When I saw this monstrosity being built and now nearly completed, I thought for sure that this was another 80/20 or 75/25 apartment building with incremental “affordable housing” included feigning to alleviate the housing crisis while exacerbating gentrification with the inevitable rise in rental market rate speculation/fabrication that usually follows when luxury public housing being designated mostly for upper class people get built. But holy fucking shit, ths massively dense apartment building in East New York built on Chestnut St. and Atlantic Ave. under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing program is in all honesty actually affordable. This might be the real motherfucking 8th wonder of the world!
Of course like every other apartment building development that’s gone up to add to the tower pestilence dominating land and air, the building is ugly as shit and actually resembles a hospital, make that a mental hospital or even a correctional facility like the MCC in Sunset Park which is also in Brooklyn (which is also under threat of White hipster colonizing)
Even more miraculous about this affordable public housing tower is that it’s probably the first one that actually showed any government transparency about the rents, which actually reflect the area median income for everyone from single people to families of one or two kids, with rents as low as $200 for a studio (!!!) to a little over two grand for a three bedroom (although that might be a little steep if one parent is working). The developers and management even put up print copies of the rent values and number of units from the official New York Housing, Preservation and Development website on the makeshift walls of the near completed development site as if they are cognizant that a lot of low income earning people don’t have computers or can’t afford internet service to play the housing lottery and would rather send in their apps via snail mail.
But go figure they would find a way to fuck this up too. Because all of the copies of the HPD dept.’s bills are in different foreign languages of nationalities that don’t live in the vicinity or even the entire neighborhood, wholly trolling the predominant English and even Spanish speaking communities from figuring out how to get access to these precious abodes.
Not sure who or what demographic the city and this developer think is walking on Atlantic Avenue during the day or night. But it’s highly unlikely many people are walking on this avenue at night being that it’s nothing but a traffic conduit from North Conduit Blvd. But it is odd that they wouldn’t put any copies in English or Spanish on the walls here while they are still up. Its bad enough the city and the developers they subsidized with 421a tax breaks built most of the new housing for people who don’t need to play a lottery to get an apartment or even rich people that exist in NYC at all. This looks like its more designed for recent expat refugees from broken foreign lands being ruled under despots or for people who came on a HB1 visa.
Another fucked up thing about “Chestnut Crossing” is that this was also subjected to absurd marketing to conjure hipness and a desired demographic just like every other overdeveloped housing to apply by giving this area an ersatz brand (most notorious being the “Piano District” in the South Bronx) by calling it the “ENY Automotive District” .
Even though Whitey’s auto parts and garage is a few blocks down and takes up an entire street in addition to all the chop shops and tire yards in this town, nobody ever called East New York the Automotive District. Never. Ever.
Here’s another thing that’s wholly off about this and how fucking clueless the people who are responsible for the marketing behind this is, on the simulation of the completed apartment building (scheduled to open this July) and the speculated vibrancy and brightness conjured in the depiction it has traffic going east on Atlantic Ave but traffic on that side goes west towards Manhattan.
If there is anything true about that ludicrous ad is that it acknowledges that the hyper dense luxury public housing tower that’s going up across the street that will cover a ton of square feet from Chestnut St. to Euclid Ave. is still going to be a vacant lot for years to come.
About the “affordable housing” development next door, the simulation rendition for the completion of this monstrosity is even more ludicrous and quite heinous, for it re-imagines East New York with not only the displacement of people of color but also the disappearance of the elevated J train tracks.
And this is why New York City can’t have nice things like having a roof over your head and having the ability to save money simultaneously. Because of fucking geeks that work for real estate developers and bureaucracies that have no idea what the towns they are building on and the people they claim (and feign) they are building for. Of course even worse are the neoliberal dweebies befouling the social media platforms praising all this hyper-density hyper-development to the skies and influencing housing policies that are making neighborhoods more expensive (and even more shadowy and darker), which will not change no matter how cheap the Chestnut Crossing apartments are.
Plus there’s still way too many housing insecure people playing the housing lotteries and the odds are getting higher to score a unit and it wasn’t long ago when de Blasio’s housing dept. was juking the lottery to segregate against minorities while “affordable apartments” were being listed in the $2,000 range for studios and $2,300 for one bedrooms. So even when people start moving into Chestnut St., there probably still will be encampments in the grassy knolls at the end of the Belt Parkway intersecting with the Atlantic right across the street.
Because living in and for the city, this stupid dystopian overvalued crime ridden city with a homeless and rent burdened population the size of Delaware, there will always be a thin line between affording housing and access to housing, no matter how much more the city builds.
With a month to go until the eviction moratorium expires on January 15th (Martin Luther King’s birthday, SMDFH), hundreds of thousands of city residents will either repay their debts to their landlords or probably get evicted from their apartment aka homes. As this crisis gets closer with each passing second and as the weather gets colder, the other and brighter side of life in New York Fucking City should not got unacknowledged…
New York City rents have overtaken San Francisco as the most expensive in the US, a sign the Big Apple is outpacing the West Coast tech hub’s financial recovery.
The median one-bedroom rental in the boroughs is now $2,810, compared to a midway price point of $2,800 in the Golden City, according to a new study by online rental platform Zumper.
It’s the first time New York has outpriced San Francisco since Zumper started tracking data in 2014, as many New Yorkers that fled the city amid COVID-19 concerns have returned, according to the study.
“People returned to New York as indoor dining and other urban amenities that make the city popular became available again. Rent began to rise as a result … That hasn’t happened in San Francisco,” according to the study.
A middle of the road one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan at the beginning of the pandemic cost about $3,417, according to StreetEasy. That figure plummeted to $2,700 as many left the city, creating the lowest rents there in more than a decade.
Good news every tenant in New York City, THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH AGAIN!. Truly a monumental event and a sign that the recovery for all of us that Mayor de Blasio has been repetitively been talking about is about to come to fruition, at least for those that count. Meaning those that are able to count what little savings they have. Because if the rents are going up again, surely this trend will trickle down to the perpetually housing insecure via the city’s Housing New York program to build and preserve affordable housing for the city’s desperate and downtrodden who pay 1/3 of their check in rent right?
Of course not. As I pointed out last year of an apartment building in west Soho (which is called Hudson Square now to make it even nichier), The Blaz’s affordable housing program is a fucking ruse and a hoax. And now after 8 years of “affordable housing”development usually sprouting in establish gentrification colonizer Brooklyn nabes like Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint and even in Queens enclaves like Astoria, Rockaway, Long Island City and quasi/pseudo-Brooklyn nabe Ridgewood, this inequitable farce and impossible to win lottery city program has sprouted in the most unlikeliest of towns in Southside Queens, Ozone Park.
When the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the debut and opened the lottery for this building this year in March, it was quite a surprise to see it still looked like this three months later.
And also that it was “anticipated” to be completed around the winter solstice in 2020.
Another thing about this “affordable housing” anomaly is how the city touted this as part of the Housing Connect program, when the qualifications for accessing these apartments is set up for people who make 30% and 60% more than the average median income of the zip code and even the whole borough of Queens of which the AMI is actually around $61,000, barely above the threshold for applying for one of these $1,600 studios. What’s even more outlandish is how wide the income earning window is for them, because even if you make over a hundred large you can still qualify, if living in an abode where the kitchen and your bed is in the same space is your style. Then there is also the fact that the lottery winning tenant still has to pay for ALL utilities, but I guess if you are making 150 grand and renting a one room apartment for $2,000, it’s wont make much of a dent in your wallet or savings account as it would to the average middle class or working poor renter around the hood.
To make this even more farcical, usually when the city designates a building for it’s Housing New York program, it usually labels it as such while still in the skeletal phase of development like in the pics above and the aforementioned Soho luxury public housing tower. But closer inspection found something very incriminating confirming the hoax of de Blasio’s affordable housing scam and his fair city for all platitude slogan with this advertisement plastered on the temporary wall:
Now why would the owners and management of this “affordable housing” building advertise it with an private agency contact when it’s on the city government’s Housing Connect website? And what’s more outlandishly egregious is why it’s being advertised as “Luxury” which is not only misleading but wholly antithetical to de Blasio’s and his housing and preservation department lackeys intent to bring housing equity to the long suffering housing insecure, homeless, rent burdened citizens and gentrification refugees of New York City?
But since this is so eye catching, lets take a look at what kind of luxury the developers are peddling here with this.
Nothing defines luxury than a balcony, even if there is barely room for two people to stand on.
\
But after you win the housing lottery for these luxurious one-bedroom palaces, you’ll get to immerse yourself with these views of Ozone Park’s sights with a tumbler of single malt scotch or a can of four loco like a boss; sights like Rockaway Boulevard one of Queens most expansive traffic arteries and the homey two way traffic trail on 87th St.
Where you might just wake up in the middle of the night to see real live fast and furious drag racing and cars spinning in circles. Pure vibrancy in action!
And if speed is not your thing, you can also admire Queens car culture from above with vehicles waiting on line to get into the luxury car wash next door and other vehicles coming out and being stored at the luxury car rental chain business across the street.
And other transcendent sights like the neighboring rock quarry and cement lot, the seminal sources of how your luxury pad got made.
Of course nothing defines luxury lifestyle living than quality infrastructure. Surely flooding won’t be an issue with a storm drain like this.
What’s even funnier is the city’s housing connect website’s advertisement of this farcical luxury public housing building and the amenities offered for the fortunate lottery winning tenants. Even if these “amenities” are actually services that have always been available to them and the general public since the invention of fire like bus stops and subways and “pedestrian friendly walk score” (???!!!) or has they are known to the general public as “sidewalks”. The other hilarious amenity that’s falsely advertised is the playground, which is either on the roof or is referring to the nearest one about 5 blocks away by Atlantic Ave. on the border with Woodhaven, because this surely isn’t going to be placed by the vacuum machines at the car wash or above the “covered” garage.
But what about the actual affordable abodes? Well looks like everything will be conveniently at arms reach for the lucky lottery tenants.
This wall here? That’s the bedroom.
At least the finished project and product won’t look so bad right? Well, only when compared to when it still had scaffolding. Here’s what “affordable luxury” looks like in 2021.
Pretty standard and bland. I guess this can be easily abbreviated as a blandered building.
