By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Proponents of QueensLink secured a victory this week, with a request for $10 million to fund an environmental review for the project in the State Senate’s new budget proposal. 

They’ve also been dealt a blow: just today, the city announced it obtained $117 million in federal funding for a competing plan, QueensWay. 

The QueensLink plan would reactivate the Rockaway Beach Branch, a right-of-way that has been left unused for the past 60 years, using it to extend the M line past Rego Park into the Rockaways. Supporters of the plan argue increased train access is essential for Southeast Queens, an area severely underserved by transit with some of the longest commutes in the nation. The campaign has long faced stiff competition from the New York City Economic Development-backed QueensWay plan, which would develop the right-of-way entirely into parkland.

After QueensWay received a $35 million pledge from Mayor Eric Adams in September 2022, MTA officials, City Hall spokespeople, and elected officials repeatedly denied that the project would preclude a train line reactivation. In the MTA’s October 2023 20-year-needs assessment, however, where the QueensLink proposal was given particularly low marks, QueensWay was cited as one of the reasons.

The State Senate budget proposal follows a two and a half month letter-writing campaign QueensLink organized, urging their supporters to pressure their state and city representatives to support the rail reactivation. QueensLink Chief Design Officer Andrew Lynch said 2,696 letters have been sent in total since the campaign’s launch in January, with another 65 sent out just in the past few hours since news broke increased funding for QueensWay. 

Lynch said that six state senate representatives and seven state assemblymembers signed on to support QueensLink in February.

“Notably, we were not included in the Assembly budget, despite having more support in the Assembly, which is weird,” Lynch said. 

The State Senate’s proposed $10 million for QueensLink is tucked into their modifications to Governor Hochul’s budget for MTA capital projects. It sits alongside a $20 million request for Hudson River Line Metro-North resiliency. The two proposed changes would bring that section of Hochul’s budget from $68 million to $98 million. 

Also included in the document was a note calling into question the MTA’s budgeting process. 

“The Senate has concerns with the increasing high-cost of conducting studies for MTA projects,” the proposal reads. “The Senate calls on the MTA to do more to reduce expenses on projects, as well as increase transparency to the public as to how public resources are being utilized.”

Hochul, the Senate and the Assembly must work out a consensus by the April 1 budget deadline. 

When asked if he was optimistic about what the State Senate budget proposal meant for QueensLink in the final State, budget, Lynch said he didn’t know. 

“You never know about these things. I know Albany. It’s going to come down to one person saying one thing and one person saying another, and they just have to agree on it. And sometimes it’s a handshake,” Lynch said. “It’s not a science up there.”

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

A new 15-cot shelter for male asylum seekers opened on March 7 at 66-64 Grand Avenue in Maspeth, a historic building that formerly operated as a synagogue. The building sits just off the Long Island Expressway service road, a few doors down from a local Key Foods. 

The 1920s building, previously called the Maspeth Jewish Center, has not hosted an active congregation for decades. The Rabbinical Seminary of America (also called Yeshiva Choftez Chaim of Queens) obtained the building in 2017 after the Maspeth Jewish Center’s board agreed to sell it to them. RSA ran a preschool in the building from September 2023 until one week before they signed the contract to establish the shelter, according to a representative. 

The RSA and other religious groups willing to operate similar shelters will be reimbursed at a rate of $65 per person per night, up to $35,500 per month, according to a letter from the city and New York Disaster Interfaith Services. The shelter will host asylum seekers from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., with a curfew in place from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Security will be present throughout its operating hours. 

Some Maspeth residents have expressed their outrage at the news through Facebook groups and a small gathering in protest last Friday. 

Councilman Rob Holden took to X on March 6 to criticize the move. “Our office is aware of a notice that @NYCMayorsOffice sent for a proposal to house 15 migrants at the Synagogue located at 66-64 Grand Avenue in Maspeth, starting tomorrow,” Holden wrote. “We’ve spoken directly with the Rabbi, who denies this and says no contract was signed.”

