The residents that live on 20th Ave in Whitestone are up in arms about a plan that the city has to widen the street. This project will actually cost homeowners between Parsons Blvd and the Whitestone expressway service road up to three feet of property. This project has been in talks for several years with no real decision until about a month ago the Department of Transportation and the Department of Design and Construction announced  they were ready to begin construction. Imagine out of no where someone tells you ok, no we are going to take away part of your property. I would really like to see what the results of the preconstruction meeting that will take place with City officials and the district manger on Friday will be. Do these residents really have a chance? Or will the big powerful city crush them? It’s just not fair.
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http://www.timesledger.com
Saturday, to some community members is a day of rest. The residents of Springfield Gardens are far beyond rest because of overdevelopment in their neighborhood. Residents rallied in the blistering cold on Saturday to protest the manifestation of overdevelopment. Contractors are demolishing a single family home with multiples family dwelling, which leads to over population.
  As a member of the community I see my dad goes through frustration every night in order to find a parking space. It is ashamed to see tax payers of the community suffer in their home while the Department Of Building let the contractors take control of the situation. It is hard to sleep, it is hard to breath, it is hard to wake up to life with the future of our community scattered on the streets. Rules and regulation about New York City Department of Building can be found at this website.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/home/home.shtml
When my generation thinks about Murder Inc. they usually are referring to the record label. Music artists such as Jah Rule and Ashanti may come to mind, but not the gangsters who once occupied Brownsville, Brooklyn in the 1930’s. These men, mostly of Italian and Jewish origins, were the deadly contract killers first called Murder Incorporated by the press.
It seems like the spirit of organized crime has manifested itself in all things associated with the name Murder Inc. Fortunately for the music label, they have changed their name to Inc. Records to save their image. Brownsville is stuck with the reputation of being dangerous. The spirit still haunts the Brownsville community that is permanently tainted as one of the worse neighborhoods in Brooklyn, as a result of this organization’s gang activity.
This area has not always been this way. In 1861, Charles S. Brown, a real estate speculator who bought property in the area originally called it Brown’s Village. This neighborhood was intended to be a vacation spot for people who lived in the city. That plan failed miserably and was further developed into tenement buildings in 1867 by Aaron Kaplan who renamed it Brownsville.
Over the next four decades, Brownsville became littered with abandoned buildings, poverty, drugs, crime and declining schools. It was even common to see children playing basketball at the Brownsville Recreation Center on empty drug vials that littered the outdoor courts.
Today’s status of this neighborhood remains the same and it leaves me to wonder if the residents of this neighborhood will stop living in fear and see the day when Brownsville truly experiences redemption from the haunting of the Murder Inc. ghosts.
On February 9th, the 19th anniversary of the death of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, thousands of Hasidic Jewish women flocked to her gravesite. She is buried alongside her husband, Chasidic leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson at Montefiore Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery located in Cambria Heights.
Cambria Heights is a middle class black neighborhood. Not too long ago, rallies and protests took place when the chasidic leader was buried there. It is rumored amongst the Jewish follows that he is the Messiah they had been waiting for. Many of his followers approached homeowners in the neighborhood with quick cash offers on the houses near and surrounding the cemetery to be “closer to the Messiah”. Some people were quick to accept, but most resisted. The rallies came about when the Jewish followers wanted to rent out the nearby park and elementary public school on the anniversary of Schneerson’s death. The protest took place with many community members including a nearby church.Â
Neighbors have stated that there is nowhere else for them to go, there is no other community like this one. Although it has been relatively quiet about the attempted “takeover,” from time to time, a homeowner will find a “sell now, get cash” flyer mixed in with their mail or on their windshield.
This is the link to an article on the woman who inspired the journey.
Click here for the biography of the Chasidic leader.
Two weeks ago when I came home from school, I received a letter in my mail box from the township of Old Bridge,New Jersey  stating  that my property taxes will be going up in a few months. This property tax increase is making many residents who live here very angry.However I discovered it is not only happening in my neighborhood but in the whole state of New Jersey. This situation is forcing many residents who have been living here for so long to move out. Property  taxes in this neighborhood is made up of educational taxes and it goes from 55 to 80 percent of the total property tax.  As we know, most of the property taxes are to  fund education and many of the elderly and younger couples are objecting to this idea ,because they do not have  any children who are  attending public schools. http://www.gmnews.com Â
Recently a dropout summit was held at, of all places, Baruch College. The summit was held to help brainstorm possible ideas of what could be done to lower the dropout rate in New York City’s public schools. Check it out.
           If you told someone a few decades ago that we would be spending $1 or even $2 on a bottle of good old H2O they would be flabbergasted. Yet there are dozens of distributing companies making a fortune from selling just that-water.
           With negative media involving the dangers of unsanitary tap water, going up against all the glamorous advertisement (filled with mountains, rivers and purifiers) of spring water. It’s understandable that the public would want to take the safe way out. However, if we only took the time to look at the facts, we would realize that New York tap water is one of the cleanest in the country. Our water might be cleaner then some of the bottled water being advertised, since it is also coming from the different mountains and lakes not too far from New Yorkhttp://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/celebrate.html
           Today there is a real market out there for bottled water, and it is getting to be a bit ridiculous. Voss, a high end water bottle distributor, is primarily offered in hotels and restaurants for the price of $8 for 800ml. So the next time a high end restaurant asks you tap or bottled water (which would cost an arm and a leg), give that question a little more thought.Â
While reading the City section of the New York Times yesterday, I happened to stumble on an article about my neighborhood (Kensington). There have been complaints about the calls for prayer coming from Masjid Nur al-Islam mosque. Four times a day there is a loud call to pray that can be heard for many blocks. Many living near the mosque have complained that it is too loud. Now a debate is emerging about what to do about it.
I live just a few blocks from the mosque and often hear the call for prayer. It has been going on since before I moved to the neighborhood almost 12 years ago. It doesn’t disturb me and I don’t consider it loud at all. When I asked around the neighborhood, I found that I was not the only one to feel this way. Those who I have spoken to have said that the calls for prayer are not bothersome. They should be allowed to continue there call for prayer as they have been doing for many years. More can be read about the issue here.
On the morning of Feb. 21, 2007 a fourth grader fell from his fifth floor window. The young man was apparently trying to retrieve a fallen air conditioner with some sheets. The boy’s father, a livery driver, was so distraught that after the occurrence he was sent to New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center for treatment. The fall is currently under investigation by the NYPD. Check out the full article at AM New York.
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Last week a pedestrian, one of many, was killed while crossing the street in “Hells Kitchen”. According to a recent poll, conducted by the Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief, 75% of the community’s members are concerned with pedestrian safety, while 5% are concerned with crime.
Community leaders and advocacy groups are alarmed by the insufficient enforcement of traffic laws and inept officers at intersections. Members of the community are demanding officers that are qualified to issue summons and harsher monetary penalties for traffic violations.
In an effort to resolve the recent pedestrian safety concerns, the Chair of the Public Safety Committee, along with alarmed community leaders and residents are participating in a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, February 27th, to voice their concerns.Â
Before you go to play in traffic, checkout how you can participate in the effort to improve pedestrian safety in NYC @ http://www.trafficrelief.org/charter.html.
For info on a recent fatality go to…http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5061447 .
   
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