Apparently, this is the entrance of the building. Nothing is more welcoming than seeing an exit sign facing you as you are about to enter your luxury apartment.
Now I’m not an architect, but placing these HVAC’s on the pavement really looks like a massive shit idea and makes me wonder what the developers were thinking when they gave this the o.k. or even if they were in the board room when this was designed. I also wonder if the LLC even visited this site or even this state or country as this was being built.
Given the violent flash flooding the city has been getting, especially in Queens as Ida exposed and Sandy before her, there has to be some mitigation to prevent inevitable damage to these HVACs, but the LLC actually did. Well at least they considered it.
This right here. This three patches on the predominantly concrete sidewalk is going to protect the tenants from the elements of climate change. Although the floor to ceiling windows above their HVACs surely won’t help much either, bad enough they have to deal with lookie-loos and skells casing their luxurious places out with relative ease.
Doesn’t look like they are going to consider planting trees here or even setting up a bioswale.
There’s a bigger triangular patch of pseudo green space around the corner too to keep the back door tenants at ease. At least this has a drain and although that garage sure will turn into a reservoir when Sandy Jr. comes.
Speaking of the garage, residents will be pulling out into a very less than ample two way street, which will be very challenging for them and commuters to see each other coming.
Also looks like they are heralding the grand opening and also the holidays with some festive decorations
But of course the biggest farce of all is the fact that the developers behind this will still get that sweet 421a tax break for volunteering in the NYC HDP’s near decade long “affordable housing” ruse. And surely the six figure earning demographic will also strongly benefit, since the city has devoted over 80% of these new apartments to them. And the well-to-do housing insecure shouldn’t get intimidated from playing the luxury public housing lottery get these apartments with real estate fanzine news blogs like Brick Underground giving them sage advice with advertorial tripe like this:
Authored by intrepid publicists for mega developer TF Cornerstone, when posited the question directly to their big money-earning readership, they quip “You probably do. Affordable housing programs have expanded to include a wide range of middle-income households” (middle income based on the ossified AMI that includes suburban upper class enclaves in Westchester) and when positing the obvious question of why do you need the government to find you a rental that you can find yourself given your comfortable income, they do note that it might take a while to move in if they qualify (especially with this luxury box here) but it’s worth it for all the money they will save. But what usually winds up happening is that these prospective savvy clients either wind up getting a cheaper place with more room or a dumbass one who will give the landlord what he/she wants for a shitty walkup hovel for 3 large a month in Brooklyn.
That’s another thing about the fraudulent housing connect program, because the objective was to keep building and building all this luxury public housing in the hopes that affordability will trickle down to build even more buildings with more incremental amounts of affordable housing to the affordability in the private housing sector, but it’s quite obvious that is not the case, which was tragically exposed by Hurricane Ida when a dozen people lost their lives trapped by the rushing deluge of water from the storm as they slept in their basement apartments. This brought overdue attention to the affordable housing ruse when it was revealed that over 100,000 NYC residents are renting basement and cellars and other illegal conversions dwellings, proving once and for all that the equity Mayor de Blasio and his sociopath housing commish Vicki Been of the brazen lie it is. Although attention to this existential dimension of the city’s housing crisis should have been exposed when a boy died in a cellar fire where his family lived from a e-bike battery that exploded as it was being charged in this same neighborhood where that luxury public housing box is.
And the luxury public Housing Connect difficulties has even modest money earning citizens have to depend on the basement rental market and predatory scumlords looking for a cheap hustle, like when a cop listed a basement of a house he was renting and ripped off a woman after she gave him rent and deposit for $2,800 dollars which makes the actual rent out to $1,400, which was already steep and about 200 bucks less than what Housing Connect considers affordable in Ozone Park where this grift also took place. This bastard did this to many other marks as well until the actual owner of the house kicked his ass out. Because where else are people desperate for a decent place to live supposed to go when their city prioritized housing for an upper income bracket demographic populace that don’t exist over them?
And signs are showing it’s going to get worse. NY Post again:
Yes, Queens!
Despite consecutive quarters of plummeting rents across the city following the March 2020 onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel for certain landlords.
Queens has seen its highest-priced tier of rentals — or homes priced more than $2,500 per month — recover 99% of its pre-pandemic highs, according to just-released data from real-estate portal StreetEasy. That makes this borough’s high-end rental market the first in New York City to reach recovery in the wake of COVID.
It means that renters have flocked to prime Queens neighborhoods, including Long Island City and Astoria, instead of normally more expensive Manhattan and Brooklyn — ratcheting up housing demand in the process and making luxury property landlords raise their prices, StreetEasy adds.
But for many, the rent can be too damn high. The borough’s lower- and mid-tier rental homes are far from their pre-pandemic levels, with StreetEasy adding that prices have only recently begun to recover — and are doing so slowly. That means, depending on renters’ budgets, there are still deals to be had.
Overall, when compared to Manhattan and Brooklyn, Queens still remains relatively more affordable. Queens’ median rent was $2,200 in July — whereas for Manhattan it was $3,000 and, for Brooklyn, $2,600. The report does not mention The Bronx or Staten Island.
In the first quarter of 2021, as rents across the city continued to fall to record lows, Queens saw median rents slip to $1,999. For Manhattan and Brooklyn, they fell to a respective $2,700 and $2,390.
When newspapers are describing 2 grand as affordable they are basically doing the real estate lobbies job for them. Even more warped is when local businesses participate in the hype too. This realty business (formerly a TV repair shop) is only 4 blocks away from 86-15 Rockaway LLC’s building.
Adding to the palpable threat of imminent gentrification of Ozone Park is that this comes after recent City Council decisions majorly favoring new rezones for luxury public housing towers in Gowanus and Soho/Noho on social justice fallacies, claiming that they were mostly populated by rich White people. Well, ironically it was White people actually had an influence on those development rezones in the form of gentrification industrial complex real estate lobby organization Open New York For All, whose flack just wrote a piece the other day for the NY Daily News begging incoming Mayor Eric Adams to rubber stamp more rezoning on towns perceived to have luxury housing, which he falsely distinguishes as regular one and two family houses. These creeps at Open New York, who have a devoted cult on social media claiming to be experts on cities called Urbanists are like real estate scientologists who are not even from NYC and the ones that happen to live here are transients, manage to infiltrate and astroturf every community board hearing about affordable housing development proposals, never thinking the luxury public housing ratio is three times higher than the “affordable” housing and how that will make the city’s area median income rate even higher, which certainly happened when the rental market exploded in the last year (before COVID fucked up the market and brought the rents down).
And therein lies the crux of NYC’s luxury public housing connection, approve the rezoning to build these towers with incremental supply of “affordable housing” (and also the box buildings with units under the false rubric of affordability) and the market rate apartments that make up the majority of them turns the area into a “luxury upper class” neighborhood. Just like with what’s going on here with this Rockaway LLC’s box building.
It also helps the Open New York manufactured fauxgressive narrative when the neighborhood suddenly draws upscale real estate developer interest on vacant properties.
As is wont of departing Mayor Bill de Blasio and his demonic deputy mayors who manufactured this farce, nice little calimari Alicia Glen and Vicki Been, everything about NYC Housing Connect is pure grift and an abject betrayal of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers still left wanting for a decent comfortable place to live, but a boon to the lucky fortunate few who won the lottery or could afford to live in these overpriced hovels after winning the lottery.
It’s also a big boon to the aforementioned Open New York cabal and cult, who consist of pasty White real estate investors who will certainly make big coin from the tower pestilence hyper-development that has been approved by the feckless city council cronies that they handily influenced and will again with the new crop of sell out shit libs that were recently elected.
Right now on @NYCMayor's variety show press briefing, @DRichardsQNS is boasting about Queens seeing the most advancement in high market rate rent apartments.
This guy is actually celebrating that the rents are too damn high and are getting higher in the borough he runs. DICK
The biggest boon of course will easily go to the developers again, known and unknown, the nucleus of the Gentrification Industrial Complex of real estate, government, lobbying and media as they continue to get everything they want from their purchasing of officials. From the easily obeisant and compromised de Blasio (and eventually to the corporatist Eric Adams) who spewed gaslighting platitudes of diversity and equity while they got to bathe in the crapulence of his whorish rubber stamped rezoning and upzoning approvals while rents everywhere will keep going up and up, spurred by the fabrication/speculation of the rental market spurred by city’s luxury public housing program.
There’s a good reason why those pigeons look concerned…
Queens
In Kew Gardens, a 6-year-old boy playing in front of his house was confronted by a man who walked up to him, picked him up and body slammed him to the concrete on the driveway. The boy’s neighbor followed the man as he walked away and sat on a curb muttering to himself and told him that he was bipolar and wanted to kill the kid, who wound up in critical condition from the random attack.
The man was found to be homeless, as this attack occurred a week after a psychotic homeless man murdered four other homeless people as they slept and brutally beat a man by the East River Park days before.
The homeless man has been in and out of psych wards and back in the street in shelters multiple times and it was found out that he assaulted an 80-year-old woman and robbed her ipad and had a warrant on him for missing a court date for an assault of a woman at a fast food restaurant where he bashed her leg with a chair. This man is basically the symbol of this lenience given to perpetrators from this city’s court system and the non-existent services of de Blasio’s wife’s abomination and scandalous Thrive mental health program.
Also in Jamaica, a man murdered his mother-in-law at her house by slitting her throat as her grandchildren were in another room, then he rolled her in a blanket and dragged her down to basement to hide her body.
Again in Jamaica, two teenage boys were confronted then attacked by a gang who slashed them and stole their ipods and cellphone.
And again in Jamaica, a man grabbed a 14-year-old girl from behind and tried to squeeze her butt while on the stairs at the Parsons Blvd. Station.
And again in Jamaica, an off-duty fireman crashed his car into another vehicle while driving drunk and drove away.
In South Jamaica, a 14-year-old boy was shot to death when a stray bullet that was fired from nearly 100 yards away hit his neck while he was playing basketball with his friends in a playground court. His playing garnered interest from high school recruiters impressed with his abilities.
Also in South Jamaica, a woman got killed while riding a scooter and her friend riding with her got injured when a drunk driver hit them from behind and drove away. He got busted by cops later in Long Island.