The Queens Ledger spoke to a representative from RSA who claimed that Rabbi Glazer — the Rabbi that Holden referenced — did not outright deny the plans to Holden. The representative said that at the time of Holden and Rabbi Glazer’s conversation, a decision was still pending and the contract had not yet been signed. Later that day, however, the contract was signed. 

The representative also explained that the preschool’s recent closure was due to an inability to gather approvals from city agencies in time to meet certain deadlines from the Department of Education, which proceeded to cut funding to the program. The preschool has since merged with another already-funded program. 

Holden blasted the move as “completely unacceptable” in a later post on X.

The shelter is the only one operating in Maspeth, but Community District 5 houses a few others. A homeless shelter at 78-16 Cooper Avenue in Glendale accommodates up to 200 single men, and a smaller family shelter sits on Summerfield Street at Wyckoff Avenue in Ridgewood. Both of these shelters only accommodate homeless New Yorkers, not asylum seekers. A faith-based shelter for asylum seekers, similar to the new location in Maspeth, opened in Ridgewood Presbyterian Church in the past month according to CB5 District Manager Gary Giordano. 

“I don’t think there have been any problems there,” Giordano said of the Church shelter. 

Giordano said he knows of very few complaints with regard to the Summerfield Street location, whereas some issues have been brought up with the Cooper Avenue shelter. 

Giordano also recalled that Sacred Heart Church in Glendale used to operate an overnight homeless shelter years ago. “They would get a meal, be able to take a shower, be able to sleep in a warm place, get breakfast in the morning,” he said. 

One of the questions Giordano has posed to the mayor’s office, he said, is what the men taking refuge in the Maspeth shelter overnight will do with their day. 

“In their case it’s hard, because a lot of them probably want to work, but they don’t have proper work authorization, from what I know,” Giordano said. “People usually aren’t lazy.”

Susan Kohl is the sole board member of the Maspeth Jewish Center who still resides in Maspeth, and attended the synagogue growing up while it was still active. She visited the inside of the shelter on Friday. 

“I went in there angry, and I came out with a little bit of understanding,” she said. 

Kohl said the inside of the building looked completely different than how she remembered it, with amenities that were clearly built to operate a preschool, along with some — namely, showers — that seemed to be an investment in the building’s capacity to act as a shelter. She noted the presence of classrooms, child-safe seats to use on buses, and bathrooms designed for children’s use. She also said that the building also seemed perfectly well-suited to act as a shelter, equipped with showers, a sprinkler system, supplies, and security at the front desk. 

Although she no longer doubts the building’s capacity to house asylum seekers, Kohl still doesn’t fully agree with the decision. 

“I think it still doesn’t belong there, and I think it’s sort of not fair because they [RSA] don’t live here, they don’t work here,” Kohl said. She added that she thinks many in the community might be scared by the presence of the shelter — and that she herself was initially scared as well. 

“I was up and down the avenue all day today, I didn’t see one,” Kohl said, referring to the asylum seekers. “They would stick out. I would notice.” 

A crowd of about a dozen protestors gathered outside the shelter on Friday afternoon. 27-year-old Deanna Andrea, a Jamaica, Queens resident, organized the gathering. 

“Where I live, I see the effects of how different people who aren’t from here legally per se are causing certain issues,” Andrea said. 

A few drivers passing by the scene rolled down their windows to shout out their opposition to the shelter. 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Senior advocacy organization LiveOn gathered with over 100 older adults at Queens Borough Hall on Wednesday, March 6 to rally in support of increased funding for aging services across the city and state and denounce the Adams administration’s proposal of $18 million in cuts to over 300 Older Adult Centers throughout the city. 

The gathering took place ahead of the City Council’s Committee on Aging’s preliminary budget hearing on March 8, where advocates and seniors shared testimonies against the proposed cuts. 

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Assemblymember Steven Raga and a representative of Councilmember Shekar Krishnan were present at the gathering, along with

Queens Community House, Sunnyside Community Services, Alpha Phi Alpha, Allen AME, India Home Inc., and other older adult centers. Seniors in the crowd represented their centers with pride on their t-shirts, some carrying signs with their demands. 

