent FOIL request by Progress Queens with redactions and incompletions, with the standout refusal for determining water service toxicity in a housing project in East Harlem. Kismet works in amazing ways, especially for vile scummy people.
So now the residents of the projects have to deal with water they don’t want from the skies seeping from their apt. ceilings to the tainted water they need to drink, cook and bathe.
It ceases to amaze the outright stupidity and arrogance that continues unabated regarding NYCHA management, especially from the top. And especially in this maniacal age of real estate speculation. For even the technocrats at NYCHA want a seat at the table of the Gentrification Industrial Complex. Mr. Flores thoroughly reported last year how certain NYCHA buildings got repairs before contracts were awarded to a consortium of private developers and their shell organizations. Which adds tons of credence to the author’s theory that the gradual destruction of public housing and the displacement and disenfranchisement of poor people is definitely intentional. Which is immensely helped by the transparent duplicity of Mayor De Faustio and his continued boot licking to the real estate pogrom.
As for NYCHA, it may be the biggest scumlord of all. Each year there is the list for the 100 worst landlords, which for some reason, the same people are on the fucking chart year after year instead of being banished from owning and running buildings or serving a prison sentence. But NYCHA is a government service. It’s a service that should be taken for granted like social security or universal health care if it existed. It should be treated with the same reverence and care as a military base and even more than any embassy house. And it continues to betray the citizenry as if management feels they aren’t worthy of dignity or security because of what they are deemed to be worth.
This is not a cynical rant, it is a veritable fact. And this maltreatment is going to continue for another decade going by these egregious and incompetent official acts.
Comptroller Stringer should give his endorsement to Bill De Faustio a extremely long second thought.
Whoever asks me a question about city policies gets a fat lip.
“Cheeky historic wall”
Current reality
The Lafayette Houses. Storm resilient roofs not included.
Impunity City 