In Jamaica Hills, a 16-year-old girl got shot on her shoulder from a stray bullet that was meant for a 16-year-old boy involved in a fight between two gangs by a charter school and the shooting was tied to the killing of the boy a few days earlier in a basketball court barely a mile away. The bullet is still lodged in the girl’s shoulder.
The suspect was caught and was revealed to have multiple priors from other gun holdups and brutal beatings and robberies of other boys this year. His unintended victim now lives in fear of going outside and of dying.
Also in Jamaica Hills, a man grabbed a 12-year-old girl’s butt as she was exited the 169th Station.
In Jamaica Estates, two men robbed two lawn mowers, two leaf blowers and a snowblower from a shed by a house on two consecutive nights.
In Ridgewood, two homeless men brawling with each other in the street fatally ended when one of them connected a punch causing the other to fall on his head on the concrete, instantly killing him.
In Flushing, a drunk ass off-duty cop was flashing his service gun to a waitress at a karaoke bar then whipped it out as the clip fell onto the floor. Then he aimed it at her head and demanded her to come hang out with him.
Also in Flushing, two men arguing with each other at a frat house escalated when one of them stabbed the other with a knife and nearly disemboweled him.
In Sunnyside, a karate instructor raped his 12-year-old student after molesting her multiple times in the summer.
In Jackson Heights, a man riding his bike on the sidewalk sneaked up behind a woman and grabbed her ass and rode off.
In Briarwood, a man wanted for missing a court date for an assault charge got detained by police, then jumped out of the back of the patrol van and ran away while still cuffed. He ran for five blocks and got caught. This is nearby where the humane Kew Gardens tower prison will be built.
In Long Island City, a rusty heavy bolt fell from the elevated tracks at the Queensboro Plaza Station and smashed threw the windshield of a man’s car as he was driving.
In Forest Hills, a man collapsed and died on his stoop and was found with his head lodged in the banister.
In Corona, a 74-year-old woman got hit by an SUV as she was crossing the street and died from her injuries days later.
Also in Corona, a woman crossing the middle of the street got hit by an SUV when the driver was making a turn
In Glen Oaks, a man shot another man to death on the street then stashed the body between two buildings.
Also in Glen Oaks, a woman got killed crossing the turnpike when a driver ran her over while turning and failing to yield.
In Hillcrest, a college lacrosse player cut open his roommate with a knife during a brawl inside a frat house.
In Richmond Hill at the Jamaica/Van Wyck Station, a man grabbed a woman’s ass and ran away.
In South Richmond Hill, a man walloped a bus driver on his head and body with an umbrella because he wasn’t moving fast enough for him.
In Ozone Park, a giant heavy chunk of metal fell from the A train elevated tracks and landed on a livery driver’s car, smashing the rear windshield.
In Springfield Gardens, a man was shot to the death on a street corner found with a bullet in his head.
In Cambria Heights, a 79-year-old man got accosted by five boys at a public library and then was chased down the block and attacked as one of them punched him causing him to fall as another boy followed up by punching him multiple times while he was down on the sidewalk, breaking his hip and six of his ribs.
In Fresh Meadows, an off-duty police sergeant committed suicide by shooting himself in his house. He is the 10th cop to kill himself this year. PBA head and loudmouth Pat Lynch advises other stressed out officers afraid to come forward with their struggles while thinking of suicide to “DON’T FUCKING DO IT”. Sage and heartwarming advice dude.
In Broad Channel, a man got killed when he got hit by an SUV driver while riding his bike.
In Rockaway Beach, a 66-year-old woman riding her bike got killed as she got hit by an approaching van driver while she was making a turn.
In Douglaston, a landlord found a dead person decomposing under a pile of clothes and garbage left behind by an evicted tenant.
In Astoria and College Point, a man broke into four construction sites and robbed tools collectively worth around $20,000. This thief is very savvy to take advantage of all this over-development.
In Lindenwood, two stray dogs were running loose on the street and then a cop shot one of them as they approached.
On the Grand Central Parkway, two homeless men camping out on a longtime city neglected community garden decided to solve a smidgen of the homeless crisis that got worse under Mayor de Bastard and built an actual house on the green space. Which was immediately destroyed by the Sanitation Department who sent some men wearing hazmat suits like it was a gas attack in Allepo, Syria.
de Bastard sternly proclaimed that your city (meaning his and his donor owners) will not tolerate encampments. But thousands of people living on the streets and families living in hotels and residents living in inhumane conditions in public housing is suitably tolerant for him. Dick.
Here’s something I overlooked about the purge incident involving a bunch of high school kids going batshit and vandalizing a CVS store in Forest Hills in the last New Bad Days, the precinct commander Capt. John Cermeli’s even batshit response about the incident on Metropolitan Ave:
“There were still kids around outside of the store but nobody from the CVS management could identify who was actually doing what, so we really couldn’t just arrest anybody,” he said.
The commanding officer added that the students weren’t stealing any items.
“They were just being mischievous,” Cermeli said.
Oh you goofy kids, causing mischief by rioting like that. And thanks for not stealing anything so we don’t have to file another report and put y’all threw booking. The blue wall of insouciance gets bigger and denser.
Brooklyn
In Downtown Brooklyn, a man arrested for robbery and domestic violence jumped out of police car and ran away while in custody and as he was about to be processed at central booking and was still at large. He finally got caught almost a month later. This should be remembered as the city builds the humane tower prison in nearby Boerum Hill.
Also in Downtown Brooklyn, a man killed himself sliding down a spiral banister and falling to the floor at the Brooklyn Museum during a private event.
Again in Downtown Brooklyn, gunshots when off inside the Jay St./Metrotech Station at the start of the afternoon when some man pulled a gun by a token booth and started blasting. Five people were subsequently arrested. The biggest mystery is why this story is not that detailed as it looks as if it involves gang violence.
And again in Downtown Brooklyn, a brawl between two groups of high school students spilled into the Jay St./Metrotech Station where the fighting continued as cops on the platform tried to break them up. During an arrest of one teenage male who allegedly fought back, a cop throws a punch at a teenage who tried to intervene then punched another teenage male who walked by him and they get into a fistfight. A 16-year-old girl got arrested along with three other teenage males during the melee. The overtly aggressive cop has priors for excessive force and the second kid he walloped is going to sue the city for five million dollars.
Days after this incident expectedly went viral, the cop got transferred to another precinct. And as usual with the disturbing secrecy conveyed by de Blasio’s NYPD, the cop or what station he now patrols for has not been identified. So keep an eye out for him, specifically fellow cops because this guy is going to get you in trouble.
And again in Downtown Brooklyn, a gang member pantomined a gun and pointed it at a man who was testifying against his cousin who was being indicted for a home invasion armed robbery where they impersonated police officers to shake down a drug dealer.
And again in Downtown Brooklyn, three men held up a jewelry store at gunpoint and robbed it of $15,000 in merchandise. They also previously held up a jewelry store at Williamsburg robbing over 50 grand in merchandise and $4000 in cash, held up two cellphone store in East Flatbush and robbed them of phones, ear sticks and $900 and initiated their spree in Bushwick as they robbed a laundromat of $5,800 by sneaking up behind a worker who was counting the day’s earnings. They also took his cellphone.
In Fort Greene, the man who was caught sabotaging the transit system for months by surfing on the cars and pulling emergency brakes went berzerk at the Dekalb Ave. Station and challenged other commuters to a fight, then grabbed a woman and rammed her head first into the D train car. He also slammed a woman into the F train at the 179th St. Station in Jamaica earlier in the morning and was surfing the B train and then punched a man at the Rockefeller Station in Midtown who told him not to spit on the platform.
Also in Fort Greene, a homeless shelter intentionally served month old expired food by a contractor that deliberately relabeled them to people residing there.
In Crown Heights, four people got shot to death and two other men and a woman got wounded from getting hit with bullets and two other people got injured trying to escape a shootout between a player and a security guard after a game of cee-lo went wrong when accusations of cheating were addressed inside a social club being used a gambling den. The night spot has been a destination hangout for over a decade with a multitude of noise complaints and eyewitness reports of open drug and alcohol use. In other words, vibrancy in action. How did the night mayor miss this one.
Also in Crown Heights,at the Franklin Ave. Station, a man hopped the turnstiles and ran into the arriving 4 train with around ten cops in pursuit of him. When the cops reached the platform, all of them drew their guns inside the train car filled with other commuters and pointed their guns aiming at the suspect, who sat their with his hands up. The doors opened and the cops swarmed and dogpiled on him and took him away. The NYPD took these threatening and hazardous measure because they were acting on a tip that he was armed with a gun.
Sofa King Read Hearted
Again in Crown Heights, two fire engines crashed into each other and hit two other cars when both were responding to a fire at a building.
And again in Crown Heights, two men held up a deli at gunpoint and fucked up the robbery when one of them couldn’t figure out to open the register.
In Boerum Hill, a man was being pursued by plain-clothes cops that witnessed him firing his gun at someone at the Gowanus Houses. The man then shot back at the cops after warnings to drop his gun, leading them to shoot him dead by collectively firing 30 shots to take him out. He was on parole for only five days after he got out of prison serving time for attempted robbery.
In East New York at the Crescent St. Station, a man inexplicably hopped onto the elevated train tracks and stood still, then got killed by the arriving J train.
Also in East New York, a recidivist thief stole a rental car and killed himself crashing into a garbage truck.
In Bed-Stuy, a man was shot to death in the middle of the street following an argument with another man.
Also in Bed-Stuy, two men were shot at while standing on a street corner. With one getting hit in the groin and the other in the arm.
Again in Bed-Stuy, two cops confronted a man drinking alcohol on a stoop. As the cops were trying to detain him, the man tried to flee and started punching them as they tried to hold him. As the cops tried to arrest him, another man intervened and threw punches at both of them causing the man to break free and run as two other men got involved and stole a cellphone from one of the officers.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a 9-year-old girl lit herself on fire with a lighter she found in her charter school.
And again in Bed-Stuy at the Bedford Ave/Norstrand Ave. Station, a man screwing around on the platform dropped his skateboard on the tracks, causing the emergency breaks to activate on the arriving G train.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a man threw bleach on a person’s face inside of a fitness center.
And again in Bed-Stuy, five women attacked a livery cab driver after he dropped them off.