Associate Executive Director of Older Adult Services at Queens Community House Anne Foerg was among the speakers in the atrium. Foerg elaborated on the challenges facing service providers, reminding the crowd that the total senior population has seen a significant expansion across the country. At Queens Community House, she explained, recent contracts from the city have resulted in an increase in caseloads and a stagnant salary for support staff that hasn’t kept pace with inflation, leading to difficulty retaining qualified employees. 

“The intensity of older adults’ needs are also increasing,” Foerg said. “Retirement incomes aren’t keeping pace with cost of living. The adult children of many older adults are leaving the city to find a better quality of life, and that means our older adult neighbors are losing a very important part of their support network.”

Foerg called for an investment of $20 million from the city, which was met with resounding cheers from the room. 

“We know every human being deserves dignity from birth to death,” Foerg continued. “And that’s why we raise our voices today for older adults, just as we have to remember they have raised their voices for us throughout the entire course of their lifetime. They deserve more, not less.”

The crowd broke into chants of “we want more!” before the borough president took the stage. 

“I want to thank each and every one of you because as the borough president, I stand on your shoulders,” Richards said. “Many of you who have sacrificed to pave the way for me to be here, whether you know it or not. If you didn’t know, now you know.”

Members of senior centers also delivered speeches; Usha Mehta of India Home Inc. spoke about how the center impacted her life. 

“During COVID, it was so rough, but it was India Home who took care of us and provided us with each and every need. India Home staff called us every day to ask ‘how are you doing?’ That was what we got and that kept us alive,” Mehta said. “But to give these services, what do you need? Funding.”

84-year-old Rosemary Whaley, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, said it was important for her to come out to the rally. “It’s good to find out who’s going to support the senior centers and how we can get more money” she said. 

“Right now, we’re kind of hurting for certain things, especially transportation, because they took it away from us right before Christmas,” Whaley said, referencing transportation provider Cathay’s sudden reduction in services to the Alpha Phi Alpha center.

Whaley explained how crucial it is for her and her friends to access the center. 

“A lot of us, even if we have people at home, they don’t give us the attention that we really need,” Whaley said. “And just being there with people our own age, we know what we need, we know how to support each other. We can laugh, we can joke, we can get sick of each other, and that’s okay because that’s part of life.”

 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

“You go to some centers, it’s either bingo all day long or whatever. We’re not like that here,” member Donna Johnson says of Allen AME’s senior center on Rockaway Boulevard in South Ozone Park.

On a Monday morning at the center, music from a radio spills out into the hallway. While seniors play pool in one room, they follow along with an exercise video in another. Members say that puzzles, jewelry making, sewing, and hot meals are just a few of the other benefits they can rely on at the center. 

“We like to keep active. Most of the people here are retired people — you worked all your life, you want to come out and socialize with other people,” Johnson says. 

But in recent months, at least 10 seniors in the lively community have been noticeably missing. Johnson says these members had been reliant on rides from Cathay, a transportation provider that abruptly reduced its services two months ago. 

A quiet change in a contract and an apparent breakdown in communication has left approximately 100 seniors without rides to and from Older Adult Centers in Southeast Queens. Now, seniors and staff alike say they’re worried that those who can no longer make it to the centers could suffer cognitive and physical decline. 

“Some people were getting early signs of dementia,” Veronica Ralph-Munro, a member the Rockaway Boulevard center, said. “That’s why people who knew them wanted them to come out…they’re gonna decline more because they’re stuck in a house.”

A bullet point and budget shortfall 

Cathay Express Transportation, contracted by the city’s Department for the Aging, announced a sudden reduction in the services at the end of last year for senior centers including Allen AME and Alpha Phi Alpha. While rides to and from medical appointments and errands are still available through the provider, trips between senior centers and homes — which scores of seniors had relied on — are not. 

THE CITY reported last Thursday that the change can be attributed in part to a bullet point in an addendum to a request for proposal. In previous years, regular rides between centers and seniors’ homes were a standard duty for transportation contractors assigned to serve OACs in a given region. The addendum, however, stated that such rides were “not the intent” of the program. “Standalone” rides to medical appointments and errands, or group day trips for senior centers, were to be the focus. 

