Is it time for Newtown Playground to be recognized as a burial ground?

From the Queens Chronicle:

Lifelong Elmhurst resident Marialena Giampino grew up hearing stories about the neighborhood’s settlers and how they are buried underneath Newtown Playground at the intersection of 56th Avenue and 92nd Street.

She thinks it’s about time the city and community officially recognize the history below the slides and climbing equipment.

“The goal is to get some type of memorial or plaque commemorating the people buried there,” Giampino said. “To the normal person who maybe isn’t from Elmhurst, they don’t know what’s there.”

According to a 1932 city report on cemeteries, provided to the Chronicle by Giampino, at least 86 people were buried at what was called Old Newtown Cemetery.

The first funeral took place in 1729, about 75 years after the neighborhood was founded and more than four decades prior to the American Revolution.

Some of the neighborhood’s most prominent residents were buried there, with entire families interred alongside each other on the site.

Eventually, the cemetery served as a potter’s field — the final resting place for unknown or indigent residents — until about 1880, with the Parks Department taking over the location in 1917.

A decade later, the surviving headstones were all laid flat and covered with soil so playground equipment and a drinking fountain could be installed.

Giampino brought up the site’s history to Community Board 4, of which she is a member, last week, saying now would be the perfect time to memorialize those who are buried there.

Woodhaven: historic but overcrowded

From AM-NY:

As its name implies, Woodhaven is truly an escape in the urban jungle.

The Queens neighborhood is probably one of the few places in the city where you can get off the train, take a stroll through a forest, grab a bite to eat from a Latin restaurant and head home to a house that was built a century ago.

“It’s always been a place where people come in and bring their experiences to the community,” said Ed Wendell, a lifelong resident and the executive director of the Woodhaven Cultural & Historical Society.

Jamaica Avenue is a bustling corridor stocked with mom-and-pop stores and restaurants that reflect the diverse population in the neighborhood, according to Wendell.

“People ask how many businesses have been around for more than 100 years and there are like seven or eight,” Wendell said of the avenue. “We are proud of our history.”

Meanwhile, the one- and two-family homes south of the avenue have kept their Victorian look from the early 1900s. Most also come with backyards.

“It’s an actual community. People get to know each other and help everyone out,” noted Vickie Messina, 67, who has lived in Woodhaven with her husband in their two-story house for 40 years.

But Woodhaven is becoming less of a hidden gem, and some locals said there are concerns about overcrowding.

For example, there have been complaints about illegal conversions that pack too many tenants into basements and other spaces, Wendell said.

“If you walk around the streets of our neighborhood and you look around what you see is a two-family house that has six satellite dishes or four doorbells,” he said.

Union blaming de Blasio for construction deaths

From the Commercial Observer:

Thirty-one members of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York were arrested as part of a planned construction safety demonstration today—hours before the City Council introduced a package of 18 bills aimed at curbing the high number of jobsite deaths in the last two years.

Hundreds of union members and supporters filled a stretch of Park Row outside of City Hall to raise awareness for the 30 workers who have been killed in New York City over the last 24 months. (The extra arrestee was for the next worker to die, according to a spokesman for the union.)

Chanting “How many more must die?” in English and Spanish, some members carried ceremonial black coffins on their shoulders and a prop of the grim reaper. The coordinated arrest occurred after union protesters, wearing a number on their sweatshirt for each of those killed, blocked a section of the Lower Manhattan street while holding up signs.

“The first step to solving the problem is admitting you have one,” James Mahoney, the president of the New York State Iron Workers District Council, told Commercial Observer at the rally this morning. “Mayor de Blasio, you have one. People are dying; there’s blood on his hands.”

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship

From DNA Info:

Within a week of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration announcing record-breaking achievements in affordable housing, the top two officials responsible for his housing initiatives are stepping down.

Department of City Planning Director and City Planning Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod is stepping down to chair the Trust for Governors Island, and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been will return to her previous job teaching at New York University and directing NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

Weisbrod will be replaced by Marisa Lago, currently the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development.

Been will be replaced by Economic Development Corporation president and CEO Maria Torres-Springer, de Blasio announced Tuesday.

James Patchett, chief of staff to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, will succeed Torres-Springer at EDC, an agency which Glen oversees.

Sampson sent up the river

From AM-NY:

Former New York State Senate leader John Sampson was sentenced to 5 years in prison Wednesday for lying and obstructing justice to cover up his misuse of escrow money as a private lawyer.

Brooklyn U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry also imposed a $75,000 fine on the former Democratic leader from Canarsie whose 2015 conviction was one in a string of corruption cases that have rocked Albany.

Sampson, 51, had allegedly misused $440,000 in escrow money to help finance a political campaign for district attorney in Brooklyn, then did favors for Edul Ahmad, a local businessman who gave him $188,000 to help cover up the misuse of funds.

He was not convicted of those charges but was convicted of lying to the FBI and recruiting a childhood friend, Sam Noel, who worked for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, as a mole to keep track of an investigation of Ahmad, who he feared might become an informant.

BdB keeping it small

From the NY Times:

It is particularly important for the mayor to demonstrate success in soliciting small donations. Cut off from some of his familiar sources by federal and state inquiries into his fund-raising practices, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, and his campaign have been pounding the pavement for such contributions, and have leaned on some of the mayor’s celebrity backers like the actors Cynthia Nixon, Mark Ruffalo and Steve Buscemi.

Last week, prominent supporters implored fellow admirers of his administration to make small donations to the mayor’s re-election effort, a last-minute push to raise money before the deadline.

On Monday, the mayor’s campaign said it would report more than $1 million in contributions raised over the last half of 2016 from roughly 3,800 contributors, a majority of whom gave less than $100. (A campaign spokesman could not say if the total raised exceeded the $1.1 million brought in during the first half of 2016.)

The official results must be made public by Tuesday.

The mayoral race, especially on the Democratic side, has not really materialized, but that would change significantly if the investigations, now in their grand jury phase, led to an indictment of a city official.

Mr. de Blasio has denied any wrongdoing.

Kew Gardens has worst streets in the city

From the Daily News:

If you want to avoid potholes, choppy roads and flat tires, you may want to steer clear of Kew Gardens, Queens.

The neighborhood’s streets are in the worst shape of all the roads in the five boroughs, according to a report the city Independent Budget Office released Tuesday.

The report tracked city Department of Transportation street-condition assessments from 2014 and 2015 across the city and found that only 28.2% of streets in Kew Gardens are listed in “good” condition.

The neighborhood had 66.4% of its roads listed in “fair” condition and 5.4% in “poor” condition.

It landed at the bottom — No. 188 — in the citywide rankings of neighborhoods.