And again in Bed-Stuy, a man got killed when he got hit by a minivan making a left turn as he was riding his motorcycle.
In Brownsville, a man was chased into an apartment building at the Howard Houses by a gunman. The man being pursued kicked over a bucket of soapy water being used by a a NYCHA custodian was mopping, who then immediately walked out another door when the gunman came in, who also slipped on the slick floor. When he got up he aimed his gun twice at his target but it misfired both times so he decided to pistol whip him and tried to shoot him again but it misfired again, giving his victim the opportunity to escape.
Also in Brownsville, a man walked into a nail salon and whipped out his dick and started pissing on the floor in front of everyone after he asked to use their bathroom. When two police officers came over to detain the derelict, a t-shirt vendor came rushing inside and interfered with the arrest. The vendor then took a metal chair and smashed it over one cop’s head, leading the cop to shoot him five times as he was falling. The vendor wound up dying and the cop wound up in a temporary coma from his injuries. The vendor, who had bipolar disorder, tried to get help with his family’s assistance but the NYC health dept. officials determined that he wasn’t a threat to anyone or himself.
Making this fucked up story more fucked up, city workers from the Thrive program called 5 days later after the killing to find out how the dead man was doing. And that is how de Blasio’s co-mayor wife Chirlie spends the billion dollars for her scandalous Thrive program.
In Flatbush, a man barged into an apartment building, saw a woman inside and grabbed her head and forced her into his groin. Then he ran out and rode away on his bike.
Also in Flatbush, a man stabbed another man to death in broad daylight in front of the victim’s apartment building.
Again in Flatbush at the Nostrand Ave. Station, a man sneaked up behind a woman and pushed her onto the tracks.
And again in Flatbush, a man was stabbed to death by his cousin during an argument in his mother’s apartment. The killer moved in to help take care of his victim’s mother who had dementia and took advantage of her condition but his lawyer said he did it in self-defense.
And again in Flatbush, a man was stabbed to death inside his apartment.
In East Flatbush, a man got shot to death inside his apartment building following an argument with another man.
Also in East Flatbush, a man was stabbed to death in his apartment and his killer tried to cover up the crime by dragging the body down to the basement and burning the building down.
Again in East Flatbush, two cops responding to a 911 call that turned out to be bogus returned to find their patrol vehicle bombed with eggs and covered with boxes and garbage.
In Bushwick, while a man was in his backyard, two men sneaked into his house and robbed his laptop, Ipad, video game console and a camera.
Also in Bushwick, an off-duty cop beat up his girlfriend in a domestic violence incident.
Again in Bushwick, a woman got hit by a car while jaywalking in the intersection.
And again in Bushwick, an off-duty cop beat up his wife at their apartment during a domestic dispute.
And again in Bushwick, a man got shot to death with a blast to his head as soon as he stepped out of his car.
And again in Bushwick, a man intervened during an arrest of a man by punching him in the head multiple times as two cops were trying to cuff him.
In Sunset Park, a woman ran a red light in her car as another car with the green light collided into hers, causing her to spin out and hit a woman walking in the crosswalk.
Also in Sunset Park, a man got into an argument with another man in his car and accused him of rolling to close to him while he was crossing the street. When the driver exited the car while holding a bat, the pedestrian took out a knife and stabbed him in the back during the street hassle.
Again in Sunset Park at the 36th St. Station, a man passed out while standing on the platform and fell onto to track bed and was rescued by some Samaritans. The FDNY and the NYPD for some reason did not log any 911 calls of this incident.
And again in Sunset Park at the 36th St. Station, a man snatched a necklace off a woman’s neck when the N train arrived.
And again in Sunset Park, a man stalked a woman walking on the sidewalk then grabbed her butt and ran away.
And again in Sunset Park, a man sneaked into a house through an open door of a basement apartment and molested a woman while she was sleeping on her bed then ran away when she awoke.
And again in Sunset Park, a man grabbed a 14-year-old girl’s ass while she was walking with her parents.
Also in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, a man shot another man to death during a fight inside of a bodega. The suspect made bail twice which were lowered by judges and with the promise of participating in a diversion program following two arrests involving a loaded gun and a robbery he committed while on probation.
Again in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, six cops answering to a noise and drug use complaint attempted to arrest a man who kept inquiring why he was being arrested as the supervising officer sat in his car and did nothing to quell the situation. Nothing was said about what exactly the man was charged with.
In Williamsburg, a man got held captive by two men he let into his apartment who then held him up at gunpoint and demanded his ATM card pin number. Then one of the men went to the bank and used the card to rob their victim of $600 and also robbed $300 and his Ipad and cellphones that were inside his place.
Also in Williamsburg, a man jumped into a truck that was left open and snatched $3,000 in cash. When the driver spotted him, he gave chase but stopped when the thief took out a knife.
Again in Williamsburg, a woman was attacked by a man who broke into her apartment and was on top of her on the bed. He ran out the building after she screamed and was apprehended later in Crown Heights.
And again in Williamsburg, a man got held up at gunpoint and robbed of his cellphone and credit cards while he was sitting in a chair at a barber shop as other customers and barbers either didn’t notice or more likely didn’t want to get involved.
And again in Williamsburg, a man with multiple criminal priors got shot to death on the street in front of the Williamsburg Houses.
In Park Slope, a man lit a backpack on fire he left behind at a Jewish Center.
Also in Park Slope, a man flashed his little choda and pebbles to a group of girls walking home from school.
In Canarsie, a man jumped into a car with the engine left running and stole it, not realizing there was a 6-year-old boy in the back seat waiting for his dad who went to the hardware store.
Also in Canarsie, a 17-year-old boy previously arraigned on 34 counts of assault and armed robbery and was released by a judge who reduced the bail set upon him at 225 grand to $6,000, went on a one month crime wave by the Brueklen Houses where he lives. First he robbed a 15-year-old of her cellphone and then he punched a woman on a street corner and ran away with her purse. He also threatened to stab a man and robbed his sneakers. He capped off his recidivist criminal behavior by stalking a 12-year-old girl who was heading to school to pick up her sister and then jumped her and demanded her phone and rifled through her bookbag, then forced her into a nearby building into a basement and made her remove her clothes then sexually assaulted her.
The recidivist ratfucker went off on the prosecutor during his way overdue conviction and being perp walked to his cell by calling her a fucking bitch twice. The judge this time set the bail at $100,000. Twice less that what was charged the last time he was arraigned.
Again in Canarsie, two men were shot at as they were leaving a night club.
In Clinton Hill, a man was shot at twice on a street corner, getting hit the hand and hip following a street hassle with four other men.
In Flatlands, two cops crashed their patrol car into another vehicle while they were responding to a report about a man possessing a gun and a knife.
In Borough Park, four creeps in an SUV attempted to kidnap four children by rolling up to them on the corner and offering them candy.
In Bay Ridge, a man hit a woman with his car while she was walking in the crosswalk when he didn’t yield the right of way to her.
Also in Bay Ridge, a man grabbed a pumpkin off a porch and bashed it into the ground. He was wearing a fedora hat and black jacket just like de Niro’s mischievous Johnny Boy character in Mean Streets.
Again in Bay Ridge, a Muslim couple trying to shop were accosted by a woman who demanded that they go back to their country and slapped the cellphone out of the woman’s hand.
And again in Bay Ridge, a man jerked off while watching children play in a park and punched a man who caught him in the act when he confronted the diddler.
And again in Bay Ridge, a man thrusted his groin up against a woman on her ass as she was exiting the R train.
And again in Bay Ridge, a man walked up to a boy on the sidewalk and threatened to punch him if he didn’t give him money and he made off with $24.
And again in Bay Ridge, a man sneaked into the basement of a restaurant and robbed a wallet from a pair of pants left down there.
And again in Bay Ridge, a man had his wallet stolen from his gym locker and the cards were used to spend 300 bucks on train fare.
And again in Bay Ridge, a woman had her car stolen from her driveway.
And again in Bay Ridge, a woman got hit by a car while walking in the crosswalk while the driver made a turn.
In Bensonhurst, a man got jumped by two men on the street who beat him down and robbed $60 off him and drove away in a black car.
Also in Bensonhurst, a 73-year-old man was randomly punched in the face by a man while he was smoking outside.
Again in Bensonhurst, a woman was robbed of $4,210 from her bank account when a man cashed a check she made that she mailed to her doctor.
And again in Bensonhurst at the 79th St. Station, a man held up a woman on the platform and stole her wallet then grabbed her tit.
And again in Bensonhurst, a verizon van speeding on the wet asphalt crashed into the back of a city bus, injuring it’s driver.
In Midwood, a 70-year-old man riding his bike got killed after he got hit by car as its driver was speeding and ran a red light.
Also in Midwood, a car crash leads to three pedestrians getting injured as well as two people driving the cars.
Again in Midwood, a 93-year-old man committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of an apartment building.
And again in Midwood, four people got injured when a car skidded and mounted a sidewalk when it’s driver got cut off by another vehicle on the street.
And again in Midwood, a man visibly upset about waiting for the bus for a long time went off on a vulgar and racist tirade when he boarded as he insulted the driver. Which only elongated his wait for another 6 minutes as he continued spewing bigoted slurs at him as other passengers and people waiting outside were getting pissed. The man finally gave up and walked off the bus but not before hitting a window and spitting on the driver.
In Kensington, a woman got killed and her husband got injured crossing the street when a driver hit them while making a turn.
In Sheepshead Bay, a boy had his earphone sticks yanked from his ears after being surrounded by four other boys.
Again in Sheepshead Bay, a 16-year-old boy was found dead floating in the water at Manhattan Beach.
And again in Sheepshead Bay, a man cut off a vehicle on the Belt Parkway and step out of his car and pointed a gun at the driver and passenger inside. Who turned out to be police detectives.
In Brighton Beach, a man grabbed a woman’s ass as she was walking up the train station steps and then ran off.
In Dyker Heights, a man drove by two girls, aged 11 an 12, and lured them to his pickup truck and then whipped his little dick out and diddled it in front of them.
Also in Dyker Heights, two men went on a one night mugging spree as they grabbed one woman from behind on the sidewalk and robbed $300 off of her as they threw her to ground, then did the same thing to another woman and made off with $350. They tried to pull the same heist on a third woman but ran away with nothing as she resisted.