Those were the terms of a service that Cathay began providing in July 2023. But for the first six months of the contract, things seemed to be operating as they always had for Allen AME and Alpha Phi Alpha. 

Alpha Phi Alpha Director Melissa Marcus said that Cathay sent flyers detailing their services at the beginning of the term. The flyers didn’t mention home-to-center transport one way or another, citing only standalone rides. Still, she said, Cathay didn’t hesitate to offer those rides when asked. 

“We called them about doing pickups…Didn’t have a problem,” Marcus said. “Different days, different times, they were very good with scheduling everything.”

Three months into the contract, Cathay requested that the list of Alphi Phi Alpha seniors receiving daily rides be reduced from 40 to 20, and that seniors reimburse Cathay for rides they had taken over the previous three months. Marcus said she complied with the first request, but flatly refused the latter, offering to brainstorm other solutions with Cathay. 

The next indication that something had gone wrong was the massive service reduction itself. 

Marcus said she received three phone calls in the course of one Friday afternoon before Christmas: the first stating that home-to-center services were ending, the second stating that the first call had been a misunderstanding, and the third reiterating the message of the first call. 

Executive Director of Allen AME Community Non-Profit Programs Donna Atmore-Dolly, meanwhile, received an email on January 5 titled “Dept. of Aging Budget Constraints.” 

“We regret to inform you that due to budgetary constraints imposed by the Department of Aging, we are currently experiencing limitations in accommodating trips for our senior members,” the email read. “Despite our meticulous planning to ensure adequate funding throughout the year, we have unfortunately reached the end of our budget.”

Cathay did not respond to requests for comment from the Queens Ledger.  

DFTA representative Gregory Rose, in an email to the Queens Ledger, said that the amount of money in Cathay’s rate-based contract had been running out. “To make sure they could still provide the service as stated in the RFP, we discouraged use of travel to and from older adult facilities through Cathay and encouraged them to use alternative modes of transportation,” Rose wrote. 

“I just stay in my house” 

Johnson, Ralph-Munro, and multiple others agreed that at least 10 members had stopped coming in due to the lack of transportation. Still more have reduced the number of days per week they come in. 

“We miss their company. They’re important when we’re having discussions,” Ralph-Munro said.  

Program Manager Sabrina Marson agreed that the center’s numbers are lower because of the change, adding that the cold weather worsens matters for seniors facing the prospect of waiting outside for less-reliable transit options like city buses. 

Marcus reported similar numbers, estimating that 10 seniors at Alpha Phi Alpha have stopped showing up altogether. She shares the concerns of Allen AME seniors about mental decline. 

“I get a lot of seniors who tell me, ‘Thank you for providing these services because it’s helping me live longer,’” Marcus said. “So you kind of think when they’re not having the services, they’re deteriorating.”

The situation reminds Rockaway Boulevard member Evonne Valere of dark times in recent years. She attributes the death of her peers during the Covid-19 lockdown to the social isolation of staying at home. 

“So many people died during the pandemic because we couldn’t come out,” Valere said. 

Patricia Thomas has had a particularly difficult time getting to the Rockaway Boulevard center. She lives in Rosedale, far away from most other members, and often has to use Access-a-Ride — or, as she calls it, ‘stress-a-ride.’ On Monday morning, Thomas said, she waited an additional 20 minutes for a van to arrive after being told over the phone it would pick her up by 8:05. Previous commutes have been worse; Thomas says she was once driven to Far Rockaway after asking to go to the center.

“I get to the point when I get aggravated I just stay in my house,” Thomas said. 

What’s left

Both seniors and staff at Rockaway Boulevard said on Monday that they had not been aware that they were still able to request standalone rides — for group shopping trips from the center, doctor’s appointments, errands, and more — from Cathay. 

“No one had told us that yet, to be honest with you. This is my first time hearing that,” Marson, who began working at the center in January after Cathay’s service reduction, said. 

Meanwhile, Marcus reported receiving multiple calls from Cathay in the past two weeks reminding her that such rides were available. 