In Gravesend, a man walking on the sidewalk got hit on his head from behind by another man who then robbed his cellphone,$100 and his glasses.
In Fort Hamilton, a man grabbed a purse off a woman’s lap as she was sitting on a park bench and ran.
In Windsor Terrace, a man and a women mugged a woman on the G train by spraying a caustic substance in her face then punching her to rob her purse. Then the female got in a man’s face on the F train in Fort Hamilton and demanded his cellphone as two other men attacked him and robbed his tool bag, $320 and got his phone anyway after he refused.
In Marine Park, a woman got injured in her vehicle that flipped over when a car rear-ended her.
In Gowanus, a lamppost was found to be perilously leaning and held up with police caution tape tied to an anachronistic fire alarm post. Just like the towers in Idiocracy.
Manhattan
In Washington Square, a man selling his art was confronted by 3 NYC Parks police officers who demanded he remove his works off the ground based on a recently placed park rule stating that all merchandise must be placed on a table on park grounds. When the artist refused, the parks cops threw him to the ground and piled on top of him and his art. Then the supervising park cop shot pepper spray in the man’s face.
Also in Washington Square, a man waking in the park got bumped into by a girl riding a skateboard who yelled at him for being in her way. The man, who uses a cane, yelled back at her and then her uncle came by and got on the skateboard and bumped into him. When the man whacked him with the cane for bumping him and laughing at his challenge to fight, the girl’s uncle hit him in the head with the board.
A week later, an event was thrown in the park by Charmin toilet paper which had a giant toilet bowl with an interactive television screen standing on the ground. The privatization of city parks gets uglier and uglier by the minute.
In Hell’s Kitchen, two men approached a man on the street as one of them feigned to have a gun and the other man punched him in the face. Turned out the man they attempted to mug was an NYPD captain on patrol, as he drew his gun causing his attackers to flee. A 19-year-old homeless man who feigned to have a gun got caught and arrested over a week later nearby at the Port Authority Station, but his pal is still at large.
Also in Hell’s Kitchen, a woman who was lost in the city after getting off the wrong station asked the wrong man to help her find her way. The man then directed her to stairwell at a house and raped her by the basement entrance.
Again in Hell’s Kitchen, biometric clocks at a bus depot made to keep tabs on the hour of MTA workers were tampered with and damaged, it also happened at another depot in Downtown Brooklyn.
In the Upper East Side, a man shoplifted a case of nutrient drinks from a chain pharmacy then took a swing at a worker and ran away. Then he got a heart attack and fell on his face on the ground. Then he was resuscitated by a cop and wound up arrested after three days at a hospital. The man swore he was going to give up his life of petty crime after 14 priors because of this death scare. We shall see.
Also in the Upper East Side, a city DOT worker got killed when he was run over by a truck driven by his co-worker during a job repaving the street by Gracie Mansion. That pothole must have been really vexing our venerable Mayor.
Again in the Upper East Side, a man boarded a city bus and immediately punched a 68-year-old woman in the back of her head and also threw a 62-year-old woman to the floor and then punched a 78-year-old woman in her head.
In the Lower East Side, a man punched a man he was arguing with then stabbed him twice in the back in front of a bodega.
Also in the Lower East Side, a construction worker got killed and another worker got injured when a wall collapsed on them from a synagogue that was being redeveloped from a fire two years earlier.
Again in the Lower East Side, two men rifled through the pockets of a man who was passed out on the street and stole his credit cards and used them to spend $2,100 shopping at Tar-je’. They have also beat down and robbed four other men since August stealing over $10,000 total in cash, jewelry and purchases.
And again in the Lower East Side, an indicted serial sexual predator famous wealthy person made an appearance at a comedy show in a nite club and repulsed some performers and patrons and the latter got kicked out of the joint for addressing his presence.
And again in the Lower East Side, a drunk off-duty cop smashed into another vehicle by the Manhattan Bridge and kept driving.
And again in the Lower East Side, a cop ripping off cash from people he pulled over for drunk driving arrests got busted in an internal affairs sting when he tried to do the same thing again.
In the Upper West Side, a man brutally stabbed his brother to death during a bloody brawl inside their apartment over an argument about paying rent and eviction threats, then he committed suicide by hanging himself.
Also in the Upper West Side, a man and a woman were stalking another woman in a sidewalk shed and suckerpunched her on the head, causing her to fall on the ground. After his female accomplice did the physical work, the man tried to grab the woman’s purse but couldn’t as she fought back. All the while two other people commuting walked by and didn’t even bat an eye to the mugging.
Again in the Upper West Side, a man shot another man on the street and was immediately detained by the cops. Minutes later, the suspect crawled out of the window of the patrol vehicle and ran away while still cuffed. As a witness yelled, a cop ran after and tackled him and with his fellow officers cuffed him and put him back in the patrol car. The man bragged about his temporary escape to the judge at the arraignment and smiled for the camera.
In Midtown, a man heading to work was confronted by nine men who were dancing on the sidewalk that suddenly surrounded and menaced him. Then they all jumped on him and punched him in the face and body as the man fought back, winding up with a black eye.
Also in Midtown, a homeless man was found dead, decomposed and devoured by rats at the bottom of a manhole that he fell in two weeks earlier when he was walking drunk.
Again in Midtown, a woman trying to commute fell through a hole on the sidewalk that was cover with a shitty piece of plywood.
And again in Midtown, a man mugged a woman while she was withdrawing money from an ATM and grabbed her wallet and ran out. The woman chased and caught up to him but the thief punched her in the face and took 50 bucks and threw the wallet back at her and split.
And again in Midtown at the 51st St. Station, a man decided he didn’t like his hat anymore so he lit it on fire on the 6 train, causing a elongated delay.
And again in Midtown, two boys got robbed of one dollar by a man who held them up by feigning to have a gun.
And again in Midtown, a man was jumped from behind by three women as they beat him down with a metal pipe and robbed his cellphone and wallet.
And again in Midtown, a man got stabbed twice by a man who he caught and tried to stop him from shoplifting.
And again in Midtown, a lecherous off-duty fireman took his cellphone and snapped pictures up a woman’s skirt as they were on an escalator. The pervert ran away when a Samaritan chased him and the he destroyed his phone.
And again in Midtown, an manhole explosion injured two construction workers.
And again in Midtown at the Port Authority Station, a man wandering around the bus ramps was stopped by a P.A. cop who advised him to get out of the area and approached the man to detain him. Then the man punched the cop in the face, breaking his nose and cutting his eye. The loon was released without bail on prior charges a few days before his leisurely trespassing stroll.
And again in Midtown, a man whipped his dick out and took a piss on stage at an Off-Broadway show. No cops were called, no one got smacked with a blunt object and no one got shot after the incident.
And again in Midtown, a 60-year-old man opportunistically robbed 9 purses off women while they put them down briefly since July.
And again in Midtown at the 59th St. Station, a man vigorously fondled himself while staring at woman sitting in front of him on the N train.
In Washington Heights, a dog fighting ring was raided when cops discovered that the perpetrators were pumping up pitbulls full of steroids.
In Harlem, a man shot two of his neighbors he was fighting with for decades over excessive noise and then set his apartment on fire when cops arrived. The man then committed suicide by shooting himself in his head.
Also in Harlem, a woman got busted for selling heroin at a homeless shelter when she dropped her product on the floor.
Again in Harlem, three men sneaked up behind another man walking on the sidewalk and beat him down with kicks and punches then ran away.
And again in Harlem, a building superintendent went crazy and was bashing a woman’s door and windows with a 9mm gun while he was naked. Eight cops arrived and one of them came face to face with him in a hallway on the second floor. The man got into a tussle with the cop and shot him in the chest. The cop and his backup responded by shooting the super down, killing him. The brave officer survived by wearing his bulletproof vest.
The super’s parents were both NYPD officers. May explain how he had the nine.
And again in Harlem, a man got shot to death on the street after an argument with his killer. The victim was previoulsy embroiled in lawsuits against a police officer who pepper sprayed and beat him down the precinct house and the corrections department in Rikers Island when he was beaten down by C.O.’s while strapped to a gurney.
And again in Harlem, a man walked by a 68-year-old woman with a cane standing by her apartment building and punched her in the face.
And again in Harlem, a man got killed in a fire in his apartment at the Park East Houses.
And again in Harlem, a man riding a bike pulled over to a street corner, pulled out a gun and shot three times at a group of people. None one got hit, even by one of the three stray bullets.
In East Harlem, a drug dispute led to a man getting shot dead on the street.
Also in East Harlem at the 125th Street Station, a man pulled up a 14-year-old’s girl skirt and groped her on the 5 train.
Again in East Harlem, a man robbed a bag containing a religious artifact belonging to a man that was praying in front of a church with other people at the time.
And again in East Harlem, a woman was shot in the stomach from a stray bullet while she walking in an underpass with her friend.
In Bryant Park, a man broke into a posh cafe’ and stole bottles of booze. This guy is pretty regular, the last time he got local news media attention over there was when he masticated on pigeons and feasted on their blood in broad daylight in front of other citizens.
In Kips Bay, a man withdrawing money from an ATM machine inside Bellevue hospital was robbed of $250 when a man approached him claiming to be a cop investigating ATM fraud.
In the Flatiron District, a man tossed a weak molotov cocktail bottle in the back of the Masonic Hall building.
In Downtown Manhattan, the guy who played The Shadow and his pajama clad wife and three kids got ripped off by vendors offering a swank cruise ride to the Statue Of Liberty but got a bus ticket to Joisey instead. The following day, one of those grifting vendors assaulted a reporter and her cameraman when she tried to question them.
Also in Downtown Manhattan, a lecherous man walked up to a 15-year-old girl and asked her out on a date for coffee and then followed her for 4 blocks and caught up to her and offered her 20 bucks but she refused and ran away. The next day the girl got on the 4 train at Morris Heights and her stalker was on it, then he followed her as she got off at the 170th St. Station then ran away when he saw her with her friends waiting for her.
Also in Downtown Manhattan at the NYC Ferry Wall St. dock, three Muslim mothers and their children were refused to board on the gentrification boats by staffers because of a vague security issue they fabricated and not because they discriminated against because they wore hajibs.
As the 6 train was about to arrive at the Union Square station, a lousy kid decided to impress his stupid friends by kicking and breaking the window on a door. And they danced like a bunch of little dickhead clowns.
In Penn Station, a man punched another man in the face on the platform, knocking him down to the floor and cracking his skull.
In the East Village, a homeless woman was found dead inside a bolier room at the Jacob Riis Houses. The woman was there for five days decomposing when NYCHA finally responded to complaints about the odor and had the NYPD remove it.
Also in the East Village, a man who was forced to stop his sex baccanalia parties in his townhouse by a judge held an art show event with 200 people in violation of the order. The feds came after him and shackled him as a neighbor was delightfully filming his arrest while a ditzy broad stuck her dirty hand in the man’s face to block his footage.
Again in the East Village, a man found out where Ross from “Friends” lived and tried to throw a brick at his townhouse.
And again in the East Village, a man walking on the sidewalk under scaffolding was confronted by three women and one man and then all they attacked him, punching and kicking him multiple times then robbed his jacket, boots and a dollar bill.
And again in the East Village, a street hassle between two men led to one of them getting stabbed in the chest steps away from Tompkins Square Park.
In Inwood, two men wanted for 7 other robberies in the Bronx hit up a 30-year-old man and stuck a shotgun to his face and kicked him while forcing him to give them his Rolex watch and gold chain after two other muggings in Washington Heights and Fordham Manor where they did the same method and also robbed gold chains and two Rolexes.
Also in Inwood, a three-year-old boy and his dog were attacked by a swarm of yellow jackets in a park where two boxes were carelessly left behind in a green space area by a couple that were raising honeybees.
In Chelsea, three men ripped off a tip jar from a counter inside a cafe and was briefly stopped by a NYPD captain who was in there at the time buying coffee. The officer grabbed one of the thieves and wrestled with him on the ground but his fellow crooks got him loose and all fled without the worker’s earnings.
In NoMad, a man attempted to rob 6 banks in one afternoon by passing a note and made off with $900 until he got arrested. He served time for robbing six banks last year to feed his smack habit.
Also in NoMad, a man was crushed to death inside an elevator of a luxury hotel under development when a metal saddle fell on him.
In Columbus Circle, a cab driver drove into the plaza fountain after he dropped his phone.
In Battery Park, two young men jumped in the Hudson River to retrieve their volleyball and got swept by the rocky current and couldn’t swim it. Leading to a NYPD boat rescue.
In Central Park, a big dog got loose from his owner caused a biker to fall over his handlebars and then ran into the street and got hit by a car and died.
In the Financial District, a man committed suicide by jumping from his condo apartment in a luxury tower.
Also in the Financial District at the Broad St. Station, a man bashed a bottle on the head of a woman who just got off the J train.
In Greenwich Village, shithead tourists are vandalizing a wall of a building with lame quotes and one-liners from some overrated TV comedy show where it was based. Even though the actual apartment was in a studio in California.
In the West Village, an off-duty fireman was caught driving drunk when he passed a police car without signaling for a turn. Vision zero you know.
Also in Times Square, a man walking with his girlfriend unwisely got into a street hassle with two men wearing hoodies and got stabbed twice by one of them.
Again in Times Square, a man drinking booze in a movie theater scared the shit out of other patrons when he was laughing and cheering during the padded killing scenes in the Joker movie. He then spat on people who told him to stop. Max Cady showed better etiquette while watching Problem Child in front of Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange.
Bronx
In Wakefield at the 225th St. Station, a man arguing with another man on the platform took out his gun and shot at him as the 6 train was arriving. Police responding to shooting arrived and shot multiple times at the perpetrator hitting him in the shoulder after he refused to put down his gun. The man previously killed another man on the street who he had an argument with at a bodega about the victim molesting women.
Also in Wakefield, a vandal breached an EMS station lot and bashed six ambulances with a baseball bat and scrawled pentagrams on them.
Again in Wakefield, a woman had her legs broken by a hit-and-run truck driver that backed up into her while as she started crossing the street.
And again in Wakefield, a man got shot at eight times with one bullet hitting him in his jewels in front of an apartment building.
In Bedford Park, a man wanted on three warrants was pulled over by two cops during a traffic stop for not wearing his seatbelt. The man gave them a false I.D. and then refused to cooperate and went back in his SUV and tried to drive away as one of the cops was still hanging on and tried to taze him. During the continuing struggle as the vehicle was moving and as the driver tried to shut the door, the cop fired one round, striking the man in the chest and killing him. Although the man was clearly dead, one cop decided to take him out and drag him to the ground and slap handcuffs on him.
Heroin, cocaine and molly were found inside of the SUV.
Also in Bedford Park, before bumping into each other like a couple of stooges, two men held up a car wash at gunpoint and pistol whipped a worker while stealing $800.
In Belmont, a 5-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl found their mother dead in their bedroom. She was stabbed to death with a screwdriver. The murder victim filed an order of protection against her husband.
Also in Belmont, after a man courteously pressed a button for a 67-year-old man in an apartment building elevator he suddenly beat the shit out of him by sucker punching then stomping on him with his foot when it stopped at his victim’s floor. Then the attacker vainly wiped down the elevator walls so as not to leave a trace but didn’t wipe the button he pressed.
In Olinville, a woman was grabbed by four men along with two women and dragged her into an apartment, where they all beat her down to a bloody pulp and then held up a knife to her and demanded her to strip. Then the four men took turns raping her as the two women held her down. And after all that they stole her cellphone.
In Soundview, a man was waving a BB gun in the air at the Sotomayer Houses and challenged two cops who arrived to shoot him down. The cops resisted knowing he had no capability to harm and managed to calm him down.
In Clason Point, a man shot another man to death at point blank range in front of the Academy Houses front gate. He has been on the loose for over 3 months.
In Tremont, a man brawled with two cops while resisting arrest for assaulting his girlfriend.
In Mount Eden, a man jumped a woman on the sidewalk, threw her on the concrete and punched her repeatedly then ran away with her purse. Back in July.
Also in Mount Eden, a man departing from the 4 train was confronted by a man on the mezzanine who held him up at knifepoint then robbed 30 bucks off him.
In Mott Haven, a drunk man bit and beat down an EMT after he got loose from the gurney he was strapped to. He was still handcuffed at the time and he brutalized so bad the EMT had to be on medical leave for a few months. Shitty job by the NYPD keeping the bum restrained.
Also in Mott Haven, a man sneaked up behind a boy and body slammed onto the sidewalk, then he randomly attacked a woman by hitting her with a metal pipe and broke her arm.
Again in Mott Haven, a man walked into the 40th Precinct and pulled out a knife, threatening to kill himself. Then he got tazed by a cop when he dropped the weapon.
In Fordham Heights, a livery cab driver stabbed a man in the chest after he tried to ditch from paying for the ride.
Also in Fordham Heights, three people hanging out on a corner were approached by two men who shot at all of them.
In Woodstock, two men held up a grocery store and shot at the clerk, forcing him to give them $500 and his cellphone. Later on that day, another man held up a woman as she was withdrawing money from an ATM machine and made off with $400 and her card.
Also In Woodstock, a bodega worker butchered a man to death with a machete after he caught him stealing a beer.
Again in Woodstock, a high school dean body slammed an autistic boy into a metal table after he cut on the lunch line.
In Hunts Point, a man speeding down the street crashed his car into a wall under the elevated tracks and killed himself and his front seat passenger and critically injured another in the back seat.
In Norwood, an off-duty C.O. pulled his service gun on another off-duty C.O. in front of his house when he saw his wife walk out the door. The woman is also a C.O. This would make quite a soap opera scene.
In Soundview, two men shot their guns at a man on the street and ran away.
In Baychester, a woman was stabbed to death inside her house.
In Fordham, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the leg from a stray bullet from gunfire by a school as he was standing in front of an apartment building. Two more errant shots struck a laundromat window and a pizzeria door.
In Melrose, a man stalked a woman on the 4 train while holding a boxcutter and kept menacing her as she was moving away from him until he exited at the 161st stop.
Also in Melrose, two men got shot at by another man following an argument on a street corner. One of them bled to death from a shot to the head as the other got wounded in the leg.
In University Heights, a dead woman was left in a park area wrapped in a blanket fastened with duct tape with her head sticking out. The woman died of a overdose while she was getting loaded with two men, who threw her in a shopping cart and abandoned her there.
In Parkchester, a traffic cop was confronted by two boys who first greeted him and then they beat him up when he ignored them.
Also in Grand Concourse, a man brutally beat up his newborn twin babies, leaving them with internal injuries after his ex-wife left them with him to watch. One of them died a week later.
In Morris Heights, a 10-year-old boy was confronted by a man who rolled up by him in his car and tried to lure him inside. The boy refused and the creep drove away.
In Allerton, two men were busted running a heroin/fentanyl drug ring when the apartment they were using was raided and 17,000 baggies of smack were found along with over $100,000 and six guns. Another 11 pounds of fentanyl and heroin were found stashed in three cars parked at one of the men’s house in Westchester.
In the South Bronx, hundreds of used syringes were found in a trash bag in a corner garbage can by a grade school and also found littering the curbs, sidewalks and tree beds.
In Van Cortlandt Park,at the Woodlawn/Jerome Ave. Station, a man got on the 4 train and sat down in front of a woman and started jerking off in front of her. But got his sticky hands cuffed because it turned out she was a NYPD detective.
In Fordham Manor, a woman got hit by a bus as she was crossing the street by Lehman College.
At Yankee Stadium, two men stole a news van from a local corporate news station correspondent and her crew and they drove it for two miles and abandoned it in University Heights.
In Highbridge, a steep flight of stairs that was used in a comic book movie about a villain’s evolution is being inundated with inconsiderate asshole tourists taking pictures of themselves mimicking a scene from it which has caused unneeded inconvenience and annoyance for the residents that live by it (and also didn’t appreciate a parody of it either). Especially for one decent and heroic man who bombed some of the morons with eggs and well-deserved insults. Way to go Eggman!
At the Bronx Criminal Court, a moronic judge released two men without bail who were arraigned for shooting their illegally possessed guns at people on the street and for beating the shit out of a man.