While standalone rides could be helpful, Marson says, the recurring daily rides to and from centers are the ones that really count. 

“It’s the daily ones that cost them more money,” she said. “You want to socialize with your friends, you want to come to the center and have fun, but you can’t come all the time because you can’t afford it.”

Members at Rockaway Boulevard agreed that even Access-a-Ride’s cost could add up to be a burden on seniors living on a fixed income. 

“Hopefully we can get our transportation, because it’s very important for us,” Rockaway Boulevard member Shirley Phillips said. “We need transportation. We need to come in and communicate with other seniors.” 

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Approximately 80 protesters gathered outside the Wyndham Hotel at 61-18 93rd St. on Feb. 18 to rally against the conversion of the hotel to a men’s homeless shelter. Two weeks earlier, on Feb. 4, a crowd came out to protest the same issue. 

The hotel sits just around the corner from where the Long Island Expressway and Queens Boulevard cross. 

Speeches by Queens residents and political figures at the most recent rally were punctuated by chants of “No more shelters!” Speakers stood in the back of a pickup truck in front of a backdrop of protest signs pasted to the hotel’s wall, one rally leader waving a large American flag. 

The rally was emceed by District Leader Hiram Monserrate, former city council member and state senator. Monserrate was expelled from the Senate in 2010 after being charged with assault, and later served 21 months in federal prison for a separate case of fraud. The East Elmhurst Corona Alliance hosted the event, along Rego Park United — an ad-hoc group of local residents collaborating with Monserrate and the Alliance, according to Rego Park resident and speaker at the rally Peter Kefalas.

A Rego Park resident named Stephanie who introduced herself as “Sunshine” said to the crowd that the shelter would be a disaster. 

“They claim they care. They do not. They are just dumping these homeless people here, there, and everywhere,” she said to the crowd. “They are profiting from these people’s trauma.”

Sheryl Fetik, a Rego Park resident and representative of Queens Community & Civic Alliance, urged protesters to sign online petitions against the shelter and talked about possible next steps while addressing the crowd.

“We may very well need to hire a lawyer and go to court,” Fetik said. “We may need to raise money to go to court.”

Community Board 6, which represents Rego Park, was first informed by the city’s Department of Social Services about the shelter conversion in October 2023. After communicating back and forth about the issue, DSS made the decision official at a Jan. 10 CB6 meeting. 

Although the shelter was originally set to open in March, Beers-Dimitriadis recently received word that that date has been pushed back to this coming May. 

“I’m always making it clear that the Board had no vote in this matter,” CB6 Chair Heather Beers-Dimitriadis said. “We have a lot of people who seem to think that we did. We have a lot of people who seem to think that we are fully supportive of the shelter. We are supportive of the goals of the shelter, and we are equally supportive of the need for this community to live its life uninterrupted, in a very safe fashion. And we really hope that the two can happen at the same time.”

Not everyone is convinced. 

“There’s two schools in the neighborhood. There’s shopping, there’s communities, there’s businesses. We can’t allow this. And nobody asked us,” Kefalas said. Protesters also emphasized the hotel’s proximity to Lost Battalion Hall, a recreation center which is currently closed for renovations. 

Apple Maps marks P.S. 139 as a half-mile walk from the Wyndham hotel, and P.S. 206 as a 0.4 mile walk. 

Community District 6 has no other homeless shelters, by the DSS’s standards. But there is another shelter set to open across the road from Wyndham, housed near the Rego Park Post Office. Operated by WestHab, the facility will include transitional housing specifically for family units, not single men. 

“We’ll be rallying against that one too,” Kefalas said. 

Beers-Dimitriadis said that CB6 was surprised to find out that WestHab’s facility did not fulfill the district’s obligation to DSS to house at least one homeless shelter. The primary difference that she understands between that facility and Wyndham is the populations the two locations serve. 

“I think to the public, it is a distinction without a difference,” she said. “Their goals are the same.”

Additional distinctions are that the transitional housing facility will have apartment-style accommodations, while the Wyndham shelter will use the hotel’s existing structure, mostly consisting of rooms with two beds.  

In lieu of a vote on Wyndham — community boards have no veto power on the matter of shelters — CB6 passed a resolution on Feb. 7 detailing a list of considerations it wants the city to take when opening the shelter. Those include a request that the two shelters-to-be share one Community Advisory Board, rather than operate separate ones, to ensure more thorough oversight of their combined presence in the neighborhood.

Dao Yin, a Flushing resident and current Democratic candidate for the state assembly who previously ran unsuccessful campaigns for Queens Borough President in 2020 and City Council in 2021, was among the speakers on Feb. 18.  

“No more shelters in Queens, in Brooklyn, in Bronx, in Staten Island, in Manhattan. No more shelters in this city,” Yin said. 

Chants of “Close the borders!” rang out after the speeches came to a close. 

Monserrate told the Queens Ledger that Yin’s disapproval of all additional shelters in the city was not the group’s official sentiment. 

“There’s a need for shelters,” Monserrate said. “What’s happening right now is an abuse and an oversaturation in this part of Queens. That’s our major issue: the oversaturation, one. And two, the homeless men. We don’t know who they are. A lot of them are formerly incarcerated.” 

While Wyndham will be the sole DSS-recognized homeless shelter in Community District 6, it is just across the Expressway from CD3, which houses East Elmhurst, Corona, Jackson Heights, and Elmhurst. Monserrate said that the area between Queens Boulevard and LaGuardia Airport, which includes CD3, currently has 15 shelters; the Queens Ledger could not independently verify that number. 

“It’s just saturated,” Kefalas said. “That’s why you’re seeing people coming from Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Corona, LeFrak City, because they know we’re right on the border here where these neighborhoods literally interlock. And they know. We all shop at the same [shops] around here, we all eat, we use the same transportation. We’re intertwined. They know what’s going to happen. That’s why people are coming here even as far away as Brooklyn to stand with us to stop this.”

Beers-Dimitriadis said that a significant portion of protesters seemed to come from outside of Rego Park. 

“There are people who have come into our community from East Elmhurst and Corona, that don’t live here, that I think are here because they have genuine concerns with how decisions are made about shelters. I get it. But they don’t represent Rego Park/Forest Hills,” she said.

Beers-Dimitriadis said her read on the Rego Park/Forest Hills community is that it’s split into thirds on the issue. 

“One third has no idea it’s even happening. No matter how hard we’ve tried to reach out, no matter how many articles have been written in the paper, 10,000 posts on Facebook,” Beers-Dimitriadis said. Another third, she estimates, is supportive of it, and the remaining third is against it.  

“Our message is clear to the city of New York. We are sick of you dumping shelter after shelter,” Monserrate said. “Our city tax dollars are paying for it. And then no one’s even talking to us, the people. But today, the people are united.”

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

State Assemblyperson Jenifer Rajkumar held a rally with State Senator Leroy Comrie and about 20 supporters on the steps of City Hall on Friday to call for the SMOKEOUT Act to be included in the State’s enacted budget. 

The SMOKEOUT (Stop Marijuana Overproliferation and Keep Empty Operators of Unlicensed Transactions) Act, first introduced in early January, is Rajkumar’s proposed fix to the state’s bumpy rollout of cannabis legalization and the proliferation of thousands of illegal, unlicensed smoke shops through the five boroughs. Under the proposed rule, local municipalities would have the power to shutter illegal shops and seize all merchandise. Currently, that power is reserved for the State’s Office of Cannabis Management, which has only 14 inspectors statewide. 

“I think all New Yorkers feel right now like they’re high, because they look at the situation and it makes no sense,” Rajkumar said at the rally. “There are 1000 times more illegal shops than there are legal shops. There’s only about 60 legal shops in the whole state. And there’s 36,000 illegal shops. How can this be? Am I high right now?”

Comrie told the crowd that the issue was consistently top of mind among his constitutents. “Every meeting I attend, everywhere I go, people want to see these places shut down,” he said. “The ones that have been inspected, they found rat feces in the basement. They found other chemicals that are being mixed in with the marijuana. You don’t know what you’re getting. You’re not getting it from a safe supplier.”