In Mariners Harbor, a man shot a woman to death inside of her house while her two sons were in another room.
Also in Mariners Harbor, a man had his car stolen by his house after he left the keys in the ignition, and the thief crashed it into a utility pole and abandoned it.
Again in Mariners Harbor, 2 men broke into 10 cars and robbed property inside of them.
In Donghan Hills, two men broke into a diner and robbed an ATM machine makoff with $6,500 that was inside of it in the biggest haul of other eight other portable ATM’s from other small businesses in Bushwick and Ozone Park since August. Experts say stealing them isn’t really that difficult.
In Elm Park, an off-duty police sergeant beat up his wife during a fight over an Ipad.
In New Dorp, a painkiller drug dealer’s home was raided by the feds and was found in possession of 20 shotguns and four guns.
In Manor Heights, a man cut off and stopped in front of a tractor-trailer on the Staten Island Expressway and then stepped out wielding a bat and challenging the other driver to a fight.
In Tompkinsville and St. George, a man is mugging people in a crime spree dating back to August where he beat down a man for 3 bucks, then beat down and robbed a man’s cellphone with an accomplice, then held up a man at gunpoint and robbed $60 and his cellphone, then invaded a man’s home with two other men and punched him in the face and stole $80 and his cellphone, then got in a 68-year-old man’s face when he just got off the bus and demanded money then shoved him down to the sidewalk with an accomplice and stole his wallet and attacked a man walking while holding groceries by punching his face and stealing them.
In Great Kills, a man stabbed his friend in the neck following an argument on the street.
In New Brighton, a man walked up to a parked car and shot the driver in the shoulder.
Also in New Brighton, a man and a woman were beaten down and robbed of their wallets and a cellphone by another couple as they were sitting in their car.
In Clifton, two men jumped out of an SUV and held up a man sitting in his car at gunpoint at a parking lot. Then they made him lay down on the asphalt and pistol whipped and jacked his ride.
In Port Richmond, a man and a woman approached a man as he was commuting home and solicited him for 60 bucks. Then he got body slammed by the man and was beaten profusely by both of them when he said he had no money to give them.
In Tottenville, seven people were arrested for stealing packages delivered to homes. Amazon prime larceny.
Partners in lying, and cultivating environmental hazard conditions and damaging child development.
New York, N.Y.
Shola Olatoye, the commissioner of NYCHA, the real affordable housing program, has been exposed of lying to the city and federal officials for the avoidance of mandatory lead testing in various project apartment buildings and the obfuscation of information about the status of the inspections.
In the last 3 years since appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and optimistically promising accountability and better service for the 400,000 tenants of the buildings in an op-ed in the NY Daily News, she compromised the safety of them by being willfully deceitful along with her deputy staffers in a conspiracy of obfuscation and neglect.
And now it includes the recently re-elected mandate claiming mayor. For after initially acknowledging the damning D.O.I. report for the egregious behavior and his unwavering support for his appointed commissioner delivered through the mouth of one of his numerous spokespersons since he is currently on paid leave in Connecticut with his wife, his spokesperson cavalierly revealed that the mayor previously knew all along that Commissioner Shola and her NYCHA underlings avoided their responsibilities and lied to H.U.D. about their mandatory appointed duty to their tenants.
For with this vile discrepancy, Shola lied to the federal agency and was aided and abetted by the Mayor of New York City when she sent in a form which she notarized certifying that inspections went on as scheduled. Fostering and continuing decades of systemic futility of the federal, state and local government funded program to help the under-payed and unprivileged with safe secure homes.
More importantly, a vast majority of apartments remain dilapidated, in disrepair and toxic. In addition to the lead contaminated paint remaining and chipping off the walls, there are other perpetual problems of rodent and roach infestations, broken door buzzers, understaffed or lousy security personnel, broken elevators and smoke detectors, widespread growing mold, and strangers loitering in the halls, staircases and playgrounds, ranging from drug dealers to homeless and the other casualty of lousy, indifferent and fraudulent inspection reports, the perpetual leaking roofs.
This is not some forgetful bullshit that got bandied about during the Rivington House deed lifting and property plunder conspired by appointed officials and craven lobbyists and developer donors to the mayor. This shit happened with people already living in these wasting buildings and with the shitty conditions that come with it.
There are reasons for this quite obvious willful and criminal indifference once you consider the actual programs the supposed clueless commissioner and her amoral boss mayor were more concerned with. The Mayor and Shola’s offices made sure the proper repairs went down for 3 project buildings when a private real estate consortium took control of housing project for privatization, betraying the feigned promise Shola made to the public about these certain groups that private interest will go to fund all repairs all of the buildings.
And of course there is the ghoulish plan to bulldoze over a playground to build a taller luxury tower in front of the Holmes Houses for the benefit of a developer donor to Mayor de Faustio. This awful century lease was doled immediately after the mayor had his case dismissed for his pay-to-play 501 (c) (4) he ran in his City Hall office, more commonly and notoriously known as the Campaign for One New York (Shhh!).
Shola Olatoye really comes off like the definitive corporate tool. A yes woman. Her delivery when she explains and describes these plans is robotic. She’s basically a replicant for the agency and the corporate interests. With the blatant, brazen way she lies and fraudulently signed about bogus inspections is reminiscent of that corrupt soulless murderous counselor Karen Crowder arranging to put a hit on a whistle-blower who discovered toxicity in a her employer corporation’s weed killer from the movie Michael Clayton.
Ultimately, she is the classic idiom of the fox in the hen house, or in this case houses. But more a shifty wolf in fox’s clothing.
This mendacious scandal also proves how the oft-described pragmatic yet immoral de Faustio is no different than any of the slumlords recently convicted, fined and put on Letitia James’ Hot 100 list since he has basically used the same tactics and the agency’s sordid history to keep NYCHA underfunded in contrast to his long bullshit plan to preserve affordable housing. He is also proving that he’s no different and a carbon copy neoliberal version of his reason for winning re-election, Donald Trump, by having his aides gaslight reporters with denials and considering firing the guy who’s investigating him.
And like Figurehead Trump, also for his continued contempt for and passive aggressive mild repression of the press corps. For the day after the breaking news of Commissioner Olatoye’s deception, she was spotted walking to a fancy restaurant with a uniformed NYPD officer by her side.
This picture might come back to haunt her because of her unconscionable, enabled egregious decision, the next time she gets an armed escort like this it will be two armed men or women in suits holding her arms with cuffs on her wrists. Because this stooge broke the law with her deception. Federal law. Because as law professor from Fordham U. noted about the legality of this:
Under federal law, a knowing and willful false statement to the government is a felony that carries up to five years prison.
Fordham University law professor Jim Cohen called Olatoye’s conduct “clearly a false statement within the meaning of the statute,” and put the odds at “better than 50-50” she’d face charges.
“This is sort of ready-made,” Cohen said of a potential case.
While a glut of elected officials, by Public Advocate and in the near future mayor Letitia James and even some liberal and fauxgressive City Council people are demanding Shola to step the fuck down, the Mayor they all endorsed is standing behind her and supporting her still, and hilariously accusing outraged officials of political ambition (more odious Trump-like projection and hypocrisy) probably on the scant hope that his heinous good luck evading indictments will rub off on her.
Even if, this will not even be bittersweet, for the cost of the inevitable class action suit will be astronomical and will be added to the monstrous debt the NYCHA agency already accrued after almost a half-century of willful neglect and indifference from the organization’s administrative offices to city hall, the state house and naturally the federal government. And this will get even worse with that idiot savant Ben Carson running HUD and Trump’s daughter-in-law’s party planner running the east coast division of the housing dept.
Which will leave NYCHA truly vulnerable for privatization and to all involved in the Gentrification Industrial Complex. So if anything does get finally fixed or even marginally improved, and if there is more of effort to curb crime on the projects, the original and future lower income tenants will unable to reap the benefits of this long standing program and even the right to have a roof over your head if you have the economic means to make the rent. It will also probably mean a much longer wait than there already is now to get an apartment there. But with the encroaching and plundering budget plan on its way, there might not be any programs like section 8 or rent stabilization at all.
And there won’t be any help for the kids and adults poisoned from Olatoye’s and de Faustio’s brazen obfuscations.
This is not going to end well at all for the working poor and even the shrinking middle class. But if these two don’t get indicted for their illegal acts, it won’t end well for even society and justice for all. All at the bottom that is. Unless justice is finally meted out, if any still exists, and arrest warrants will be thrust upon this diabolical duo and her two recent aides forced to resign in a lame effort of optical reactive measures.
What a shitshow. And what a contrast from the primary debate, which was measured and mature even when de Faustio was lying through his big skull. But the official competition for the highfalutin’ job managing and legislating for the borough of five has devolved into a three way cage match.
As Gorilla Monsoon always use to say, “pandemonium’s runnin’ wild!”
It started ludicrous enough when the folks at Spectrum/NY1 decided to place the candidates left to right in height descending order. The incongruity of the set up of the reigning Mayor Big Slow, Darling Nicki, and Deitl-Dee looked akin to a block in downtown Brooklyn with the typical steel and glass behemoth looming over a brownstone and a bodega.
As this version of a Summerslam undercard three way cage match began, the crowd got very boisterous for their candidates. Actually, the crowd sort of sounded more like the canned yelling and wooing that used to be heard on Married With Children or any of the Darwin-challenged denizens that traverse the thousand bars in the Lower East Side.
The opening statements by our mayor and the legitimate challenger Malliotakis were your standard speeches of promises and policy proposals but was preceded by the madcap performance of the independent candidate Mr. Dietl, who was channeling an amalgam of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil, T.V.’s Frank Reynolds, and a disheveled derelict with bipolar disorder.
And this is how he conducted himself for the next 90 minutes. First yelling about the Blaz’s baseball team loyalty and cheering for the division champion Yankees. Mixing up the issues in the cuisinart of his mind. Introducing new words to the English vocab like “yob” and “mooses”. Somehow he did bring up some salient points, solid ideas, and nice digs at the Blaz in the middle of his holler show, particularly his criticism of his jail commish Joe Ponte, who let Rikers rot in the inside of corruption and anarchy, but they got lost in the cacaphony that came from his running non-stop pie hole.