Rajkumar’s office estimates there are about 1,500 illegal shops in New York City alone. Previous estimates cited by Council Member Lyn Schulman this past summer put that number much higher, at 8,000. Mayor Eric Adams has claimed that if Rajkumar’s legislation is enacted, the city could shut down every illegal shop in 30 days. 

“The state budget is due on April 1. That’s five and a half weeks from today. On April 1, I don’t want to be standing here saying ‘April Fools,’” Rajumar said. “I want to be standing here saying ‘we have put the SMOKEOUT Act in the state budget.’”

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com 

A new kind of high school is coming to Queens.

Northwell Health and New York City Public Schools announced on Feb. 14 that they plan to collaborate on a first-of-its-kind school designed to prepare students for well-paying jobs in the healthcare field — the Northwell School of Health Sciences. The school is slated to open on Northern Boulevard in Woodside in September 2024.

The high school’s admission process will prioritize Queens residents, and will not use screened admissions, according to a DOE spokesperson. 

Supported by a $2.49 million investment from former mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, the school will serve about 900 students at full capacity. Its curriculum will be co-developed by Northwell and the NYC Public Schools, and is set to include specialized healthcare coursework, work-based learning opportunities, industry-standard training facilities, career mentorship, and opportunities to earn industry certifications and credentials alongside more traditional academic offerings. Freshman and sophomores will have access to job-shadowing programs, while upperclassmen will have the opportunity to complete paid clinical internships. 

Students will be able to specialize in either nursing, diagnostic medicine, physical therapy, or behavioral health. A press release from Northwell stated that these paths were selected based on “the availability of entry-level salaries that either offer a living wage or are a clear steppingstone to living wage positions,” as well as the projected workforce needs in New York’s healthcare industry. The idea is to graduate students directly into high-demand, family-sustaining jobs, while also creating a talent pipeline to address healthcare workforce shortages—New York is expected to face a shortage of 40,000 nurses by 2030, according to Northwell, and the healthcare sector accounts for 20% of the city’s ecnooomy. 

The new  Woodside school is one of ten that Bloomberg plans to open in urban and rural areas throughout the nation. A $250 million initiative overall, the organization is set to launch healthcare career-training high schools in Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Durham, Houston, Nashville, Philadelphia, Demopolis, and Northeast Texas. The schools should seat approximately 6,000 students all together. 

“For too long, our education system has failed to prepare students for good jobs in high-growth industries,” said Bloomberg. “By combining classroom learning with hands-on experience, these specialized health-care high schools will prepare students for careers with opportunities for growth and advancement. America needs more health care workers, and we need a stronger, larger middle-class — and this is a way to help accomplish both goals.”

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

A three-alarm fire broke out in Maspeth on Monday, displacing families from a two-story residential building on 60th Rd between Mt. Olivet Crescent and Fresh Pond Road. 

The FDNY received the call at 11:52 a.m. The blaze spread from its source to a connected home, doing major damage to both properties. It took a crew of 140 about an hour and a half to get the blaze under control.

A mother and two children were briefly trapped in one of the homes before being rescued by firefighters.

Five residents and two firefighters sustained minor injuries, including one firefighter who fell into the basement of the house as the floor partially collapsed. All were sent to local hospitals for evaluation as a precaution except one resident, who refused medical attention. 

The Red Cross was on the scene, as well as Assemblyman Juan Ardila, the NYPD, and other agencies. 

FDNY Deputy Chief of the 14th Division Mark Cuccurullo said that lithium-ion batteries were present on the scene, but had been kept in the backyard, outside of the home. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

“Fire Marshals haven’t determined the cause of it. They’ve ruled out that it was a lithium battery,” Cuccurullo said. 

He explained that the investigation would involve draining the basement of excess water used to quell the flames before determining the source of the fire.

15-year-old Brianna Paguay, who lives close to the impacted homes, said her aunt was among those who lived in the building. 

“She’s kind of sad, crying, because of her stuff. We had money in there also, like over $50,000 in cash,” Paguay said. “And all of that got burnt down. All of the clothing, shoes, all of that.”