Assemblywoman Mallitokis was the token female and voice of reason. Her platform is pretty good and well-targeted, meaning de Faustio and his appointed cult’s frivolous spending of tax dollars, his staff of 300, his whoring for developer donor money, his slovenly dependence of and deference to the wormtongue lobbyists and the 501 (c) (4) he was running inside City Hall. Her plans to fix the homeless and shelter situations are pretty much the same but with a promise to get these people training, but didn’t say where (free college or trade school training?). The best was when she accused the Blaz of being a pussy (my words) about facing Cuomo concerning the worst fucking transit system in the universe. But she was the only one who presented herself with class, dignity and sincerity, which is something this amateur writer hasn’t seen in a very long time. Although you gotta watch out when you make these descriptions, because politicians inevitably betray and disappoint.
Which segues perfectly into Mayor de Faustio, the current mayoral sash title holder. He also engaged in the voluminous atmosphere by yelling about his plans for the future of N.Y., thinking that yelling will come off as stirring and inspiring. But it was the samo samo. More weak promises, more plans that will take more time. More bullshit as frosting. His dubious achievements about his mental health program despite more mentally ill people wandering in the streets and subways and watching videos on those LinkNYC obelisks all over the city, which is run by his arrogant wife with 2 aides of her own (that’s about 375 large wasted right there). And of course, his now generally considered fraudulent affordable housing plan loathed by the majority of citizens but loved by the people who won the lottery for the tiny smidgen of low-rent apts. He has no plan for improving the city for the rest of his tenure if elected. His main platform apparently, and obviously is that he did not vote for Donald J. Trump, and his opponents did and that’s enough to justify your vote for him.
It’s like de Faustio is taking Hillary’s alienating “basket of deplorables” reasoning. What he refuses to realize, as with the cult remaining loyal to that cult of personality, is that she was a terrible candidate herself. Bernie was the more popular candidate, but was undermined by chicanery and manipulation of the public by the Democrat Machine. His vote for an unpopular, self-delusional, equally narcissistic, Hollywood and Wall St. donor ducats dependent and repulsed by the voting public candidate is just as irresponsible as he feels about how Nicole and Bo voted. And what about the percentage of voters who are his constituents who voted for the Dotard? Are they undeserving of civic services because of how they voted or what politics they follow?
The “debate” was reprehensible. Funny how Errol Lewis didn’t seem to mind the cult of groupies cheering for de Faustio and ordered people cheering for Bo to be kicked out. And something must be done about these stupid time restraints because some answers have to be thought out besides the typical yes or no. Although the mayor also refused to answer a simple question he was allowed to stretch and avoid the question. And it certainly might have been the first time that a moderator ordered mics to be shut off, and it wasn’t to get Bo to settle down, but Errol shut down Nicole’s mic when she wanted to respond to one of de Faustio’s divergences. She looked at him simultaneously incredulous and wanting to punch him in the jaw. Turning off their mics also devalues the actual purpose of the debate. Funny how being shut down twice couldn’t stop Bo from yelling at the end.
Everyone, except for Nicole, was obnoxious, dishonest and repulsive, and that includes the minions for Spectrum, Brian Lehrer meandering questions he provided and that snotty reporter from Politico, apparently their employers wants de Faustio to get re-elected which is why every question, even the ones that seemed critical, was perfectly aligned with his agenda.
This type of formatting shouldn’t be a shock, since everything news-related on T.V. and streaming is set up for manufacturing consent. And now they got add a little raucous no holds barred lunacy to get the people to tune on, tune in and drop out. And the chosen man of the hour is the Blaz. Even the Campaign Finance Committee is part of the fix, being that they gave a cool 2 million for de Faustio to fight his primary against the puny electoral finances of his opponent Sal Albanese, who just couldn’t get the cash to be at this even though he is running on the reform party ticket. But lo and behold, there was cash available for Bo to place and show to turn the future of this city into a farce.
Because even with the seemingly lower crime, endless tourism and massive wealth, the city is still a hellhole. A more overcrowded one too, with a financial bubble about to burst, and with the homeless that won’t go away and continuing to grow, a great depression that people of all ranks are trying to avoid and remain indifferent to. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to try to manage this FUBAR situation. But somebody’s gotta do it.
And it sure as hell shouldn’t be the one who exacerbated it.
There is another debate coming in November on CBS. They better not fuck it up and leave the theatrics to Vince McMahon and his progeny Shane O Mac and Stephanie. Although it’s going to be fun to see Marcia Kramer grill the defending and defensive mayor. Billy-D-B better wear 2 pairs of depends that night.
Residents of 1920 Walton Ave. affordable housing building of the now misnomered town called Mount Hope, mostly working poor, disabled and elderly, woke up early one morning to find their building on fire and their lives upended and out on the street with the clothes on their back. And also with practically no idea of where they will be in the future. Although with the way this city treats the functioning members of society and senior citizens, probably in hotels and motels in the area or in the outer boroughs, despite the city’s claims of keeping them close to their original addresses.
The fire was determined to be accidental by the NYFD because of faulty electrical wiring in the ceiling of the building which is where it ignited and spread on it’s way down to the apartments. Nearly 200 firemen where dispatch to put out the destructive 5-alarm blaze.
It’s easy and understandable to suspect arson, knowing the city’s and the Bronx’s history during it’s worst economic and drug epidemic crisis, but there is no doubt that willful neglect by the current and prior owners led to this tragedy. The building according to DNA, has a notorious history of elevator disrepair going back to 1995 and had prior instances of fire hazard faulty wiring issues. The building, which is currently owned by get this, 1920 Walston Ave. LLC, continued to deny service requests of the tenants, who were clearly too poor and powerless to pay any mind to. And also vulnerable because of the fact that they were lucky enough to be able to live in an apartment at the amount they were paying in a city with maniacal rising rates.
It is not known who or whom consists of 1920 Walton Ave LLC, because it’s base is in Lakewood, N.J. and you need a password to find out. The free newspaper Metro could not even get a hold of these mysterious owners.
The burn about this, no pun intended, is how did this building miss out and did not seem to qualify for Mayor de Faustio’s affordable housing plan for the preservation of such affordable housing. How did this one miss out in the mayor’s promise to end the tale of two cities? This building would have been a shining example if it got the proper attention from the mayor and especially from the perpetually inefficient D.O.B. that for years let this building rot without proper and diligent intervention. This is truly a disgrace and a harbinger of the city’s priorities in their lame version of service or blatant lack of it in helping the lower class and indigent.
It’s too late for the former residents of 1920 Walton, but after years of languishing in hotels before some of the 90 shelters as promised by Mayor Big Slow get built wherever in the Bronx or if they are lucky to win the miniscule affordable apt. lottery in one of his donor’s towers, there is a slight bright side to others trying to maintain and remain in their own affordable apts and that is the recent decisions regarding two mega-developers and their own transgressions; Steve Croman and Icon Realty.
This is Steve.
Steve Croman recently got convicted and sentenced for trying to scam banks with a partner of his for false claims of market rate apts and for 8 years for terrorizing rent-stabilized tenants in the East Village to force them out to execute the scam. This notorious scumbag relied on a sadistic ex-cop to intimidate his fiscally responsible tenants who were not paying enough for living there and in his buildings in East Harlem, by stalking, breaking and entering and reading their mail. He was basically Steve’s economic hit man.
For the amount of time and energy this demon was harassing his tenants with his hired goon, he also used the pioneering abusive tactic of using gut renovation of vacant apts., causing environmental noise and air quality hazards to goad rent-stabilized tenants into leaving and even recent market rate tenants to intimidate them if the speculation gets a little higher for even what they can afford. 8 years is not enough for this kind of evil, and even though it has passed, he certainly did not deserve to observe the Jewish holy days despite paying 3 million to do it. He did get to lose his broker license, but he still gets to reap the rewards of his insidious and heinous labors from his owner status which is less than the 45 million dollars that he was going for but he will still be able to throw a big hedonistic homecoming party in the Hamptons once he gets out and if he survives a shivving.
Steve’s pioneering and monstrous tactics have inspired a comparably young predatory developers in his neck of the metropolis to do the same, only to lead to fiscal punishment for their equally heinous efforts, and it’s not the advisor to the current POTUS (which may be why he was pushing hard through the weekly paper he once owned for Figurehead Trump to win). Icon Realty has been using the same diabolical, contemptible scheme to induce their lower-paying tenants to leave. Although amateurish in comparison, they still mismanaged their buildings enough with roughshod and reckless construction with making the renovations to apts by making them smaller to attract dumb transients to pay the preposterous market rate, in effect causing pervasive dusty conditions and the ceilings below them to crack. Icon also repeatedly shut off the gas on tenants for lengthy periods of time. Instead of hiring a goon to scare residents although they did engage in persistent attempts at buying out their tenants, Icon hired a publicity firm to ward off the hundreds of accusations of shitty treatment they were giving their tenants. Icon also exploited the tragedy of the 119-121 apartment building explosion to force a long time beloved small restaurant Stage to go out of business.
For all the chaos they caused and after years of enabling by the slow process of the justice system, the D.A. in conjunction with the REBNY jesters Mayor de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, fined Icon a measly $500,000 to be paid back to the city. Which seems just a pittance after all the misery and inconvenience their intentional and kind of clumsy nefarious acts have caused, which could have been prevented and avoided if the D.O.B. had even a percentage of competence and efficiency. But it seems the speculators for real estate have too much sway and influence that it takes precedence over regulation and enforcement
The lessons and decisions being meted to Steve and Icon are only a temporary fix, and seemingly in tune for the coming elections. The problem with these recent judgements is that these guys should have been investigated a long time ago. Especially the case of those unnamed elusive villains who run and burned 1920 Walton Ave. in Mount Hope. Mostly, these properties should have been priority one in this supposed preserving of affordable housing as well as the NYCHA buildings.
Steve Corman might no longer have control or say anymore over his properties but Icon still does as well as many, many other baby predators. And they all are big contributors to City Hall on Park Row and the State House in Albany. In spite of these recent charges, their records show transgressive recidivism and cannot be trusted. Even though Icon got pinched a little bit from the city, they are still entrusted to preserve the affordable housing they lord over. The only progress is for harsher penalties and longer sentences in prison. Particularly in a cell next to one going under gut renovation for the entirity of his or her term.