Interim Chief Executive Officer for the Greater New York Red Cross Celena Sarillo said that her team was working on identifying people’s needs. 

“We’ll be able to help them with a place to stay, possibly some other types of financial assistance, you know, some comfort kits that just have the basic needs — people that clearly ran out of the home have absolutely nothing and left with nothing. So just trying to even give them their toothbrush, soap, you know, so other things that they might need for the few days ahead of them,” Sarillo said. “It is usually immediate, temporary assistance. We hope to at least be able to give people that first or second day of help until they can find a long term housing solution.”

Paguay said her aunt had only lived in the house for a couple months after moving from further East in the borough. “Now she has to look for a new place…She moved over here because she thought, ‘Nice neighborhood,” Paguay said. “Material is material, you can get new clothing and stuff like that. But it’s just the money we had there, it’s a bunch of money and it’s all gone. It’s their savings from their hard work.” 

35-year-old Esthefanie Giordano, who lives a block away from the impacted houses, said she made sure to touch base with some of the families impacted by the fire. 

“I’m just connecting with them because they are Latin, as I am as well. They didn’t speak English — at least this family doesn’t. So I just wanted to connect them with a bunch of resources.” 

Giordano told the Queens Ledger over email that Assemblyman Juan Ardila had created a WhatsApp group with the affected families, and advised those interested in donating to contact him. 

A GoFundMe for one affected family, the Pazminos, had collected $3,190 out of its $50,000 goal at press time. 

“I think the community— I think we’re in need of another fire workshop,” Giordano said. “These are old houses, so they tend to be very flammable.”

“Always keep a lookout, you know, you never know when you could come of use and of assistance to others,” she added. “This can happen to literally anyone and everyone.”

Update: A new GoFundMe was created by Esperanza de Vida Church to provide support to all families affected. As of Thursday, Feb. 22, $1,390 of its’ $50,000 goal was raised.

By Celia Bernhardt | cbernhardt@queensledger.com

Months after the tragic death of Krystyna Naprawa, a crossing guard who was killed by a sanitation truck on Woodhaven Boulevard, a change has come to the intersection where she lost her life. 

The city’s Department of Transportation has installed a right turn signal in the lane where the truck that struck Naprawa was turning from. Sam Esposito, head of the Ozone Park Residents Block Association, says he began urging DOT to make the change the morning Naprawa was killed. 

“As soon as she died, I went to the scene and I looked at it, and the first thing I saw was that this needed to have a right turn signal,” Esposito said. 

Naprawa died on Oct. 20, 2023, working her usual morning shift at the intersection of Woodhaven Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. A vigil was held by the intersection days later, where family, friends, and community leaders gathered to mourn the sudden loss.

“We reached out to our DOT Commissioner. We said, ‘Look, this needs to be looked at ASAP. We don’t want an 18-month study. We want this fast-tracked because we believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg for somebody else that could die,’” Esposito continued. “For once, DOT actually agreed and fast-tracked it. This is the fastest DOT has ever responded to anything we’ve ever asked.”

The turn signal will only flash amber, not green, signaling to cars and trucks to look carefully and move slowly. When other lanes have a green light, the right turn signal will remain red for an initial period before turning amber. Esposito says this delay will give crossing guards more time to get kids safely out of the street if they haven’t yet finished crossing, and get themselves to safety, before cars turn the corner. 

“I don’t want to place the blame on anybody, but I think someone dropped the ball when they installed the three lanes—one going right, one going straight, one going left—and they didn’t take into consideration that that’s a truck route,” Esposito said. “There should have been a right turn signal there all along.”

In a Facebook post, Esposito credited Community Board 9 District Manager James McClelland, DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, and the block association’s advisor Darma Diaz as particularly helpful in pushing for the turn signal. 

“NYC DOT is committed to improving safety along Atlantic Avenue—both in Brooklyn and Queens,” a DOT spokesperson said in a statement to the Queens Ledger. “We will continue to explore future safety upgrades across the corridor.”

Esposito said the block association also requested the Southwest corner of the intersection to be renamed after Naprawa, but that he expected that process to take longer.